Wednesday 4pm.....

....I'm at work ploughing through some analysis and up pops 'home' on my mobile.
R: "Mum can you make me a bag?"
Me: "What do you mean a bag? You've plenty of bags. What sort of bag are you talking about?"
R: "I know what I want....I've got a pattern....I'll make it".
Me (thinking "you're not coming anywhere near my Bernina") "R, I seriously don't have time. You're off to music camp tomorrow and we're supposed to be packing for......"
R: "Don't worry about it then...." (read with teen angst)
Me: "Well tell me what you're thinking."
R: "A red shoulder bag for my music."
Me: "I'll talk to you when I get home...."
So I get home. We talk about what she needs and why all the other bags won't do. We go through the cupboard and pull out some Paula Prass, red Zinnias from her Flights of Fancy range along with some red cobblestones and linen. R is impressed with the selection.
So I made the bag. Dinner was late.She loves it. It's perfect.
Why did I forgo the load of washing and the packing and all the other stuff I'd planned for tonight?
Dunno...I guess because I'm a Mum and I was wanted. And, R might not want a home made bag with a 'Little Sew & Sew's' tag next time. And the final thing, I reckon my Mum would have done it for me.

Two of anything is a collection....

And I appear to have quite a collection of quilts!
Clare and I had a little photo shoot this afternoon in preparation for the promotion of her Retro Baby Quilts market venture. Here are my set up shots taken before her quilts arrived for their portraits. Sometimes it's hard to take a bad shot of lovely quilts! Stay tuned for hers!

Confetti....

Clare is working on a project for a forthcoming market, creating baby quilts for her Retro Baby collection. She has extended the invitation to us with the view, "the more, the merrier".
I've jumped at the chance to produce baby sized quilts after my epic star for the Made in Cherry quilt-along....there's nothing more satisfying in the world of quilting than to have a 'quick finish'. I also took a bit of a risky step and spent some time plotting out what I could make from the stash and cut the pieces in advance. I say risky because I'm very prone to having quite a few projects at various stages sitting in little plastic zip lock bags....but that's a topic for another post....or to be swept under the carpet!
Most of the quilts I've prepared are based around solids and bow-tie blocks and to be frank, I was getting a little tired of them. Then in one of those toss and turn, sleepless nights that turn into mornings I remembered some confetti blocks, inspired by the Block Party book that I'd made months ago (July in fact!). You guessed it, they were wrapped in a plastic zip lock bag....(see the system does work!).
I pulled them out and found that I had 12 x 14" blocks all made from scraps of print and scraps of a range of whites and off-whites. I laid them out, moved them around and had another sleepless night over two configurations for two quilts and the perfect backings.
I really couldn't settle on anything that I was truly happy with and I was trying to work with what I had which also included not buying any more batting. And then it hit me.....use 9 blocks for the front and 3 blocks for the back! Voila...make one quilt not two!I love how this quilt turned out. I really love the mix-up of whites....which is funny because normally 'odd' rubs me up the wrong way but I guess because this quilt is scrappy, I forgive its imbalance. It's also really interesting how the whites change in the light. At night the variations are really obvious, in bright light it's less so. (This shot was taken at around 7.30pm on a Summer evening.) Here is the back. Or the front if you're in a minimalist mood! I love this side too!
The binding is scrappy made from the left over pieces of binding that that vary in length anywhere between 6" and 30". And....wait for it.... I store these in plastic zip lock bags.
This quilt measures 41" square and is stippled.
Clare's brief is to make quilts that groovy mums want to pop their babies down on! Fingers crossed I've met the brief!

Butterflies....

My scrappy solid quilt is finished. Each of the blocks feature left over solid triangles set in matching coloured pairs and offset at various angles. To me, they look like little butterflies.
The backing is one of those wonderful Spotlight $4/m sale finds, "Retro Active", from the Stonehill Collection by Donna Wilder for Fabric Traditions. I love how the peach, yellow and brown really co-ordinate with the colours on the front.
I've bound it in the very wonderful, Kona Aubergine which is seriously enough to make me want more purple in my life!
Quilt measures 45" x 38" and is straight line quilted parallel to each of the seams....because it looks awesome and I dislike the ditch! (a lot!)

Solid focus....

I've been playing with solid fabrics lately. There are so many options but my favourite, and this is regardless of solid or print, has to be working with scraps and stash.
I had a whole bunch of solid triangle offcuts from my Swoon quilt sitting in a little plastic zip lock calling out to me every time I opened the cupboard. Given their size, I cut a whole bunch of 4 1/2" squares and matched them up into sets of four, setting the triangles into 2 of each.
I played with mixing the triangle pairs which is a pattern I've opted for in the past but the matching pairs just worked so much better. I'm loving the colours....so very pretty.Quilting has started and progress is good....!