Party in the garden...

I have been in love with Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party fabric for an age. First there was this quilt that I couldn't stop staring at and then this one by Megan of Lucy & Norman fame. I loved the boldness of the Garden Party prints and the vibrancy of the saturated colours. And from each of these quilt's points of view, the BIG patchwork choices. I started collecting my fabric years ago...the range was well and truly finished by the time I discovered it and then in typical style it lay folded in my cupboard. Occasionally I would bring it out and worship its brightness and then argue with myself as to what I was going to do with it.
Then back in September I decided that the best course of action was to use it to make a quilt for my sister for Christmas. How clever and organised was I?
I cut the fabric into the biggest squares I could out of my mostly fat 1/4 collection. I then joined them into giant sized 9 patches and sliced them up to create a quilt top of very large disappearing 9 patches. And there it sat, pushed to the end of the line due to all the other sewing activity that surfaced. Then as Christmas rolled around I talked myself out of finishing it until I couldn't decide what to buy her as an alternative. So with 4 days to go I made a dash for Spotlight with my VIP 15% discount card for backing, binding and pins (due to the fact that all of my basting pins are currently sitting in other quilts ready for quilting but that's another story!).
Quilters will know how the rest of this story goes, moving all the lounge furniture to baste....not easy with a thumping big Christmas tree in the way!.....quilt through the night so you can hardly move the next day after the wrestling of  the 'anaconda' through the machine and to top it off......hand sewing on binding throughout a 35 degree day! But having said all that....we do it because we love it and we love an appreciative reaction even more! Merry Christmas!

AM-NYS-IA

What? That's not how you spell amnesia. I know. And recently I could have been accused of having it. It looks like I've completely forgotten that I even have a blog given recent absences but that can be easily explained away with an assignment to hand up and preparation for a mid term test. I'm afraid I'm a terrible procrastinator and choose fabric over text books any (every) day! So needless to say, I was way behind in the academic department! (It's the same excuse I have when it comes to housework I must admit!!)

But no. The real issue surroundging forgetfulness is my lack of observance over two little milestones.

1. My 50th blog posting (this is 53!) and 2. my year of quilting. (insert clapping and trumpet sounds here)

It's been a year since the Sew & Sews girls decided to make a quilt to celebrate our mentor Carly's new little baby Olive. The Sew & Sews originally met at a Thursday evening art class at Nest Studio and we continued to meet after Carly went on maternity leave. We chose the Goodnight Sweet Prints design from Material Obsession 1, each of us creating a panel surrounded by 4" squares. It was a lot of fun working collaboratively even though I think back now to how we blindly plundered through the process with only a couple of books as references. We've all come a long way in our quilt making and fabric obsessions since then. Even CZ who on our first S&S's fabric buying trip to Melbourne declared she wasn't a quilter has started a quilt!

A year ago I'd never even heard of Amy Butler, Denyse Schmidt or Anna Maria Horner. Now their names are part of everyday vernacular in our household! I now have two sewing machines and a renovated antique wardrobe is standing in pride of place with fabric jewels to worship as you pass. And of course, a blog.

To celebrate these little milestones I've made a mini quilt featuring these 3 wonderful designers. It measures 40cm x 40cm (approx 16" x 16"). It's the AM-NYS-IA mini quilt (AMy deNYSe anna marIA) and each of the designers are featured. Where's Anna Maria? She's on the back in the selvedges! Her colours just weren't working on the front! Sorry AMH!

There are two selvedge panels on the back. And the quilt is straight line quilted which was a first for me. I'm really thrilled with how it worked out.
So let's share the moment. The AM-NYS-IA mini quilt could be yours. Just leave me a comment and say hi. I'd love to hear from you. I'll announce where this 'Little Sew & Sew' is going to live next week. Happy blogging, studying and sewing!

I heart Amy....

Butler, Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria Horner, Tania Whelan....(sigh). And that's what this little pile represents - lots of yummy fabric that I bought with my 'birthday' money back in February when I visited Patchwork on Central Park for the very first time. I hadn't found the right project to cut into it until the other day when I was cruising quilting blog world and discovered this quilt-along that The Old Red Barn Co is hosting. Looks like fun and seeing as it's over 6 weeks, managable!

I've been working away on the red and pink zig-zag today and it's really been giving me some grief. If anything was going to go wrong, it did. Lots of broken cotton.....but that's my fault for using cheap cotton. Lesson learnt. Then there was the caught up lining. Bah! Don't you hate that? So a bit of time spent unpicking and re-doing. I think most of the problems were caused by patching a strip of batting to make it wide enough, added to the huge amount of seams, so it was possibly a bit lumpier than usual. But all that aside, the stippling is all done. Now I just need to have a stretch and a think about what the binding should be. I'll let you know.