Comings and Goings

 In a week's time I will be overseas again in beautiful India. I spent 3 months traveling all around India when I was 23 ( a couple of years ago haha) and have wanted to return again to see how much it has changed now. My youngest DD is coming with me and we are only going for 2 weeks but we will be visiting places I haven't seen before. We will also be going to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and I hope the beautiful Taj doesn't have scaffolding this time so I can get some better photos. This was all arranged just 7 weeks ago so I have been very busy getting donation quilts finished for Christmas before we leave.

The beautiful Taj Mahal in Agra India.

 I met the lovely Lesley yesterday and handed over 45 quilts, 4 crocheted blankets, some baby knits and some Christmas gifts, which her son is very kindly taking down to Janice of Needy Stitches for me. They will then be distributed to the needy and hopefully will bring some cheer and comfort for Christmas.

 I really wanted to get my sister's quilt finished before I fly out next Friday but I have been called in to work night shift again tonight as someone is off sick. I've made good progress this afternoon and will have to wait until next week before I'm awake enough to work on it again.

 I've chosen Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesty pattern as we had a wonderful Eurail trip through the Swiss and Italian Alps to celebrate my sister's birthday. I've also added feature fabric like chocolates for Switzerland, trains, tortes from Vienna, scenes from Venice and fabric with words like "sister" "love" and "daughters".

I'm off to bed again now and before I know it I will be flying off again.
Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I'll be able to share my trip if the internet is kind to me in India.
Hugs, Jan Mac

My Melbourne Quilt Guild

 We had a lovely overnight visit to Melbourne to catch up with our youngest DD and our son. I also attended my Melbourne quilting guild meeting yesterday and managed to get a few photos of the lovely Show and Tell.

Today will be spent on family commitments and then night shift again for most of the week. Luckily I have the next shipment of quilts already packed for handover on Thursday. I'm also finalizing plans for my next trip and I'll give more details very soon.
 Hugs, Jan Mac

I'm Home and Sewing Again

 We had a lovely trip and really enjoyed exploring some new 4 w-drive tracks. I had planned to finish a few more tops when I returned but when I counted the quilts I had finished recently I was amazed to find that I had 51 waiting to be donated. That was enough to motivate me to work on some of my outstanding projects instead. I owe my sister a quilt for her 60th and have been gathering suitable fabric for the past two years. I had already half made a top but wasn't really happy with it as I wanted to make something which would remind her of the wonderful trip we took to Europe to celebrate her special birthday.
 I was going to use fabrics which depict places we visited, food we ate etc. Then my original quilt idea didn't really work for this fabric, so I was going to piece a backing from the feature fabric instead. I also wanted to use another Bonnie Hunter (Quiltville) pattern Scrappy Mountain Majesty so thought I'd start a top using the feature fabric and see if that would work. I've started and will make more blocks before I decide which top to use.

 Here's a few more photos of our last camp spot up amongst the snow gums in the Victorian Alps.

 It was very cold and we thought it may have snowed the last time we stayed here but this time the weather was very mild.

You can see the snow on the nearby mountain tops. I'd better get back to my sewing while I have time as I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow to visit with our youngest DD and to attend my Melbourne quilting group on Monday. I'm raiding my stash of blues for this quilt so that I can have enough variation in fabrics.
Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you would like to.
Hugs, Jan Mac

I've Been Whisked...

...away for a quick 4 wheel drive trip over to the Victorian High Country. We waited until the end of the public holiday so we enjoyed the beautiful camping places on our own.

 We climbed the very extreme track of Billy Goat's Bluff Track. There are lots of rocky areas to climb and it took about 1 hour and a half each way. Ray had to stop and get out to try to pick his line before we tackled some sections. The photos don't really show how steep it is.

 We reahced The Pinnacles at the end of Billy Goat Bluff Track and the views are spectacular. We had the place to ourselves here too.

We also drove along the Haunted Stream Track and the Crooked River Track on Tuesday and Wednesday and we had lots of fun river crossings. We camped at Striling and Talbotville which were both old gold mining townships but little remains to be seen now.
 We're camped at the top of a huge mountain ridge with phone and internet access tonight- at the start of the Blue Rag Track. A storm is expected tonight or tomorrow so we need to be able to get out of the rough tracks easily. We'll be home tomorrow and I hope to have more to show you very soon. I hope you have enjoyed seeing some photos of our favourite places .
Hugs, Jan Mac

Row By Row

 I'd forgotten how slow it can be to piece small pieces of fabric. Even DH asked why it was taking so long to work on this piece when i can finish off large quilts very quickly. Of course the quilts I finish quickly are not usually made up of pieces this small and using either light or dark scraps means there's not a lot of decision time required. This is actually a medallion quilt and not a row by row but at the moment I'm slowly piecing all the fabric into 2.5" hourglass blocks. Progress is slow but if I keep going it will soon be finished.
I'm using modern fabrics for an antique quilt and I'm trying to re-create the difference between tones as they appear in the original. The last round doesn't show as much variation between the two fabrics but in the original quilt there are also some rows without a lot of contrast between the fabrics. The next round will have a plainer fabric with cream. Cutting the fabric into small pieces means that I have less background showing but I hope it will be OK when it's finished.

I have 3 more rounds the same as these and then I start on the larger pieces. In the meantime I'm off to bed as I have night shift again tonight.
 Sew long.
Jan Mac

A Little Time for Me

 I started the day well by finishing off the top made from Split Nine Patch 4" blocks. I sewed for quite a while last night and got almost all the blocks done so today I only needed to make 2 more blocks and then join them together. Aesthetically I prefer to add a narrow border in a feature fabric and then add a darker border 4 to 5" in width. However this one is a donation quilt, it's large enough at 44" x 64", and I didn't have any suitable fabric for the border. I even used left over binding in greens which worked with the colours in the blocks.

 I had received a lot of these floral squares which are 4.5" in size so I used them as the dark side of the half square triangles. You think you'll use up lots of fabric when you make a quilt but the stack of 4" squares has hardly decreased in size at all.

 It was a good way to use up some of those older scraps though and I \will be able to make lots more before I run out of squares. These have been sitting here for too long and it's good to get them made into quilts and donated. Even the less pretty (or downright ugly) fabric still looks OK when the pattern depends on tone rather than colour and using dark or light fabric allows me to use up lots of different scraps.

Finally this afternoon, after quilting and binding the donation quilt, I made time to get one of my projects out to work on. My Melbourne quilting group is making a reproduction of an Australian quilt made in the 1800s and there is going to be a display of them at our exhibition on the 5th and 6th of April 2014, so I need to get mine finished soon. Until today I was up to the last border of rust and cream but had only sewn one side of the border. It's a bit tedious making all the small triangles which measure 2.5" square but it's best to just keep going as it's harder to get motivated again after putting it away for a while. Others are making their Elizabeth Legacy quilts in reproduction fabrics but I decided to use my Australian wildflower fabric, designed by Leesa Chandler.
I'll keep going with it again tomorrow before I work nights again so maybe I can get another border or two finished.
Hugs, Jan Mac

The Best Laid Plans

 I don't know why I make a decision to work on a particular project as I seem to work much better when I choose one on the spur of the moment. I had decided to get a few more donated tops quilted before the next shipment of quilts leaves here. I loaded a top on the machine and it immediately locked up. The needle was down and I couldn't move the machine at all. Luckily my handy DH, took the machine apart and found a stray piece of broken needle had lodged in the bobbin case.

In the meantime I stitched some more Split Nine Patch blocks from my bin of 2.5 " squares. Then I was running out of light coloured squares so I decided to make some with my 4" squares as it will make another nice donation quilt and they go together quickly.

 Luckily for me, I was able to get my quilting machine working again and there was time to quilt two tops and bind them. I plan to make some more Split Nine Patch blocks this evening and hope to get another top finished soon.

I know I keep planning to work on my projects but it's a good thing to get more donated quilts finished so the needy will receive a nice gift for Christmas. Many thanks to everyone who made and donated QAYG blocks and quilt tops. They will all be finished and donated on your behalf. Hopefully I can quilt more tops tomorrow now that my machine is playing nicely again.
Hugs, Jan Mac