trip around the world quilt.

I have just completed a trip around the world quilt. Which I did with a couple of jelly rolls.
I ran out of white fabric part way through and had to unpick and redo 7 rows but I am really happy with the end result.
As I ran out of the white fabric I was using and decided to use another white fabric from my stash, when I laid it out the two whites were different shades. So I decided to unpick and redo.

you will notice the rows in the top are a slight difference in the white colours. I had to remove 7 rows in all and change the 6 1/2 inch white squares.

this one here really shows the difference.

I have just finished it and will upload some photos of it tomorrow. I am glad that I decided to redo these ones. I had made a alot of 9 patch blocks so I had enough to redo the 7 rows of 18 across. 

I am going to use the blocks i removed and make a single bed quilt from.

thanks

Wendy

internet problems

I appologise for my blog being very boring of late. We have been having terrible trouble with our internet coverage for a long time and have finally decided we couldn't wait any longer for the company to fix up the service. We have changed companies and gone back to ADSL and wow the difference. Where before it would take sometimes up to 30 minutes to open a page now it is instantaneous. I just can't believe the difference. I will try to find the time to write more and give you some information that is worth reading.
thank you for putting up with the terrible communication and I hope that you will give me another try.

Tutorial to make pinwheel quilt.

We had a customer that had made a quilt with pretty pinwheels on it that were folded we quilted it for her.
It was such a pretty quilt and looked easy to make so after having a look at the blocks I was sure that I could make that myself. Here is my version of what she did. In this I haven't sewn the pieces together but placed them in the order I have sewn them so that you could see the effect.

I used 10 inch squares for each block you need 4 of each colour

decide which of the 2 colours is going to be your pinwheel. fold in half to form a triangle and press

bring one of the long points of the triangle up to meet the centre point as shown above and press in place

place along one side of the back ground square as shown above repeat this for all 4 pieces.

the pieces are sewn together as shown above I just pinned mine in place to keep them there while I joined the seems with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

once you have joined both sets of 2 pieces sew them together to form the pinwheel.

make sure that the folded piece is like shown in these photos

there you have it one block,  I am going to put alternative blocks of the pinwheel and a plain fabric square to form a quilt. I will update photos when I have it completed.

Sorry it has been a while

I am sorry that it has been a while, we have been changing internet providers and have had to change email address. This has meant we have had to update everything that was associated with our email address. I have not been able to access my blog as it wouldn't recognize my new email address with the account. It won't save a gmail address to the blog. It has been very frustrating.

On the other side of things I have been doing a bit of sewing lately and I will put up some photos in the next couple of days to show you what we have been up to.

I hope that everyone is well out there.

Wendy

well it has been a while since I posted, I have been slack. We have had a lot going on lately with my Mother being in hospital for a while. She is now better and improving all the time.
We went to Sydney for the quilting business show. This gave us alot of contacts of fabric and thread, batting suppliers. There was so many amazing companies out there, I really enjoyed the little businesses, a couple of small family businesses that produced patterns as well as a small fabric range.
My favourite was Tilda oh this was just amazing, the way they set up their stall. I could have purchased everything there but I couldn't take it home on the plane.
if you haven't seen their things you should have a look, gorgeous tins, papers, fabrics baskets, bags, buttons everything. Beautiful.
I had better get back to work I will put up some photo's of the stalls that we saw and the products available.
Wendy

been very busy lately had to finish a test quilt that I was doing for Arbee designs. My mum has been in hospital, she was there for a week so with full time work, sewing in my lunch and  hospital visit in the evening it has been a bit full on.
My daughter and partner have just been here for a week also while they prepared their house for the rental market after the last tenants have moved out. So we have had 4 big dogs in the backyard with lots and lots of rain so as you can imagine it has been a bit full on.
We are off to the Australian Quilt Market on the weekend in Sydney so we have to get up at 4am in the morning for the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Gold Coast airport we will be home again on Sunday night ready for work Monday.
I am looking forward to school holidays in just over four weeks..
I will write again sometime next week about our weekend at the quilt market.

Blog give away at The sewing Library

The sewing library is having there first birthday celebrations and are giving away one of the most beautiful sewing machines around it is the commemorative sewing machine from Singer,
So drop of and check this out here http://thesewinglibrary.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/1st-birthday-giveaway.html
I love this blog if you haven't been here before be sure to have a look around.
Have a lovely day

Wendy

Quilt Pro systems

I have recently signed up to receive free block of the day from the Quilt Pro Systems http://www.quiltpro.com/page/BlockOfDay this is totally free.
I was wondering if anyone out there had actually used the quilt pro system computer program. For what I have read it looks pretty good.
You can draw your own blocks, make up quilts using the blocks they already have, you can scan in your fabric and use them to see what the quilt will look like in advance.
That would be nice to scan in your fabrics and play around and see how colours work together.
They have a few products that are interesting including the print and sew half square triangle sheets.
I haven't tried this method before but have read that others find it really easy, I have always just sewn 1/2 inch either side of the centre diagonal.
How do you sew up your half square triangles?
You should drop over and have a look. I know that I would be interested in a couple of the other products they sell including Carol Doak foundation pieces and the Mariner Compass Volume 1 set they look great. I still haven't tried the Mariner's compass but I just love the look of these quilts.

I hope that you are all well, I have been sick the last week and still not 100% with Bronchitis and Laryngitis so haven't done much sewing this week at all. Atleast the weather here has finally fined up and we have a lovely sunny day. Hope that the weather is lovely were you are.
Have a nice day.
Wendy

http://chasingcottons.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/monster-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+ChasingCottons+(Chasing++++++++++Cottons)

I am so sorry the chasing cotton link didn't work below for the give away please try this one

Cloud 9 Fabrics giveaway

I don't know if you have seen these fabrics before but they are beautiful organic fabrics.

Chasing Cotton one of the wonderful blogs I read is having a giveaway thought I would add a link for you so you can check them out. 

Michelle from Cloud 9 Fabrics has so kindly offered to give away a full Fat Quarter Bundle...

Pretty Cool Hey!!

In order to enter the Giveaway...

 Just leave a comment on this post below and tell me....

What is your favourite baby gift to give? make?? or receive??

Giveaway is open internationally... and will remain open til 9th May..

Winner drawn on 10th May using Random.org

http://chasingcottons.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/monster-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+ChasingCottons+(Chasing++++++++++Cottons)

test pattern number 3

as promised here are some of the photo's of the test quilt that I have just finished

this was taken before I trimmed and finished it.

some items that I have been doing today

today I did some nappy cut embroideries

these will be for sale they are made on minkee. This is such a cute one

what about this one

and this one

and this one

this is the test quilt I just finished

http://www.academyofquilting.com/Classes#15
The place that I do the test quilts for in America are running a class on the test quilt that I have just completed. It is the rose one.
I loved this quilt and would highly recommend that you took this class or purchased the pattern when it comes on sale. It is a really lovely quilt.
I will put up some photos in the next couple of days as soon as i get permission from them that I can.
Wendy

Sister's visit

My sister Gail has been visiting for the last almost 3 weeks. She started me in quilting a few years back now, she has been such an inspiration. She had a stroke last year and has had an almost full recovery. She hasn't let it stop her and she has gone back to quilting this year and has used hand stitching a quilt as rehabilitation.

these are photos of one of the quilts Gail has made we quilted this one for her, this was our first quilt that we did on the longarm machine.

if you would like to see more photos of Gail's quilts and other customer quilts have a look on our webpage www.dahlwardquiltingservices.com

Wendy

Austalian Quilt Market

Has anyone gone to one of these before. We have just booked to go to our first one in Sydney in June. I hope to do a few classes while there and meet up with some wholesalers.
I am really looking forward to the show and tell classes from the exhibitors. This is not open to the public you have to book to go to the Quilt Market. If   your interested you can look it up online at Australian Quilt Market. If you are a buyer it is free but if you want to see the classes you need to pay for a 2 day pass. Online booking is now open. www.aqm.net.au/syd_defaultaspx
Back to work today so the next couple of days I won't be getting in much quilting can't wait for the weekend already.
Wendy

Give away.

I have been trying to get to 1500 likes on my facebook page to have a giveaway. I have a quilt to give away when I reach 1500. I have 230 to get there. You can help by going to my facebook page and click the link 1500 giveaway.

this is the quilt that we are going to give away to one lucky winner. Please drop over and like.

As I told you earlier we spent a couple of days away in Woody Head northern New South Wales. Above is a photo of my husband and granddaughter testing the water. All the Photos in this post are taken by my daughter as part of her HSC portfolio.

this is part of the beach when the tide was out.

Piper feeling the wet sand in her hands.She was a bit wary at first but she soon enjoyed the water.

such a beautiful place. If you are ever in the area you should have a look .

Wendy

Barbara's Wedding quilt

Here are the photos of a quilt that we completed recently for one of our customers. It is a beautiful quilt that she made for a wedding gift. Some 40 hours of quilting went into this quilt and when you see the photos you will see why. It was heirloom quilted and if you would like a quilt done like this just let us know we are happy to give you a free quote.

here is another photo of the back of the quilt for you to see the work that went into this quilt to form such a beautiful quilt.

customers quilt

Here is the photo from a customer quilt we finished a month ago. This was a gift from the customer to her nephew for a wedding gift.

This quilt took us over 40 hours to quilt and as you can see it was a lot of work this photo shows the back of the quilt
After it has taken me 2 hours to load up these two photos I have decided that this will have to be enough.
I hope you like the photos.
Wendy

holidays

we have just been away for a couple of days in beautiful Woody Head in Northern NSW. We stayed in the Bunjalong National park. What a beautiful place, it was wet but a lovely time was had by all spending some quality family time. We had no internet or phone coverage so we had to do with out technology for a few days which was hard for some.
We went for walks on the beach, checked out the local Kangaroo's which my granddaughter thought was very fascinating. We saw some big Goanna's outside the place we stayed but as long as they stayed away from us all was good.
We had one day of fine weather and some very heavy rain the night before leaving and they were expecting alot more rain with chances of flash flooding. Good time to leave I thought the Caravan park was quite empty for school holidays.
Back into some sewing now before I have to go back to work next week. I have another test quilt to do, this is a  stained glass one. I can't get the pattern to print so I can see the lines at the moment.
hopefully they will send me another copy.
Wendy