It's a New Year & New Beginning

Hello everyone,
Here we are in a New Year, 2014 no less.....where has the time gone?  I haven't done a very good job posting anything during 2013, so my promise to my readers & myself, is to rectify this during this coming year. I've been browsing blog pages by fellow quilters' & I must say they have been doing a grand job keeping up there photo's & stories. So my goal is to write regular posts with lots of photo's.

As I have soooo many photo's to catch up & post for you, I will select some of the more favourite ones to post on the blog but not all at once, over the next few weeks as least. I have a new computer to get used to as well, so wish me luck as I venture into the world of Windows 8!!

Here is one of our favourite flowers in the garden, only from last year's blooming.....we haven't been able to get hold of the Sturt Desert Pea seedlings yet this season.

This quilt was worked with some basic custom quilting for Margaret. She made this quilt for her grandson as he's off to boarding school this year. She did a great job with the piecing, lots of little squares between those panels.

And here is a photo of more detailed work done on this quilt.

Here is a beautiful baby quilt for a new granddaughter for Fiona. The butterflies have been machine embroidered on solvy so they have a lace effect, then sewn on after they were made. Some simple custom quilting to finish this off & I added the binding ready for her to sew to the back as time was of the essence, the baby shower was happening a few days after she collected this quilt.

Here is something a little different & funky!! Betty Boop in all her glory, Trapunto quilted with 2 layers of poly wadding, then layered & quilted with a continuous Lips design which I made up myself to suit the quilt. I think it finished up really well & my client was quite pleased with it too.

This quilt made by Sonya of SA Mallee Country Connection at Karoonda, allowed me to add a pattern which used more pattern, so I chose one called Hibiscus, stitched in green thread which helped it show up really well.  It also added to the look of the quilt which turned out great.

A Tessellating design was chosen by Jenny to piece this quilt while she was on holiday in England last year. Delivered to me as soon as she arrived home to quilt with a basic design called Splash which seemed to suit this quilt perfectly.

Glenda made this quilt/wall hanging with paper foundation piecing. She did a great job & it's very effective. A little challenging to come up with a suitable quilting plan but I think it worked well in the end. You can see what I quilted in the following photo of the detail.

Two little baby quilts made from charm squares for our grand-nephew who arrived in February Quilted together with very basic patterns that worked really well.

Another simple pieced quilt which didn't need a lot of heavy work done so I used a pattern called Streamers which worked quite well.

This quilt made by Patchwork by Sea in a Thousand Pyramid design, I used a provincial design called Dutch for a simple edge to edge quilting design.

I think that will do for now, except one last photo of some Rainbow Lorikeets feeding on the nectar in these gumtrees in our front yard, They make such a noise but are beautiful to watch at the start & end of every day.

And look at these Pansies still flowering in January - we've had such a mild spring here in the Mallee. I've never had them stay flowering this late. Mother Nature continues to surprise me at times....

Until next time

Keep safe & happy quilting

Val
Bluegum Quilting Services

Catching Up....

Still trying to catch up with posting photo's, mostly of quilting jobs done for my clients. The quilts in this edition are those done during November and December 2013, hope you enjoy them.

I'm on baby sitting duties this week, so while the little one is having a sleep I will post more photo's of the many quilts I've been working on. But first, here is a pic of the bird's in our front garden, enjoying the bird bath a few days ago.

A few months ago I was asked by a friend to 'put something together' as a donation for a raffle prize for Aminya Homes at Mannum. This is what I made, she was really happy & we are hoping it will help to sell their tickets.

And here is a more detailed picture of this quilt.

A very simple quilt for a new baby boy, I used a pattern called Bobbles for the
edge to edge quilting.

Here is a pretty quilt made by Joan who is in her early 80's & has only been quilting for a few years. She's doing a great job. Quilted using Ladybugs design by Lorien Quilting, an Aussie designer of quilting patterns.

Detail of Ladybugs on Joan's quilt.

A beautiful quilt for a little boy, the stitchery bloacks have a 'space' theme. Quite basic custom quilting with a freehand swirls design on the squares between the blocks.

Showing some detail work stitched on this quilt.

This next quilt was made by myself as a commission from Jacc who had purchased  three bags while on holiday in Vietnam (these are the blocks with the three ladies). When asked to make them into a quilt, I did find it a little challenging, but once I began with some black homespun & oriental fabrics from my stash, this design soon came together.  I needed to purchase the border print, gold and plain blue fabric, but in the end I was happy with it and so was Jacc.  Quilted with an edge to edge clamshell design, has helped to finish it off nicely.

A very traditional block design of Tumbling Blocks was used to create this wall hanging by Marg B. I used a feather like flower design in the sections of the blocks with feather sprays in the background areas and trying to make them reflect each other as much as possible. Marg was over the moon with the quilting.

Here you can see more detail of what I did on the Tumbling Blocks quilt.

Julie used a traditional Churn Dash block in various shades of Aqua, Grey and White, to make this quilt for her niece's 15th birthday. These are very modern colours & I'm sure the young girl will just love it!!! Quilted with a simple edge to edge pattern called Bubbles

This quilt had a lot of Ballerina's and ballet shoes in the print. The ribbons from the shoes seemed to pop out to me, so I used an edge to edge pattern called Ribbon to quilt this quilt.  It suited really well & Corinne was very happy with the end result for her grand daughter who is Ballet crazy.

This quilt was so big that when hung up to take this photo, the bottom edge was still on the floor! Lots of piecing with a very creative way to use two beautiful Japanese panels. Quilted with an edge to edge design, except for the two red panels which were customised as they were hand stitched with a sashiko design, as you can see in the detailed phot's below.

The edge to edge pattern is called Ginko, which is seen in a lot of Japanese fabrics. I use it quite often for these style of quilts.

I customised the quilting on the red blocks to enhance the sashiko design which was hand stitched.

That's all for this time, I will post more photo's in coming days while I sort through all the pic's that have accumulated over the past year or so.  I trust you are all enjoying the New Year as we lead into 2014, time for renewed thoughts & promises of resolutions that we often make.
My resolution for 2014 is to keep up this blog on a regular basis & to keep in touch with my customers more often....I think a newsletter is way overdue!!!!


Until next time
Keep safe & Happy Quilting

Val
Bluegum Quilting Services
Murray Bridge, Sth Australia