3 quilts completed charity makes made.

June was a productive month for me,    have been busy making quilts and also blocks and charity makes.

A friend of Helen`s lost her 15 year old daughter  last august   so tragic she had a epileptic fit.  The Mum is having a fund raiser on her anniversary for the epilepsy charity, and Helen volunteered Catherine my other daughter and me to make some things for it!!  Catherine does glass painting and makes beautiful cards   no stitching but other techniques. I am also pleased to support this charity as my ex husband suffered from uncontrolled epilepsy from the age of 29 till his death aged 76 and I would never know when he was going to have a fit,   he often had them whilst waiting to board a plane after a holiday,  we were sure air conditioning effected him so any money raised will go to researching this illness

I have made 8 bags with embroidered cats on them

2 aprons, 3 key fobs, 5 fabric trays,1 fabric box, 2 nine patch little bags  and 2 tablet holders.

 Hope too make a few more things before august to add to these,  maybe some embroidered cards and have done a scrap HST quilt from 5.5" squares which they might like too.  Only completed this yesterday so should really not be in the june makes blog.I had  a disaster with a glass of sherry which I managed to spill on it when it was waiting to have the binding hand stitched, should not have had it on the kitchen table, fortunately it washed out okay. This one I machine quilted with a walking foot and wonky lines

I have also made 15 blocks for the Manchester quilting bee that are making quilts following the bombing at the concert last month,   the bee are coming up to our Leeds MQG on 17th and we are all going to help making the blocks into quilts.  The hexies have been attaches to 6.5" squares.

I sorted my scraps during the month and decided to make some fabric baskets for them  one for each colour,  I used car headliner     the same as bosal but cheaper and not iron on and it worked very well,

3 more quilts   a baby quilt for Debbie a friend of Helen`s   baby not born yet but Helen says she loves the quilt/play mat.  Hand quilted with a wavy pattern on the sashing and circles on the blocks.

This is the back of the quilt   liking this fabic  

now this one was done with Jennie Rayment on the create and craft channel   my first attempt at medallion quilt   I hand quilted this with purple perle  thread   I enjoy hand quilting but could not do it with hand quilting cotton and very small stitches.

Next is a crazy stack and whack quilt    fun to do  but struggled with arranging the blocks,   hand quilted.

I also made 10 assorted blocks   the winter slostice BOM was completed and I decided the blocks that were bigger than 12" I would not use in the quilt so made the substitute blocks instead.  Sorry can`t find the photo for these.
Last but not least a stitching apron for me to wear when stitching. It has pockets on the front,  I made the same as the charity ones but this was the first I made   might take the waistband and straps off and make them narrower as I have done in the other 2.  It is reversible but no pocket on the other side.

Alfie in quilt heaven, baby quilt

Not much to share this week but must show you how Alfie loves his quilt. The butterfly quilt I made for Helen is on the back of the couch,  I did point out to her it as upside down!

I think this shows his contentment

   Now it is bedtime so rather than disturb him Helen has made an envelope of the quilt and she carried him up to bed,   he just loves this pampering and when I called the next day he was still on his quilt

I have been making 5 baby quilts from strips I cut from child friendly fabrcis, I got in a bit of a muddle as I took my featherweight to the Leeds quilting group and  I  sewed the strips together there   they got rather tangled but all was well in the end. I use the jelly roll technique joining the narrow ends together of all the strips and then doubling over 4 times, this gave me 4 quilts but they were a bit wide so was able to make a 5th by cutting off 2 fabrics from each quilt.  They are now all prepared for quilting and have started on the first one,  it is for a friend of Helen`s and she asked for assorted sized circles scattered about and these I am hand quilting,  fingers crossed the pencils circles will wash out okay on completion.

more quilting to add to my to do list

  I said no more projects as I already have a list longer than my arm and longer than I will ever get to complete when what happens along comes Women of the Bible  a free BOM from little quilts.com and I find I have signed up to do this too.  The first two blocks have been posted Eve and Rachel and what I love about this is they tell you about the women the block is named after so interesting to read.   I plan to download all the blocks as they come on line and make the quilt in 2015,  I find this easier than doing a block as they appear and I can place my fabrics better this way.  If anyone is interested I think it might close soon and you only have a short period of time to download the block before it is removed.   Her is a picture of what it is all about

I have also started the spiders web quilt with  Pat Broe from life in the scrapatch,  this is just  a quickie,   we did  part of it yesterday and the next bit is to do is the black curves,  I have got the right template for this so hoping all will go well.  It uses 80 2.5" squares and fortunately I had lots left over from my steps to the Altar quilt so no new cutting to do.   Was going to share a photo of what Pat`s looks like but don`t know how to do that. Oh yes I think there is a photo of the quilt on my blog on the right hand side with all the BOM`s etc, dare not look as I will probably lose this epistle.

I have also become a great aunt again,  the ages go from 18 down to a couple of weeks and Katie has said she would like a quilt made with lemon, cream and green pastels,    still trying to find the fabric but whilst in one shop they showed me a baby panel which was only £2 so bought it and have quilted it by hand and will give it to Katie but will also make what she requested when I track down suitable fabric.

Now for my big spend,   this computer is going so slow it is nearly going backwards and has crashed a few times recently so today I have bought a laptop,   well a baby one, the screen is only 11" but it should be okay and means I can use it all over the house,  that is when I pluck up the courage to open up the box,  maybe my youngest brother from Sheffield will come soon and he could help me.  I was served by the assistant manager of the store and he took me to the till then gave a code to the operator and went away,  the operator said it was my lucky day as he was giving me a free external hard drive for backup   how lucky am I,  I use memory sticks at the moment and have 4 and needed to buy another so now will not have to.    Wonder how long it will be before I can use the new one   next year probably!