Miss Dj Home for a Holiday & Became a Quilting Maniac

Last year was a pretty emotional year for My eldest Daughter and I 

after some typical teenage and high 

school issues....... Augh!!! is all I can say to that 

She decided that she wanted to go and live with her father in Western Australia soooooo far from home and myself I was gutted...

But once I realised it wasn't about me or my parenting it was about her finding her way and finding out about the the other Half of the Family Tree we settled into a routine fo saying goodnight and good morning By Txt and a lot of chit chat inbetween...I can say there have been some late night calls crying and wanting to come home...but when you are 6000 km's away it is not soo easy...

So after 9 months of not seeing us here in Queensland she has come home for a visit 

so off we went for a 7 hr round strip drive to pick Miss Dj up for the airport :) 

I don't think we all realised how much we missed each 

other till that moment when we all seen each other again 

the Divine Miss N...was sooo happy that she was crying 

and Miss S was just about jumping out of her skin LOL

And me I was just trying t keep it together for the others ") 

not very well I might add....I think i might have squeezed her just a little too much with that first hug LOL

anyway the 3.5 hr trip home was full of laughs and 

chit chat in the back seat I didn't realized how much i missed that ") 

The next morning well started off like any normal day I got 

up for work 

helping me in the Studio 

When Miss Dj comes bounding out into the Studio

Grabs her sewing machine and says "what can I make" LOL

"I think I want to make a quilt"she says 

" what can I use" 

just after she left last year... I got a shipment of Moda fabrics 

and there was a particular Jelly Roll was in it called 

"Simple Marks"... when I seen it  I immediately thought 

of Miss Dj and put it away in my stash for her...

so off I toddled and got it out for her 

squeals of delight rang from the shop 

so off she went to start cutting up her Jelly Roll

taking each Jelly Roll Strip and cutting it in half and then half

again...

a stripy quilt was in the making.... 

so once the strips were cut it was onto sorting the strips into 

block assortment :) 5 strips in each block and as you can see all 3 girls got into the act LOL 

they are the craziest and sweetest girls when they are creating together ") 

they really do know how 
to take over the sewing
Studio LOL
they all got into it sorting all the strips into Blocks ")




Now the sewing Begins 
Miss Dj was giving her Little Sister 
some sewing lessons as she is only just starting 
to learn how to patchwork and sew on the 
machine ") she is making a stripy quilt too.... just like 
her big sister...they are the closest and best friends out of 
my 3 girls :) 
and yes there were lessons on how to unpick **OOPPS**

A little of Night time sewing 
as She is on a bit of a deadline 
as I have customers quilts
to quilt 
she has to be fiinish and quilted with 2 days 
for the speed quilter this is 
not an issue 
as she is the crazy speed quilter ") she always feels the need for speed LOL 

here are a couple of her blocks lots of pressing and squaring up to get them right ...the blocks she created are from one Jelly Roll...
we sew 5 strips into a block and then use the post rail method for block placement
and we placed 5 blocks across and 6 blocks down





so her she is getting ready to square up her blocks
this can be a bit tricky for a beginner, but she is giving it ago and that is the main thing... 
you can see the concentration 
on her face ") 

Now onto that we have squared up all the blocks 
we are now onto the layout
Ohhh!!!! the layout this took a little while 
as she wasn't sure if it looked right 
so after what seemed like for ever 
and many changes later we finally got it right ") 
Happy Happy Joy Joy 
yes there was a happy dance 

so now we have the layout sorted it was onto the assembly of the quilt top so to arrange 
each of the blocks we place on block 
vertical and then the next horizontal 
and you continue this pattern for each of your strips 
you can see the pattern coming together 


we had a little accident too ...trying to take a 
pin out and accidentally put foot on peddle 
and BAM!!! one sewn finger ....
then it was onto borders once the Quilt top center was done 
we used a 2.5" red thin border and she wanted to have a large outer border...so we cut 8" Strips to go around the Quilt in Burnt Yellow ") 
Looks amazing. 


you can watch 
on this link ") 
Footage of Miss Dj Quilting ")

Now onto Quilting...oh the Quilting 
I can tell you this... she has never Quilted on the longarm 
quilting machine before...so trying to convince her that it 
was going to be OK, was hard work on my part LOL ") 



So first we worked on just getting the feel for the 
machine  and just moving it along the quilt 
and then it was the real deal 
as you can see she had that nervous smile ....

but she got into it in the end 
I got her to do a simple stipple
in a rainbow thread...

it really stands out on the Burnt yellow border 

the Picture really dose not do the quilt and pattern justice 
but you get the general idea 


she finally got to the end of the quilt...she really enjoyed the 
whole process and you can see she is very proud of herself and her quilt ") 

Next we move onto the binding that is always fun ") she wanted to sew it on by machine as she is only here for a couple weeks and then she is back off to school for the year so machine binding it is we are using a plain red for the binding cutting 2.5" strips

Now on to the Next 
Project 
a travel Cushion and throw
pillow to match her quilt 

Happy Quilting ") N