Some Class Time Fun

We have been busy little beavers 

over the last month

so I thought I would share 

some of what we have been up to for the Month of February 2014

busy busy busy :) 

Here are the Ladies and their 1st Block of the Month 

Gail Hiding Behind her Table runner

Sandra and her Black and Red Table runner 

First timer to class Vicki and her table runner

Eunice and her Place mat

Monica with her Table Runner

here are the ladies with the 2nd
Block of the Month

Another Day Another Quilt #17

Whoa!!!!!

This week has flown by so quick ") 

today I am working on a quilt for Jean of Kingaroy 

this one is for one of her Grandsons a lovely 

sampler quilt...

Jean has been quilting on and off for many years 

this is the 2nd one I have done for her 

as we only met middle of last year

she came across me at the local Markets 

that I attend every month in Nanango :) 

today we used one of the customers favorite 

all over quilting patterns called 

"wave on wave"

I have had this now for a few months and I can tell you 

everyone is very attracted to it :) 

especially for quilts that are made for men and boys alike 

Jean also wanted to be able to see the quilting so she opted for 

a cream coloured thread for the top and bottom 

she also wanted a bamboo wadding and a love 

Mocha coloured backing fabric...

we had everything she was chasing 

Whew!!! lucky us...as you can see below the quilt has turned out just 

gorgeous and was well received :) 

now onto a Custom Made quilt 

Happy Quilting ") N 

Another Busy Day Quilt # 16

It has been another busy day her at 

Darvanalee Designs

today we worked on Joyce's Quilt

there is a funny story behind how Joyce 

found me...You see Joyce has been quilting for many years

mostly by hand...Joyce is 80 yrs young...recently she was not feeling her 

best and was laying in Hospital talking to another 

patient...while they were chatting away the conversation turned 

to quilting and crafting...while there were happily chatting away 

Joyce happen to mention that her friend and herself were working on 

a quilt for her daughter...she asked the lady if she knew of anyone 

that would be able to help her finish it...as she din't want to have to do this 

one by hand....well the lady laying next to Joyce told her about this young girl 

that was quilting for a lot of people here in Kingaroy (yep that's me a young girl LOL) 

anyway this lady just happened to have a business card of mine in her handbag and 

promptly gave it to Joyce...after a couple days stay in Hospital 

Joyce was released and first thing she did after she got home and unpacked 

was to ring me and book her quilt in....at the time I was on Holidays over the Christmas break 

so we arranged for Joyce to come and meet me and have a chat about 

what she wanted done on her Quilt 

In the end Joyce decided that she wanted to have stippling all around the candle-wicked 

blocks and to leave the big 10 inch blocks plain...but this was not a good solution to those 

10 inch blocks so I showed Joyce some of the options that we had available to stitch into 

the blocks...just so there was not negative space..

we decided on a Dove with flowers up in the corners...just to hold it down for many years to 

come...

here in this picture you can see a sample of Joyce's work on the blocks 

each one has a different Candle-wicked design :) just gorgeous

I can wait till mine is finished...I have been working on it for many years 

you can see here the end result for the quilt 

Joyce was over the moon about her quilt 

and couldn't wait to get it home and get the 

binding on it and get it to her Daughter asap

Well it is time for me to get onto the 

next quilt :) 

Happy Quilting ") N

                                                    

Custom made Quilt for Magenta's Son Quilt #15

Wow...Quilt #15 already 

this one I have been working on for a while now 

it is a Custom handmade quilt for a lovely 

lady Magenta from  Caboolture Qld

Magenta first contacted me 

around the beginning of January 2014 

after seeing one of my Girly Quilts on eBay 

she wanted to know if I made the quilts...Yes was the answer

she wanted to have a quilt made for her son

who visits hospital frequently...she wanted this 

for him to have a little piece of home with 

him while he was there :) 

and as his birthday was coming up soon 

the push was on...

so after some tooing and  froing we finally decided on a 

fabric pack and a designs 

the following quilt was the end result..

the fabric used was Riley Blake's "Maverick" 

we then quilted with clouds as the quilting desing...it was an all over designs using a white cotton top and bottom with a beautiful blue backing with yep you  guessed it more planes 

it finally went off to its new home

this week and was received with 

sequels of joy ....

you can see there was lots of 

4 patches in this quilt 

                                                     

here is the layout of the quilt and you can see it loaded in the machine ready for 

quilting ") I love that moment when you load a quilt 

and start stitching out the designs :) 

Here is the quilt all finished with the binding on 

and ready to head off to its new home ") 

Now on to the Next custom made quilt 

for Baby Hunter ") 

Happy Quilting ") N

Chriss Cross Table Runner and Place Mat Set PART 1

It has been a while since I have posted a tutorial

so I  thought I would post what we did in class today 

In total you will have one Table Runner 

and a set of 

4 Place Mats 

below is what you need for everything 

but this is a 2 part Tutorial 
part 2 will be posted next week

what you will need:

Sewing machine 

Missouri Star Quilt Co.(MSQC) Small Simple Wedge Template

3 matching Fat Quarters (F/Q)

1 contrasting Fat Quarter for around the feature (F/Q)

1 meter of Black plain fabric such as Emma Louise Quilters Muslin
matching Thread 

Rotary Cutter 

cutting Mat

6x24inch ruler 

1.7 wadding of your choice eg: cotton/polyester/Bamboo

                                                                  1.7 Backing fabric 

                                                                 .70cm Binding Fabric 

now that we have all that together lets get started :) 

first take your matching F/Q's and iron out all the creases 

this is a must for accurate cutting of the template :) 

Here comes the fun and simple part of this Lovely table set

1. take your  MSQC Small simple Wedge template 

and place it on your fabric as i have in the picture

now cut along each edge of the template 

that is your first Triangle.....now spin your template...

line up on the cut edge of the fabric and cut along the other edge 

so you get your 2nd Triangle....continue this until 

you have 64 triangles in total ") 

2. Lets get sewing! 

take your triangles and place them like 

i have done in the picture here...and sew a 1/4 inch 

seam along the edges...press and then add another 

to this and continue until you have joined  triangles together

this forms a feature block in the table runner and place mats 

continue until you have 4  panels in total for Table Runner
then square off your feature blocks :) 
you just cut your end triangles in half 
like pictured :) 

3.Onto the Border for feature panels 

take you Contrasting F/Q and cut into 

1 inch Strips (cut as you need as you may not use the whole F/Q)

Now border your feature block....Press as you go.....for me I done the long sides first 

then the top and bottom...as you can see pictured here

                 

4. Now onto the assembly of your Table Runner 

take you Plain fabric in my case I used Black as this is my colour scheme of 

my Kitchen/Dinning Room 

** Cut 1x 9.5 inch strip  across the width of the fabric 

and 

**1 x 2.5inch strip across the width of the fabric 

now

take your first bordered feature Block and  add a 2.5" strip to the left side 

 and then on the right side of the feature block add the 9.5" strip of fabric 

now trim of excess...

then 

add another feature block and press 

now take you left over 9.5" strip and add another panel

continue doing this until you have 4 feature blocks attached 

now add another 2.5 inch strip to the end and you should have something that looks like this 

5.Now for the final strips to be added 

**Cut 3 x 1&1/4 inch strips (see placement of strips in above picture)

join 2 of them together and sew on to the top of the 

table runner cut off excess ....now repeat for the bottom of the Table Runner 

Your Table Runner Top  is Complete.....

6.Now onto the Quilting it :) 

you can do this however you please but for me 

I kept it nice and simple 

I just Quilted in ditch for the feature block and then 

cross hatched the black panels

7.Nearly Done Binding to go 

** cut 4 x 2.5" strips of binding fabric (WOF)

cut off selvage's and join your strips end to end 

to make one long strip of fabric...

now head over to your iron and press with 

wrong sides of your fabric facing each other 

(pretty side facing out) 

continue this until you have done 
The Entire length

Steps 1 to 5 for how to make your binding ..once you have sewn your strips end to end then we want to fold them with pretty side facing out and wrong sides facing each other in half....Press with a hit iron...once you have done this and you get to the end of your binding you need to open up approx 2 inches of you binding like shown in the 4th picture...now take your corner and press to make a 45 degree angle...no special tools need just do it like shown in picture  5 now move on step 6 

Steps 6 to 9... fold your fabric back over so you have it looking like image 6...now give it a good press with a hot Iron and maybe even use some spray starch it help it hold form for  you...you can see here what we are trying to achieve...a nice bias angle with the end of our binding...this will give you a nicer overall finish to your binding 

9. Now you are ready to attach you binding to the front of your 
Table Runner  

Steps 1 -3 following the pics you need to attach your binding like pic1. and then when
you start to sew about 5inches from the first pin back stitch for 3 stitches and then continue on till you
come to the 1st corner of table runner 

Steps 4 to 7 once you come to the corner you want to stop a 1/4 inch from the corner then take out your table runner and flip up your tail like in pic 5. then fold it down like it  is shown in step 6. it should look like pic 7 continue doing this for all your other corners ..this will create a Mitered corner :) 

steps 8 to 11...now that we are at our final corner we so the same as above...we continue to sew down till about an inch from the beginning of our binding....it is at this point that I take my long tail and trim it...it must have enough of a tail to fit into the beginning of our binding...you can what I am trying to achieve here by the pictures

Steps 12 to 15...so in picture 12 you can see that I have cut it on an angle...now we take this and slip into the beginning of our binding see pic 13...now fold it back over so it looks like it continues on like in picture 14...now sew along the remaining binding until you meet up with where you started
you now finished putting your binding on 

Table runner ....once this is done you  can then hand sew the 

binding onto the back of your table runner
your corners on the back should look like the picture below 
perfect mitered corners :) :) 

Woo Hoo you now have a completed Table Runner YaY 

Keep an eye out Next week for Part 2 

how to assemble your matching Place Mats ") 

                                         Happy Quilting ") N