Espritpatch

Spring has finally arrived in my corner of the world, just in time to coincide with the Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival that Amy organises brilliantly. So many beauties to discover, so many lovely blogs to get lost into! With 11 categories to enter quilts under, there should be a fantastic range of quilts to admire! After much thoughts, I have decided to enter my Cats Quilt in the Home Machine Quilted Category . I had so much problems quilting this big top (it finishes at 72' square) because I hadn't fitted the wrong free-motion foot on my machine initially (you can read more about it here if you are interested) that it seems to be a natural choice! I made this quilt for my daughter's bed but it was a long quilt in the making. It started in February 2013 when I asked my fellow bees from Bee Europa to make blocks for me using the London Cats/Paris Cats fabrics from Benartex that I sent them. They sent me the blocks back but I still needed more to ...

I did it! My cat quilt is finished. I machine stitched the binding last week and decided that I'd try to sew on length of thread every day for the hand stitching as there were about 7 meters to do. I had nearly finished one side Thursday night but I was so tired on Friday night that the idea of binding the quilt while watching TV really appealed to both of us (well I was the only one binding the quilt, but hubby could snuggle under it too!). I didn't quite finished it Friday night but on Saturday Miss Strawberry Shortcake wanted to do some sewing on her machine and I usually need to stay close by in case the needle needs re-threading etc that I thought it was the perfect excuse to finish her quilt. She was so happy that it was finally finished! And it was in use the exact same night! Thanks for my fellow bees from Bee Europa 2012-2013 for making most of the blocks for me. Quilt Statistics: Started February 2013 - Finished May 2014 6 x 6 blocks 12' finished ...

Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, which means we had a longer week-end to play and although the weather was OK, it wasn't that warm. Anyway it was nice to have all the family at home over 3 days with no hectic plans for the time we had and no travelling miles! I also had time to progress one of my UFO that had been on my to-do list for a while. I had initially planned to quilt this top in March for the Lazy Bums Virtual Retreat but life decided otherwise. So this top was put aside (my lovely princess is so patient!)  because I needed/wanted/decided to follow the Triangle Quilt-Along from Paula to make a quilt for my friend's birthday. I finished her quilt in time and I am so glad I did because I won the grand prize for the finished quilts link up! Anyway I quilted the triangle quilt on my frame and decided that the frame should not go back into storage until the Cat Quilts was quilted. So my DH helped me set up my quilt on the frame about 10 days ago so I could quilt ...

So this last few week I have been busy trying to catch up with my bee blocks as well as making a quilt! I finally finished my second block for Jennie for Siblings Together 2 and made my 2 blocks for Penny too I also made my 2 sampler blocks for Gina for Bee Europa : Alaska Homestead and Mother's Own And of course because we spent so much in the car again over the last week-end, I had time to finish my 2 flowers for Karily's garden for the Inchy Hexie Swap Now I need to finish my Wonky Log Cabin block and my Stash Bee block by Wednesday, better get going! I also finally picked up my Farmer's Wife blocks again, don't hold your breath, I only completed 2 so far this month and I have a third one cut but when this one is finished I will have made a quarter of the blocks, that's encouraging isn't it? [107] Windblown Square [109] Windows That gives me 13 blocks for the 350-blocks challenge this month - far from the 30 needed and I do...

This week has been good I think, I was hoping to get caught up with all my bee blocks, well that doesn't quite work as I caught side tracked. The only block ready to go is my block for Bee Europa and one more block for the 350-blocks challenge But this is what I spent most of my time on: I picked up my cat quilt in-progress to try and finish the top. This is my chosen project for the March Lovely Year of Finishes and the end of the month is coming quickly. Most of the blocks I had were made by my fellow bees last year for Bee Europa but I decided that the top was not big enough and I needed to have it 6 x 6 rather than 5 x 5. I made one extra block last year but I still needed 10 more. So I made 10 more blocks this week (and that's 10 blocks more for the 350 blocks challenge!), Miss Strawberry Shortcake arranged them yesterday and I finished the top. Now I am planning to quilt it next week-end. 350-blocks challenge: 17 this month, just about one week to make 13 mo...

Look at this people, my quilt is off the frame, yes off the frame so of course this means that the quilting is FINISHED! I am so happy that I finished it tonight. I was nearly there on Tuesday night and was hoping to finish it last night but I finished working far too late and decided to go straight to bed rather than start quilting after 10 pm. And  that was probably sensible with 3 children unwell in the house. Miss Baby had croup and very high temperature overnight which resulted in a 3-hour night for me. Today has been a long day and it was nice to end it with a play on my quilting frame. So here it is, the quilt is quilted and only needs its binding now. I am so pleased that I am finally at this stage. The blocks were made in 2011 by my fellow bees from Bee Europa and I assembled the top last year. And finally this year I picked it up again. Now it only needs a little trim around the sides and a long long long binding strip all the way around. This is my project for the ...

As you can probably from most of my posts, I am still playing catch up with my bee blocks. I never thought it would take that long, but here we are! Today I managed to finish one more set of Granny Squares, for Olivia in blue, orange and grey. This means that I am no longer behind with the Granny Square Bee , yeah! I still have to do the October blocks of course but at least I have caught up with this one! And yesterday, I received a package from Gabriella to make her block for Bee Europa for October (yes I am on time with this one!) and guess what, I have already finished making her blocks. There were very easy blocks so I made them straight away and they will go back to her next week! Now I need to catch up with my Simply Solids blocks and one more Siblings Together and I will be back in the game, pheww! I am still trying with the crochet. I only managed the second round last night because then I got stuck! I couldn't understand the instructions for round 3. But I ...