Sunday 23 September 2018

Time for a change

This month my website has decided to go off sick. Bits are feeling poorly and other bits seem to be having a month away.... it has gone off to bed with the duvet over it's head, will not get up in the mornings and it has no intention of being helpful when I try to fix it!! Grrr, so now I have to become a web designer, which is a slow and painful process for me..... 


Green Star Quilts
Once I started thinking about a new website though, I quickly got enthusiastic, thanks to my lovely son-in-law who helped me with lots of ideas. Now it is just a question of finding the photos I need for each page and there I have to confess to woefully inadequent filing, indeed, no filing system at all for digital prints.... You know what it like when you think 'One rainy day I will sit at the computer and label, sort and file all my photos so I can find them easily but right now I'd rather be quilting' ? Well that's the problem, and now my chickens are throughly home to roost with that one!! Anyway, it will be sorted eventually and then I will have a shiny new up to date site with loads of pictures and some new text.

In the meantime I can still be contacted through the website contact page, and here is the link:   www.greenstarquilts.com/page9.htm

Daughter is home from Norway with her Viking and has ideas for making picture hangings. They will have a Northern theme and will all be A4 size. It is such fun designing something so small and the Bond-a-Web sticky web stuff you iron on has been in full use. This is where we have got to so far.....
Green Star Quilts
I am delighted with the Northern Lights fabric which is designed by Timeless Treasures. Next will be a sledge and a husky dog with more Northern lights. It is a lovely project and it will use all sorts of scraps up. It is also something we can do at a distance as she will be back in north Norway for the winter, training sled dogs. Where she is working is so so beautiful, my fabric pictures can't do it justice. You can see it here and no that is not her Viking! Goodness I miss her so much but she is very happy there.

That's all for this week, our garden is strewn with twigs and even a few branches from the huge gales here, I am amazed that some of our trees are still standing, but the sun is shining and I must go out with a rake. It is cold in the evenings now and we are lighting the log burner although I am still wildly hoping for an Indian summer. It's not quite time for woolly tights yet!

I hope you have a lovely week dear readers, thank you for visiting,

Kind regards,
Sue 







  



Sunday 9 September 2018

Returning to quilt making

Without realising what was happening, I seem to have taken the summer off from the sewing room. Commissions for quilts have been completed, then no more appeared so I sat in the garden, well actually I did quite a lot of gardening too. I read books and took a watercolour painting course. We decorated two rooms in the house and visited people we hadn't seen for ages. We went to a wedding and also sat at the bedside of a dying friend and wept. It has been a strange time and one for many considerations and the counting of blessings. Then Google sent me a message to ask if I still wanted to carry on with the blog and it made me realise how long it has been since I wrote a new post or made a new quilt. 
So here I am again and here is my first quilt of the autumn. It has been made for our own personal small petrol head who hero worships Lightning Mcqueen from the Disney films....


Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts
I quilted it in a straight grid 2.5 inches wide. There are a few wobbles, it is ages since I used the walking foot and guide and I need to practice! Looking at this photo makes me think it needs more lines of quilting as it looks a bit saggy. The backing fabric is a upcycled duvet cover with his favourite character in larger than life and full colour:

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts
At the top of the quilt I have added a vintage fabric badge I found in my sewing box, I can't remember where it can from but it was just the right thing. I stitched it on with machine double blanket stitch which helped to cover up a few marks on the edges.... 

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts
The edges are bound with a plain navy fabric. I know the quilt will be on his bed within minutes of him seeing it!

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts
This winter I want to make more quilts from fabrics in the sewing room. Some will be for a charity like Project Linus UK which donates quilts to children in need of an extra cuddle. Others will be for sale on the website initially and I am thinking of opening an Etsy shop too. If you have experience of this please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you. Has it worked for you? Please let me know.
Today I am linking with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts, I'm so glad she is back after the summer holiday. Thank you for reading this, I hope you are still visiting me even after such a long break,
Kindest regards,
Sue