BOM 9 - Sports Day

I can't believe that we have already made it to BOM 9. Yes I do realise that one of the reasons we are so far up the numbers is because there was no BOM 1 nor a BOM 7 but still this is our seventh month and for those of you who have been here since the beginning this means that you now have enough blocks to finish your first mixed collection. I am looking forward to seeing some of your photos.

The BOM for this month is called Sports Day and was made at the end of a long day at school. When I first started teaching I taught at a wonderful school which had these great sports days where there was an event for any child who wanted to participate. Many schools now still carry on this idea and I love the friendships that are displayed on these days in particular. This block was to represent the parachute activities that are common particularly when little children are involved. The children hold onto the edge and lift it up as high as they can and then run inside while a few strategically placed adults remain on the edge holding it out.  Laughter always dominates these events.

Oh once I figure out how to do it I will be uploading either the file or a link to the file for finishing off the collection. Check back her in a few days by which time I hope to have worked out how to do it:)

Scatterday F

ok things have to be easier this week as the letter and categories are all common.

# Insect
# Country
# Shop
# Future Project

posting date 12th October

Links for Applique

Well next month we have the first of very few applique blocks. If you are like myself, then applique is not a method that you enjoy. Most of the applique blocks are made using machine buttonhole, unless they are really simple blocks, like Blue Moon in Collection 34, which is made using needle-turn applique. 
I know there are many more ways of doing applique other just than machine buttonhole and so have been doing a little trawling looking for links


This looks like a good post about hand applique with detailed pictures to accompany the steps.

Misty Trees, towards the end of this video they discuss preparation for raw edge applique

The above video leads onto machine applique by same person

Freezer Paper Technique by Connecting Threads
This video teaches you how to do freezer paper applique for quilts and other projects. For this method, you will need household freezer paper, a mini iron, and matching or monofilament thread. 
It is by Vicki Bellino of Bloom Creek, exclusively for www.connectingthreads.com and discusses both hand and machine applique and thread and needle choice

For those of you who don't like to watch youtube videos here is a link to sew4home which discusses a few different types of machine applique, stitch variations plus suitable threads and the best feet etc to use.  

Sew like My Mom also takes you through the machine button hole method with step by step photos. A long and detailed post worth reading for anyone who is new to this.

As a final comment if you want fantastic applique block you could try what I did in one block.... I asked Merelyn Pearce to make it for me. Merelyn lives just down the road from me and happily made the block. It was my good luck charm, or good luck block. For those who don't know about Merelyn she has won Best of Australia five times at least and does some of the tiniest applique you could ever hope to see.... actually it is so tiny you can't see her stitches at all.

Collection 29 and Carol

C29 Rosy Cheeks	C29 Wallflower Fears	C29 Algae Blooms
Although Carol has been very busy lately and had to spend several weeks away from home she has managed to finish so delightful blocks.	C29 Cat's Eyes	Here we see her blocks from Collection 29 and you have to admit these are definitely going to make a colourful quilt. Check out her fabric choice and you will find some delightful choices that surprise you and are so appropriate for the titles:)
C29 Before The Autumn	C29 Baby's Bonnet	C29 Fields of Heather

Margaret McCaughey and Collection 21

C21 Through the lattice	Well Margaret's second collection is steaming along wonderfully. For this collection she is again using only one colour, just variations of the brown. When I look at how beautiful her blocks turn out I sometimes regret my decision to NOT use civil war reproductions. When I first showed Margaret my blocks when I was making them, about five or six years ago, she stated that they would look perfect in reproductions.
C21 Winter Grace	C21 Whirling Wind
C21 The Date	I went home and seriously considered redoing my blocks. I then counted how many blocks I had already finished. As the count was over 100 I knew myself well enough to know that if I restarted I would NEVER finish.  Also I have found that I am very poor at pairing up civil war reproductions and so I would probably have been discouraged ...  plus what would I have done with 100+ leftover blocks?

Margaret and Collection 8

What a perfect month to upload the rest of Margaret's blocks. Margaret's first collection is Collection 8. To see the rest of her individual blocks simply hit the label, Margaret McCaughey, on the left... Ok no need to be that picky just try the other left ... the one on that side >>>>>>>

Below you will see one of the other individual blocks. I like to include photos of both the individual blocks and the collections as they give different perspectives. The individual blocks allow people to see the lovely fabrics while the total collection shows you the overall appearance.

C8 King of Versailles

I had wondered how she was going to join the blocks as she had decided to do all of them in pink. The plan is to use different shirting to frame each collection. It should look superb.

Scatterdays - sorry

Hi everyone,
look I'm just not getting organised these days and every Scatterday as it arrives just piles on the guilt about my poor organisation and over commitment. I am going to have to pull out of this. For all of you wonderful people who are managing to upload I will continue to upload a new letter and categories every fortnight... there are only five more letters to go.
I love reading all of your posts and will feel a lot happier simply checking rather than feeling guilty about not posting at the same time.
Now to see what people have written.

Scatterday O

 @ Discarded
 @ Workplace
  @ Arts
  @ Old

posting date 28th September

Friday Flaunt - Constellations

Have uploaded this photo of a quilt I made years ago just to show someone who is on one of my lists that doesn't allow photo attachments and uploading here is quicker than uploading to the yahoo photo files which are a real headache at present.

Constellations is made of 1/4in hexagons and only used light - dark value discrimination for deciding which hexagon went where.

There are only 1801 hexagons in this quilt and from a 2in square I was able to get four hexagons...great quilt if you are a scrooge with fabric. First and last time I did EPP.. too slow a technique if you ask me.

Collection 18 by Rhonda Lehwess

C18 Evening Star	C18 Flights of Fancy	C18 Writer's Lament
I recently had lunch with Rhonda who brought along her finished blocks from Collection 18. She had initially intended to make the miniature sized blocks but her chosen fabrics were just right for Raconteur 141.	C18 Sunflowers	It was quite surprising the difference between the finished collection size, especially as the individual blocks didn't seem that different in size.  I will have to photoshop two different sized blocks together to show you the difference.
C18 Hydrangers	C18 Louis XIV	C18 Jet Plane

OOPs..someone stole time

Well this was a surprise. Woke up early this morning remembering that today was Saturday and needing to do my Scatterday post. Logged on and was very impressed that everyone else had already completed their posts. Checked one as my brain still wasn't firing in the right channel and discovered that I was a week late.  

Well someone has stolen time. Checked through my photos and found this lovely one of a clock in Paris....it was called the 'Thief of Time' and hadn't been working for a few years when we saw it. Must have been fixed :)

So that only leaves me one week to do my next Scatterday post. I think I had better get into it soon!

BOM 8 - Rising Mist

Before I tell you about this month's BOM I need to let everyone know that there is no BOM 7. Collection 7 is a corner collection and the blocks in the corner collections are elongate hexagons. These are only used in layouts and are not needed for the wall hanging or table centres.

This month's BOM is called Rising Mist and it was given this name because of the fabrics that were used. Don't you just love the 1930's umbrellas. I have always been a person who loves to go out in the rain and so umbrellas are a common item beside our front door. 
I wonder if this could have influenced my son who campaigned when at uni of a platform of banning umbrellas ... and late night custard. Two things I don't think are really of concern to most uni students :-) Oh he won the election so I may be wrong there.

I think one of the enjoyable things with Raconteur is the fact that it suits all fabrics ... well those with not too big prints and Tall Tales, my enlarged version is perfect for large scale prints.