SAHR Winner!

My SAHR project is finished! I entered it in our local judged quilt show and it won second place in the small quilt, any technique category, woo hoo!

R 10 &11: Cherie

Woo hoo :) I've completed steps 10 & 11. Since I didn't chose to embroider something I took step 10 off and went straight to 11, quilting the top. I used perle cotton threads in size 12 & 8 and some shiny rayon DMC floss. It was so much fun doing the big stitch quilting! This top is now called Water Works.

Finished!

Look at me - I'm a miracle of finishing stuff :) This one was prompted by needing a present for someone who is leaving at DH's work - any excuse to finish something is a good one, right?

One down, one to go?

Finally finished up one of the pieces I was making for the SAHR. Who knows when the other will get finished,but at least this one is done.

Finished! Winter Star

R9: Cherie

It's been awhile but I've completed round 9 by adding several more applique pieces. I was going to do some embroidery but I've since decided to do big stitch quilting with pearl cotton and thought that would be enough. I'm ready to layer the sandwich and get on with the quilting :)

I've tentatively titled this piece water works.

It will have to wait

I was almost finished my project... and I was really happy with it too. I decided to make it into a pillow instead of a wall hanging (it just told me to use it that way)... and was just adding the finishing touches when our world turned upside down. We left in such a hurry that I don't even have a pic to show you how it looked.  Oh well...perhaps you may pass by my blog sometime later in the year and it will be there all finished and in its place.
I have loved looking at all your projects evolve over the last 12 months and have enjoyed your company along the way. Congrats to all the players and especially to our host for organising this fun project. I hope to meet you all again...perhaps next time!
Cheers....Cheryll

Janet R10

I did quilting on both of mine for round 10.  I had put this off for long enough.  I didn't post a new picture of the prairie piece.  I hand-quilted in the ditch for most of the piece.  The only exceptions are some additional quilting lines at the large wheat head.  That is obviously where my R11 more embellishment needs to go.  Anyway, it didn't look different in a picture.

I did post a picture of a portion of my pink flamingo one.  I love the colors in this, but overall, it has gotten really busy.  I wanted the flamingos to pop a little more.  So I started with hand-quilting around the perimeter of each of the three main flamingos.  I did two rows of that.  Then I used machine stitch lines through the background, jumping over the flamingo spaces.  I like it.  It sort of ties together all the various shapes in the background and helps separate the flamingo shapes.

I am really enjoying this as it has forced me to stretch my imagination.  Thank you, Kate, for organizing it.  I'm trying to tie up lose ends (UFOs) in my quilt stash, so I hope to get on to rounds 11 and 12 for both quilts soon.

R12: Narelle

Wow! What a journey ... has it really been 12 months?

A big thankyou to Kate for the concept of a Stay at Home Robin and inviting us to join in. I'm usually a pattern follower when making quilts with a small change here and there sometimes. This was a great way to 'think for myself' about each step with guidance from Kate's instructions ... I hope that I have managed to balance each little quilt well enough.

Both quilts are now bound and labels attached.

Before binding the blue wall hanging I decided I liked it better upside down so I reversed it before binding and hanging.

The End.

R12: Plum - and a giveaway!

 Finished!  You may remember that I bound it last month so that I could finish the machine work on it before adding more beads.  I've added a few more beads and a label, and now I'm calling it done.

I have to be honest, though, and say that choosing colours away from my usual spectrum has been interesting, but hasn't given me a quiltlet that I want to display.

So, if the colours or some other aspect of it appeal to you, please drop me a line and I'll choose out of a hat (if there is more than one person who'd like it) and send it to you.  You can contact me either direct (plumcox at tesco dot net) or via my blog.  I hope this is OK Kate and doesn't break any of your stay at home rules if my quiltlet goes roaming!

 I've put a couple more detail shots here. You might just be able to make out the flower garden either side of the house.

I'm looking forward to seeing the other little quilts as they are finished.

Thanks, Kate, for organising us and setting us these challenges.  I've enjoyed it all.

R12: Amo

Here's Amo's finished piece - she's blogged about it over here...

Step 12

Many thanks to Plum who reminded me that I hadn't yet posted the June step. This is the final step, folks. I wonder how many of you will actually have a finished project - I know I won't. But that's ok - it's your mini quilt.

So, without further ado, Step 12 is: sleeve (if desired) and bind your quilt! And put a label on, too, if you want to. And don't forget to show photos!

R11: Narelle

I was worried I may not make it this month but finally found some time yesterday to get embellishing.

With the blue I've added 3 lemon and 3 dragonfly fabric pom poms. The bottom centre rectangle still needs something but I'll think on it a bit longer.


The chickens were a little hungry on the tan piece so I've stitched some gold beads for corn. Then I added some red beads in the shape of a heart. I'd like to add more but will wait till the binding is on and see what else it needs.


Thankyou Kate. This has been a wonderful journey and I can't wait for the final reveal.

R11: Plum Cox

 Having quilted last month, I wanted to embellish this month (as instructed!) but also wanted to bind it before I embellished (perhaps jumping the gun a little).  I was lazy and didn't make bias binding for it, but used straight binding and pulled it into shape around the curvy edges.

After that I added a few beads - a scatter over the top right corner, a few larger beads  near the middle, and some more picking out the quilting line on my liberated star.  I may manage some more, but at the moment I'm not sure what more it needs.  The House Critics (DDs 1 and 2) have only two complaints, that there is only one figure on it and that her dress is a bit dull (in fact they pointed out that I had all the colours of the rainbow to choose from, and grey was probably the dullest one to go for.....).

I just need some help with a title for it now.  Any ideas?

Janet- Round 9 Flamingo

I'm really not sure what's going on with this one.  For round 9 I finally decided to applique another flamingo on it.  I think it's starting to balance out a bit.  I plan on quilting for round 10 on both of mine.  I'm just a little behind getting these done.

Round 10/11 Gene Black

For round 10 (I think) I added the embroidered flower in the pink square on this piece. It is subtle but it is there. I actually embroidered it three times with my embroidery machine.

 This picture shows some of my wavy grid quilting -up close.  This is done freemotion with lines going first down and then across the piece.  Easy and effective.

 Here is the piece all quilted and waiting for the next step.

I decided to not finish the other piece. I will use it in some other project.

Round 10: Plum Cox

Quilted!  A couple of detail shots too, as the quilting doesn't really show up on the 'whole quilt' photo.  I've also cut the edges to it's final wobbly shape......

Step 11

Another month - who can believe it? Anyway, here's your instructions for this month:

a) if you quilted your quilt last month, then embellish it in some way

b) if you didn't quilt it last month, guess what? Yep - quilt it!

R10: Winter Star

R10: Narelle

At the start of the month I decided to quilt both pieces but couldn't think how I wanted to quilt the blue so I left it and worked on the tan piece.

Finally last week I decided on some simple stitch in the ditch.

For the tan piece I started off with some straight line quilting with the idea of forming diamond shapes but didn't like it so .... unpick!

Then I decided it was a good chance to practice some free motion quilting. With the red applique hearts and blue embroidered flowers it seemed like a vine of hearts and flowers was the go.

Here's a closeup of some of the hearts and flowers.

R9: Winter Star

R7 & R8: Winter Star

R6: Winter Star

R8 & R9: Vero

Rd 10. Cheryll S

Well... I'm HaPPy... I think I can live with my effort.... especially since we didn't know what we were doing when we started. Kate was very sneeky and good at keeping secrets... but this will now probably hang in the house this Christmas and not end up in the garage as I had previously thought!

I added the teapot in the right corner, the bells in the centre and then "Ho Ho Ho" to finish off.

Lets see what Kate has in store for May....

Janet- R9 Prairie

I've never embroidered before, so this was a challenge.  In fact, the entire SAHR has pushed me outside my comfort zone and that's why I'm loving this.  For this round on the prairie quilt I added some embroidered outlines to the wheat stalk to help define it.  The embroidery really does help the element.

 I have no idea what I'm going to do with the flamingo one yet, and I haven't decided what to do about round 10 yet.  I love seeing everyone else's ideas.

Thanks, Kate.

Round 10!

OK. The last two rounds have been fairly straightforward - this one is not hard, but you do have a choice to make. So, here goes:

1. If you think you are going to want to embellish your quilt (beads, buttons, doodads, charms, other things which will get in the way of quilting) then this month, you will need to QUILT your piece.

2. If you don't think you are going to want to embellish your quilt then you should either:

2a. Applique or Embroider something on your quilt OR
2b: Rest.

Only two more months to go after this one - I wonder how many of us will actually have a finished product at the end?

Round 8: Annette

I've had this photo sitting on my desktop for ages, but I've been a bit bad about keeping up to date with this round robin - my apologies. I see that I'm not the only one, though!

Anyway, this is Annette's round 8 - the first embroidery round... I'm back-dating it a little so it falls before the new round which, I know, I should have posted yesterday, not today. Is anyone ready for it anyway?

Round 7: Lisa

Rd 9: Cheryll S

Although I once again added applique (Xmas tree), I did add some machine embroidery and plan to add stars and a button to complete this round. Of course I can't actually sew the button on yet... but it is part of the whole picture. You have to look very closely to see all the tree pretties but they are there and look better in real life!

Hope you all enjoy round 9 and ThAnKs again to Kate!

R9: Narelle

If I ever need a second opinion Jayne is always happy to give my sewing the once over.

This month I took Kate's suggestion and added a little embroidery to my pieces. A yellow dragonfly has landed on the blue ...

... here he is a little closer.

Three blue flowers blossomed on the left side of the tan ...

... a closer look.

I'm looking forward to checking out others' embelishments.