Tuesday 26 June 2012

A Kaleidoscope Birthday!

There's another birthday girl in my house this week!

My youngest is 11 today!  I decided it was time she got her own sewing machine & accessories, as she is a natural sewer (& at least one of my offspring should carry on my craft, right?)

She was chuffed to bits this morning with the machine (which she has since named 'Hector') and all the notions and fabric she got.

I also had this parcelled up for her:




An embarrassingly long time ago I started a Kaleidoscope QAL with Don't Call Me Betsy!

Nothing went right with this project, from beginning to end!  I lost my mojo with it early on when, after cutting out all the fabric, I realised the template wasn't symmetrical.  But I persisted and got the top made.

I then had to make a pieced back (my nemesis!) which of course wasn't straightforward (I miscalculated!).

But I persisted and got the back made!


When it was finally basted, I sewed a couple of diagonal lines, lost my mojo again, and parked it for about 8 months!

I recently set up my machine to FMQ the Pippi quilt and thought I may as well get this beast fmq'd too, and have a wee FMQ-fest!

Despite a few tension problems, I persisted and got it FMQ'd (can you see the recurring theme?).


Joy oh joy, the worst bit was over!  Just the binding left to go.

Well in true 'nothing going right with this project' style, I had a piece of perfect green fabric left for the binding, and guessing (!!) that it would be enough, I made the binding, sewed it on, and ended up short by about 10"!  Aargghh!

(If any of my students are reading this, this is not how you go about making a quilt!)

But I persisted, fudged together some leftover bits and got the binding finished!  Phew!

This quilt was quite a journey in how not to do things well, but the response from my nature/green loving girl made it all worth it!


Happy Birthday my sweet!  And happy birthday too, to another fabulously talented lady!

Party on!

20 comments:

  1. Happy birthday :-) you'd never know the quilt gave you such a hard time, it's beautiful :-)

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  2. It's a gorgeous quilt even if it did give you lots of trouble! Happy birthday to the eleven year old - I hope she and Hector have lots of fun!

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  3. Happy Birthday to your "little" girl!
    The quilt is great! Don't look at what went wrong. Be happy and proud that you made such a wonderful quilt and I am sure, she will love it!

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  4. Gorgeous quilt for a gorgeous girl. A very happy birthday to her and what a wonderful present - quilt and machine of her own!!

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  5. Happy Birfday to you and the littleun. Hope you are all having a lovely week!

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  6. Happy Birthday to your daughter! Def worth all your persistance to finish that quilt, it is beautiful!

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  7. Aww, happy birthday to her, and well done for conquering the Mount Everest of quilting nightmares ;o)

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  8. The quilt is lovely and she clearly loves it! Happy Birthday for her!

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  9. So lovely to see wee lass happy with her quilt :-) Well done you for sticking with it through all that!!

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  10. Happy 11th! My youngest has her 12th soon! Great quilt - whatever its birthing pangs were!

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  11. love the quilt, it was defintely worth all the time it took. Happy birthday to your daughter

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  12. Beautiful quilt....I know she must really love it!! Happy Birthday to your girlie!

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  13. Happy birthday to your daughter! What a nice smile with her holding the quilt. Kudos to you for persevering through a difficult quilt!! You're a patient lady to keep going back to push through the problems-that's what your students need to hold on to ;-) Great quilt and a lovely gift of a sewing machine to start another generation quilting.

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  14. Happy Birthday to Miss Kaleidoscope!!! The quilt hides your secret struggles very well because it shows none of the trauma and just loveliness. Hope she has lots of summer fun getting better acquainted with Hector! (Hector?!)

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  15. Gorgeous quilt for a gorgeous girl there. It looks perfect to me I'd have never have guessed all the struggles you had getting it to look this good! Hope she has a very happy birthday and enjoys playing with Hector. Hope you share with us some of the lovelies she makes. (And I'm not even going to ask why Hector!?)

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  16. Great job! and great finish! Looks very snugglie!

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  17. It was totally worth the pain - the quilt is beautiful like her! Happy birthday youngster!
    Oh and thank you xxx

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  18. Oh I have done that so many times with binding, all good in the end tho.

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  19. Looks like the quilt was a hit! Hopefully that makes up for all the hiccups a long the way! Di x

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  20. Judith! It's gorgeous! Absolutely beautiful and makes the perfect birthday present for a lucky girl. Fantastic quilt, J.

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