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Australian quilter Sarah Fielke has designed a range of quilt fabric for Spotlight and a quilt to showcase this fabric. I decided to use fabric I already had. It was a mystery quilt so we had no idea what it was going to look like at the end or what the next block would look like. It was exciting looking at Spotlight's facebook page each fortnight to see the next block.
When the final layout was revealed I wasn't quite sure I liked it. I had a play laying out my blocks in more symmetrial patterns but in the end I decided I do actually like the assymmetrical layout:
Again, I had fabric left over and used it for the back. I think I got a bit carried away as the back looks like it could be a top!
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Beading has taken a little bit of a back seat over the last few months. In September last year I was looking through all the classes on the Craftsy website and found a free class for a Block of the Month sampler quilt. I had always thought quilting was too fiddly and time consuming but watching the class, it didn't look that fiddly and making only two blocks each month wasn't that time consuming. Each month was a different technique too so I was going to learn lots. And now I'm rather hooked!
Here's that first quilt top finished:
I had quite a bit of fabric left over which I thought I'd use to make the back with but I had no idea how. Then I found another Craftsy class about making Creative Backs and this is what I came up with:
Rather excited after finishing my first blocks and discovering they were so easy, I went looking for tutorials and found a youtube video by Jenny Doan from Missouri Star Quilt Company, demonstrating a jelly roll race quilt. I just couldn't resist the idea of sewing a seam 20 metre (800") long! Here's how mine ended up:
My first long seam took half an hour to sew and it took about 1 1/2 hours to do all the long seams (excluding the borders). There's a lady at Heirloom Creations who can do the race bit in only 35 minutes! They posted a youtube video.
My local craft shop didn't have a great selection of jelly rolls when I went to buy fabric so I bought fat quarters and made my own strips. I had heaps of fabric left over but Jenny had another tutorial - a block designed by 3 Dudes:
I made another one with rainbow colours:
Now I just need to put them all together with their backs and some batting. I don't have a non-carpet floor big enough in my house but happily a friend does.
Then the next task is learning to free motion quilt and deciding which quilting design to use on which quilt. So much of crafting seems to be making decisions! But that's where the magic happens because we all make different decisions so create different pieces.
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I've found a new bead shop!! While I was at the Bead Hold after our July Bead Club, another customer mentioned she'd been to a new bead shop in Milford. A new bead shop on the Shore!! I was entrigued. So on Saturday I went to find it.
It's called Bead Boutique Inc and it's in the little arcade (Centre Court) just along from the intersection of Kitchener, Shakespeare and Omana Rds and Fenwick Ave. It's been open only a couple of months and is a small shop but she has a nice range of beads, semi-precious and findings. She held kids' classes in the holidays and is looking to do adult classes too. She's also thinking about having a bead club - the sort where you bring your own projects and enjoy working with other people of like mind. I'll definitely be going. 
Nice to finally have a proper bead shop close to me on the Shore again.
Nov 2012 - Sadly this shop has closed. The owner had some personal issues that meant she couldn't keep the shop.
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Our July bead club project was a Loopy Bezel Pendant. I used a river stone. I think it worked really well. I'm going to have a go at turned a series of them into a bracelet - watch this space for the result.