Hubblebird's Quilt Blog

I recently blogged about finishing ' Blue Mind ' where I had problems with binding the frayed edges of a damask border. A double bind to fix my mistake After squaring up my quilt (late at night, and always a mistake) I made my binding in the usual way, and machine stitched it down.  Instead of cutting binding strips 2.5 inches wide, I opted to make a 3 inch wide binding, and sew that down with a half inch seam.  In this way I figured I would have enough binding to stabilise my fraying fabric.   Unfortunately, that half inch seam did not cover the frayed edges of the damask border, which had steadily crept in.  I actually needed the seam to be 3/4 inch wide.  However, having already sewn the binding onto the edge of the quilt, I was reluctant to unpick those stitches on the fragile damask. My options were: (1) Unpick, resize the quilt by trimming another half inch all round, and then resew the binding back on. (2) Try to fix what I already had by sewing insi...

 "Blue mind is the mildly meditative state people fall into when they are near, in, under or on water." 87.5 inches square; batting 60% wool 40% polyester; fat quarters & second-hand fabrics; Moda 'Aviary' wide backing I'm lucky enough to live close to the ocean, and every morning I can walk my dog on any one of half a dozen beaches that are part of the Eurobodalla Shire on the east coast of NSW, Australia.  I get to enjoy the ocean every day, and it really does calm my mind. So I decided to name my very first 20-year-old quilt top 'Blue Mind' instead of its original title of 'Moody Blues'.  I've blogged about the history of this quilt here .  The emotions I was feeling at that time of my life aren't with me any more.  I came to terms with what happened many years ago, and I had to rename the quilt in my mind, too. The quilt is totally improv.  I had very little spare cash, no access to the Internet, a couple of library books, and an ol...

A big thank you to Linda  at Life and Linda for blogging about the anonymous blogger problem on Blogger blogs, and providing a fix for it. I have just sorted out my problem, so if you have a problem too, then click on Linda's link above. Good luck!

Way back in 2018 I made two pincushions from kits that I purchased at my local quilt shop. Peaceful pin-pushing A fellow quilter in my local quilt group advised me to use Amaranthus seeds to fill the pincushions, recommending them over crushed walnut shells, or any other kind of filler, including sand (yuk). I did this, and I have loved the weight, feel, and silent, pin-pushing into these pincushions ever since.  So much so, that I have made several more pincushions with Amaranthus seed fillings for friends. What do I mean about weight, feel, and sound? Well, I can’t stand the crunchy, squeaky, sound and feel of a needle being pushed into a walnut shell filled pincushion - it really makes me grit my teeth, and sounds a bit like fingernails on a school blackboard (I’m old enough to remember that sound in the classroom).  And I don’t like the lightweight feel of a pincushion stuffed with some kind of soft filler - kudos to quilters that use scrap batting as a filler, and if you...

I watch a lot of foreign films.  And, because many English language films and documentaries have such loud music (meaning I have to reach for the remote to turn down the sound, and then turn it back up again so that I can actually hear the dialogue) I always have the subtitles turned on for foreign and English language films and moderate level sound.  I do this for anything that I am streaming actually. Much better. An added bonus to the comfort of watching films this way is that sometimes the descriptions for background noise, usually in square brackets, eg [melancholy music] [footsteps clattering] are hilarious, and occasionally, completely wrong.   For example, in a recent episode of a TV series set in the English countryside, a fox screaming in the dead of night is described as [woman screams].  Anyone that has ever heard a fox in the middle of the night will never mistake it for a woman screaming.  Kate, from The Last Homely House, certainly wouldn't....

I started quilting in 2005.  I had no access to the Internet, so I borrowed books from the library to teach myself. I wanted to make a blue and white quilt for my bedroom.  Whenever I had some spare cash, I bought fat quarters in various shades of blue, and started to put simple 4 patches together.  At the same time, I found a huge amount of white damask linen at a garage sale. I combined this with the four patches which I sub-cut whichever way they fit, to create a top that I liked.  I didn't know it, but I was improvising, as I did not use a pattern and just trusted my instinct to put the top together.  I've always loved the top, but I was terrified of trying to quilt it.  And it has survived 6 house moves!   Clearly, the quilt top is dear to me.  I has a lot of history attached to it because I made it during a pretty dark time in my life.  I didn't know when to stop adding to it, and the resulting huge king size quilt top is my oldest...