Questions About Borders - Flowers for Alison

I have had a couple of questions on Facebook and Etsy about the borders for Flowers for Alison.  The various options you can try are listed in the Border Option sheet which you can download from the BOM page on the blog and is an automatic download on the Pattern for month 7 when you purchase the pattern.  I have had to keep the listing as 7 separate patterns as there are so many files to download and it is easier that way.  The total cost for all the Patterns is $21  which I think is pretty reasonable as there is a lot of work involved.     Please note that my borders are mitred but I haven't given instructions to mitre the border as this is the first time I have done it and I am in no way and expert.  There are tutorials on the web.

There are no templates for the borders as these are templates that have been used in the centre of the quilt.  The vase from block 1 and the bowl from block 7 are in the corners and just use your favourite flower templates to fill in the spaces.  The vines are made using 12mm, 9mm and 6mm Clover Bias makers.  

The vine placement is really organic.  I just put the border on the ironing board put dots of roxanne glue on the bias and ironed the bias trip down just curving it this way and that.  I put down the basis then add the flowers, if I though there was a bit too much of a gap or not enough flowers in one section I simply added a bit more vine stem and stuck another flower on.

The original intention of the BOM was only for the centre section of the quilt which was how I ran the last BOM and then gave you options for how to finish the quilt.  This has come about because I never want to make a BOM the same as the original and I figure other people might be the same.  This time there are options for smaller sized quilts as well as the original which will be queen size.  There are also instructions for cutting the borders if you have directional fabric or if you are happy to have joins.   My next BOM will be run similarly.

New Website

I've started a website for my Etsy Shop.  You can get to it through Seabreezequilts.com.au

I'm trialling the website for a bit.  There are links down the bottom to all my social media and blog but it makes it easier for people to find my shop this way.

Flowers for Alison Progress and next BOM

I am hoping to do more regular blogposts going forward, my other writing gig has paused for now.

Here is a photo of the progress for Flowers for Alison if you follow my Instagram and Facebook page you will get more regular progress.  Now that the first corner is finished and I am liking what I see, I more inclined to power on with the rest of it now.  I'm up to stitching the vines on the two corners which weren't previously done, which is boring as hell and I can't wait to start stitching flowers.  It amazing how much the appliqué was lifted once the leaves got stitched in place.

I've been thinking about my next BOM because July will be here before we know it.  I just purchased 25cm of Jen Kingwell's new range Behind the Scenes and I think that will be the basis of the backgrounds for the next BOM and I am going with Appliqué and Piecing again this year I enjoy it more than just straight piecing.

I have a total of 8½m of the fabrics and my initial thoughts are pieced backgrounds with pieced borders round each of the blocks.  The range is a mixture of grey, whites and creams which I think will give a lot of movement to the blocks and I will team it with lots of bright appliqué because that is my thing.  At the moment I am thinking 9 blocks all of uniform size.  Once I nut something out on EQ I'll give you a sneak peak, but at the moment it is all in my head.

I will leave you with a picture of my favourite notion at the moment, Roxanne Glue in this handy squeeze bottle which means you can suck the glue back out of the needle and it doesn't get clogged  up which is my main gripe with the other Roxanne Glue bottle.  Roxanne Glue stays soft and it is easy to stitch through even if you get a bit too liberal with it (especially on the stems).  The only way they could improve this squeeze bottle would be if they made them refillable.  

I'll leave you with some funnies I found on Pinterest.







Follow Seabreeze Quilts's board Humour on Pinterest.

Books and Music and a bit of Stitching Thrown In

The borders of Flowers for Alison are slow going, the mojo's a bit out the window at the moment, work is a bit stressful so I'm losing myself in books as I'm not sleeping very well and the kindle is helping my while away the hours.

A few weeks ago I discovered Bookbub.com through Pinterest.  The website lists all free or really cheap books on Amazon, Kibo, Ibooks.  You put in your favourite authors and genre's and every morning you get a listing of books that meet your categories.

Most of the time I look the books up on Goodreads (another good book readers sight) it gives you reviews by other readers, you can list the books you read, be friends with others and then they see what you are reading and if what you think of the books that you have read.  I'm doing the book reading challenge and put down 100 books for the year, and I'm way ahead of the game at the moment, I'm a pretty fast reader and I have a kindle full of books at the moment.    You can also have a too read list so you can put up books you see on the interweb or out and about and list them.  I always forget authors names and book names so it is good to go back and choose some that that you have on your list.

Back to Bookbub some of the free books are a bit crap but they're free so you haven't lost anything, but sometimes you find a gem and you really like an authors style so you don't mind going a purchasing some of their other books.   I've just finished reading Crescent Moon by Lori Handeland (Paranormal) and I really liked it so I'm going to go and download some more of her books.  I like to read series until I don't care for them any more which sometimes happens.  

Recently I have added another couple of bands/boys to my Spotify play list.  Gang of Youths, Matt Corby and Miike Snow. I think this will enable to listen to my playlist but who knows.