Online Quilter's Meet & Greet

Hello and welcome to the Online Quilter's Meet & Greet hosted by Benita of Victoriana Quilt Designs.

For those who haven't visited my blog before, my name is Julie and I have been blogging here at JulieLou since 2013.

Originally I started my blog as a way for  my mum and sister who don't live  near me to see my quilting  and other craftwork, both progress and finished projects.  I now blog about the things that make me happy: quilting, EPP, embroidery and applique, my garden, cooking, hiking, reading and my latest foray into making clothes.

I don't think I have a definitive quilting style.  I'm definitely not scared to use colour, and if anything,  I seem to have a phobia about using white in my quilts.  Low volume is fine, white just doesn't seem to happen. Grey is probably my go to neutral. Scrappy quilts of some description are probably my favourite to make.

Scrappy Sampler Quilt

My favourite fabric designer is Anna Maria Horner - I adore her brightly coloured bohemian styled fabrics.  My latest quilt finish and current favourite was made from her fabrics that I had been hoarding in my stash.

AMH Trellis Garden Quilt

Liberty fabrics are also a favourite and have been used in lots of little items like pin cushions and needle cases, as well as a quilt.

Liberty Needlebook

Last year I discovered the joy of wool felt applique and embroidery, Bird Dance was my first project using these materials and I enjoyed it so much I have recently finished Solstice Dream another wool applique hanging.

Bird Dance

I enjoy EPP too, my WIP (which I haven't touched since January) is my Ice Cream Soda Blossoms quilt, which I am still hoping to turn into a finished quilt this year.  I think hexis are my favourite shape to play with though.

There are still lots of quilts I'd like to make, and I have lots of fabric to be used, so there will always be something being created with fabric and thread here at JulieLou.  For stories and pictures on all the quilts I've made, check out my Quilt Gallery here.

To meet some other  inspiring online quilters, click the link below this image

Meet & Greet Here

and if you'd like the chance to win some fabulous prizes click the link below this image.

Enter Here

Thanks for joining me here today.

Weekending

In the garden

• loving seeing honey bees again, these ones especially, were enjoying my lemon blossoms
• new season vegetable seedlings have been planted - a grafted cherry tomato, which should give me yellow and red tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, capsicum and parsley so far.

Sewing

• sewing up those AMH squares

Cooking

• preparing lemons for a batch of lemon and beetroot chutney, I also made some lemon curd.   I still have a lot of lemons to use up.

In my Home

• Bird Dance is finally hanging on the wall. looking right at home with my  bright cushions and crochet throw.

Reading

• fiction and non fiction.  I'm thinking that cookbook may need to be added to my collection, some beautiful middle eastern inspired salads in it.

Wishing you all a fabulous week ahead.

**PS:  if you think I'm super productive in the weekends, I'm not really, once a fortnight I have a 4 day weekend, Thursday-Sunday, so I get a lot more done on those days.**

Bird Dance - Completed

Meeka thinks any quilt is for her.

My sister Janine's Bird Dance Quilt.

On Wednesday last week,  I received a parcel at work.  Lots of happy jumpy claps followed.  It was my Bird Dance Quilt returning from being quilted by Leanne otherwise known as Quiltmekiwi.

Leanne also quilted my sister's Bird Dance quilt, so I knew she would do a beautiful job.  Every bird block has been quilted differently using Leeanne's free range doodling skills. The birds just POP.

My quilt differed from my sister's, in that I omitted the berries that were appliqued and embellished on the border, so I asked Leanne to do feathery flourishy quilting on that.

Batting is a wool/poly blend provided by Leeanne.  The backing was a fabric from  Laura Gunn's Cosmos Collection, and because I had plain borders, I felt that I could get away with a bright multicoloured binding so used a Philip Jacobs print called Tree fungi which picked up a lot of the colours.

The last photos shows both my sister's and my Bird Dance quilt, completed in colours and styles that are individual to us.

Now we're trying to decide on a project for next year, the cushion I had originally picked has fallen off the want to make list.

Have a fabulous weekend.

**To see the story behind us making this quilt see here  and here**

Birds and Flowers

Image from here

It has been the most glorious fine weather this weekend, and to top off spending the  morning in the garden and mowing lawns, all 30 birds for my Bird Dance project have been finished and sewn together.

I have decided not to make the berry border for it,( much to my sister's disgust) because I figure I'll never get it finished otherwise,  I am now just waiting on the delivery of some felt for the borders and then I think I will splurge and get it quilted professionally.

I have enjoyed making these birds in conjunction with my sister - it has been  quite fun to each work on the same project, but know they will be totally different reflecting our own personalities and tastes.I have learnt a lot of new stitches, have developed a love of beautiful threads. and think that there may be an embroidery project somewhere in my future.

Now that my bird dance project is just about finished, it is time for my sister Janine and I, to start the felt/embroidery project of my choosing.  I debated long and hard whether to do another Sue Spargo project or a Wendy Williams quilt using these materials.  In the end, in what was a fortuitous find, I happened to be looking through a new quilt book at the library one day, when I came across this project for a mini quilt with applique flowers and embroidery.  Straight away, I knew that this was my project.

While I was in Australia, I presented the pattern to my sister, and we picked the fabric we will use as  as our background.  Very hard to see in this light, but it is a textured deep inky blue cotton.  We may not do the border of tiny half square triangles it requires, but are looking at other options, whether a patterned fabric, or a trim of some description.  All that is left now is for me to choose my colour palette,  and then I can start this project, with the aim of finishing it by the end of the year.

Time to relax with a cuppa and a good book now.  Have a great week.

Weekending

Winter has well and truly set in, it has been so gray and wet lately, a very cold week ahead has been forecast, and to top it off both Miss B and Mr J have started the school holidays choked up with sore throats, colds and sinus pain.  In between playing nurse and house cleaner, here's a little of what is keeping me amused this weekend.

• Needing just the right shade of pink for another bird, I dashed up to my thread/fabric shop, of course I came out with some other goodies.

• The completed bird (legs and eyes still to do) looks pretty great though, the variegated thread was a perfect match for it.

• A huge bowl of lemons, from a friend who answered my pitiful text for surplus fruit, means lemon honey drinks are being consumed by the patients.

• A beautiful new cookbook from the library (this may go on my birthday ideas list) and the new Adriana Trigiani book.

Time to do some baking (with lemons I think) now, and  then hopefully another bird.  Have a fabulous week.

Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE

Orange and berry seems to be my favoured colour palette for mystitching projects this week.

 Another bird, (this may end up being one of my favourites) for my bird dance project, which when this one is completed means I have three more left to go. Then comes the fun part of sewing on all their little eyes, and then all 30 blocks together.  I am a wee bit behind with mine, my sister has totally finished hers, and will probably have started the next project which is of my choosing before I get these birds done.

I have also, in anticipation of rewarding my self for finishing them, prepped another Ice Cream Soda block.

This week Linda and I thought we'd ask the question:

What's in a name? Do you ever wonder how or why someone chooses a blog name? 

Mine is very simple, I couldn't think of any blog name or title that fully covered everything I like to write about, so in the end decided that seeing it was about me, I may as well name it after me. 

JulieLou:  Julie being my first name and Lou an abbreviation of my middle name Louise

Now, it's YOUR turn to share, as well as linking up your sewing and stitching projects following these guidelines, could you also share with us the reason for your blog title . . . we want to get to know you better.

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching,
2. Somewhere in your post, please link to this post.
3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew,Stitch, Snap, Share links - it's fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and keep blogging too.