Queensland Flood Relief Update

i'm behind in posting this, but i wanted to say thank you to everyone who blogged about the Queensland Flood Relief, especially about my pillow, and to everyone who bid on items, especially my pillow! and a huge amount of thanks needs to go to toni at make it perfect, along with the others who helped her out!

the blogging community raised an incredible, staggering amount!

$99,089!!!!

that is INCREDIBLE!!

Queensland Flood Appeal Auction

This auction is for a quilted pillow cover made of solid teal linen and cotton from Moda’s new line “Hoopla”. The cover is sized to fit a 16”x16” pillow snugly, it’s about 15” square.

The pillow shows two rows of bunting across the pillow, my very first paperpiecing design. The back is solid teal, with the exception of a short row of bunting in the bottom right corner. These bunting flags have been used as the quilt label, and one has my name and country machine embroidered on it, and the other states “Queensland Flood Relief Jan 2011”. There is a lapped zipper across the back of the pillow. The inside of the pillow is all tidy, with the outside edges serged to reduce ravelling, and all the patchwork edges hidden by an extra layer of fabric. For more info and pictures of the pillow cover, please see the blog post i made about it. Feel free to comment on that post even if you aren't bidding!

The pillow form is NOT included, because it’ll cost more to ship than it would to buy a pillow form. it's silly, i know.

Bidding will start at $30 (let’s say Australian to keep it simple). If you need to calculate the difference between Australian dollars and your currency, xe.com is quick and easy to use, but right now Canadian, US and Australian dollars are practically at par anyway.


You place your bid by leaving a comment on this blog post with your bid amount and email address. Please make sure that your bid is higher than the previous bidder. You might want to refresh your page after you comment, in case you posted at the same time as someone else.

Your bid must be in whole dollar increments.

This auction is open to EVERYONE, though an extra charge will apply if shipping is over $10 - $12 cdn (ie, if you want priority shipping, etc). If you happen to be local (Vancouver, Lower Mainland), we can arrange a meet up instead.



The auction begins NOW and will END at midnight PST on Monday 24th January 2011.

I will contact the winner via e-mail. If you do not have your e-mail address in your blogger profile, you MUST have it in your comment. You will pay the winning amount directly to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal (they take international credit cards, but the charge is in Australian dollars, hence the bidding in Australian dollars) and forward me the proof of payment that they e-mail you or a jpg of the screenshot. If there is a shipping charge, you will paypal that to me. If payment is not completed within 24 hours, I will move to the bid below. That’ll suck, for me, but especially for the Flood Relief, since that bid will be lower. So please don’t suck, kay?!

Once payment is made, I will mail the pillow off to you via Canada Post.

Thank you for participating and happy bidding! Don't forget to to check out the master list at make it perfect, there are so many amazing things being auctioned off, and some awesome raffles too!

hoopla bunting pillow!

PLEASE BID ON THE AUCTION POST, WHICH CAN BE FOUND HERE


a little while ago i ordered some charm packs from one of my favourite etsy shops. they're all Moda, and most of them were lines that are just now coming out in yardage. i ordered Modern Workshop, Central Park, Hideaway and Hoopla, and i love them! (especially Hideaway, since i'm obsessed with cuckoo clocks!)

i really wanted to make something fun with them, but they're just 5"x5" squares... i searched around looking at patterns, but most of them required a charm pack PLUS a jelly roll or something, or were for things that are pretty, but so not usable (how do people keep their tables clear enough for runners anyway?!). i thought about a pillow, but i couldn't decide on a design. all of my favourite types of squares, like log cabins, need longer strips...

i hemmed and hawed a bit, reluctant to cut into the squares without the perfect project, and then i ran across the Queensland Flood Appeal that Toni at Make It Perfect is organizing, and i knew it was the perfect reason to use some of my fancy new fabric.

at the same times, i ran across another blog that inspired me to think about buntings (i'll post about that blog later), and i realized that bunting flags were the perfect use for charm squares. i decided to use Hoopla, since it has a lot of small prints that are cute regardless of direction. i found linen in the most amazing shade of teal, and knew it was perfect for the background.

and then, because i've been slightly obsessed with paper piecing patterns lately, i somehow decided that i should paper piece the pillow, and that this would be the perfect time to draft my very first paper piecing design. you know - when i'm on a deadline, and using precious fabric that i can't get more of immediately. i'm clever like that, you know.

and so, the epic paper pieced pillow that took longer than some quilts emerged!



i'm so in love with it. i was giddy every time i looked at it for the first few days (and then the giddiness turned to panic when i realized i was running out of time!).



i learned a few good lessons about paperpiecing while working on this project, a few that i was able to fix as i went along, and one that i wasn't, but it's okay. (i wish i hadn't made the patterns all the same size - if i'd split the top half less evenly, the centre flag wouldn't have a seam through it)



i thought about using plain white kona for the bunting string, but that seemed rather blah. the hoopla line contains a tiny white on white dot,and luckily the charm pack had two of them. i cut them into 1" strips and pieced them together, and managed to do all of the string out of them. barely! i think i had a 1"x1" square left over!



the back is solid teal, except for the short row of bunting in the bottom right corner. i used those flags for my quilt label, and machine embroidered on them. one has my name and country, and the other states “Queensland Flood Relief Jan 2011”.





there's a lapped zipper across the back of the pillow, i used one of my cherished dead-stock vintage zippers. it’s a lighter shade of blue, and says “lightning” on the cute rounded tab. (i totally <3 lighting brand zippers!)



i used a layer of cotton quilt batting backed with thin white cotton for the front, and a layer of flannelette for the back. i wanted to be able to enclose the zipper edges in the batting, and regular batting would have been too bulky to fold over. but i did still want the wrinkled look after quilting, so i didn't preshrink the flannelette.



i'm going to do a second post for the auction itself, to keep bids and comments separate. (cause i'm hoping you'll comment!)

soooo..... what do ya think?