weekend sewing

I'm sewing with the new Janome - yes, I packed up the old faithful Elna (sniff) and put her away and set up Jilly the Janome !

the first block I sewed was the halloween block that I needed to applique and I used the blanket stitch which went pretty well - just don't look too closely at the zig zag chimney - I definitely need some practice!

then I sewed the binding on Lucy's pram cover and also made the strip ties and she sewed like a dream!  This is my a lovely year of finishes project for January - just need to hand sew the binding and sew on the ties so I should make the deadline !

I love the extension table - its nice and big and made sewing the binding on very easy.  My only issue is that it sits a bit higher than the Elna so when I put my chair higher my legs sit firmly under the drawers of the table - so I might have to find another table at some stage but for now I'll cope !

I also finished a couple of craftsy blocks - only one more to do!

The friendship circle block - its paper pieced and its a block that I've fallen in love with - I can see a whole quilt made from this block.

 

and the wonky log cabin block - I had used a fabric for the centre that looked terrible when it was finished a while ago so I unpicked it all and used a plain centre - its still not my favourite block but hopefully it will blend in with the others !

and then I sewed a border on an old embroidery that I'm going to make into a cushion.

Its a candlewick embroidery block that I made years ago - finished in 1998 to be precise - I've even dated it (bottom right!).  My excuse is that I was waiting for the perfect fabric to frame it and I think I've pretty much found it.

I'd been thinking about making some cushions for my couch for a little while and when I pulled one of the boxes out of the garage recently and opened it up I found some half made or started cushions from quite a few years ago, this being one of them!  I'm planning to get the others done very soon :)

Linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes mid month check-in!

cruising time is here !

today's the day ... the countdown is over !

I've been on the sunshine coast with my mum and dad for the past few days and we meet with the rest of my family in a few hours to board the Pacific Dawn in Brisbane - out to sea for 12 days with stops including Fiji ... well that was the picture the other day - last night we heard that tropical cyclone evan is also on its way to Fiji so things might change - fingers crossed that it doesn't hit any of the islands !

It will be such fun to catch up with the family and sail the Pacific Ocean at the same time :)

just before I go I thought I'd show what I've been sewing this week - a couple of cushions for my sister-in-law

and a table runner for one of my nieces - nothing like last minute chrissy sewing !

Hope you all have a great holiday season and I'll be back just before the new year :)

a very overdue finish

I've finally finished the March long distance quilting bee block for Joy !

I took it home with me in April and nearly got it finished and I haven't seen it since I came home, even though I knew I packed it - I was really happy when I finally found it again a few weeks ago :)

Joy asked for a gardening block so I decided to do some sunflowers, lavender, and daisies - I've redone the block since I started - I originally had the the frame just in the middle so I'm happy that I've now made it like a window frame - hope Joy likes it as well :)

this week I also made a little pouch - I  haven't made one in a while and I thought it would be handy as I didn't put a pocket in my new bag !

I straight line quilted on one side (I think I love straight line quilting !) and free motioned on the other.

the pouch went together really quickly so I'm thinking they might be on the christmas list as well :)

have a great weekend !

a little sewing !

gee - its been more than a week since I last posted and I'm not sure I have that much to show for my time away !

I've made the October long distance quilting bee block for Rhonda who requested a maple leaf block using green and earth colours/leaves.

When I uploaded a photo of my block onto flickr I discovered that the others had done the block with a light background so I decided to quickly make another one just in case I'm the only one with a dark background !

and I've finished up some blocks that may or may not have been on my to do list !

I finished the traditional dresden plate block for my craftsy bom - I just needed to applique the circle so that's another one done.

I also redid one of the craftsy blocks that I wasn't that happy with - hopefully this one might suit the quilt a little better that the original :)

I've appliqued the ball and surfboard onto my wonky house block - I made blocks for the wonky house swap at the beginning of the year and I kept this one as (a) it wasn't finished and (b) it was the first time I'd done curved piecing :) - its nice to have it finally finished as well !

As I've mentioned I'm in the Modern She Made Swap and last weekend I finally decided on the design and some fabrics to make a mini quilt for my partner.

I'm using a design by Quiltdad that he did for a cushion tutorial (along with Julie from Jaybird Quilts) over at the Moda Bakeshop - I decided to adapt it for a quilt - half square triangles with some wonky stars.  I think my love of half square triangles is bordering on obsession !

I've now got the half square triangles sewn and trimmed - just need to put them on the design wall to arrange and then sew together - I am definitely going to machine quilt this one - mainly because it needs to be in the post within two weeks.

I've also finished a little embroidery block that I started sometime last year with the idea to make a bag for mum - its using colouring pencils with embroidered outlines - its a technique used by Helen Stubbings that she calls colourqué - I really like the effect of this technique but I'm thinking now that maybe that orange is a bit out of place !

I need to make this into a project - after talking to mum I've decided not to go with a bag or pouch as she has plenty of them so hopefully it won't take me another year to think of something to do with it !  its about 6" square so if  you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them - my only thought at the moment is to make it into a mini quilt (bordered by hst - lol) !

this weekend I'm hoping to get the capsule/pram cover finished, the modern she made swap top done, and the last craftsy blocks sewn - phew - I'd better get sewing - have a great weekend :)

weekend sewing

my friend Marney had a little baby girl last week - she was a bit early as she wasn't due until the end of October - I had decided to make an hourglass block using a walk in the woods and the backing fabric only arrived late last week - so my other sewing plans for this weekend were put on hold so I could start this quilt - I've got all the blocks sewn up except two - turns out I was 2 blocks short on the white !!

I just need to finish pressing the seams open and trim up the blocks then put it on the design wall for a little while !  I used the tutorial by Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew but I've made my blocks an inch bigger - Allison does fabulous tutorials and has a great blog too :)

I also sewed together the top for a pram/capsule cover - I had a ruby charm square that I used to make a zig zag top which is 20 x 24 inches - I'll add a border to make it a bit bigger and I need to think about how to quilt it.

today I also sewed the October care at do.good stitches blocks - annabella chose the patchwork wheel block using a tutorial by elizabeth at don't call me betsy and requested jewel colours - it was a quick and easy block to do so they are ready to be mailed to morocco and hopefully they won't take too long to get there (excuse the wonky photos).

I hope you had a great sewing weekend too :)

feather your nest

I finished my projects for the feather your nest competition and uploaded them to flickr - not sure if they'll be accepted as I was working on US time and as you know - in Australia we're ahead and flickr has put yesterday's date on my uploads even though it was still sunday in the US when I uploaded them!!

so please feel free to get a cuppa at this point - you may need it - just saying !!

anyway, I had such fun doing these projects and of course, I've learnt heaps as well - such as ...

• when you're on a deadline don't leave things till the last minute as everything that can go wrong will go wrong
• don't do projects for the first time when you are on a deadline and you've left things to the last minute
• unpicking is really just another form of meditation - just keep chanting :)
• 3/8ths of an inch is 3/8ths of an inch - NOT 7/8ths of an inch !
• always buy that little bit more than you think you'll need so that if you have to re-do something you have the supplies at hand

So I decided to make a few projects for the feather your nest competition - it all started when I picked up the green cotton top at the thrift store recently - I always wanted to make the paper pieced quilters clock by Sylvie Rousell from Issue 8 of the Fat Quarterly e-zine so I thought I could do that and use the green fabric as the background fabric.

Then I thought I'd make a set of Nova's Nesting Fabric Bowls as well or maybe instead and of course I had a kit for making a table runner that I thought might be a good project as well.

So you can see I had problems right there - too many projects to decide on - so of course I decided to do them all - that was on Friday, yes, just a few days ago !

I knew I'd need a few supplies to get them all done so on Friday around lunchtime I decide to go to shopping and I also visit a couple of thrift stores just in case - so around 5pm I get back home - so I've lost a day already !! but I did pick up a thrifted checked skirt and gorgeous linen skirt for fabric purposes :)

I decide to put the charm squares for the table runner on the design wall to decide the layout - the charm squares were on that wall until Sunday night before I finally decided that was it - I wasn't moving another square - I'd have to be happy with the layout I had - I also used the thrifted red fabric for all four corners - I did want to use it for the backing but I know why it was at the thrift store - there were holes all through it !

after that it didn't take long to do but I'm thinking I might have been a bit light on with the quilting - after quilting my dsq12 mini nearly to death I've now gone the other way and only quilted a few lines - oh well, I can always do a bit of hand quilting later if I feel the need :)

meanwhile I made the nesting bowls ... well sort of ...

I bought a fabulous pattern for Nesting Fabric Bowls from Nova who blogs at a cuppa and a catch up just before I came up to queensland and I should do a separate post about the fabulous pattern !

so - the nesting bowls...
I started preparing the nesting bowls and of course I had a brain wave and thought that I'd embroider some birds onto the feature panel as I'm using a little birdie fabric for the front of the bowls.  So I go ahead and make up the lining for three bowls that I've decided to make - 4", 6", and 8" - using the thrifted fabric with cute orange and yellow daisies !

and then cut and prepare the outers for all three as well using the cute birdie fabric I purchased last week and draw up some embroidery on the panels - I'm loving all the feather your nest references - fabric, pattern, and now embroidery !

I finally finished the embroidery on the small bowl and though I'd just check to see how long it would take to finish it up so I knew how long I'd have to get the others done - so I sewed it up and went to insert the lining only to find that I'd in fact read the instructions wrong and had cut 7/8ths of an inch rather than 3/8ths of an inch so that the linings for all the bowls were way to big - so at that point I gave up.

 

 

just a slight size difference !

The next day I realised I didn't have the required interfacing to redo all three linings so I decided to do just the small one to enter into the competition and I'll finish the others soon :)  and this way I'll have six bowls as I'll make new outers for the already made linings and then make new linings for the already made outers !

so after all this I decide that I still have time to embark on another untested project - yes, I think I might be quite mad !!

enter the quilter's clock and paper pieced at that !  so I print out the pattern onto scrap paper that my dad had as I couldn't find any plain copy paper - big mistake - always use plain paper that has not previously been used and preferably very thin paper when doing paper piecing - hot irons and ink from inkjet printers don't go to well together !

I pushed on and only had to unpick one seam which I was pretty pleased with until I went to sew the quarters together - I didn't line up the seams properly so unpicked all of those - wish I had of checked after the first one - but still - unpicking is a form of meditation, unpicking is a form of meditation - keep chanting !!

but really, it went together pretty easy after that apart from trying to get the thick paper off the back without upsetting the seams too much - though the clock mechanism was easy to put together - the only thing I'd do differently next time is to put batting or a medium interfacing behind the fabric to give it a bit of support before putting it in the hoop - as the green background fabric used to be a shirt it was fairly thin - and of course use plain, thin paper - but another fun pattern that I highly recommend - it will look so good on the wall of my craft room and I'll be able to keep an eye on the time for my deadlines !!

 

and just before I go ...

here's a photo of pippi with her new jumper - I bought a kids jumper from the thrift shop on Saturday - we had a cold snap and she was shivering badly - and modified it by taking it in at the back and front and chopping off most of the sleeves (yes, I did that in a spare five minutes !)

I just love the stripey mohawk look and also the cowl collar - and I think she loved it too :)

and this is a photo of her (very) late Saturday night - the face says it all doesn't it ! I think she was a bit fed up with all the sewing activity :)

 

now ... onto my other deadlines :)

hi from queensland

so here I am in Queensland on holidays for the next seven weeks - I arrived last Saturday and I've had a busy week with mum and dad - I'm here to look after their house while they go on a cruise for five weeks - they left this morning so I'm finally able to get back online and also get some serious sewing done.

I've given my little camera to mum to take on the cruise and so made a cute and simple case for it yesterday.

 

In mum's sewing room I discovered some little closures that were just perfect as they had red tops - they are really easy to do and mum said I could take them with me so I'll be using them again for sure...not quite sure what they're called but they're kind of like press studs without the need to sew !

 

I'm catching up with blogs and emails today so tomorrow I can start on some sewing - hope the next five weeks go slowly so I can get heaps done :)

hope you have a great weekend :)

a couple more modern bom blocks

nearly up to date with the modern bom ...

this weekend completed september

and october

just need to finish the august block which is improv piecing that I haven't done before but I'm going to attempt it tonight !

also made a wall hanging from the aunty cookie home sweet home fabric I recently received - purchased an inexpensive canvas frame last week and stapled fabric to the back - looks great on the wall

hope you had a fabulous weekend :)

she's back...

yes, my gorgeous elna is back home where she belongs - after 6 1/2 weeks of being away - I'm soooo happy that she's home and I can get back to full-on sewing  - and because she has had her motor rewound I'm sure she will cope with the backlog I've got !

I put her through her paces as soon as I got her home yesterday and did the first 5 blocks in the bloggers' quilt-uber-fest and she went like a dream :)

oh, and before I go I just wanted to show you pippi's favourite morning spot - she's in the kitchen where the sun streams in through the kitchen window ♥