Slow and Sew

Finally I have a cold enough day to light the fire. 

A fire at night is lovely, but there's nothing like that smell of your dinner slowly cooking on top of the fireplace all day!

 Lamb and Lentil soup / stew 

The latest quilting bee is another Quilt Around the World. 

We each make a starter block and send it on to the next person, who adds to it and send it on to the next etc, etc. 

There are 24 recipients so I should end up with 24 blocks of a similar theme.

Here is my Lone Star starter block. 

Biartch of a thing to put together but what a great result!

t X

Au Naturalle

I've got a cleaning frenzy happening but thought I'd take a break and blog about this quilt I made recently for a 21st on commission.

The mum sent me 21 photos and I printed them onto printable fabric.

She wanted natural colours and I had quite a few in my stash so only had to purchase the backing, really. Spotlight's new Cotton Lawn (cheap version of Liberty) is really lovely but a Bucking Fitch to sew as it's slippery as forty b**tards!

There's a nice mix of textures with linens and cottons of various thickness. I even used a tea towel from Ikea! (new, not used and manky)

I free motion quilted it in swirls and flowers.

Pink Moves

I love pink. Love pink fabric in particular. But I have two boys who will take a little pink but not too much. A pink shirt, shall we say, or a pink cup to drink out of.

I am getting my pink fix at the moment making this for a special little princess I know.

I've been neglecting the blog as I'm known to do occasionally! The reason is that we are moving home to NZ in less three weeks! I don't have to pack as we have people coming in to do it (Hallelujah - I've moved so many times that this one may have done my head in) but I do have to organise, organise, organise!

And catch up with all the sewing I've promised to do before I leave!!!

Sunday Snippets

via Tinniegirl!

What did Sunday bring for me? I nice lie in with the little lads, watching silly movies in bed, eggs, bacon, avo and chorizo for breaky, plus a great big cappuccino, then...

 ...did a bit more quilting on the cot quilt I started a few months back,...

...then realized I needed to make these 8 placemats in a hurry...,

 ...had trouble choosing the binding

...was required to view the lads playing Xbox, so did a bit of hand-quilting...

...made these for Meg in the Beehive bee.

I then went to Target to get the NZ Christmas pressies. I also got a few items of the undie variety, and a most (un)attractive "foundation" undergarment. As I was called forth from the queue, I realized, to my horror, that the young man on the till was my friend Lisa's teenage son. I hope that he will remember me for the lovely cake he ate last week that I baked, not my granny undies!!

Is it any wonder that I had to buy these at the supermarket to placate myself?

A bit of Tangy Bliss is all you need sometimes!

Things for little folk.

I have a friend with a little newborn son, and have been busy trying to finish the quilt started for him 9 months or so ago!! I finished it and delivered it yesterday afternoon, but the weather was so horrid that I couldn't take a photo!

Dom's favourite toy from babyhood has been "Pigly". We bought it when we found I was pregnant - one of those lovely soft things you can't resist when the hormones are rushing about.

Charlie's favourite is "Snugs", a square of soft chenille with satin and grosgrain ribbon tags attached to the sides. I bought it when he was a baby from ELC in Chadstone and it cost around $40. 

Now, to be fair, the ribbons are all custom made and there is appliqué and they are actually called "Taggies"

I decided to have a burl at making some "Snugs" of my own

This is my first take on it. She wanted a New Zealand theme seeing the poor little bugger will be inundated with all things Ocker all his life (sorry, lovely Australian friends, we love you and your beautiful country, but there is so much green and gold)

 This one has a Rainbow Theme

They make pretty nice gifts for a baby and are dead simple and cheap to make.

Sunshiny day Blogtoberfest Day 18

I'm getting a bit slack on this blogging every day business! Oh well.
It's a gorgeous day, too nice to be inside sewing (as I sit inside at the computer, blogging...) so I thought I'd post a sunshiny pic of what i SHOULD be sewing.

 A cot quilt for the new little cousin in Vancouver. It's been started and won't take long to finish, but I've been dragging my heels. Best get it done before she gets to school age!

Poppies are my favourite flowers so I planted a slew of them this year, and they are just blooming fantastically!!

Charlie and I have had a lovely morning, taking Dom to school on the tram, having coffee with the girls, Dymocks story time, Lunch at a cafe, home on the tram via the supermarket to change the lightbulbs for a record THIRD time!

Must remember that it's time to put the sunscreen back in my bag again though. It's lovely and warm today but supposed to be 29 degrees on Thursday!

XX

The weather that was...

Got lots of sewing done this weekend as have chesty cough and sound like I'm on 40 fags a day. Getting better...I'll be back at the gym tomorrow, hopefully, Tori!

Dr Seuss placemats for the lads. Have had them quilted for a few weeks now and they just needed binding.

 Little man getting a dose of Vitamin D on Friday. He wanted to stay home from his soccer lessons and look after me, bless his little heart!

Kinder Quilt finito! Praise be!! This one dragged a bit but I'm happy with the result.

Stoopid shadow!

Back (Thank you, Ikea!)

Look at our veges!!! Lots of leafy things, not much root veg action yet.

Three little boats for Annabel in The Beehive. Her little boy's "The Busy Sea at Night" Quilt is going to be very cute!

I'm back at the machine now, putting gorgeous Liberty binding on a pair of jeans. Much better than hemming!! And I know all about hemming being only 5 ' 1" !! Will post a pic later for those of you that don't have a clue what I'm banging on about.

Too much to do.....

After wondering earlier this week what sewing project I was going start which of the fifty unfinished projects I was going to complete, I am suddenly innnondated with things to do...with deadlines.

Charlie's little friend, whom I call Pretty Chloe, is having her birthday party on Saturday week. When I saw her Mum in the toy shop, I offered to make her a dress instead of opting for the My Little Pony. (Swift self-kick in the shin)

Kinder quilt for the trivia night. 24 little pictures to be drawn by 24 little kinder kiddies, printed onto printable fabric, choose, purchase remaining quilt fabric, cut, piece, baste, quilt, bind. (Big job, dreading it)

I've just signed up for Placemat Quilt Swap Round 6 which I adore doing and am looking forward to. I am going to have to make myself not start these until I've finished the dress though.

So, the plan of attack is...

1) make dress today after the gym (no fruiting around the cafes and shops afterwards wasting time)

2) placemats on the weekend

3) start kinder quilt drawings next week. Delegate the fabric buying.

Oh God! Have just remembered I have to plant the vege garden (only a little one) before the seedlings I bought 3 weeks ago have to be binned. This actually means I also have to pull up all the weeds and spread 3 bags of compost too...  (strangled "gah!" sound emerges from mouth)

Maybe all this activity will help me stop thinking about all the food I'm not supposed to be eating as my evil torturer trainer, Miranda is making me do a detox, starting today.

Hope Jason and the kids survive!

Mum's birthday present

It is the year of the quilt when it comes to presents from me, it seems! Having made a quilt for my MIL, I thought it best to make one for my mum too, as her birthday is on Friday.

She's a big fan of red and black and I had bought at my first ever Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne (2008) a quilt kit featuring vintage kimono silk in a beautiful, vibrant red and black- (it is, co-incidentally, the strip of the local rugby team her and Dad support) I didn't have time to piece it according to the pattern, which wasn't really to my taste anymore, anyway, so just sewed the strips, added a border to the sides and Voila!

 It is wonky. The seams are less than straight. And there are puckers in the quilting.

The silk was hard to stop slipping even though I used lots of pins in the basting.

I don't think she'll mind.

Backed it with black quilter's flannel (never again - picks up every bit of thread and lint possible) and Amy Butler Lotus that I'd been saving but was the only thing even close to the right colour and size in my stash. All to a good cause! Appliqued in red silk.

I really like the way it turned out, even though it is not as perfect as it could be. Bit like me, really!

little people

Lots of little people are featured on the Kinder quilt I have been working on for the last couple of days! Quilts from each group get auctioned off at the trivia night on August 1st.

I got the 25 strong Frog posse to draw themselves with fabric pens and pieced a kind of scrappy log cabin around each drawing. It's sashed in black and white stripes and backed in orange. I pieced some of the fabrics from the front onto the back too.

I'm quilting it at the moment. Kids are home from activities due to more coughs and colds - will they never end??? Poor old Dom sounds like he's been on 20 a day for 50 years! I mean, it's the first day back from the hols and we're at home AGAIN! 

Still, a little outing later on to post the latest ATWQB block to Glaucia in Brazil. These are the latest offerings.