Speedy Sawtooth Border ...

As predicted in my last post, I thought things would move much faster with the Phebe project once the applique was done. So far, that's exactly what's happening. Less than 48 hours after the last applique stitch went in, I had drawn up the foundation papers and stitched the sawtooth borders. Then trimmed them all to size and removed the papers, and finally stitched them in place. Loving it!!

Doesn't it all frame the applique so nicely? It has been great to spend some quality time with my sewing machine after so much hand work. And I'm excited to get busy with the next frame of stars - hopefully I'll get one side done tomorrow.

In other news, this week I had a little retail therapy after not having purchased fabric in a while. The thing is that I just haven't needed anything as I'm largely working with scraps in this project - and let's face it, even if you don't count scraps, I still have a lot to work with already! Anyway, I found a backing fabric that I felt would work for Phebe, so needed to grab it.

I'm a lazy girl and don't much like joining fabrics for backs in projects I know I'll hand quilt ... I liked this one, so it had to be mine.

And these ones appealed to me too. For no reason other than they look like something I may use one day :-)

Last of all for this post, I just wanted to share the cake/cupcakes that I made for Amy's engagement party. I didn't know for sure that I'd be able to make the 'naked cake' that she wanted for the top tier, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. Pinterest to the rescue with helpful links to tutorials. What did we ever do before the internets??

There were 100 cupcakes, half decorated with a swirl, and half with flowers. Bless those wonderful flower piping tips! Her theme was gold/pink/black and I managed to get all the colours in.

The two pictures on the left in the collage are the finished cupcakes - top right are most of the flower cakes prior to piping the leaves on, and bottom right is how it looked at the venue. I'm so happy I managed to get it all done, and I have a year to think about how the wedding cake will work!

It's getting late here now, I'll dash and get some zzz's so I have a bunch of energy for piecing tomorrow. Chatter soon! xox

Phebe's applique complete!

I'm so thrilled, last night I finished the applique on my Phebe project, and I'm super happy with how it's looking.

I do have a couple of things I'll get back to - the first is to give the people their faces, and the second is to put a basket or some flowers into the lady's hand. I haven't decided which I'd like, but I'll know what I want to add when I see it.

Some of my favourite things are the small flowers, I had such fun fussy cutting pretty fabrics for the petals and the centres:

The next steps for the quilt are to add another sawtooth border, and then I'll be able to put all the lovely scrappy stars in place. The quilt will grow quickly from this point I think!

Before I sign off, I had some comments I wasn't able to reply to directly, so a big hello to Diane Smith, Lynn S and Deb. I also had a question from Terry regarding how I went about the sawtooth border. I did foundation piece the border, and drew the pattern up on the computer so I could print it out and know it would be accurate. I use Corel Draw, but I'm sure there are many programs that would do the same thing. Hope this helps!

I have some emails to catch up on, so I'll sign off here and check back in with you soon xox

And a little more progress ...

It seems like I'm sharing such tiny details with you on my Phebe project - only if you compare the last three pictures side by side would you realise that anything is actually different. But it does seem like I'm getting closer to the finish line with this applique border, and I predict by the end of next week I'll be all done - all that is left now is to fill in the spaces with leaves.

It would be nice to get busy with the stitching this week, but there are much more exciting things afoot. This week my sweet baby girl has her engagement party - and we could not be more thrilled. Her man of choice is just wonderful, and they are sure to have a fabulous future together. 

So, this week I'm getting busy making their engagement cake/cupcakes - also making sure we all have our outfits, and helping out with the decorations. It's all such fun, and it will be a great practice run for the big day next year. I can definitely share the shoes I bought for the special occasion - you all know I'm a shoe gal ...

Aren't they yummy? And of course I love the bling :-) Not sure exactly what outfit I'm going to wear yet, but I have three to choose from, I'll most likely decide at the last minute in a panic after I've tried each of them on again.

And now on to something completely unrelated - this past week I had a hankering to make a pie ... I've only ever made one in my life before, so it was a little scary ... but here's a pic of my apricot pie - before and after baking ... just so you know I really did it!

Yay, I can make pastry! I found a simple recipe on Pinterest - you make it using the food processor, so it really could not be any easier. I feel like there will be more pies in my future!

Well, that's it for me - I have a tier of the cake to get out of the oven shortly and I'd like to be ready for the next one soon. Have a great week! xox

Still at it ...

Hey there lovelies - I'm still here working away on Phebe's applique in stolen moments. I'd love to share that I'm finished with it and moving on to the next step, but not just yet. Surely it can't be too far away now.

Things have been busy over the past week or so, Camo's tennis team were in the grand final on Friday night, and happily won - my own tennis, parent teacher interviews and work have meant that time has been scarce. Is anyone as shocked as I am that we're almost at the end of March and it seems like it was New Years just last week??

Anyway, back to Phebe, I took this picture earlier today (wouldn't have hurt to press it a little!!) and since then I've already added the oak leaves in the top left corner. Next I will make up more acorns for the left side of the quilt, and after that the small flowers. The last additions will be the leaves which will fill the gaps along the vine. It really feels like I'm getting near the end of this border.

Framing the applique will be another red and cream sawtooth border, and I'll foundation piece that like I did with the last one. I love the accuracy of foundation piecing. Then I'll finally be able to use the star blocks and the wonderful sashing stripe that I was luckily able to track down. Happy days!

Before I sign off, I want to say a big hello to Sjoukje, Paula DiMattei, Pamela Tasker, Deb from the Frugal Little Bungalow and Martina from Germany for stopping by and leaving greetings. I wasn't able to respond to your messages personally, but I would have loved to.

Well, that's it from me for today - the rest of the week promises to be busy, but I feel sure I'll have some time free over the Easter weekend to get some more work done. Chatter soon! xox

Quickie post ...

I just wanted to check in really quickly to share where I'm at with Phebe's applique. It's coming along slowly, but all progress is good, right?

The little acorns in the corner were fun, and I love the little flowers. I'm slowly filling in the vine with leaves, and if I have time tomorrow night I'll add the vines on the other two sides.

Well, that's it for now - I promise to check back in and catch up on emails soon! xox

Applique changes ...

I haven't had much time to work on Phebe's applique lately, but happily today was a quiet day so I could spend as much time as I wanted working on my stitching.

Some of the little oak leaves I'd already stitched down didn't thrill me, so I unpicked them, and I've replaced them with some others. I'll reuse the ones I replaced in other corners - I realised I wanted to have a couple of different sizes, and also I knew I wouldn't have enough of the Jo Morton print for all the leaves required. Let's face it, I like to use a lot of different fabrics, so it was weird that I'd used only one in the first place.

So here's where I'm up to now:

Something else I'm going to do this week is pop into Officeworks and pick up some waterproof coloured pencils. I thought it'd be fun to add dimension to the oak leaves with shading - and also use the pencils to give the people their faces. I'm just not confident to stitch details in place, so pencils may be better?

I'm looking forward to adding more applique shapes tomorrow after tennis. It's the last Saturday game for the Summer season, so in coming weeks I'll have a little more stitching time :-)

In other news, on Wednesday I received two lovely squishies in the mail. One was from the lovely Rosemary Youngs containing the fabric I so desperately wished for to complete the sashing strips for Phebe. And the second squishy was from one of my lovely readers Wendy - with another delightful piece of conversational fabric:

Isn't it adorable? I'm fairly certain it's a vintage print, so it's very kind of Wendy to share. I can't wait to find the perfect project to use all these lovely prints. How blessed I am to have such generous people in my life. Thank you once again Wendy, and also Rosemary.

Well, that's it from me for now - I'm heading to bed soon. It has been a great night with Camo's tennis team having a big win tonight, and they're now heading in to the finals. Hooray!

Chatter soon xoxox

Valentine Project

I was inspired by Valentine's day happening recently to create a little project to use up some scraps. It's fun to put these doodads together for the girls that come to my class, and this small quilt was no exception.

Once again, some of these fabrics are from deep stash. A bunch of the pink scraps are from a very early quilt I made for Amy. The pink and red shirting fabric was one I bought from Carolea's Knitche in Sunnyvale on an early trip to the USA. Now I'm guessing that Carolea's has been closed for more than 10 years. Gosh that was a fabulous shop.

All that's left to do on this little one is to stitch the binding down on the reverse side, and I'll do that after tennis on Wednesday. I pretty much have my whole week scheduled out - it's amazing how busy life gets, and how fast it happens ... not complaining, just saying!

It's almost time to pick the little (but much taller than me) guy up from school, so I better dash. Chatter soon! xox

I dropped the ball for a bit ...

At the start of the year I had such plans to stitch for at least 15 mins a day, keep on top of being organised around the house, and a few other health related things. Can I tell you that the very day that Camo returned to school and all the other tennis commitments kicked in, I totally dropped the ball!

Ugh, this was not how I hoped things would be. I'm not saying that my home has turned into a cesspool, it's still tidy - and I'm keeping it that way, but I had grand plans to do more decluttering - and I'll still get there - I guess just at a slower pace.

My 15 minutes of stitching each day has amounted to a little unstitching at quilt group last week, and today I stitched a couple of blocks together to see how they look. But, I'm not going to beat myself up about this - and I resolve to do better going forward!

I will share something amazing (IMHO) that happened this week:

My mind just couldn't shift from the Civil War Dressing Gown fabric that I really wanted to use in my Phebe project. And I think the reason I just didn't like any other fabric in it's place is that I really was hooked on that darned elusive print. Here's the one I wanted in case you didn't see it earlier on my blog:

Because it's a real oldie, I knew I had little hope of finding it, but in a last ditch effort to hunt some down, I sent out an appeal to my buddies on Facebook. Well, let me tell you that my quilting friends came thru in the best way. A lovely local friend Julie has some that we think is a 100% match, and if that doesn't work out, sweet Rosemary Youngs has offered me some from her stash. My goodness I am blessed with the most lovely friends.

So, this evening I decided to put a couple of blocks together to see how it'll look. Oh my goodness wouldn't it be ironic if after all that hunting I didn't like the fabric?!? Never fear, I'm really pleased with it, and the next step was to decide on a fabric for the cornerstones.

Now the cornerstones are really quite tiny - 1 inch cut, so therefore half inch finished squares. At first I thought I'd use red, but realised they'd be abutting the red sawtooth border. In the end, I went deep stash, and found this little pretty:

I have no clue how long it's been in my stash or from where it came, but isn't it lovely? There is only a fat quarter, but I will only need about half of it with such tiny pieces.

So here is a quick picture of how just a few of the blocks, sashing strips and a cornerstone look when stitched together:

I am super happy with how this came together- and though the cornerstone fabric looks really bright when you look at the fat quarter by itself, its actually quite subtle when you see that little piece just there. I'm really happy with how the piecing looks, yay!

I don't know that I've done any more with the applique on the Phebe project since I checked in last, but it's my plan to get some more done tomorrow, so I'll check in with you soon! xox