Thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone for all the kind words after my Phebe quilt did so well at our guild show. I genuinely felt really lucky to have won ribbons, as the standard of the show was incredibly high. And to be Quilter in Residence was a great time - each day there were reunions with people I hadn't seen in a while, and being able to show so many people how I work was so much fun.

There were a number of emails I wasn't able to respond to as blogger didn't send me email addresses - Jude, it was a pleasure to help you out with your hexagons - and thank you to Regina, Jean and Lizzy for your sweet comments, and also to Unknown for all the hearts! You all make my heart full!

While at the show I was demonstrating applique techniques, and over the course of the three days, I got most of the following block done:

When I got home and unpacked all I needed to put in place were a few of the leaves and the vase, and now it's ready for stitching. This is the fifth block, only eleven to go! I also got soooo many of the little berries prepared for upcoming blocks and the border - they were fast and easy to demonstrate so I made sure to do lots of them.

After the show was over, it was like a little pressure had lifted - there is no longer anything urgent that MUST be worked on, so I did a little stitching on a pattern I've been dying to get to:

Meet Elliot - I purchased the pattern from Etsy a little while back - and he was destined to be a small practice piece to see if I have what it takes to make a rag-doll for little Mary. Turns out I have the patience to make small things that aren't flat like a quilt, so I can go ahead and start toy production:

Do visit with Jodie on Etsy - her shop is RicRacSews - she has the most delightful patterns and lovely pins and doodads too. I have a few of her patterns now and they're very easy to follow and look fabulous. Hopefully I'll be able to check in next week with something fabulous to share with you all. Chatter soon! xox

Phebe did me proud!

Just a quickie post, I’m exhausted after a busy day at the guild show today. Phebe has done me proud and picked up a few awards:

I’m beyond thrilled, and I’ll check  back in with you all next week when I’ve floated back down to earth! xox 

Wholecloth - some hand quilting :-)

This will be a quickie post this evening, as I'm babysitting little Miss Mary. She will be six weeks old tomorrow, and is a delightful diversion :-)

There hasn't been much time for quilty pursuits this week, but when I had the opportunity I put some more stitches in the wholecloth quilt. I enjoyed revisiting it so much last week - it hasn't been that long since I finished hand quilting on Phebe, but I obviously missed it.

I did enough quilting to move the hoop twice, and I'm thrilled with how it's looking. 

I'd love to simply keep going and get a whole chunk of quilting under my belt, but from now I really need to get ready for the quilt show next week. My entry is all ready, but I need to label the bag. And because I'm quilter in residence I have a display of quilts ready - three of the quilts need hanging sleeves, so I must get that done in good time. I can't wait for the show, after all the delays, it's exciting that it's almost here.

Anyway, must get back to babysitting duties - chatter soon! xox

Bits and Pieces

It seems like I had such a busy week in the sewing room, so let's see what I have to share with you: After completing the wine themed quilt top for Amy and Mark, I was keen to get busy quilting it this week. I got it done, and the binding is about 3/4 done now.  I should be able to finish it this evening.

The quilting pattern is my simple fallback peacock flowers, I can almost do it with my eyes closed so when all goes well, it doesn't take long at all. But all did not go well:

Bernie was not playing nice. Not even a little. Of course I did exactly what the machine was asking of me, but to no avail. Quilting time ground to a halt, and I made an emergency call to the Bernina Health Spa. However, when hubby came home, he wanted to check my machine over - I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, he's a technician and electrician by trade, and he has a magical affinity for fixing things, and with most things I wouldn't trust anyone else. And happy days, he found and fixed the problem and I was quilting again the very same evening. 

This was the faulty part:

And this was the diagnosis:

I asked hubby to text me the details so I could pass it on to the Bernina tech in case it happened again (for me or anyone else). And now my machine is running as well as it did when it was brand new! Happy days!

In other news this week, I had some new fabric and a couple of supplies come into my life, this fabric:

It was clear to me when our granddaughter arrived that I don't have much pink or purple fabric, so I had to remedy that, and I don't have much orange/yellow either. The greens and one of the reds will be useful in the Lily Rosenberry project, and more other applique quilts for sure. The other fabrics were 'just because' :-)

And these supplies:

Now where has that 'hot hemmer' been all my (very short) garment sewing life? What a great idea - I know it will come in very handy in the future. And the quilting ruler will be a useful one too - and even more so now that my machine is behaving!

In further macaron adventures, my friend Kath came over on the weekend, and while we were waiting for baby Mary to come and visit, she asked if I could share what I have learned on my baking journey so far. Of course I was happy to oblige - and though I declared my next batch would be colour free, I wanted to share that step with her too, and here are our results:

Wildly pink and strawberry flavoured, these were fun - and for the first time we added sprinkles. The Thursday quilting ladies were able to snack on them yesterday, and Marty and Camo were able to take the leftovers to work today.

Last of all for the day, after seeing Jean's lovely hand quilting yesterday, I was feeling nostalgic for a little hand quilting, so I put a few stitches in the whole cloth project:

My goodness I love this project, but because it's perpetually on the back burner it won't be finished any time soon. Thankfully I was able to move the hoop last night, so baby steps ... it's closer to the finish line than it was yesterday morning lol!

So that has been my quilting week - I wonder what next week will bring :-)

A new top, and an oops!

This week I started working on a new project - a quilt I had promised Mark and Amy for their family room - a room they've decorated like an old English bar. I purchased some wine themed fabric, but had stalled on what pattern to use, I didn't want to cut the feature fabric up too much.

This is what I ended up making for them. It was easy to put together using half square triangles for the pieced blocks, and the feature print is fun for the alternate blocks. It's based on a design from the Missouri Star Quilt co. I couldn't follow their pattern exactly as I only had a small amount of the burgundy fabric and couldn't waste a single scrap of it.

A big thank you to my lovely friend Betty for gifting the burgundy print to me. It was the perfect thing! The green fabric in the small border was a small piece from my stash too, and that's all gone now. It's fun to use things up!

I'll get busy quilting the top on Sunday so hopefully it'll all be finished next week.

And now for my oops! I shared block four of the Lily Rosenberry quilt with you in my last post. During the week I did all the applique stitching and then soaked the glue from the block. At least, I thought I'd done all the stitching ...

Oops! In that lower stem between the berries I missed stitching it down on either side, and the upper stem between the berries I missed stitching down one side! Big oops! I'll fix up the applique before I head to bed tonight, hopefully I can get it to look as neat as the other stems.

Well, that's it from me tonight, this has been a busy week and I'm very tired - I haven't responded to any emails just yet, so I'll do that on Sunday. Thank you all so much for stopping by, I always love receiving your messages! xox

OMG, four blocks!

I just can't put this project down, I'm loving it - I've prepped the fourth block, and here they are all together:

The blocks aren't trimmed to the correct size yet - on two of them a little of the excess has been cut away, but I'm waiting for now. I figure these blocks are going to be dragged around a little - in and out of project totes for show and tell, so I don't want to risk any fraying - it would be devastating if they ended up smaller than they need to be!

My newest block is on the bottom left, and all the pieces are glued in place, but I haven't stitched them down yet - that will be something fun for me to do over the next few days.

On Tuesday evening I made a new tennis skirt - the urge to have a new one for our match on Wednesday morning overtook me ... 

This one is a little different to the last ones - only in that it doesn't have any pleats. I'm trying all the options in the pattern I purchased, and this one was super easy to put together. And maybe it helped us win that day, who knows :-)

And then on Wednesday afternoon/evening the macaron chronicles continued:

Because I had decided to make the filling with a lemon flavour, of course I had to use yellow colouring for the macaron shells. Now, I can't decide if the baked shells are browned more than they should be, or if that is just what colour they were going to come out. I feel like they could be a little browned, so with my next batch I'll leave the colouring out and see what happens. I also need to get my mixture just a touch runnier so the tops are a little smoother. Apologies if you stopped by looking for more quilting content - baking has me equally obsessed at the moment!

Last up - Happy Easter to all my lovely readers. I know we're all still living in strange times, but if you celebrate, and you're able to, I hope you can spend time with your family and friends. Big love and hugs xox

Three Blocks!

This week I got most of block three finished. All the pieces are in place, and I would say I'm about one third the way through stitching the shapes down. I cannot wait until the fourth block is made - even though I declared I wouldn't, I know I'm going to want to trim and sew them together!

I can't even tell you how thrilled I am with how it's coming along. And I just love the background fabric that I chose - it's a backing fabric from the Jane Austen at Home range. It was like to treasure hunt to find it a few months back - and I had some slip through my fingers when I waited a few days to order it. But now some places have had it come back in stock so I've ordered more so that I can use it for the back of the quilt as well if I choose to do so.

In this post I wanted to share a couple of my absolute favourite 'tools' I've used so far while making the blocks:

The wonderful tutorial for glue baste applique on Teresa's Fabric Therapy blog is something I have read repeatedly, and on one of the pages she talks about using Elmer's school glue for positioning the applique pieces. I wasn't sure if we could get it here in Australia, but when I looked - OMG, it's everywhere, so I bought some, and found the little bottles on ebay. It was a revelation! I had been using a different specialist glue that will remain nameless, and despaired over how much trouble I had with blockages in the fine tip nozzle. Well - I have had no trouble since!

I had also been using the tiny fabric glue sticks for turning the edges of the applique pieces under - and I've trained myself to use the somewhat larger (but still small size) purple disappearing glue sticks. The glue goes so much further and it's great with the purple colour seeing where you've got the glue in place. I'm also saving so much money because the refills of those little sticks were kind of expensive.

Lastly, I invested in a 3/4" circle punch - I have soooooo many circles to make for this project, and it was tedious tracing and cutting out freezer paper circles. They really only last for about three uses before the plastic side of the paper doesn't adhere anymore. At some point I think I'll buy some more sizes - they will be handy!

These are some of the extra circles (berries) I've been making as I go - I have lots of red scraps (some pieces are just shards) and I'm making as many circles up as I can so I get a big variety across all the blocks. It's always fun seeing the bits and pieces of fabric and remembering the other projects they've been in.

I don't have any pictures of baking to share with you this week - I didn't have time to make any macarons, and the cupcakes I made for one of the quilting ladies birthday, I managed to forget to take any pictures. Even after all these years, I'm still not in the habit of taking photos often!

Last of all, I made a couple of pattern purchases this week, Bonnie Hunter's Tulip Time - it's delightfully scrappy and I thought it would be something lovely for a little granddaughter some time. And also the Lovely Quilt Pattern by SherriQuilts on Etsy - I bought it for the very same reason.

Which leads me to the lovely news that on the 13th of this month I became a grandmother for the very first time - Mary Louise has arrived and we are all absolutely beyond thrilled. I now have a new reason to make little quilts and toys and outfits, and I promise to share with you all as I can.

That's it from me for this week, chatter soon! xox

I just snuck in!

Friday finishes here in one hour and twenty minutes, so I'm just getting this post done in time. It's only March, so I don't want to drop the ball with this years resolution already!

This has been one hectic week however, so I have not gotten very much done in the sewing room. But here goes:

I made up some log cabin blocks for a long term scrap project. There are only four blocks so far, but I never cease to be amazed how much you can sew and not make a visible dent in your scrap stash! I have some of the Thursday ladies working on these blocks too. It will be fun to see what we all come up with.

And because I'm so determined when faced with a challenge, here are the results of this week's macaron experimentation:

I can definitely say I'm getting on top of the browning problem. So that's entirely great. I was wondering how the macarons you see in shops have such vivid colours - and according to my new favourite macaron resource, to get big colour, you need to use lots of colouring. So there's that ... 

My friends/family are probably growing tired of eating these almondy treats, so I probably should  slow down the production - but I do want to keep plugging away and getting better at baking them.

Anyway ... it's getting late here, and even though I'm a total night owl, I'm really flagging, so I'm going to head to bed. If I get all rested up, hopefully I'll have lots of quilty inspiration to share with you next week. Chatter soon! xox