Spring, down south.

Hello friends! I couldn't check in with you last week as I just had nothing quilt related to share. Not a thing. Time in the sewing room is still scarce, but I do have some pictures I can share with you.

I finally hand stitched down the binding on the Moda Blockheads 2022 little quilt. I'm so pleased to have this checked off the list of UFO's. It's not certain what I'll be doing with it, maybe a small gift for someone, we shall see!

A small project I worked on was using some waste HST's and made a small potholder for a friend. It's quite cute isn't it. I got it to quilted stage, and she offered to bind it - who am I say no to that?

And I've almost finished hand stitching the binding on the four extra placemats for my tennis lunch buddies (whoops, apologies for the blurry picture). We'll be meeting up again next month, so it's good not to leave these until the last minute. Unlike how they were constructed - completely last minute ...

In fun news, I just got a new car, and my old one has gone on to new owners. I just love the colour of the new one, and so far I'm completely intimidated by all the new tech and gadgets. Here's betting it won't be long and I'll be feeling right at home ...

Dog walks are a constant, and the weather is just beautiful. Walking seems to account for most of my pictures at this time!

Tomorrow I'm going to the Royal Adelaide Show with Amy, her hubby and the girls, I'm looking forward to seeing the quilts and handicrafts etc. It's always a great time seeing Mary so wide eyed and enjoying the fun of the fair. And then on Wednesday I'm guest speaker at one of our local quilt groups, which will be super fun too.

Thank you for the continued comments and emails, even though I've been a bit of an absent blogger lately, I appreciate them all! Chatter soon xox

Sewing time!

It has been such a sweet relief to be able to spend some time in the sewing room this week. Not lots, but it was so great!

I finally quilted and sewed the binding on the little top I made from the Moda blocks a few weeks back. All I need to do is hand sew the binding on the reverse side:

I've positioned the quilt so you can see the fabric I used for the backing also - it's so pretty! And you can also see that I wasn't able to continue the border print right into the corners of the top, I only just squeaked enough out of my scraps to have this much. In fact if you look really closely - about an inch to the right of the larger corner square you can see a join which I tried so hard to pattern match. There are four or five such joins in the border - and there's not a lot of border fabric in the quilt as it's really quite small being made from 4.5in finished blocks.

I can see that I need to clean my phone camera lens - the picture looks fuzzy at the top - I'm so lazy with things like that!

Another job I checked off the list was to apply the binding to the second lot of four placemats I made for my tennis friends. Because I just didn't get the extra four made in time for our luncheon, they just ended up sitting around while I moved on to other things.

Once again, ready for the binding to be stitched to the reverse side. And I'll also spritz away the blue lines I used as a guide for the wibbly quilting.

And this afternoon I've started working on a Halloween themed table runner - I saw this adorable doggo themed fabric at the store again so purchased some more:

I must have used it all up last year as I can't find it - so I purchased a little extra :-)

In other news, I finished all five role play portions of the two assignments I have to hand in this week, and I'm almost finished all the questions, so I'm feeling really good about my studies right now. I'm almost half way through the whole course - it's going so quickly!

Now I'll catch up on some emails, so I'll sign off here and chatter again next week!

Simple Piecing

This week I had a few assignments due, and there is one more left for this semester. I found myself craving some simple piecing to give the cogs in my brain a little rest.

Early in the week I put together some placemats for a lovely friend. I do love this particular pattern, it looks so nice with so many different kinds of fabrics:

I love the diagonal check fabric, and have it in a number of different colourways. This is the lighter red version, and the darker red version is my favourite - I love to bind quilts with it, and I'm running low. I do hope I'll find some more again someday.

This week I also did a little tidying in the sewing room - it was getting untidy and made my mind feel cluttered. While doing so, I discovered my Moda Blockheads 4 blocks that I had worked on back in 2022. I don't know what was going on at that time that made me put them aside, but I only had 24 blocks made in total. So I thought it would be fun to make a little quilt top from them, and call that project finished.

They're such fun little blocks at 4.5in finished. I used a Civil War Dressing Gowns print for the sashing strips, and the border print came from my scrap drawer. I had to stitch many pieces together to get enough to frame the quilt. I pattern matched really carefully so the joins aren't too visible. Sadly I couldn't make up quite enough to mitre the border around the corners, so there are corner squares instead. It's quite fun to comprehensively use up a pretty piece of fabric. I wonder if I'll accidentally discover more of it in my containers later on?

I'd like to try and get this little quilt top quilted over the long weekend, but I have another I'd like to do first, so I'll see how I go. I also have a couple of weeks worth of tiny nine patches to catch up on, so I'll try and get that done too.

This next picture is something I could have shared with you last week, but in my haste to get a post together I forgot all about it. My Instagram friends will have already seen it:

Monday week ago, my Mum gifted me this pretty vase. It belonged to my Nanna, and is from Diana Pottery - the same brand as the cute fish bowls that I shared with you recently. I have a feeling that my Nanna had quite a few of their pieces. This new to me vase looks so pretty in the dining room, the colours are just perfect, so I'm going to make it a priority to find pretty flowers often so I can keep them and the vase on display.

It's quite cold here tonight, so I'm going to snuggle in under my Lily Rosenberry quilt and do some hand quilting for a while. Whenever I spend time in the sewing room, looking around me I know I will never ever run out of things to do! Chatter soon lovely friends xox

Helllooo!

Well hello there my friends, it's Friday! I'm not sure where the week went, but here we are. It's been a good one for sure, and I hope you had a good week too.

I've been busy prepping more applique shapes:

Earlier I said that I'd like to have the Lily Rosenberry quilt top finished by the end of the year. But I've upped the ante and declared that I'd like to have it finished by the end of November. I've checked in with my loveliest of lovely friends Lizzy that she'll be able to longarm baste it for me, and now I'm determined that I'll have it done by then. Fingers and toes crossed for a stress free month!

And to spend a little time with Bernie, I decided to catch up on a few of my sadly neglected Moda Blockheads 4 blocks:

Block 27 - Threaded

Bonus block 8 - Sweet Treats (one of the bonus blocks)

Block 21 - Shiny Bauble

For those of you that are familiar with the Blockheads 4 project, you may notice that my block 21 doesn't look like the original. I altered the part of the block where my red fabrics are - my OCD self didn't like the different angles in the original block - I had to redraft mine so that my eyes weren't immediately drawn to that block. It's a thing with me.

And I must have had a few spare moments, because I added some more mmmCrafts wooden heads to my Etsy store:

I genuinely had no clue how popular these heads would be when I started out working on them (and I'm sure I've said it before) but they have been so much fun to work on, and it makes me so happy to help people out with their crafting projects.

After I've hit the post button here, I'm going to try and catch up on a few blogs, I've fallen terribly behind - I'm so sorry for not catching up with my sweet blogging friends - I'll try and do better! So, on that note, thank you for stopping by, and I'll catch up with you all again next week!

Small blocks only!

Heavens, after our house has been hit by another nasty gastro bug this week, I only yesterday found the energy to drag myself into the sewing room. And I didn't have the brain power to work at anything tricky, so I caught up a little on my Moda Blockheads 4 blocks:

Bonus Block 2 - Mix and Match by Michelle White

Bonus Block 4 - Zipper

Bonus Block 7 - Step to it

Block 19 - Clover by Robin Pickens

Bonus Block 8 - Star Turn

I've used a motley assortment of fabrics from my scrap baskets, so it will be interesting to see how the quilt turns out. The tan print in the Star Turn block was used in my Dear Jane quilt, so that means it came to me in the late 90's. Possibly sent to me by my lovely friend Linda from the USA.

Energy levels are still low, I'll sign off here with a hope that I get lots done over the next week so I can share a newsy post with you next week. Chatter soon! xox

A productive week!

This week didn't feel like I'd been particularly busy in the sewing room - I knew I'd had a full week - but as I was collating photos to share with you, it became clear that I'd achieved quite a bit! So here goes:

First up, I finished the binding on the play mat for little Mary. I've made quite a number of these over the years for friends that have had babies, and it was so nice to make one that could stay in the family!

I took it to Amy's house to photograph as she has so many more fun little person toys there - I had wanted to update my Etsy listing also - so we had a little photo session. Sadly it was a bit of a grey day, but we did our best. If you think you'd like to make one, please do pop over to my Etsy store, I have 25% off all downloadable patterns until the end of July.

Here's a little close up so you can see some of the details - I had fun putting this mat together:

Next, inspired by an Instagram buddy, I decided to finally make a dress from a pattern I downloaded at least a year ago! It's the Laundry Day Tee, and so far it has been super easy to make. I only have to add the neck band now which I'm a little nervous about, so I'm going to get some assistance from a friend. 

This will be a house dress for me - light and easy to wear when it's warm. The fabric was just an inexpensive one from Spotlight - to be honest it probably would have been wise not to use a stripe for a first effort, but it didn't turn out too badly.

I am super happy with the finish from my top-stitching machine, this was a very worthwhile purchase for garment sewing. I don't necessarily know that I'll be making huge amounts of clothing, but nothing pleases me more than having a lovely finish - and a seam that doesn't pop stitches is just wonderful.

Next on my agenda was to catch up on a few of the Moda Blockheads 4 blocks. So here are two that I made this week:

Block 16 - Indiana Puzzle by Tammy Vonderschmitt

Block 15 - Highland Plaid by Crystal Manning

These two blocks were easy to put together and the pieces not too tiny - remember that I opted to make the 4.5" finished size. The next couple of blocks have more pieces and are a bit more complex so I'll have to psych myself up to make them. I think that's the reason that I don't manage to get a block done every week, some of them require a bit more determination than others!

Once those blocks were done, I resolved to make this month's Churn Dash blocks for the sew-along. I had completed ten blocks last month, so I only needed to make six blocks to get to where I wanted to be:

I've set the 16 blocks into a small quilt - the first of two donation quilts I'm going to be making from the sew along blocks. These fabrics are WAY outside my comfort zone, but it's definitely a cheery quilt. 

My sweet quilting friend Jean donated the Kaffe fabrics in the blocks - I found the green and background fabric in my stash. The cornerstones were also from Jean's fabrics - and the Kaffe fabric used for the sashing strips was in my own stash. I don't remember buying this fabric - I remember buying some Kaffe fabrics at Hancocks of Paducah on a trip many years ago - but not this particular one - who knows what I had in mind for it!

So the next things on my list to tackle are the quilting and binding of this donation quilt - at just over 40" square it won't take long. And then I'll get busy on this month's mini quilt - I can't wait to make that one!

Last of all for today, I want to share with you a wonderful purchase I made at auction this week:

My favourite auction house had not one, not two, but three Singer Featherweights for sale on Monday. Two of them were the unicorn like 222 machines, and I resolved that one of them would be mine! Both 222 machines sold for huge prices - the first one for $1700 (it was the better of the two machines) and the one I bought was $1400 - probably more than I wanted to pay really. I'm super happy to finally have a 222 as I've wanted one for ages - but this machine is going to need a little work. The motor needs some attention and the machine itself needs a good clean up, but I know it's going to be great. Fortunately my lovely hubby will be able to take care of all of this, so we shouldn't have to put any more $$ into the machine. It's amazing how much the prices of Featherweights have been going up over the past few years, they've definitely increased in value since I bought my first one just over 20 years ago!

Well, that has been my sewing week - it has been busy but great! I hope you've all had a great week too, and I'll chatter with you all again soon! xox

Blockheads Catch-Up

You've already heard from me this week with my mini quilt for June, and also my Churn Dash blocks for the June part of the sew along, so today will just be a quick catch up on the other bits and pieces I did this past week.

I got myself caught up on the Moda Blockheads blocks, but a new one came out again on Wednesday and I haven't made that yet, so I still have some work to do there!

Block 11 - Block Berry by Jackie MacDonald

I actually redrafted this one a little to eliminate the outer border in the pattern. I'm a stickler for consistency, and if no other blocks have borders, I like to keep it that way. It's a really cute block though, and it would be so nice to make a bunch of them for a summery themed quilt.

Block 13 - Evening Star by Debbie Maddy

This was a super easy block to put together, I always love star blocks, they're so timeless!

Block 14 Alternate - Sharply Dressed

Another cute block - I chose to make this alternate block as I don't necessarily want any applique blocks in my quilt. I don't know how I'm going to set the blocks together yet, so if I change my mind about the applique I can make that block later.

I also bound the Kaffe quilt, and the binding is hand stitched on the reverse side, though I didn't manage to get a picture of it entirely finished just yet. 

Tomorrow night we're having a big dinner party, and I've started getting ready today. This evening I've been baking a lemon meringue pie, and OMG it is looking really delicious so far. Tomorrow I'm making Osso Bucco, Massaman Beef Curry, and there will be Cheese Souffle for starters. I hope I remember to take some pictures to share with you - I do very much love to cook for special occasions, but I seldom remember to take photos.

I'll sign off here so I can get everything on my list done before I head to bed. Thank you for all the messages I received on my last post, I love to read them all. And I hope to catch up on my blog reading on Sunday when things have settled down a little. Chatter soon! xox

A Churn Dash start ...

Whew! This has been quite a week! Happily though, I still managed to spend some q-time in the sewing room and checked a couple of things off my list:

I got a start on my Churn Dash blocks for the Sewalong that Chookyblue is hosting:

Though a lot of people are making 9 inch blocks (which is the size I was working on recently) I decided to make mine 7.5 inch finished. I'm going to use the blocks to make up some more donation quilts, and the smaller size will work better with their finished quilt size criteria. 

I found the light background hiding in my fabric closet along with the green, and the centre square as well as the blue dot print were from the fabrics donated by lovely Jean. She is so very generous. I've put three tops together so far, and I've some batting for them now, so hopefully I'll get busy quilting them soon.

Also checked off my list ...

I finished binding the tree skirt with the pretty Edyta Sitar Noel Christmas fabrics, added a button and took some pictures. I was able to update the pattern to reflect the new fabric and update my Etsy listing. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, so it felt so great to have this completed!

And last of all, I made a couple more Moda Blockheads blocks:

Block 10 - Autumnal by Chelsi Stratton

Bonus Block 1 - Roundabout

For Block 10, I changed the stem a little, on the small block it looked a little thick, and I'm pleased I altered it. Next on the list was Block 11, but when I looked at it, I just wasn't ready for such tiny pieces, so I'll tackle it another day when I have more energy ;-) Bonus Block 1 got made instead - the red fabric being a leftover from making the tree skirt recently, and the other three fabrics from my 1.5 inch scrap box. 

I have no clue what this week will bring in the sewing room/ladies lounge, but you can be sure I will never run out of things to do in there! Chatter soon friends! xox