Getting things done!

It felt so great to work on a few different things this week. I got some more hand quilting finished, I am loving how it's coming along - not sure why, but I seem to want to hand quilt all the time at the moment!

Two triangles and two setting squares are quilted now, won't be long and I'll have to start thinking about how I'll quilt the border.

Next I made up a dress for Mary's rag doll - I keep referring to her as Dolly, I'm thinking when Mary is old enough she can give Dolly a name she chooses.

The dress is reversible, and the lace around the bottom was originally on Amy's cot quilt - not much survived, but I was able to salvage some of it :-) There is a really cute felt raincoat in one of the patterns, so next I think I'll try that - it looks quite complicated, but if I take it one step at a time, how hard could it be? Ha - famous last words!

And today - hubby put the trolley together for me - it's in place in the sewing room now. He also took the legs off my ironing board, and the board is in place (but yet to be secured - that's next) on top of the trolley.

I especially wanted this trolley for the sewing machine space on the lower shelf. At the rear of the shelf are two of my Singer Featherweights, and in front the Coverstitch machine and the Overlocker. The upper shelf will be great for easy access to containers with current projects. Happiness! Note to self: buy a new ironing board cover - that one looks a little scorched :-/

I also made up some spiderweb placemats, they were very cute with teal blue fabric coordinated with a pretty light script fabric - but after I popped them in the mail today I realised I'd neglected to take photos. Ugh, one of these days I'll get better at documenting my stitching efforts!

That's it from me for now - thank you for your lovely comments, I always enjoy reading them - and I'll chatter again soon! xox

This week went by so fast!

Isn't it amazing how fast a week can just disappear? I had so much I wanted to achieve this week, and I feel like I've only checked a few things off the never ending to do list ... but I'll share some of the bits and pieces with you ...

Here's where I'm at with Tilly, I'm pretty happy with her for a first go at making a ragdoll - and I was all ready to start making some more clothes for her, but I was struck with some other inspiration and had to go with it:

This is the top of a cot quilt for little Mary - another one! Poor little darling has no idea of the tsunami of hand made items heading her way! I drew it up on Sunday night while the idea was still in my head, and then I started sewing on Monday.

By Tuesday evening I was ready for quilting. I used the paper shapes I'd drawn up to pencil some quilting designs, and then I traced them to freezer paper so I could iron them on the back of the quilt, and then trace the designs to the quilt using my lightbox.

Over the last couple of days I've gotten a little quilting done, and I'm super happy with how it's coming along.

So that's where I'm at with my actual quilting. I've also been attempting to work on my website and write some patterns up. I don't find that quite as much fun so I have to use a work/reward kind of system. Maybe I'll grow up some day ... hehe

Anyway, that's it from me for this week, I'm itching to get back to some hand quilting, so I'll chatter soon! xox

Only a little quilting ...

First up I want to thank my lovely readers that stop by and visit with me, and I love reading any comments that come my way. Just a little info that may affect some of you - I had a reminder this week that the Feedburner email blog service is shutting down soon - I'm not too sure how many people use Feedburner to read my blog, but for people that are looking to continue reading via email, I've popped a link in the sidebar to join an email service with Bloglovin'. I can't give you any information on how it works as I don't personally use an email service, but I do keep my list of blogs I read on Bloglovin', and that works out well for me. 

Anyway, onward with the content:

Last week I mentioned I was going to start putting together the rag-doll Tilly for my little granddaughter:

I decided that I'd like to put one of the clothing items together first as another practice piece, and I'm very happy with how it came together. This is the romper, as pictured in the top right corner on the pattern:

It was such a fun little garment to sew, the instructions were so great! I found the fabric at the Aldi a week or two ago, it didn't seem quite as nice quality as some of the quilting fabrics we can get, but it was perfect for toys!

So, filled with confidence, I started putting Tilly together:

This has been quite a learning experience for me - I'm not used to working on dimensional items, so envisioning how things will look when they're turned through etc has been a bit of a head scratcher, but I'm getting there. The picture above was before I started filling Tilly with stuffing, and the one below I'm still in progress:

I need to get some more fibre-fill tomorrow so I can add a bit more to the head/body and then I can get busy on the arms and legs. I'm looking forward to making some more of the cute little garments too - so much fun!

There has been a little quilting going on too - sometimes I just didn't feel like working on the sewing machine, so I put a few more stitches in the wholecloth quilt:

No matter how much machine quilting I do, I know hand quilting will always be my first love, it's not for everyone, but I find it very relaxing. (Please note that's not a stain on the bottom right of the photo - it's the shadow from my phone - I really do lack great photography skills!)

I think that's everything I wanted to share with you today, so I'll leave off here and check back in with you next week. Chatter soon! xox

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 had 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