Friday already?

Wow, are days disappearing more quickly at the moment? Maybe they are but just in my house? Who knows, but I can tell you with certainty that I didn't get much done this week!

This is as far as I got with my two tangled hearts blocks:

Yes, there's only one block in the picture. Exactly. I'm about half way through sewing the binding down now. But when I think about it, these blocks are quite a bit of work - I hand stitched all the applique pieces down - that took a while, then I machine quilted it quite heavily - also somewhat time consuming. Anyway, it's not a lot of eye candy for you.

Slowly I'm getting better at machine quilting - I was having tension issues at the start. I also began quilting with a shiny thread but had to unpick it all as it was making my machine crazy. One thing I really find hard is deciding what quilting designs to use to fill areas, it'll be great to practice a few more fillers and get comfortable using them. Such a close up picture really is warts and all, so maybe don't look too carefully lol!

And here is one of my favourite distractions:

Amy has been working a little bit, so the Grandma Gang has been pressed into service, and we have the babysitting schedule all worked out! Today was my turn in the rotation! <3 <3

Last of all for today, Carol in Texas asked last week what the background fabric in my hearts blocks was. I have to tell you that there is nothing to identify the fabric on the small piece I have left, but I took a screenshot from the online store where I got it from:

I realise it's probably not really helpful given that you're in the USA - Spotlight is a large craft/haby store here in Australia, so maybe they have a similar thing at one of your large chain stores over there? Happy fabric hunting!

Anyway, I am going to leave off here, baby minding has me worn out today, so I'll chatter soon! xox

A week for applique, and staying home ...

This week we are laying low and staying home, as our city is in lockdown for one week. Of course I never mind having extra time to spend in the sewing room, and we're happy to do what is best for all.

In quilting news, I finished quilting on a customer quilt last weekend, and then I started putting together an applique block I needed to catch up on. Here are the beginnings:

And in further progress:

And the final product:

I really like how it came out. This is one of Teresa from Fabric Therapy's Little Treasures blocks, and I sized it up to finish at 12". It's for a lovely friend.

And once that was complete, I started working on some Tangled Hearts blocks, also by Teresa, but in a Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine. It was from 2016, and I purchased a download copy, so if you feel inclined, you may still be able to do the same. I don't have a finish yet, but a good start:

It's my aim to finish the applique preparation up tonight, and I'll be able to get busy stitching tomorrow.

I had a question from last week that I wasn't able to reply to personally. Betty asked about one of my quilts on my quilt shelf. Thank you for stopping by Betty. The quilt you liked is called Omigosh and it was designed by Sue Garman. The pattern is available for sale from her website which is filled with amazing quilts!

Thank you also to Regina, Lilac Joan, Val and Randi T. I appreciate you taking the time to visit and comment!

That's all for now, I'll check back in soon! xox

Heavens! Where did this week go?

Wow, this week absolutely flew by - as I sit here, I am having a really hard time recollecting the happenings of the past seven days. There was a family birthday party last weekend, babysitting sweet Mary, working in the sewing room ... yes, this week definitely happened and it's all a blur!

I've taken the photos from my phone to help me out, so here we go:

I've finished quilting the body of Mary's cot quilt - I'm a bit stalled now as I'm not sure how I want to quilt the white 2" border. It's not like me to be undecided like this - and I'm sure I'll come up with something soon. I'm really ready to finish this project up and get the wholecloth back in the hoop. Patience ... patience ...

And all the next pictures are from my recent de-clutter and clean up in the sewing room (ladies lounge). There is still more I can do, but this will be good enough for now. Take the tour with me - starting up on the left as you head in the door:

There was a big birds-nest pile of junk (well not real junk but disorganised things) piled behind the door - it's now tidied up with things I don't need thrown out and fabric/projects/bags all containerised. No surprised here for the moment. I still need to look in the roller bag and figure out what's in there. But I'll save that for another day when I'm feeling brave. I don't think that has been unpacked since my last (or possibly previous) trip to the USA!

You saw the left side of my fabric closet in the picture before, now you can see just a corner of the fabric closet, and my little library. I don't have a huge amount of books, but I love all the ones I have. It took me a while to find a piece of furniture to store my books on, but when I saw this late 1800's dumbwaiter at auction, I knew it was the very thing I wanted. I recruited my brother to help me haul it home in his ute as Marty was away - and only told him once it was safely at home that it was an antique - I knew he'd be nervous!

I have a drinks cabinet serving as a side table for my sewing throne and quilting hoop. I have spent many hours here, and see many more in my future. You can see more of Mary's cot quilt that I'm working on right now. The hoop/stand was gifted to my by my lovely friend Lyn. We used to work together and I just adore her. It was so nice to bump into her at the recent quilt show, she is just darling.

Next up my cutting table - I've cleaned away a lot of the clutter, but there are still things I'd like to move. They'll also have to wait for another day. The drawers under the left wing are where I'm storing some of my scraps at the moment - they're sorted by colour groups, and I tend to go to them first when I'm working on a project. The bottom couple of drawers are souvenirs from my travels - things that probably won't mean anything to anyone but me :-)

The ironing station is finished - the ironing board had it's big folding legs removed and Marty 3D printed some adaptors to affix to the underneath and purchased some rubber stopper thingys so the board could sit on the trolley without rocking or tipping. Clever guy! 

The sewing cabinet is looking much more organised - the big pile of stuff that was on the left is now gone, all paperwork shredded/filed and miscellaneous objects that just built up there are in their rightful home. This thrills me most of all I think. And I love to see the lower left container on the door is all organised now with any junk and dust all gone.

And last of all (before you head back out the door again) this is my quilt rack. I didn't have to do anything here really - it was pretty tidy already, but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

So that's the tour of my newly tidier sewing room/ladies lounge. I hope you liked it.

Last week I received a lovely message from Viola, I wasn't able to reply to you personally as your email address didn't come to me, but I'm so glad you stopped by - I'm glad you found me too!

Final thing for the day - if you're thinking of working on a Christmas in July project, please consider my Christmas Tree Skirt pattern - I've included the link to my Etsy store below - it'll make me so happy, and you'll be pleased to get a start on your holiday projects. Thank you for reading this far! xox

Quickie Post

This is just going to be a quickie post, it's almost 11.30pm and I'd like to get this done while it's still Friday! Today has been a busy day, and I still have a few things I'd like to do before I head to bed :-)

First up I wanted to share with you a gift I've put together - a table runner for a sweet cousin of ours. I am completely confident she has no notion of reading any quilting blog, let alone mine, so my secret is safe with you all ...

I started working on it yesterday afternoon, and completed it today. It's for a special birthday, so I dug into some of my precious William Morris fabric, designed by our lovely Michele Hill. I enjoyed making the runner so much I made another for the birthday girl's sister, as I don't think I've given her anything I've made before. You can just see the second runner (which is exactly the same) peeking out on the top right of the picture. I literally finished the binding on the second runner 15 minutes ago, so I got them done just in time!

And for the second picture of the day, I had ordered a salad bowl a little while back and finally got the call that it had come into stock:

I am just in love with this dinnerware! This is the 29.5cm (12in) salad bowl. I had ordered the smaller one too, but that's back-ordered. I'm going to gather a few serving pieces to coordinate with my white dinnerware and call my collection done. Let's see if I can actually exercise such restraint?

That's going to have to be it for tonight, I'll share more next week I promise! Have a great weekend, and we'll chatter soon <3 <3

An exciting week!

This has been a busy and exciting week, I've had lots of time in the sewing room - I've been working on clearing away things I don't need anymore, so I have more room for things I love - machine work and hand work has been happening also. I've had kitchen time, and also an exciting visit early in the week.

Hand quilting is continuing whenever I have free moments. I'm just loving the texture of the quilting. How I would love to have a few more hours each day just to quilt!

I shared this picture earlier in the week on Instagram - it's much faster to upload things there, so I envisage I'll probably pop things up there more often, but I'll still continue to post on Fridays here. This is just a little more time consuming is all. Anyway - if you'd like to follow me on Insta, click HERE to take you to my profile. I'm seeking to approve followers at the moment, as I get an enormous number of requests from obviously fake profiles - why these pretend doctors and military folk would want to follow a nerdy quilter is just baffling lol. No need to answer that - I know they're potential scammers, and I have no notion of letting them anywhere near my photos of quilty goodness ;-)

I also made some gifts after we chattered last, I got a picture early in the process, but neglected to take any of the finished articles:

I dug into my very limited Kaffe stash for these spiderweb mats - they are so very bright and fun. Isn't that fabric with the pencils just so great?

And cupcakes too - with orange flavoured frosting. Citrus season is just the best - the oranges on our tree are so sweet right now, I could eat them all day long.

And the reason for the treats? I was invited along with some friends of mine to visit with lovely Pam Holland. We had morning tea, and got to hang out in her studio (or Shed as it is widely known). What a delightful time we had, chattering and looking over the projects she is working on, and hearing about techniques Pam uses. It was the nicest time, and as much as I'd love to say I'd taken lots of photos to share with you, it didn't seem right to be taking pictures in her creative space.

To my absolute delight, Pam had a gift for me. She had told me when I met up with her at the guild show that she wasn't using reproduction style fabric anymore and had some in her stash that she'd like to give me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she had two tubs for me to take home!

I am so blessed! I don't think I can ever thank Pam enough, these are absolute treasures to me. My cursory look through these beauties has found some greens and reds I'll be able to use in Lily Rosenberry right away, and other darling pieces I know will be amazing in upcoming quilts. There are some lovely oldies in the collection - ones from the Smithsonian collections from the late nineties, the Sarah Johnson collection from the same era, and others that I've seen but just was never able to get my hands on. Thank you so much Pam!

Later in the week I set to continuing what I had started in the sewing room - Mum and I headed back to Ikea as there were some glasses there that I wanted, and we had almost made it to the checkout area when I saw some pin-boards on display. We headed back in and grabbed one and some of the accessories:

Marty put it up for me and I've had a quick go at putting a few things on it. Amy and I are heading to Ikea for a third time tomorrow, I'll need a few more trays and hooks so I can set it up more efficiently. And because I was working in the area, I decided to try and clean things up on the cutting table. It's amazing how fast that area can get messy. 

A new cover for the ironing board - and things are starting to be organised on the trolley. Meryl checked in recently to ask what size the ironing board was - I actually remembered to measure it - it's 18" deep and 48" wide. 

This is the view of the ladies lounge when you look in the door right now. My stash closet, library and TV are out of picture on the left, and the quilt shelves and my sewing machine are out of picture on the right. I have some tidying to do around the sewing machine area, and I feel motivated to do it.

Last of all for tonight, I wanted to share my latest macaron efforts:

Though it doesn't show in the pictures well, these are a lovely orange colour. The first pic is the 'macaronage' process - I'm about half way through incorporating the almond meal and sugar into the meringue mixture. The second pic is while I'm waiting for the macarons to become touch dry before baking, and the third pic is the end result. Yumm!

Well, that's it from me for this week - it has been such fun. Things will be a little slower for the next two weeks as some of my activities will be on hold for the school holiday break, and also as I'll be spending lots of time looking after lovely little Mary. Chatter soon! xox