A busy week with not much to show for it ...

I thought I would have so much more time to spend in the sewing room this week, but it hasn't really worked out that way. I've ended up doing a bunch of chores - sorting things out in the sewing room, and rearranging some things in the kitchen - and with sewing starting again this week, time has just flashed by.

This is the only Morrell quilt block I put together:

Another block using the County Clare panel by Karen Styles. Also a cute little background print from one her scrap bags - the red fabric from stash, possibly purchased from Karen too! I'm going to make one of the diamond star blocks next, and after that I'm going to force myself to work on some more broderie perse. It's only since I used that fraying fabric in the middle block that I've been leery of broderie perse - I had a wonderful experience with it while I was working on Mountmellick!

On Tuesday afternoon I started a very new to me project, and I have no idea how it's going to go. I'm taking baby steps into the world of sourdough starters:

I've had a few friends inspire me to give this a go, so I'm three days in and very unsure of what I'm doing or taking on, but I'm finding lots of resources online to help me out. Quite some time ago I received a Goldfields San Francisco sourdough starter package from my lovely friend Linda in the USA, and that's what I've used to get this going. I'm getting a few bubbles forming, and I'm learning that it could take a a little time to get anything worthy of baking with. I'm patient, and I'm ready to learn. Please pop me a comment if you have any interesting tips to send my way.

Last of all, Rowley is becoming less and less timid each week and we're able to take him for better walks. It's a lovely time of year, so I snapped a few pictures last weekend:

This weekend is going to be a busy one - we're having new carpet installed in our bedroom, so I'll be cleaning everything out of the bedroom and walk-in-robe ready for Monday. This will give me the perfect opportunity to cull a lot of items we just don't need, it will be very freeing!

It's only 10.30 here, but I'm flagging already, so I think I'll have an early night so I can rise tomorrow bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for chores. Chatter soon!

What a chaotic week!

If you had asked me at the beginning of the week how my week was looking, I would have told you it was going to be a relatively quiet one, with a couple of outings and some lovely stretches of time in the sewing room. That's not really how things went ...

On Monday evening Marty came to me and said 'I think we've got a big problem', and to cut a very long story short, the main water line into our house had ruptured (fortunately outside) and we were dumping water into the front yard underground somewhere, and very little water was getting to the house. Not ideal. I won't bore you with all the details, but all kinds of digging, investigating and repairing followed over the next couple of days. And while the water was turned off, we lived like pioneers with containers of water. 

Rowley was super helpful while we were working in the yard - relocating things we were using:

It was actually pretty funny, we should probably have named him Bandit!

Some of my friends and I had planned a trip to a quilt store on Wednesday which is about an hour drive away, with a side trip to pick up a dinner set I had seen on Marketplace. Because of the plumbing drama, I wasn't able to go, which was super disappointing, but my lovely friends offered to pick up the dinner set for me anyway, which was so kind. I had been watching it for a while, and thought I had missed my chance to get it.

It's Copeland Spode Byron, and I just love it. It really suits the decor in my front room, and I can't wait to use it at our next dinner gathering. As all my friends know, I have an addiction to vintage china that can't be tamed, but I am going to have to temper my collecting now as I'm running out of places to put these lovely pieces!

From a quilting perspective, I've made a couple more blocks, and cut one out of a lovely toile I purchased - I'm really loving working on these Morrell quilt blocks:

This is block 57, I love how it came together - the fabrics are really crisp and fresh looking.

This is block 53 - it's much murkier looking with that mustard coloured print in there, but I love it too. It gave me flashbacks to working on the Nearly Insane quilt with all those pieces, but definitely not so tiny. 

And this is the toile block I cut out - it's from one of Karen Styles of Somerset Patchwork's collections. I was so happy to find it. I've ordered some other fabrics that should look lovely in this quilt where the toile fabrics are placed, so I'll share them with you when I get them.

Before all the plumbing chaos I also quilted and bound a small top I'd made earlier in the year, but I forgot to take a picture, so if I remember, I'll share that with you next week. I hope to also get some more time in the sewing room over the weekend, so hopefully I have some interesting things to share with you next time I check in. Chatter soon lovely friends! xox

I did it!

Oh my goodness! After having so studiously avoided finishing the centre block last week, on Saturday I bit the bullet and made myself finish the broderie perse. And you know what? It wasn't as fiddly as I'd worked myself up to believe. And I'm very proud of it!

I realise that Di's pattern has appliqued petal shapes in the corner, but I wanted to try something different, and I'm sure you've come to realise that I do like to break rules - in my own 'don't colour too far outside the lines' kind of way! 

Not sure yet how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to ensure that the little rose print will appear in several other places in the quilt. Carefully, because I don't have a lot of that particular fabric.

And because I was on a high finishing up the centre block, I put together a couple more. One using a cheater fabric:

I'm calling this one Block 13, but there are a few blocks almost exactly the same, so it could be used in their place. For this quilt I'm not going to assemble as I go, I would like the freedom to mix the blocks around if necessary.

And on a roll, this block came next. Block 59 - so much fun to make - I foundation pieced the triangle strips and the large rectangles I fussy cut the stripes as straight as I possibly could. Nothing bothers me more than stripes that run in all wonky directions. The outer border had me stymied for a while. I was really hunting through my stash for a cute (but narrow) border stripe. This one was cut at 1.25" wide, so will finish at 3/4". I didn't find what I thought I was looking for, but decided this green from a scrap bag from Karen Styles might work. I probably should have put the green in the middle rectangles, and the stripe in the border, but this is what I've ended up with. And tiny mitred corners too, yay!

There has also been a little hand quilting during late nights watching Wimbledon, but on a wild hair Wednesday evening, I decided I'd like to put together Mrs Claus from the mmmCrafts Twas the Night Ornament series. I finished her this afternoon:

I'm so thrilled with how her red hair turned out on the painted bead head, so I've added red as a colour option for Mrs Claus when people are shopping for painted beads in my Etsy store. I've only made three of the ornaments from this series, but I've painted hundreds and hundreds of heads. I love that people trust me to help them with their crafty pursuits.

So, the first of the Wimbledon mens semi finals has started, so I am going to settle in front of the TV with some stitching and allow myself to be engrossed. I hope you've all had a great week, and we'll chatter soon! xox

Avoidance at its finest ...

Last week I shared with you that I was feeling super happy to have completed a broderie perse corner on the centre block of my Morrell quilt - and that it was challenging because of the fabric's propensity to fray ... so this week I have been studiously avoiding that particular block ...

And instead today completed this block - it's # 36

I really love it, and I so enjoyed making it. It's all I can do not to make a few more that are very similar. But I really should finish the centre block - it's so close!

Earlier in the week I made an alternate colourway of one of my recent tree skirts. Also avoidance I suspect - but I told myself it's Christmas in July.

Also super happy with how this project worked out. The pattern is available in my Etsy store if you're interested, it's the easiest tree skirt I've ever made - you can stitch it together almost in a heartbeat!

So they've been my quilt related accomplishments this week - I'm super pleased that 'life with puppy' is getting easier and stitching time is easier to find. It's also mid year school holidays for the next two weeks, so I'll have an extra couple of hours to myself each week which I'll dedicate to all things crafty. 

And just a fun little aside - I was watching a movie while working on some hand sewing during the week (it was the tennis movie Battle of the Sexes) and at one point they were sewing tennis outfits for the ladies - and I was so thrilled to see that they were using this machine:

A darling white Featherweight! How fun is that? I have one of these sweet babies of my own, but I don't use it very often. I purchased mine while I was in the USA some years ago, and it's a 120v machine, and we're 240v here. I do have a transformer for it, but if I need to use a Featherweight I tend to use my black one as it's much less messing around. Maybe I should put the white one on display somehow, as it's such a sweet little thing.

So that's my stitching week up to now - I plan to get a little hand quilting done tonight while I watch some of the tennis at Wimbledon. And then tomorrow I will make some kind of bargain with myself so I finally set to and finish that darned broderie perse. Seriously!

Chatter soon - and hugs!