Happy New Year!

Happy New Year lovely friends. Goodness, a lot has happened in the last three weeks, isn't it amazing how hectic life can become in the lead up to Christmas?

The tree was decorated early of course, which you've already seen, I love to take pictures of it - and I'm always sad when it's time to take it down. Usually I wait until the 6th, but I may do it a few days early this year, I feel ready to have less clutter around.

I've been babysitting, finishing up with work for the year, making up Christmas gifts, and all the other things I'm sure everyone else has been working on. I can share the gifts I made for my sweet quilting friends:

I thought I'd taken a photo of the table toppers but I can't see it right now (only little videos) but there were 18 smaller versions of the table runner I made recently. They're super cute.

For Mary and Hazel I made felt ornaments from the 12 Days series - Colly Bird for Mary, and Partridge in a Pear Tree for Hazel.

In the last days before Christmas I finally managed to get a gingerbread house made, I was struggling a bit with motivation this year, but finished it on Christmas Eve.

The house ended up on the coffee table in the lounge nook, and Marty put some pieces of Camo's old Thomas train set around it. There were dinosaurs on standby during construction in case of collapse due to my haste. 

You can see in the last couple of photos that the house has already started being nibbled on - and now there isn't a great deal left of it. I have an odd photo that I took across the room on Xmas Eve, you can see how large the house actually is:

We hosted 16 for lunch on Christmas Day and had additional visitors for the evening. Then on the 27th we visited with friends for Friendmas, I had fun working on a vegetarian starter course for that. It was a great evening with lovely people. And then we went out for dinner on New Years Eve, followed by drinks at our place and then wandering to a local viewpoint to watch the fireworks. This has been a lovely festive season, and now we can rest a little and take it easy on our holiday break.

One of my favourite Christmas gifts was from Amy. She found a toothpick holder which belongs to my Masons Vista china collection. I had no idea such a piece existed, what a wonderful find!

In the Betwixtmas, Amy and I put a puzzle together. It was a lovely gift from my dear friend Lyn who I used to work with:

Isn't it a fun puzzle? It was gifted 12 years ago, and I can't believe that we've only just made the time to put it together. Thank you so much Lyn - Amy and I (mostly Amy) had so much fun completing it.

Last of all, a little quilty content. In a few stolen moments I put some of my Tiny Nine Patch Challenge blocks together - I used a different setting than most people on Insta used. I didn't get far before being called to other things, but I can do some more with these in coming days. 

I had a delivery of a few fabrics suitable for broderie perse - I'm still very anxious about the Morrell quilt broderie perse blocks. I just need to put my nerves aside and just make something. I'll do a lot of learning as I go hopefully.

Last of all for this long post ... are you still with me? ... here is a little hand quilting I've been working on today. I hope I can get Lily Rosenberry finished this year. I'd love to say 'fingers crossed' but that will make it super hard to quilt! :-)

Well, that's it from me for tonight. Thank you for reading this far if you've managed it. This year I hope I can do better with my posting schedule, and also do better responding to messages. Apologies if you've messaged me over the last month or so and I haven't gotten back to you.

Happy New Year lovely friends, and chatter soon!

Another Saturday post ...

I wanted to put a post up last night, and though my my mind was willing, my body wanted me to get some rest. So here we are. This has been the very best week - on Monday little Mushroom Chu-Chu arrived. Her name is Hazel Jane, and she is an adorable blonde bundle. Hazel was my Great Grandmother's name, which is such a lovely tribute, Amy has always been very family oriented, and Nanna was so pleased that her mother was honoured in this way. I won't share a picture just now, I want to run it past Amy first.

In other news, I finished the top of Cameron's aviation themed quilt, and it went together so easily. Once I got sewing I got it made in two days. Why did I linger so long over finishing it?

I do know that the blue fabric in the sashing was running low, and I have some recollection of being concerned about it. My original plan for the quilt is long gone from my mind, so I just built on what I'd assembled so far and put a border on it with the fabrics that I had on hand. And I think I have a 2in x 6in (approx) strip left over of the blue fabric, so it definitely was a close run thing. My darling friend Lizzy is going to quilt it for me, so I can check this project off my ever-long list. There are bits left overs from a couple of the fabrics, and they'll be great to use up later for donation quilts.

Later in the week I wanted to get busy on some mmmCrafts ornaments - I have a lot to make this year and don't want to leave it to the last minute:

These are the ones I've started off with - from the 12 days series. I'll be able to show them when they're finished too, but some of the ornaments I'll have to keep on the down low. They're lovely hand work, and somewhat portable too.

Last picture for the day - week 18 of the tiny nine patch blocks:

I'm so enjoying the little nine patches, and I think I've settled on how I'll set them together for the final quilt top. I'm not sure if I'll start working on that though, I should probably keep going on some of the other things I have on the go. It's not like me to have so many projects in various stages of construction, I'm flitting from one thing to another lately!

So that's going to be the extent of my post today, I have been busy painting bead heads for orders today (as well as visiting with my grandies) and I need to get back to painting. I'm always amazed by how many orders head out the door in a week, and very much appreciative too! Chatter soon friends xox

Back on schedule ... but with distractions ...

I'm back on schedule posting on Friday evening, but only just - it's almost midnight. It may click over to Saturday morning before I hit the publish button, let's see how I go!

This week has been a busy one, but also one with distractions. I stitched Week 17 of the tiny nine patches, and I'm super happy with them:

Some more genuinely old fabrics used again in those blocks, some icky shadows in that picture from taking photos late at night. A great photographer I am not, and more evidence of that to follow haha!

During the day on Monday I cut out a whole lot more one inch squares in readiness for the blocks above, and also for selecting in upcoming weeks. Little Mary was here for the day, and while I worked at the cutting table, she played with her Sylvanian Families that I have set up in the sewing room. 

Mary tells me she'd like to learn to sew some day, and it makes my heart sing. You can be sure I'll love helping her use the sewing machine when she's older.

I don't know if you remember, but during the Xmas holidays, one of the things I hoped to get back in progress was Camo's aviation themed quilt. I've been looking back thru the blog to see if I can figure out how long ago it was that I last worked on it, and I actually can't find any sign of it so far. So I'm going to say that it has probably been at least ten years. Perhaps more. But today I added two more rows, I'll add a further two rows and a border and hand it off to be quilted.

Even though he's an adult now, Camo tells me he'll still be thrilled to have it. Which gives me a tiny pang of guilt that I didn't make time to finish it much earlier. I think in the past I had some anxious thoughts that I didn't have enough of the fabric in the sashing strips. Because I don't remember what my original plan was, I'm going to make it work with what I have, and that will be just fine. It's fun doing some simple piecing, it has been a while!

And I promised last week that I'd share the pants that I made, this picture is not flattering for them, but here goes:

The pants on the far right were the first ones I made - I bought a cigarette pants pattern and wanted to use a less loved fabric to try it out. The fit was okay for the most part but I wanted the legs to be more fitted, so I took a half inch off each side of the legs before making the pants in the middle, and I'm very happy with them. And because I had enough of the houndstooth fabric left over I made the pencil skirt. These are made from stretch suiting, so I was able to use the coverstitch machine to do the hemming which I just love!

That's a warts and all picture, you can see I didn't match the stripes super well, but it's not really noticeable unless you're looking hard. And I did a little split in the bottom of the seam, I don't know what that is called (being a beginner garment sewer and all) but it just adds a little something to the look of the pants. I'm looking forward to being more brave and trying a few more things. Next on the list is a top, and I've bought some linen and prewashed it, so when I have a stretch of time that's what's coming up on the garment sewing agenda.

Well, that's all the action in the sewing room for this week, I don't know how much sewing time I'll have in the coming week, but I'm sure to keep you posted. Chatter soon!

Whoops!

On Friday I was such a busy bee, and I spent so much time at the sewing machine in the evening that I entirely forgot to put a blog post up! So here I go on a Sunday evening instead:

I finally caught up with the group working on the Tiny Nine Patch Challenge - it was such fun making my blocks:

All four weeks

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

Week 16

I love them all and have such a great time finding vintage shards of fabric in my stash.

Prior to all the blocks, I completed the Dresden Table Topper I was making anew - in addition to refreshing my pattern, it's going to be a gift ... shhhh - as discussed!

I was actually surprised at how much I love the finished item, I think I'll make another for myself at some point - it'll be a challenge to find a bunch of red and cream strips and border stripe shards, but if I dig around hard enough I'm sure my stash will bear fruit.

During the day on Friday my Mum, Dad and I went on a little adventure. There's a story ... when I was growing up my Nanna had a set of what we called her fish bowls. They held so many memories for me of being around her big kitchen table at meal times, school holiday snacks etc. Nanna knew I loved them and promised I could have them some day. Anyway a long time later in the hustle and bustle of her downsizing and moving, the bowls disappeared. I decided that should I ever see any in the wild, I'd make them mine. And Friday was the day I was able to collect some:

Aren't they darling? I think they date from around the 50's by Diana Pottery - they're fish ramekins. My Mum tells me these are possibly in better shape than the ones Nanna had due to so much use, so I'm very glad to have them and every time I see them they'll make me smile.

Also during the past week, while I've been working I've been watching/listening to many episodes of the Great British Sewing Bee. Ohh my goodness, I just love it. And I was thrilled when one of the episodes had the contestants sewing on Featherweight machines!

How fun! Featherweights are always super fun to sew with. 

Watching all those GBSB episodes got me inspired to sew some garments again, and I sewed two pairs of cigarette pants. The first pair was with fabric less loved to test the fit, and the second pair from a darling black and white houndstooth to wear to a dinner party last night. I haven't taken pictures of them yet, but I absolutely promise I'll share them with you next week if you're interested.

So that has been my busy bee week - how has your week been? Chatter soon xox

So thrilled!

I've been working on a project over the last three days, and I'm so thrilled with how it's coming along. I'm using the opportunity to update some of the photos and instructions on my Dresden Plate Table Topper, but the main reason I'm stitching this is for a gift for Mother's Day. I'm pretty certain Mum doesn't do any reading here!

Yesterday and the day before I cut out and strip pieced the blades. Today I put it all together, basted and quilted it, and added the embellishments. Don't worry about the halo around the doily in the middle. I had just hit it with some spray starch and didn't want to wait until it dried before I took a picture.

All that's left to do now is to bind it, and I'll do that in a dark red fabric. I'm so happy with how it looks, it's going to be hard to give it away, but I know it'll be very much appreciated <3 <3

In other sewing, I've also caught up on more of the tiny nine patch blocks:

These are blocks from weeks eight and nine. I took the picture outside and it's weirdly blue, but I think the blocks in the front look true to colour. There are some really old fabrics in the blocks that I can see, definitely a Smithsonian in the front there, and I think also a Sarah Johnson print among others ...

And these blocks are from weeks ten and twelve - having completed week eleven a couple of weeks ago. Above you can see my little tray of squares cut and ready to go in upcoming blocks - it's like a trip down memory lane with some of these sweet prints.

I'd like to have a few more made before week sixteen is released in a few days, but I won't push myself, I actually have a huge list of things I'd like to achieve before Tuesday.

The last picture for this week is just a couple of things that made their way to me recently:

I think the fabric in the middle has the potential to be the binding fabric for the Morrell quilt when I eventually get there. The pink on the right is just because, as is the book - I do always love a sampler quilt!

Tonight I spent a few minutes on the party line with the Chook Shed stitchers - not especially talkative on my part as I was working away, but always fun to hear the chatter in the background. Nice to spend time with you ladies.

Well that's it from me for now - chatter soon friends xox

Quickie Post

Just a quickie post tonight as I'm all inspired and working at the sewing machine. I'm making scrappy blocks for some kids quilts, and also the tiny nine patches in an effort to catch up.

I grabbed my 2.5" squares box, and some fabrics that my darling friend Jean donated, and I've been pairing up squares to make blocks, and then framing them with cute fabrics. While I'm inspired I'm just going to keep on piecing and get as much as I can done.

The tiny nine patches, I've caught up a little, I think I have three weeks worth left to do, and then this weeks blocks too. It's not so hard to do, and fun to use up little scraps ... but on that note, I'm going to catch up on a couple of emails, and get back to the machine. Perhaps I'll check back in at the end of the weekend. Chatter soon!

It's April already!

Are you like me and thinking time is dashing by faster and faster? I just can't believe a week has disappeared already, but here we are at Friday evening. I had to think a little to remember what I achieved this week, so let's see what I can recall ...

Because of the positive reaction to Mushroom Chu-Chu's baby quilt, I did end up writing the pattern to put in my Etsy store, thank you to those of you who asked about it:

You can click on the picture to take you to my store, or any of the links in the sidebar. 

I also mentioned last week that I'd made some more of the tiny nine patches but hadn't taken a picture yet, so I can share that with you today. My photo isn't great, photography has never been one of my super powers lol ...

It was so much fun to work with lots of different fabrics somewhat like those from the challenge. Certainly more time consuming than making them all the same (or mostly the same) as I'd done up to now. I haven't made any more toward this week's allocation, or caught up on some of the past weeks - there hasn't been much free time for the sewing room, so maybe that's a job for this coming weekend.

Something I did tackle over the Easter break was picking back up on the Morrell quilt, and one of the tricker blocks beckoned:

This is Block 48 - Triple Irish Chain, and the block is 10in finished size, so they are approx 1/2in finished pieces. Yes, you read that right approx 1/2in finished. This block fought me the whole way, following the directions had me with a strip set that was about an inch larger than it needed to be, so I had to make a new plan and do whatever I could to get the block made. It took three days to get the block together which may be a new record for me - and I didn't love the process. But now that it's made I just love it, and I'm super glad I perservered.

Would you like to see the back of the block? It's pretty much all seam allowances:

To reduce the bulk somewhat I decided to do the last press with seam allowances open, and the block is pretty stiff with starch. And a fun thing is that I'll be able to use some of the leftovers toward the tiny nine patch blocks. Win-win!

In other stolen moments I've done a little hand quilting here and there, but there's been little other action in the sewing room. This weekend is Amy's baby shower, and also a family birthday party, but I'm sure I'll be able to get some quilt therapy here and there. I'll be sure to let you know! Chatter soon xox