Broderie Perse

This week I am feeling so proud of my accomplishments! I finished all the piecing on the centre square of the Morrell Quilt. And rather than work on the applique in the corner of the block from the pattern, I thought I'd give some broderie perse a try:

I'm super happy with how it looks, though it wasn't without tribulations. The fabric is not tightly woven, so it frayed easily as I was appliqueing it down - kind of nail biting actually. So I'll have to psych myself up to get the other three motifs put in place. I've started working on an updated tree skirt this week, and I just know that my brain made me work on that as a bit of an applique avoidance tactic. My justification is that it's July tomorrow, and I should have something ready for Christmas in July. Haha!

In other news, today Amy and I dashed to a local charity store - they were having a sale, and I spied something on the shelf in one of their Facebook photos, I needed to make sure I got them!

These milk glass dishes are very much prized among quilters - they're great for storing tools in the dish part, and for hanging scissors and other whatnots in the holes around the edge. So I bought all they had. Please don't think I'm being greedy, I definitely have a plan for them - one which I won't be able to reveal for a while now. But please trust me on that. If any of my local friends have some they don't need, or know where there are some for sale, please let me know, as I could use a few more!

And last of all for today - this is something I cannot believe, but our Camo turned 21 last week! Long time readers will remember him being quite small, and now he is so very big! Friday evening last week we had a party for him, and it was such a nice time. We don't seem to get as socially busy as we did before Covid, so it was so nice to be out and about with lovely family and friends.

We're so proud of Camo, he is doing so very well at work and following his dreams. I couldn't be happier for him!

That has been my week up to now - I'll chatter with you next week - the second half of this year. Hope you all have a lovely weekend xox

Almost there!

I've almost finished the centre square for the Morrell quilt. I just need to make up the pieced corner sections, and then I can decide what applique I'd like in the corners of the background fabric. I'm thinking a little broderie perse could look nice. Let's see how brave I feel when I get there. I still find broderie perse a little intimidating if I'm honest!

It's so nice to spend time working on the sewing machine, I've done so little of it in a while, and I hope to get more piecing finished this weekend. 

One of the lovely things keeping me from spending time in the sewing room is our Rowley pup, he's a delightful distraction. He's doubled in size now since we got him. He was 6kg when we first got him, and when we weighed in at the vet last weekend he was just short of 12kg (26lbs) He's going to be a big boy I think, as he's only four months old.

He has such a sweet personality, but still tends to be a bit timid and doesn't love to go on walks. Hopefully that will improve when we leave this puppy stage behind.

I don't have a lot to share tonight, but I do want to send an apology out into the world. During the week I remembered to have a look and see if there were any comments that were waiting on moderation. I dug a little deeper than normal and found that I had A LOT of them, and some were at least ten years old. There were many comments from long time readers and friends, and I hadn't seen them. At some stage I elected to moderate comments that were made more than two weeks after the original post had gone up, as most of the odd spammy comments seem to be on older posts. But sometimes people do comment on older posts, and they are all the ones I've missed. So, if you've commented and I haven't gotten back to you, that is most likely why. I'm so sorry if I didn't see your message.

And this is a recent one on an old post:

I don't have any way of responding personally, as I didn't get an email address or a name, but I appreciate the visit and I'm happy to answer questions. The questions relate to this post:

I made the quilt quite a long time ago, so I don't really remember how I constructed the border, but I imagine I probably did make up a bunch of four patches and sewed them all together to form the border. I most likely had leftovers from when I made the blocks in the main body of the quilt and then made extras.

And the little inner border would have also been 2" cut (1.5" finished) that way all the maths works out for adding the 1.5" squares for the blue and white part of the border.

I hope the original commenter will see this info, and I hope it helps.

That's it from me for now, it's getting late here, and I'm super tired as we've come home from being out to dinner. It was a big fun night out, and I'll share about it next week. Chatter soon friends! xox

Almost finished with the centre block

I  have one image only for you this week. I've been fiddling away with the centre block of the Morrell quilt, and I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along.

I've fussed a lot over details that won't matter to anyone else. The gold paisley print in the outside ring of the block was in my scrap drawer, and I had just enough to eke out the pieces I needed. It's a little bit directional, and I was hoping to have the paisley print always facing in the same direction, but I didn't have quite enough fabric, and had to alternate them. Will anyone but me notice? Probably not. And I realised that the background fabric is directional too, so the bottom of the block is on the left of the photo. Which made me want to take the little flower in the centre off and rotate it slightly, I know it's OCD, but I don't want to have to regret later on that I didn't do it. 

So now you know how OCD I can sometimes be, but not always - thank goodness. It can be paralysing!

I'm in two minds about what I'd like to work on tonight after I shut off the laptop. I'm really keen to foundation piece the triangle outside border of this block, and make some decisions about the applique for the corners. Or I might like to print out some Solvy sheets and work on some mmmCrafts projects to get a head start for the end of the year. I suspect that the foundation piecing will win out, I've hardly used my sewing machine since we've been back from our holiday, and I really miss using it.

In other Morrell quilt news, I'm probably going to upset some of the purists that have worked on this project. I'm fairly certain I will change the layout of the quilt, and maybe make up a couple of the blocks differently. From a layout perspective, I want to give my quilt a little more symmetry, and the blocks I make differently will depend on how that all comes together. I've made no big decisions, and I promise to keep you posted as I go. I hope you've all had a great week, this week has flashed by here, I can't believe we're almost done with Friday already! Chatter soon lovelies!

Ohhh, and quick edit - I've had a hard time commenting on some blogs lately, I haven't paid good attention, but have some changes to blog settings been made recently?

It's getting easier!

I can finally say we're starting to get used to our new puppy family member. Or maybe he's getting used to us? But anyway, we're working our way into a routine, he's starting to become calmer - and happy days, I'm finding a little more time to spend on crafty pursuits.

I'm so grateful that lovely people have been purchasing more of my painted bead heads for mmmCrafts projects from my Etsy store. This week past they've gone to destinations in the USA and Australia, and for the first time to New Zealand. It makes me to happy to help people out with their own craft projects, thank you all!

And I've had some more time to stitch a couple of my own things. A few hand quilting stitches in Lily Rosenberry, and I've begun to tackle the centre block for the Morrell quilt. It's just a start so far, and as is my whim, I've changed it a little:

Next I need to select some fabrics for the triangles that surrond this centre circle, and also settle on which background fabric this will sit on. Decisions decisions!

I also located and finished the other applique block I had worked on somewhat while we were away. It's a combination of applique and reverse applique, so I included a picture of the back for you too.

It's always fun when I'm working on scrappy projects to remember where I've used the fabrics before. The fabric in the block above was one of the major border fabrics in my Phebe quilt. I don't remember buying such a huge amount of it, but I have a lot left still!

The Morrell quilt has so many blocks that feature lovely Broderie Perse, and pretty toiles, so I've been collecting fabric that suit that purpose for a little while with varying degrees of success. This one I found at L'ucello and it arrived this week:

Isn't it darling? I'll look forward to finding the perfect block to use it in (and maybe others too!) That's all I've had time for this week. I'm hoping to have the centre block finished to share with you all next week, and it's my plan to catch up with some blog reading over the weekend, I've been a diabolical slacker! Chatter soon lovely friends xox

Edited to add: A big thank you to Elsie Montgomery for your message regarding last week's post, your email address didn't come to me, so I wasn't able to message you personally, but I wanted to send you my thanks for stopping by! xox

One Block!

I don't have much to share with you this evening, there hasn't been much time for stitching - and at the moment I'm painting bead heads for my sweet customers working on mmmCrafts projects. It's such a fun thing to do, and I love to see the finished ornaments people create.

But back to stitching - I've only made one block this week. I cut it out before we left for travel stitching, but never got to it. On Sunday afternoon Amy babysat the puppy so I could have some time to myself, and I was able to spend some precious time at the sewing machine. This is the result:

I love this block so much! It would be a really fun block for a whole quilt, using different corner fabrics and border strips would make such fun secondary patterns.

I'm not sure what my count for Sarah Morrell quilt blocks is now, but surely I'm in double digits?

Another fun (and slightly stressful) thing I did this past week was to decorate a cake for a friend who was celebrating a school milestone with a bunch of friends.

Norma baked the cakes and distracted the doggo while I did my thing with icing. I'm so glad she was happy with the cake, I feel like I could have done so much better - every cake is a learning experience.

I'm super hopeful that this coming week will be less hectic - I'm still adjusting to life being a puppy Mum. This week has included a trip to the emergency vet, which not only isn't great for the stress levels, but the bank balance too. My tactic now is to simply relax into the fact that it's going to be messy for a bit here, and this little (well, not so little each day) fluffball is going to take up a lot of my time for a while.

I'll be trying to get back to your messages when you leave them as soon as I can, please don't give up on me. Your notes mean so much, so I'll chatter soon! xox

Ship Stitching

Before we went away, I prepped a few blocks for stitching - just in case I had some free time while babysitting etc. I completed three of the blocks, and not because I was always too busy, but more that I seemed to always find different things to do.

These are two of the blocks I finished up:

The third block is also an applique block, and I've hidden it away amongst my hand sewing things, I'm sure I'll find it soon!

Here's a new picture of Rowley, as he seems to be the thing that's occupying most of my time at the moment:

I just want to boop that nose all day long. Well, not really - he requires quite a bit of supervision when he's inside. While he's exploring he's starting to chew on things a bit, those puppy teeth must be annoying him now. We start puppy school tomorrow, which is going to be beneficial for this puppy newbie.

I'm going to finish up quickly here now with a picture of where I'm at with Lily Rosenberry. I've put a few stitches in this week. Right now I'm in a race to see if I can finish this post before the battery gives out on my laptop. So, I'll chatter soon lovely friends!

Puppies are delightful time wasters!

So, I asked the hubster this week if he had any idea how busy a puppy would keep me. He said yes, but I'm not sure I believe him. Wow, they're such delightful time wasters :-) Little Rowley has gone from a shy little guy to a ball of energy resembling a baby shark! He's grown so much already too, and he moves so fast I haven't managed to take any good pictures of him, hopefully next week.

Stitching time has been scarce, and I'm kind of not feeling like it anyway, so I've only really put a few hand quilting stitches into Lily Rosenberry.

It's definitely not going to be finished any time soon, but every stitch is one stitch closer to completion right?

And I painted up some more coloured Elf heads for the mmmCrafts Twas the Night elves ornament pattern. Some for stock, and some to go to a new home. I love that they've been so well received in my Etsy store.

Last week I also promised to share some more holiday snaps etc. First up the items I purchased at the quilt store while were in Kona:

I was absolutely happy to purchase some souvenir style fabric, and given our location, I was thrilled to buy some Hawaiian applique patterns - a kit, a book, and a pattern. They'll go on the long list of things to do, but when I finally get to them it will be a wonderful reminder of our trip.

We stayed in the Hilton Gardens Hotel Waikiki Beach. We didn't do bunches of research about our hotel, and hadn't specifically asked for a view, so we were pleasantly surprised when we were able to see the beach from our suite. It was a great place to stay, we had a two bedroom suite with a lounge, little kitchen area and huge bathroom. We were so very lucky.

It was absolutely on our bucket list to visit Pearl Harbour, and I'm so glad I've checked it off my list of things to do in this life. There really aren't words to adequately describe the memorial, and it's hard to imagine the chaos and horror endured all those years ago.

This far away picture is of the Hula Kahiko dancer statues outside the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Our tour guide pointed them out to us, and I found them fascinating. Also, aren't the tropical gardens just lovely. There were so many things to see, and I just wasn't fast enough with my camera. I feel like there will be another trip to Hawaii in our future, we just didn't have enough time to see all the things we wanted.

So that's all I'll share for today - I'm catching up with Amy on Sunday, so I'll check her phone and see if she has any pictures to share with me - she's always so much better getting the happy snaps. Hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll chatter soon! xox

A month disappeared, just like that!

Hello friends, I know it's been a while since I checked in. I promise I have a really good reason. I've been off on holidays again, it's naughty that I didn't tell you all about it, but there are folks that say it's not a great idea to advertise when you're not going to be around. So I took that advice, even though my boys were still at home, you just never know who's reading along - best to play it safe.

Anyway, that out of the way, I'll fill you in. I went on yet another cruise - how lucky am I? This time it was like a girls trip with my Dad along as chaperone. My Mum, myself, Amy, Mary and Dad spent a night in Brisbane before cruising for 17 nights to Hawaii, then some time in Hawaii before flying back to Sydney and then home. We were away for just over three weeks, and we had a wonderful time.

Our chariot for the journey. We had adjoining balcony cabins, which was just wonderful.

I always love the art and sculptures on board, this piece was just mesmerising. We saw it every day when we walked by to have breakfast in the 270 lounge.

Our first island visit was Papeete in Tahiti, we spent a little time shopping, and then we caught a local cab looking for a nice beach and were recommended to Parc Vaira'i. This was a revelation, not busy at all (places can be super busy when a cruise ship comes in) and we had a lovely time in the warm water.

Our next stop for two days was Moorea in Tahiti:

Here we tendered ashore, and organised a tour with Captain Taina - on the way to a private island and beach we swam with stingrays and sharks. It was an amazing experience. I will confess that while I was the second person from our boat into the water, when those stingrays came near me, I was out of there! I don't mind admitting I was first back in the boat! Amy did so much better than me, she's so brave, and even came back for another go the second day we were in Moorea. 

Back again at sea, our next stop was in Kona Hawaii where I managed to find a quilt store:

I was fascinated to find they had a fabric cutting machine. I'd never seen such a thing before!

The store is called Quilt Passions, I did a little shopping with a local theme. I haven't remembered to take pictures of my purchases, so I'll save that for next time.

Our final stop on the cruise was in Honolulu Hawaii, where we spent time shopping and being tourists. Though I've been to the USA many times, I've never been to Hawaii, and I loved it! I'll share some more pictures next week, I haven't downloaded very many from the cloud yet, and even though we've been home for a week now, I just don't seem to be able to get back into normal life yet!

After we got home from the big trip, I had another exciting thing waiting for me. On Friday we went and picked up a new member for our family:

Meet little Rowley! He's a Rough Collie (like Lassie but our sweet baby is a tri-colour). In this picture he's 11 weeks old on the day we collected him.

This pic is from just a couple of days ago - he's starting to settle in. He's such a sweet boy! For the first couple of days he was so nervous and trembly, but now he's doing zoomies in the yard, running off with shoes when I'm not looking and generally stealing our hearts!

I'm having to remember to keep our bedroom and the sewing room doors shut, not sure what he's capable of as a little puppy with baby shark teeth! This is going to be a fun adventure as he grows - I'm sure you'll be seeing more of him!

So, I've filled you in on the last month - I promise to share some more photos next week - there are so many! Hopefully I will find some sewing mojo and have some stitching to share with you also - chatter soon! xox