I love a finish!

This week I finished hand quilting Mary's quilt, and I'm super happy with it!

It's so very soft and snuggly, and I hope it will be a treasure to my sweet grandbaby. Right now it's in the wash, I'm rinsing away the last of the blue marking lines. 

Last week I showed you the feedsack print I was thinking of using for the binding - I certainly did make use of it, and I think it looks quite pretty. My feedsacks are precious to me, and I could never seem to cut into them, but I figured if a quilt for a granddaughter wasn't a good enough reason to start using them, there never would be a better one.

So today I got back to some things I started earlier in the year and then put aside. I often have people contact me via my Etsy store to see if my tree skirt pattern comes in different sizes - so I'm making some smaller and some larger and getting ready to work on the patterns. Here is the one I started today:

This one finishes at 21" from point to point, and next I'll make a smaller one. These are destined to be table toppers, but could easily be tree skirts for little trees too. I'll bind this topper with a stripe fabric from the green and blue fabric collection. It's from deep stash - Hooty Hoot and the Kangaroo. I have a bunch of it, so it's nice to have it out of the fabric closet for a bit :-)

Last of all, I just got some super backing fabric, it's for an upcoming project:

Kaffe Fassett's Millefiore pattern - isn't it just lovely? Not sure when I'll get to the project it's destined for, but it's on the list. After all ... you just can't rush art!

Well, that's it from me for now - I'll chatter really soon! xox

Getting close!

This week I've been driving myself crazy checking out benchtop samples/visiting tile stores/checking in with our cabinetmaker trying to make decisions about what I'd like to do in my kitchen. It's actually really hard for me to make these relatively permanent decisions - but I'm slowly getting there. I won't bore you with photos yet, but I promise I'll share when I have something interesting.

What this has meant however, is that I didn't allow myself much quilting time, but I'm getting close to a finish on the hand quilting. I feel sure I'll have it done by Friday next week.

I think I have about one third of the final pieced border to go. Yay!

This afternoon I did some rummaging in my feedsack collection, and this is the piece that I'm considering using for the binding:

I'll have to be careful cutting the strips, this piece has quite a few stains and tears. But the stripe is so pretty and I just love plaids and stripes for bindings. 

The feedsacks have such a lovely soft texture and they're just delightful to work with. My collection is very small, so it's my plan to buy more when I'm able to travel to the USA again sometime.

Well, that's all I have to report for this week, hopefully I'll have a much more newsy and interesting post next week. Thank you for stopping by! xox

Thank you!

A big thank you to Maxine for her inspired help toward a quilting design for little Miss Mary's quilt. It was like a little lightbulb switched on in my brain. I had already looked at a heart template but dismissed it as too small, so I drew up a larger heart on Corel Draw and continued the grid behind it and presto, I'm happy. I have the best visitors to my blog, thank you so much!

I'm on the home stretch now with the borders, I'm looking forward to getting the binding on this quilt and putting it in use.

I also finished the second of the twisted hearts blocks, still the same machine quilting design, but I'm getting so much more comfortable with my machine:

Lovely Janet asked about the quilting design I used on the tangled hearts, whether there is a stencil or a name for the design. I don't know about a stencil, but I an tell you that the little circles are generally called pebbles, and the circles with shadows - I call them peacock feathers, but they may also be called paisley or something like that. I think there would be lots of online tutorials about how to quilt them, they are super fun to do and great for filling spaces. Hope this helps!

Last of all for today, in baking adventures for the week, I made a lemon ricotta tart for the sweet ladies that come to quilting:

Ohhh nom nom nom. It was good! I pinned the recipe to my Pinterest board. It was actually an orange tart, but I changed it to suit my abundance of lemons right now. There is a little sliver left over, so I may just indulge and have it with coffee for afternoon tea today.

Thank you all for stopping by, and I'll chatter again next week! xox

Yellow is such a joyful colour!

A couple of weeks ago I quilted a really happy scrap project for one of the lovely ladies that comes to quilting. I don't quilt much for others anymore, only relatively small projects for close friends. I didn't remember to take a picture at the time, but grabbed a couple of happy snaps when it came out for show and tell yesterday:

Isn't that yellow such a happy colour, and looking at all the different scrap fabrics kept me interested the whole time. I would love to make up this quilt myself someday. I'll add it to my ever growing list!

The moment I saw the plain yellow fabric, I knew I was going to put feathers in there. There was no debating it :-)

It's funny that I was so decisive with that project, because progress on Mary's cot quilt has stalled completely:

I have no inspiration whatsoever about how to quilt that plain white border. I've put stitches in there and pulled them out. I've also drawn quilting designs three times and spritzed them away. Ugh, hopefully I'll have a lightbulb moment soon.

I'm currently machine quilting on the second tangled hearts block I finished appliqueing:

My machine is behaving itself, and if I'm lucky I'll get it finished tonight. Tomorrow I can bury the threads and bind it.

I do have some chores to do tomorrow though, we're getting ready to do a kitchen 'refresh' and I'm organising new benchtops, tiles and handles for the cabinets. I've been tile shopping today, and it's so overwhelming. I'll check out some other stores, and see what feels right. There's nothing to show at the moment, but I promise I'll share photos when I can!

Thank you for all the lovely comments you've been leaving, it's super fun to read them. Hope you all have a great weekend, I'll chatter soon! xox

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