New and Old ....

A friend of mine bought some napkins at the op shop and gifted them to me for the linen

(it's a lovely piece of fabric and will be great for stitcheries)

It's a bit sad seeing someones hand work being donated and sold for very little... however that is my gain in this case... you can see all the handstitching around the edges (there are 10 napkins)

The little design is needleturned and embroidered.... with tiny wee stitches

what do you see in the design.. a reindeer, an acorn....?

I hope I never find out that someone has taken work I have spent hours over and chopped it up....

 I think I can make little decorations with the little designs though....

Over Christmas time there were some quiet periods that I did some hand sewing and now I have finished this redwork snowmen.....  I used a roll of Valdani thread which I found last year.. lovely variegation ..

need to find some nice fabric for a border

Terry is hosting another stitchalong.... (last year I joined in for the Charming Stars) and this year it is scrappy snowballs...

I found some coordinating fabrics in my secret hoarding place... (I think I bought these off someone destashing 4 years ago)  the amount of fabric in there is almost the equivalent of a jelly roll so I am going to use them....

And just to make it more fun I am going to stitch Michelles alphabet bears in the centre of the snowballs....  my quilt already has a name.... "Sweetpea"

It's going to be such fun I think...

Today I noticed a tree just covered in butterflies.... they were just everywhere... hundreds of them...

I am reliably informed this is a Blue Tiger... such a pleasure having these racing all over the garden

...Righto, Gotto Go... weather is a bit cooler and I am quilting (well, when I am not butterfly watching!)...

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, Queensland has elections and I have a young widget staying over 

Goals for the year????? ....

I do try and start the year with some planned projects...  

Stitch-A-Long

.. one of these this year is Natures Journey by Anni Downs and this Stitch-A-Long is being hosted by Chookyblue (aided and abetted by Susan).....

For January, whilst we waited for the book to be released, we stitched up a lovely free stitchery made available on Anni's blog HERE and made up something with it...

My stitchery (which as you know was spoilt with thread bleeding and restored with tea) has been made up into a small hanging 

I luckily had the little hanger in my cupboard which was just the right size.....

My pattern arrived last week for Natures Journey... it's going to be fun with lots of little applique blocks and I had some French General fabrics 'hoarding' in the cupboard and they have been informed their time is now.....

Christmas Projects

Another of my 'planned' projects is to keep up with Christmas sewing by participating in Christmas Through The Year  (CTTY) hosted by  Anthea (this months linky post is HERE) and 1 Christmas Item A Month hosted by Narelle.... ideally I will do a gift AND a Christmas themed item each month, but either way I expect to be thoroughly motivated by what other people make and share ....

So my little hanger will count as one... and the other stitchery I did when I thought I had messed up the first one.. has been framed in a simple frame 

I have a few Christmas stitcheries made up that are now hanging around UFO's... so I hope to get on top of those by participating in these fun blog activities.

Anyone can join either of these Christmas bloggy fun acitivities....

OPAM

Another fun bloggy thing I love participating in is OPAM... which is hosted jointly by Kris and Peg.... the goal is to try and finish at least one thing a month....no pressure, no competitiveness, just fun and motivation.... Sign Ups finish on February 1st... read up and sign up HERE or HERE if you'd like to know more about it....

Righto, Gotto Go... off to dig the next project out....

FNSI and Little hexagons.....

Last night.....

 Wendy hosted FNSI ...... luckily for me it also co-incided with a sewing group at The Quilters Angel... hosted by Marion... with friends... and snacks.... and cake... and wine for those who would like a small indulgement of an evening ..... 

.... Some days previously .......

every now and then I have done a few hexagons to use in a project and these are the ones I have done recently

they are 1/2" little itsy bitsy things...

to keep them all in the order I wanted I used this little trick I picked up from somewhere on the web....

some two sided tape stuck to a bit of fabric.....

... peel off the top and add the hexies in the order I want....

.. and there we go.. they are not moving until I'm ready to sew them together....

These are for the next bit of my Times Gone By sampler 

(Helen from Hugs and Kisses)

these are the parts I've done this week

I did change the wording so there was less to write

(the recommendation was all the blurb about dates and who sewed it and where you are from etc...  but I'm lazy about sewing writing.... hmmmmm)

... and here they are all added on to the blocks so far

(this is 12 1/2" wide)

here it is closer to see the detail a bit easier

top half.....

... and the bottom....

.... back to present day.....

.... this is what I worked on last night .... the next section for the sampler ....

I had foundation pieced these little 3 1/2" baskets in the morning and they needed their little handles sewn on.....

.. and then I started on this 12 1/2" strip of cross stitch .....

...  of course you can't go into a shop to sew and not shop... so I got some larger hexagons to play with.....

... Righto, Gotto Go.... we have a long weekend here in Australia... it is Australia Day on Monday... so lamb on the BBQ, beer in the fridge....  The Quilters Angel have a 20% sale on all weekend.... I wonder if I should op around?  - for moral support of course

Free Motion Quilting

Another of the goals I have set myself this year is to focus more on my Free Motion Quilting ... 

.. and as such I am going to participate as much as possible in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge hosted by  Darlene at QuiltShopGal.....

... HERE is the link to her blog where there is lots of useful information and HERE is the link to the January challenge and linky party..... 

the great thing is that there is no pressure to join in every month.. but when you can ... 

This months challenge is a pillow with a quilted heart motif...

I started by drawing on my top fabric...

then filled in the heart with sortof symmetrical feathers....

... looks better without the pen but I didn't like the funny feather in the centre of the right hand one so I unpicked (I do not like unpicking so it has to really bug me to do that!!)

... a few new stitches and like this is much better....

.. then I outlined the heart with little circles....

... and finally a wavy cross hatch.... 

I wasn't too sure about the wavy crosshatch but the heart shows up fine now it's made up into a pillow

 I finished off the back with a simple envelope

I do far prefer to make something for a fmq challenge... so I'm pleased to have practiced and created a new cushion for myself....

Thanks to QuiltShopGal for finding wonderful tutors and making this a fun and useful challenge

Righto, Gotto Go..... I'm off to read the other posts in the linky party and see what they have come up with

Looking back..... and forward....

Way back in November I finished off a pretty BlueBird quilt.... well I'm sure you know I hate to be one to drop names but I am friends with the designer.....  and we sew together regularly... and chat... and eat... and drink coffee... and occasionally wine....

ok... back to the quilt... at long last she has rereleased her pattern... (parts were lost digitally and had to be redone)... you can read her story HERE on her blog... say Hi ....

So, Christine now has a Craftsy store HERE and this months block is FREE..... it is Australian focussed so this is for Australia Day.... (but you could actually change the flag to whatever and it would still be awesome)  Thereafter there is a minimal charge for each block....

Now you can't tell about a quilt without a picture... you can see her quilt at her blog and this is the block for this month....

... I loved it the first time I saw it... and mine is hanging up in one of the bedrooms here at myhouse...

When I was paging through old blog posts trying to find when I made my bluebirds quilt I remember I showed you when we pulled down our patio..... HERE 

It was finished before Christmas....

... and its so lovely and cool ....

I use it heaps for stitching now.... 

Righto, Gotto Go.. time for stitching on the patio......

see you later....

sign ups HERE

Orange Peel Quilting

This week we have the first FNSI hosted by Wendy (thanks  x)



sign up's are HERE.... I'll be doing some hand stitching


I chose to do 'Orange Peel' on my Scrappy Trip quilt..... 

It is a reasonably easy one on a domestic sewing machine (personally I find the 2" finished squares a nice easy one to do as my hands can easily manoever the fabric)

I like the secondary patterns you get.. circles and 4 petal flowers as well as the cathedral window look in the individual squares...

this is the backing ... little mistakes going over the lines don't show at the end of the day (well unless of course you are quilt police looking for them)

Now of course not everyone wants to do free motion quilting and I have done this same shape with a walking foot... but to avoid moving the fabric around I would do a different flow to FMQ.

A gentle snakey line between the corners.... and it doesn't mean a lot of moving the quilt round corners

you do need to turn the fabric at the end for this one... then snakey line on the other side..

keep going... you can sew on the edges or cut threads on the edges ... either is going to be hidden by the binding..

you then turn the quilt 90 degrees and go the other way... still a snakey line 

... and again....

(I started quilting with a small machine with a small throat space.... it can be done though a huge quilt would be tough on the shoulders!)

... this is worth trying on a small project first... but it's a great one for when you have squares

(when I do big squares I mark as it is not so easy to keep nice curves and they are more noticeable when you go wrong)

It's been very hot so I have been doing a bit each morning before I cannot bear a quilt over me

All done today and here it is... the binding is made... but I will be leaving that to sew when it cools down...

I soaked my stitchery that had bled... the first bleed did get lighter... but of course there were bleeds elsewhere...

I finished the stitchery anyway and soaked it in some black tea....

... it's fine now....

just need to make it up into something useful

Righto, Gotto Go.... I am going to trim those edges of the quilt before putting it aside...