End of August .....

this is the corner at our house....

we planted the tree you can see in the front corner and the wisteria behind it was our first planting....

this year (after 8 years) it is at it's finest we have seen it....

(brown grass = no rain)

smothered in glorious scented lilac....

.... and buzzing with lots of happy bees....

this week I finished off these two special quilts....

very open quilting

thick plush minky blanket on the back (no extra wadding)

two the same but different....

for two grandiegirls....

and made from their mum and dad's old shirts....

I found it impossible to get good quilting with the thick blanket, and the sides kept rolling, but they have worked out really soft and snuggly.... I'm still finding bits of fluff - it goes everywhere!!!! 

Some more Field Journal hexagons have been self bound....

... and I continue with the long top border of Civil War Bride..... slowly but surely....

Righto, time for coffee and off to help get the Embroidery Exhibition set up today....

Have a lovely weekend.....

Fourth week of August

The lovely Spring weather is upon us.... cool nights and glorious days (though some of them are a bit windy)

A little while ago I showed string QAYG blocks I was working on for the club's Community Quilts.... I delivered 30 completed blocks..... these now need to have the sashing to join.

And I went to the last Mystery Quilt sewing day and then came home and finished off the quilt top....

Of course this still needs to be quilted and bound.....  another top for Community Quilts....

Another set of Field Journal hexagons have been self bound....

and some other hexagons sewn together to form a panel... these are 1 1/4" and only 22 of them were needed...

plus a teeny weeny one made with 3/8" hexagons.... I even fussy cut!  Very cute but I don't want to do lots of them!

And a little stitchery ...... I like the look of the flower with the satin and back stitch and also the fill in back stitch leaves...

As I promised myself I have taken out the top border for Civil War Bride..... I haven't finished all the flowers yet.. (half way is up to those blue wannabe birds) then they have centres and there are lots of leaves to add... so it will take a while....

Righto, Gotto Go..... Thursday to enjoy....

Have a lovely rest of the week .... and weekend....

Third week of August

Another lovely busy sewing week for me....

First I sewed up the little bee  block for Gossip in the Garden.... silly bee had a swim in the tea!

Some more of the Field Journal blocks were sewn into hexagons.....

Another little critter in a tea cup (by Days with Joy stitchalong) as there is a new one due.  I still have the blocks to sew around a couple of these.

Since I had all my blocks for the main part of Gossip done I decided to sew them together......

It's so fun.. there is lots of different things to look at in it...

I still have borders to do... the main border is pieced so I have cut all those wedges out....

Any yay, yay, yay... this Pies and Tarts top is done...

I added the little border and wider border and since I had a few tarts extra decided to include them on the border (thanks for that idea Michelle)

As a non-EPP lover (forgive me) I am very pleased to have done this.  I won all of the fabrics for the pies and tarts, all of the precut card templates, plastic cutting templates.  I only needed to add some background fabrics and the borders.  Glenis at Glenrose Patchwork had a giveaway for the starter kit once she had completed hers.

Evening TV watching our Matilda's in the Womens World Cup Soccer has meant extra sewing time so I did another 6 self bound hexagons from my Field Journal stitcheries...

A miscalculation means I have double the binding I need for Pies and Tarts!  

So many lovely projects to play with and so many more that I want to get out... however I am going to concentrate on Civil War Bride this next week..... of course other things may distract me along the way!

Righto, Gotto Go.... CWB has some prep work to do...

Have a lovely weekend....

 

Second week of August

Last month my friend Michelle had a birthday - (I forgot to take pictures in my haste to get a parcel to the PO in time - so I have pinched from Michelle)

This sweet sewing bag and needlecase is an Anni Downs design, both Michelle and I are big fans of AD and often sew something of hers together (we are both doing Gossip in the Garden presently)

I also found her a new spool made by a local woodworker - M loves making beautiful scrolls full of stitching ...

She also loves books and carnations and I found this sweet bookmark in a copy of Inspirations.  I am a learner cross stitcher but she understands any errors in there because of my L plates....

There was also an assortment of charms and bits to play with on slow stitching....

Happy Happy Birthday special friend.....

Wattle season has begun in earnest - my nasal passage has confirmed it... and our little tree is looking splendid.....

Any travelling around is gorgeous too with bursts of different tones of yellow dotted around the bush.

On Tuesday with the girls I had a lesson in broomstick crochet...  you can see there are two different sizes as I was experimenting ....  it will be easier to do with a non pointy 'broomstick' so a friends husband is going to craft some in different sizes to try out.....

A bit of fun .....

The broomstick crochet was a distraction from what I had meant to sew, but now I have done this next block for Gossip....

Machine sewing with friends on Wednesday got me working on the strip blocks I had started..... I got them all sewn but now I need to make a big mess trimming all the sides....

I have finally completed my little whitework project.  I had to sew the little bridges for the cord and make the cord... there is supposed to be lovely little tassles on the cord but it's staying like this....

It will be included in the Embroidery Exhibition next month - as a sample for learners/new members.  Not all of us are as skilled or experienced as some of the members so hopefully it will help encourage others to join and see what we can learn.

They only have an exhibition every second year and the quality of work is amazing.... it is my favourite exhibition.  This will be my first year of including anything.

I am also displaying 3 quilts which are predominantly embroidered blocks....

Righto, Gotto Go..... those blocks aren't going to trim themselves....

Have a lovely weekend...

First week of August - FNWF

Thanks Chez for hosting us at FNWF...... 

I sewed up this sweet little pig critter from Joy's sewalong... (Joy has some other sewalongs happening so have a browse)

Over the last week I have put these 4 Dresden plates together.  The little stitcheries had already been done and I had a machine sewing day and sewed up all the blades and this week attached to the background fabrics.

These are for Gossip in the Garden.....

and this is where I am at with the quilt now.... there are a couple of gaps as you can see but not much left to do for this part.... then a pieced border....

Outside in the garden the beetles came back.... this is the first year we have seen these and they have been in great numbers on one particular tree (which they don't seem to be harming)  I believe they are Cotton Harlequin beetles - I just love the colours

Saturday morning saw me at Quilt Group for Community quilt sewing...

They have a couple of boxes with strips of fabric and also pieces of wadding too small for quilts so we are making up Quilt As You Go strip blocks....

I found some reasonably busy backing and placed the wadding on top (used some glue stick to make sure it doesn't move - hint from a friend sitting next to me) then started sewing strips from the centre out....

... of course it is no fun unless you can make a bit of a mess on the table....

We use plastic fold up tables... they are very useful but quite light and my sewing machine can go a bit fast when I get excited and the whole table wobbles!  Same friend sitting next to me said place the foot pedal backwards and then it stays at the speed you set it.....  it works!! no more speed wobbles for me....

Most people made a block then moved on to the next so they had a few finished blocks by the end of the day.  I prefer to do all my centres... have a session at the ironing board.... then sew the next line ... on we go....  as a result I have a nice pile of unfinished blocks - hopefully I will get these done this week....

I have also brought home some Japanese fabrics to cut and kit up to be made into a couple of quilts....

Righto, Gotto Go - Sunday has arrived, coffee is ready - have a lovely day ...xx