A quilt finish.....

A couple of evenings sewing the binding and hanging sleeve down and my Holly Cottage quilt is finished.....

 The pattern is Holly Cottage from Michelle Ridgway's book ....

Raewyn and I hosted a Stitch-a-long and if you like you can see some different versions HERE .  

 Righto, Gotto Go... just a little more stroking (I love the feel of a quilted quilt) before it gets packed away till Christmas

Have a lovely weekend... the cool has come - we are ready

As usual.....

... there is lots of different things going on here....

My first block for Flowerville is completed .....

very sweet in the Tilda fabrics

Flowerville is designed by Rosalie Dekker and I bought a kit from The Quilters Angel - preprinted linen and lovely Tilda fabrics

Monday was a holiday and so I spent it doing some of my own quilting....

I pin quite heavily ..... listening to a book and keeping an eye on the birds outside and it's not an unpleasant task....

A lot of outlining to start with..... 

I like to use monofilament thread for this part then I can move from cream, to blue, to red to brown and the thread doesn't show.....

I changed colours for the different borders .....sometimes is means that the 'quilting' doesn't show much but thats the look I wanted... the quilt is busy enough with the applique and fabrics....

However, I did a loopy ribbon in the thin red borders, some big ribbon in the green and holly in the wider red ....

Some lovely stars and stripes for the binding.... a couple of evenings in front of the TV now... the evenings are cooler so perfect timing..... 

This quilt is Holly Cottage designed by Michelle Ridgway

I visited a friend recently and was saying how I learnt to sew on a little Singer handcrank and it is one thing I was sorry I never kept when we immigrated....

She gave me this sweet girl - who needs cleaning and derusting etc - a project for Hubz (with my supervision of course).  She was made in 1920 so the goal is that she can celebrate her 100th working!

You may yet see my handcranking a quilt!!!  No accesories etc, but I am delighted non-the-less

Another little block done for Angel Story

The whole of ChooseDay sewing was working on these little blighters.... 

the Blocks finish at 3" square ..... foundation paper piecing and I tried so hard to be accurate but you can see points don't meet....  very frustrating.....

I have been growing a Native Finger Lime and this week we got a little finger lime off it....

The lime itself is smaller than my little finger and so those are tiny little caviar balls packed with flavour when popped

Prickly little bush but there are about 10 more little one's growing

Righto, Gotto Go..... real work to do ..... 

Have a lovely rest of the week.....xx

Holly Cottage

I've been co-hosting a Stitch-a-long with Raewyn, and we have been sewing Michelle's pattern (from her book) of the Holly Cottage quilt....

March is the month for sewing the borders on ....

I love all the different aspects in this pattern, there is applique, embroidery and piecing.  Just my kind of project....

I had bought the borders and binding all together, using a fat 1/8 pack of Anni Downs fabrics for the basis.  So I also made my binding up and it is now folded together with the wadding and backing waiting to be quilted... 

The aim is to have it done by Christmas!!!!!

My left over fabrics from Anthology have made up 5 lovely long strips of geese....

There are also some other pieces I am joining up - just small rectangles - all the scraps are being used

I added the final thin borders to my Shimacho quilt top.  I had used left over Japanese themed fabrics (there is still more to make the backing!!!) and a soft grey plain fabric.

I love the stained glass look it gave out in the sunshine...  and I love this pattern so I can see me using it with other scraps too

While I was out taking pictures I snapped my pretty little crocuses... they loved the rain we had last week.... 

So that is another flimsy finished ..... it has it's binding but I'm making up the backing with more Japanese fabrics (I had a goodly stash of them)

Righto, Gotto Go.... I've got a bit of quilting to do....

February.....

I'm a bit late for this post..... but visitors and beach trips took precedence for a few days!

My OPAM finishes for February are these 6 mug rugs....

Thanks Peg and Kris who are hosting OPAM for another year ...... 

They are also from my UFO drawer so count in for Finishing Stitches completed projects.

Joy hosts Finishing Stitches and we can include blocks towards any UFO projects that we are working on.... thanks Joy - keeps me going on them

In February I did these blocks towards my Anthology quilt....

... and these ones....

... then sewed all the blocks together.....

I also did the cottage block for Holly Cottage ....

and a couple of reverse applique for Dutch Treat.....

... as well as some tags for the No Fuss stitch-a-long....

I decided I did want a small border on my Anthology quilt .... so I added one in the same colour as the sashing....

... just tidies it up a bit and I will bind it in the same red as the corner stones....

So that's a wrap for February.....  I do enjoy looking back and seeing what has been done.... sometimes the month seems to go so fast ...

Righto, Gotto Go... it's Tuesday and that means sewing with the Tuesday girls...

Keeping up with the blocks......

This month for Holly Cottage (Michelle Ridgway design)  stitch-a-long is the cottage block....

there is quite a bit more work in this one than the others but I do love doing this kind of detail and mix of applique and embroidery....

This is the last of the blocks and I have joined up the row....

Next all the rows go together and borders to add.....

At shows I try and avoid demonstrators showing the latest gadgets and things..... in my time I have bought some junk, and things I didn't find useful at all..... but I got sucked in again!!!

This time it is a little plate that helps clean silver and jewellery...... 

This is my very favourite little piece of silver I inherited.... I use it all the time as my sugar bowl...

I put it upside down as you can see the pretty work easier....

There it is with the plate...only after a short time the difference can be seen...

the plate causes hydrogen bubbles apparently and these knock the dirt... can you see how grubby the water has gone...

... after only a few minutes and no rubbing or scrubbing...  just a rinse and a wipe...

... my beautiful bowl is back in action....

Anybody used these?   Please warn me if there are problems....

The demonstrator cleaned quite a few of us onlookers jewellery - I have a silver chain which is lovely and clean now, including others had diamonds and gold which came up beautifully too ....

I'm impressed...... now I have a drawer of random silver cutlery to clean.... this makes it fun!!! haha

This week the last of the Anthology blocks were sewn!!!!!  We did 11 (but I added another which we had done last week to make a tidy picture!)

Very exciting ..... now I need to clear some time and my design wall to place them all out and start joining.....

This week's Dutch Treat block is a cottage .....

The little windows are supposed to be all individual little appliqued squares but I couldn't cope with that so I did a larger square with a line of back stitch.... (I'm not totally insane yet)

Righto, Gotta Go, that random cutlery is calling me!!!

10 minutes a day.....

Chookyblue set a goal for 10 minutes a day of sewing to work through projects..... Since I sew almost all day every day I thought it was a bit indulgent for me! haha.... 

During the day I do 'work quilting' (except for my scheduled group sewing times) and at night I do my own hand work whilst watching TV, chatting and even during Facetime calls to family..... (I put it down to having been a smoker and needing something to do with my hands!)

So that is why another 10 minutes of sewing time seems indulgent.... and then I realised this is the time I can set aside just for my UFO's - or other machine sewing of my own...

This last week the time has been spent finishing up using my beach huts blocks (well there are a few left)

I now have a bath mat and two tray mats (binding was machine sewed down so nice and quick) - I even used some huts on the backs -

Scrappy projects done and 3 more UFO finishes!

This next week I am going to use my time to work on my tea cups and pots....

here they are all trimmed and waiting for peepers to be added....

Meanwhile I have finished the January block for Holly Cottage (Michelle Ridgway design) Stitch-a-long.... you can see other peoples versions HERE....

... and I have put these one's into their row.....

Only one more block left for this - then time to put it all together!!!

By the way Sandi, who hosts the No Fuss Stitch-a-long has a new blog and is doing a give away with the most delightful needlebooks and pincushions....  Personally I don't want any body else to put their name in the hat but in the spirit of kindness the post is HERE....  they really are exquisite and perfect for popping into the 'pick up and go' project bag....

Righto, Gotto Go... off to work on those peepers before I start my work quilting for the day .....