July's block for Wish You Well is done....

and I have added it to the last 2 months.....

where we are up to so far....  I love the combination of embroidery, applique, a bit of lace and piecing....

I have started to join my crochet squares together.... a friend showed me this way... a slip stitch in between the groups of trebles.. then 3 chain.. then slip stitch again... goes nice and quick and not too bulky....

My little hexagon flowers are all together now and I have started stitching them on to the background fabric..... but changed to embroidery so it is going slow!!!

This week I took out one of my own quilts from the queue and did the quilting... it is my One Block Wednesday and I am doing the same design throughout ... so sortof custom sortof all over...

This week I got a lovely bunch of flowers as a thank you for a quilt done last year.... a lovely surprise and they are so pretty... lasting well too

They arrived by post, the postie that delivers here is always wonderful about hiding my parcels behind the pot....

as we are unfenced and face the road it's lovely that they can't be seen

I have a son in Melbourne, which is now a mandatory face mask wearing area.... so guess what I am going to be trying out today....  any tips or patterns will be gratefully received.... 

Not sure if my machine can cope with such an article!!! haha

Righto, Gotto Go... off to search the internet for some suitable mask patterns... lucky there seems to be loads out there

WOOFA and other things......

Cheryll hosts WOOFA to motivate working on projects....

my list of UFO's is certainly getting less, (not to say I haven't started things so that I can have a decent list next year!!!)

This month the main WOOFA project was my pineapple quilt.... this is all finished now

.. the other one I worked on was putting the blocks together for this quilt.... but it won't be quilted for a while I think....

Did you know Facebook now has a 'Rooms' function?  I learnt of it when a room was sorted to celebrate MIL's 90th birthday.... so a few of us had a go this week.... and it works very well....

Sue in Victoria, (hope you don't mind me stealing your picture) Maria from WA and Michelle and I in Queensland....

took a bit of getting used to as we all want to talk at the same time (wierd hey?)

I did a few more borders on my crochet blocks while we chatted.....

 My most favourite LQS closed it's bricks and mortar store this week.  Thank goodness it will still operate but in different ways and we can still keep in contact.  Of course with changes there is sales.... I did limit what I got but I popped in yesterday for my last visit at that spot and got hold of this piece of fabric....

I have absolutely no idea what to do with it... but look... glow in the dark!!!  If nothing else it will make me smile!

This week I worked on my needleturn centre for a quilt.....

I need to add on some borders and then there is some more needleturn to go in the corners...

So pretty.... Pattern book is "Blue" by Natalie Bird and I am using Tilda fabrics.....

Righto, weekend is here, the floors have been mopped and I can go and play with my quilting machine... after my cuppa that is!

Have a lovely weekend.....

A sewing day......

I took a break from quilting to have a machine sewing day with a friend..... it's almost like a retreat day for us both!!!

First project box was my strippy blocks made with scrap batiks (plus a bit extra I purchased to get some other colours in)

I need to trim back the mess now but I will end up with 25 x 12 1/2" inch blocks....  

There still seems to be a pile of strips left... maybe there will be more place-mats made!!!!

Talking of place-mats these one's are now bound and ready for use.....  I do like hand sewing binding down generally but for something like this I have done it by machine... they will get a lot of heavy use....

I am doing Gail Pan's BOM called Wish you Well this year and though I have had the hand work done for a little while the blocks needed putting together....

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They were all laid out, I needed to find a little bit extra lace etc to include but I was able to sew these blocks together yesterday while the machine was out....

This is January and February.....

... and this is March and April....

I really love making quilts like this with a bit of embroidery, a bit of applique, some lace and piecing...

I need to trace out May and June and make a start on them..... and I need to go hunting for bits of old lace and doilies etc ... not so easy to find as it once was ...

Righto, Gotto Go.... a new day to play..... 

I hope you have a lovely rest of the week... 

Winter stitching....

Winter has started.....  lovely to have the fire burning, the handmade socks on, home made soup, flannel pj's, ugg boots and jumpers....  as we have a relatively short dry winter I quite enjoy the change in the seasons here....

I stitched the bluebirds a while ago, but realised the picture was hiding

Both of these are embroideries from Field Journal.... some threads are used several times but each embroidery has one new colour... the blue above and 'eggplant' is the one in the flowers below...

I like the wreath, maybe it appeals to a sense of balance

I have sewn together my One Block Wednesday blocks.... these blocks were sewn as part of a stitch-a-long last year but have been languishing in a box

I made quite a lot less than most people but I am happy with how I have put it together....  though strong colours and such small blocks does make my eyes go funny.....  it feels like I am doing one of those colourblind tests....

So a new flimsy for my Quilting Queue.... lap size and I won't be adding a border...

there were some blocks that I couldn't fit into my stripes so I have joined them.... they will become new placemats/traycloths for me and Hubz...

that has meant all the blocks are used.... these blocks finish at 4"

meanwhile space on my design wall has filled up.... I can machine sew as and when I get a few minutes.  I do seem to make such a mess when I am choosing bits of fabric....

Righto, Gotto Go..... the fire needs tending, coffee needs brewing and my crochet needs attention....

Hope you have a lovely rest of the week.... it's hard to believe we are halfway through the first week of June already...

May Monthlies....

This month I have 3 finishes to report.....

thanks to Kris for keeping the OPAM tallies going

The quilt for Mom's 90th birthday (which was finished a while ago but I didn't want to show it until Mom had it with her)

My big fat pincushion which was the Sunday Stitchers UFO challenge ..... thanks for the encouragement ladies....

... and my big Poppins Bag, which was a whole new project that I fell in love with...

My WOOFA project (thanks to Cheryll for hosting WOOFA) is my One Block quilt which is slowly coming together..... I have sewn most of the blocks into groups of 4 blocks....

... the plan is this week to get them into rows....

Continuing with my needleturn applique in the evenings this block has gone from this.....

... to this......

still a fair bit to do.... I spend more time procrastinating about the preparation part, choosing the fabrics, tracing etc... once that is done I love the sewing part...

... the plan is to get the centres of the flowers together this week...

I did find time to quilt my scrappy pineapple quilt

Cindy Needham has done a series on facebook since she had to cancel all her classes and she offered ideas for different quilts... I used her idea for this quilt... mostly in the ditch but some squares going into the white areas and then a bit of extra in the middle.  The binding is ready....

.. the plan is to sew it on this week!

This sweet Field Journal stitchery took me last evening to do... with a few stitches this morning....

... the plan is to get another one done this week!

On Tuesday a friend came over, it's so great we can have little gatherings again.... she made me this beautiful poncho with some 100% wool....

.. it is so lovely and snug ...

a close look at the pattern... beautifully made....  

... we both had our machines here and I started sewing strips together onto some sheeting using up my batik scraps (plus a few purchases to get a range of colours)

As I just chain sewed so that I would mix up the colours I didn't actually get any blocks done but there are 25 on the go..... 

... the plan is to keep working on these once my one block quilt top is all together.....

Righto, Gotto Go... I promised I would finish up a quilt job before treating myself to some of my own sewing!!!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.....

Now it's May .....

This year is flying by.....

Temperatures dropped and we lit our first 2020 fire... I love the log fire.....

My eldest grandson made this for me as a toddler... I used it virtually every day....

He turned 17 this week!!! how did that happen????  He was born in the first year we moved to Australia so that's how long we have been 'stralians...

Our Malaysian orchid flowered for the first time.... most of the bunches fizzled up but we have one lot.... it's very dainty and pretty....

I have been led astray from my projects by some other bloggers..... hmmmm

Lou has been sewing this one....  I love that there is a combination of applique, embroidery, piecing and embellishing.... 

This is from Gail Pan's I Stitch club, I came late to the party so I have several months to catch up on....  I am going to do the stitcheries first then have a few days of cutting and sewing the blocks together to catch up.....

January's stitcheries ....

February's stitcheries

....

Once I am up to date I don't think it will be too hard keeping up....

Lou has also been making these lovely batik blocks....

so in my bid to work on reducing me scraps I have pulled out the batik bucket and started cutting strips....  I think I need some other colours (there are quite big pieces but few colours .... an email to my favourite quilt shop should sort that problem out)

Cheryll hosted FNWF this week and I carried on working on March's blocks for Wish you Well

there are lovely sayings as well as pictures

However, Cheryll has also been tempting me with this gorgeous bag she made.... so I ordered the pattern and have been 'shopping' for some fabric.  The Quilters Angel stock Tim Holst fabrics and they are stunning - I'm so pleased to have found a project I need to use some of it!

My plan for the weekend is to make a start... I am still waiting for the bag zip to arrive in the post

"but wait, there's more"....

Susan has been working on getting here One Block quilt together.... it looks fabulous

so this will be my WOOFA challenge this month....

I have 240 blocks so it won't be a very big quilt

Righto, Gotto Go..... I am off to study that bag pattern.... and start placing the blocks on the design board

Have a lovely weekend, we have a long weekend here in Queensland ... Hubz needs to chop more firewood and I have some cyber social engagements....