Second Week of March

We were housebound over a few days with threats of the cyclone.  We had a windy night and a few branches down and no power for most of a day.... and some very welcome rain.

So it was a good time to get out one of those tops from the Quilting Queue and play with it.....

I took this scrappy one (which I really love and it used so many of those little pieces) and also found a bunch of strips to make into binding......  off to the Binding Queue!!!

Girlfriends came round for machine sewing day and I am up to date with Be My Neighbour blocks, I am sewing this one with Susan and our neighbourhoods are looking very different, but I can assure you they are both respectable and good value to live there!!!

this is the first street done (the colours are a bit fresher than the picture shows)

I went to Quilt Group on Tuesday and there were some lovely quilt tops made using strippy scraps

This picture shows how Betty made hers... she backed with some lightweight fabric and after sewing the squares cut smaller strips

then placed them in opposite directions to get this ziggy zaggy effect....

Shirley made a shadow box quilt using her strip blocks....

... and another making diamond shapes with the strips....

Some great ideas ......

I did the binding on this little Charm Pack quilt

soft curly hooks for quilting ... makes a modernish cot quilt, or even a lap quilt....

and of course no scraps left from the charm pack!!!

This weekend I will prep up a few projects though not much will happen for the next 5 weeks, we are going away for a short island break and then children from far away are coming to help celebrate Hubby's 70th birthday at the end of the month.....

Excited is an under-exaggeration!  During this time I will be taking a break from blogging ....... xx

Righto, Gotta Go - I think I will take some yarn and pattern for baby clothes, nice and easy to travel with.....

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...

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.....