Second Week of June

Well, the daughter etc are in their new home... still unpacking to do of course especially as she is away with the Widget at a sporting carnival......   I did have a laugh at her expense.  She has changed from 1 child to a partner and 4 children ----- went off to work very pleased with having organised everyone for school/work etc (3 different schools now instead of 1).... went off to the loo at midday to discover no make up and not even brushed her hair!

I worked on getting this UFO done..... A stitch along by Joy in 2023.  I used fabrics from my scrap linens.  The grey/beige was actually linen napkins from the OpShop.  

The stitcheries don't show up very well in the picture

... but you can see them close up....

On Wednesday machine sewing with friends I got my Floral Fun block done.  Sewing along with Brisbane Sunday Stitchers ....

... and then I did my 2 Neighbourhood blocks, sewing along with Susan....

Little bird applique done in the evening....

This new neighbourhood development is coming along nicely.....

Hand sewing this week has been continuing with Sashiko 365 ....  I'm up to 125 done now

Hope you have a good weekend, we were to have friends for a visit but Covid has visited them..... so I will keep  warm with the wood fire and get some sewing done..... proper winter weather finally.

Righto, Gotto Go.....  time for some hot chocolate!

First week of June

We finally lit our fire this week at home... the temperature suddenly dropped and it feels like winter.... so far been so mild here....  I do love a wood fire burning...

A few more scrappy starts were made.... (I have a pile of the centre 9 patches so it's actually not very much sewing done this week!

I did take out an old UFO BOM by Joy and finished off these sweet stitcheries (Teacup Critters 2023 BOM) - they had been traced ready to go

With the cooler weather I am enjoying sitting with this snuggly crochet blanket on my lap in the evenings....

Every now and then I try and choose another stitch and work on my stitch sampler..... I'm not very disciplined but it's coming along....

Trimmed my stitcheries and put them up with the completed ones.... I have a bunch of squares and HST's already made so I need to dig them out and put this together... it will end up a cot size quilt (one day)

Here I am with the jacket on..... I wore it this week and it is lovely and snug.  Because it had been well used and washed it is nice and soft.

Can you see my buttons and how perfect they are for this.  They were removed from a doona cover when I chopped that up to make a dress....

Not much crochet happening last night... Apollo very seldom wants to sit on my lap but I think the snuggly rug was too hard to resist....

Righto, Gotto Go.... local daughter is making the big move in with boyfriend and join up their families and I'm off to help with the clean up .....

Have a lovely weekend.....x

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....

 

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

Middle of March

This has been one of those weeks where I feel I haven't done very much sewing.... but in actual fact quite a lot has been done ... mostly finishing off things I had started

The Daisy in a Teacup has been sewn for Gossip in the Garden.....

... and the last of the Green blocks for RSC is sewn.... it still needs to be quilted

and I sewed together the little block from Joy's SAL .... I am using linen or linen/cotton blends - I seem to have a few smaller pieces left over from a variety of projects over the years

My favourite bit of playing this week is some big border feathers... this border is 10" wide and I haven't done this particular pattern before.  It needed some circles marked for guidelines, and I used THIS tutorial (now an unused blog unfortunately) 

I quilted this on my sit down machine (Sweet Sixteen) as it is a big quilt and can't fit on my frame.... took me ages but I got it done....

Now that quilt is waiting for the binding to be done..... it's just too hot at the moment to sit with it on my lap.

This quilt is Les Courtiers.  I had finished the top (SEEN HERE) at the end of 2019 after having the kit marinate in my cupboard for a few years

A couple more sweet LTMD stitcheries are done..... I have a mix of blue, red and green ones to be made into a couple of projects...

Part 3 of Gossip has a mix of blocks so these are all done now.... 

Another big dresden block goes in that space at some stage.....

One of the ladies at Quilt Group made a lovely backpack (which I thought would be great for when going to quilt shows etc and quilt shops where you need two hands for petting fabric).  Anyway last week she brought in her pattern for me to use.

I have a piece of Sashiko stitched (not by me but I picked up a Starter kit which had already one piece done at a destash) and I have some of these strips, also bought at a destash  and I'll put the two together....

The top is a drawstring which is what I wanted with a flap over.  I may just make a couple of adjustments with the straps and also add a pocket inside.

Hopefully I will get to play a bit with that over the weekend....

Righto, Gotto Go... busy day ahead and I need a second cup of coffee to kickstart my day....