More!

But wait, there's more... today I finished the binding on the Superhero Comics quilt.

And here is the Violette Fields skirt set modelled by Miss 6! She love, love, loves it. The tshirt is her favourite colour. I chose the skirt fabrics with that in mind.

I also made some more travel bags today, and will photograph those for display tomorrow.

And that marks the end of my Christmas in July present and Christmas-themed sewing fest, according to the calender.

However, I do feel the urge to reward myself with other sewing if at least something of my main projects (Two quilts by Esther Aliu - Diamond Hill and Secret Garden) are completed every day. I am still definitely in the mood to machine stitch.

If you saw my sewing space now, and how crowded it looks, you would know I have lots and lots of projects to go on with, and just keep enjoying.

Something will catch my eye tomorrow, to be sure!

Bet you can't see for dust...

Well... I bet you can't see me for dust (that's an Aussie thing... driving so fast the car kicks up dust preventing the car behind from following or driving safely, especially in the Sticks (AKA country) where the roads may be narrow or made only of dirt)... I've been speeding along so fast, that I haven't had time to blog!

It's been a week since my last post, and with my sewing machine station (and cutting and ironing areas) permanently set up, everything has been rolling!

The over and underskirt set for Miss Six is finished. I am in love with these Violette Fields Patterns.

The blue part is the ruffled underskirt. The idea is to make a few of the overskirts, to mix and match with the one underskirt, to create different looks without as much sewing. Oh! The ruffles were definitely an act of love! I don't want to look at one again without shirring elastic. Oh darn it! That's what I forgot to buy today!

I made two travellers bags - a matching set.



"Let's be adventurers" for passports, tickets etc. Quilted with the words "Paris" and "France".



and "It's On My List".



 - a bag just the right size for taking your kindle on the plane.



Another pleated skirt is finished (green with roses) - no picture yet, haven't had a chance to put it on!

And yet another pleated skirt ... this one is made from 70s inspired Prints Charming fabrics on the front (designed and made in Sydney, Australia), but I didn't have enough fabric, so it's teemed with a 30s feedsack inspired print. I've had both of them for ages, and it feels wonderful to use fabrics (and wear them!).



The binding is machined onto the first Superhero comics quilt. I am looking forward to some hand stitching with my sweetheart on the couch tonight.



Only 2 nights left for my Christmas in July projects! I wonder if I will give myself an extension or if I will reward myself with consistent work on my two main projects this year! It's been such a productive time!

I am very happy.

I hope you are too. Thank you for dropping by.

Feeling Skirty

I am so proud of myself.

Partway through making this skirt I realised it was going to be too small (After the last one needed 4 darts, I thought I'd make it smaller)....

Erm.. no! It's still easier to put darts in than to make it bigger once it's cut out!

It's finished. It doesn't fit. It is not for me. (the zipper at the back is not done up).

Ah well, lucky I haven't cut up my fav Christmas fabric yet!

However... before I realised this was going to be too small, I bought more fabric. Oh yes. I am definitely going on one of those benders where I make a lot of things the same, but different. (surely, you've read the finished projects list down the side of my blog!!)

Mum is back for a few days, and I just realised I haven't even finished the quilt top I planned to give her to quilt for me. Goodness! What a busy Christmas in July!

At a LQS today I bought fabric on clearance to make another skirt for myself, and some non-clearance fabric that I felt I just HAD to have! Eek! KFC fabrics!!

And then before I left the shop, I spotted this precious pattern. Ohhh myyyy Goodness!!! I am so addicted to this look.

I bought clearance fabric to make matching underskirt and overskirt for Miss 6 and myself. Yep. We are going to match at a 7yo girls birthday party in a fortnight. Hee hee.

This is the finished over-skirt for Miss 6. Next: the pettiskirt with hand gathered frills.

This is going to be fun!

I wonder when I will get back to my two big quilt projects? Hee hee.

Okay, so in no particular order... I am going to finish the borders on the 12 Days of Christmas Birds quilt; finish Miss 6's skirt set; make a matching skirt set for me; machine the binding onto the Superheroes quilt; make some journal covers; and some Christmas stockings; make some table runners; make another 3 pleated skirts for myself.... and that's just off the top of my head! Yippee! Busy happy times here in my new sewing machine area!

Christmas in July rewards

The simple answer when your skirt is too big, is to take it in! Ta-da!

4 darts later, and I am a happy Christmasser in July!!

So I've cut out the next skirt a couple of sizes smaller.

Oh my, this could so easily be one of those tangents I go on, where I make heaps of something, then burn myself out of them. On the other hand, one cannot have too many skirts!!

And here is the finished Wild Geese little quilt.

The Light on these photos is very apt.... it's a special gift for Guru Purnima. I am grateful for the Light every day.

I hope you are enjoying your stitching!
 

Wrestling with skirt sizes

Yesterday I enjoyed hand stitching the binding to this little quilt. I hearby name this little table centre "Birds On A Wire".


Pieced flying geese, and contour lines quilted in, really fit the name.



Just finished at my local sewing group yesterday.


The binding is machine stitched onto the Wild Geese lap quilt too, but not stitched down yet.

And while I was there with the girls, I cut out a Christmas skirt I had been planning to make for quite some time.

There are some very experienced garment makers in my group, so I asked them to help me take my measurements, as they seemed to be telling me I was a size 20.

Yes. According to this pattern, I was a U.S. size 20. I put it down to the fact that it is a "misses" or teenage girl pattern. Gah, the sizes are just numbers anyway.

Then when I had traced off the pattern onto interfacing, the waist yoke looked like it was going to be too small. So I made it even bigger.

I came home, and started piecing it yesterday. I was up to the zipper last night, and it was time to put it down.

For the life of me I couldn't work out how to get the zipper right, using only their rubbish instructions. So, I just did it my own way. Eventually I got the skirt finished today! Ta-dah!



Only to find that the waist is 3 inches too big. Hmm... definitely not a size 20 after all. All those pleats and mucking about, and it's going to need darts!

My friend at stitching group asked me to make the skirt out of calico first so that I could make the right size. I said "No way! This fabric cost less per metre than calico!" Hee hee. So much for calico voiles these days!


I've also chosen two other Christmas fabrics to make skirts from when I have worked out what size I need! Wish me luck!

Blue with green, or green with blue

As you see me machine stitching away with verve, I hope you are also feeling inspired to stitch away ready for Christmas!

I've learnt a little lesson over the 20 years I have been making quilts... if I don't want it to end as a UFO, I need to leave the project at a place where it's easy to pick it up again. That means, don't finish an entire step. Leave that last step almost finished. Then when I pick it up, and do that easy bit, I have the next part in my head, and the project keeps flowing... ah yes...

And so it was easy enough to pick up this little quilt today, and finish the quilting.

Hurrah!

I love the backing as much as the front. The quilting shows up better on the back, and I almost love that side more!

Well, to whomever decided that blue and green should together never be seen, I stick my tongue out and blow a huge raspberry!

xo

No quilt police here

It's Christmas In July (or making Christmas presents in July) month for me!

It's so refreshing to give yourself permission to start something new and finish it quickly!

This Wild Geese quilt started as leftovers from the orange challenge article. There weren't enough geese to make a quilt out of those few, so I found a few different fat quarters from different ranges and cut away without thinking too much... there seems to be a vintage kind of 70s scrap bag look.

and some feet for size reference.. heh heh

Here are the two little pieces all spray basted ready to start! Ooh! It's so delicious to run my fingers over their surfaces....

I even remembered to machine stitch on the labels before quilting!

machine stitching the label before quilting means it cannot be removed

It was so tempting, that I quilted the little orange table centre today!

Ooh, I love the texture of a quilted piece!

Leaves, and some wiggly lines. It's been a while since I free motion quilted, and it feels good to be back in the groove... moving with the sewing machine, and on my way to finishing something, just because it feels nice....




And... it felt to nice to quilt away, that more than half of the lap quilt is also quilted!

Now that I've done so much quilting on it, I can see that it was probably a little bit too big to spray baste, and really should have been pin basted. However, there are no quilt police here! And it's for a gift!

Looking forward to more quilting tomorrow... I will definitely sleep well tonight. So much concentration has left me feeling drained!

You guessed it!

I've been sewing and sewing and sewing!

Here comes a little Wild Goose quilt for a special gift!

the sewing machine stays out, ready to be used!

72 more geese units

I think there are over 100 in total now... in 2 different "colourways" ready for me to mix it all up.

ooh... this is going to be so pretty!

I envisage spacer rows in vanilla...

These look soooo good actually joined... and look at the little confetti pieces from cutting off all the years! Too sweet!

Maybe I will get these pieced into a quilt top today?

And now this... !!!!

I'm supposed to be stitching projects for Christmas or with Christmas themes during July - as I had declared it "Christmas In July" month!

I don't suppose I can convince myself that these stitcheries from The Goblin King (Labyrinth movie) quilt are going to be a Christmas present for myself?

Ambrocious, the loyal steed

Well... (this is me explaining to myself).... I HAD to stitch these up. There weren't any Christmas stitcheries traced off ready to sew. I had no choice... *cough cough*

You know, I might almost have convinced myself there.

I AM feeling pretty happy to have a couple more stitcheries finished.

Toby

And now that this has happened...

A new sewing space of my own!

YES! My sweet man has given me half of our family kitchen to sew in! The sewing machine stays permanently in place! Hurrah!

I think you can guess what this means! A lot more sewing machine activity could soon be showing up, right here on your screen!

Doing the happy dance here!

Just a little bit....

The second block of 6 for "The Wish Quilt" by Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolley is complete.




And a mini block for the third large combined block has been made.



Next it will be time to trace off more stitcheries ready to carry around (you never know when you can sneak in a few stitches!) Although, I expect when the school holidays are over, the blog will look much more productive.

We've been investigating everywhere! Visiting gardens...




And we even happened across a sugar cane fire just at the right time....



just on sunset...



we saw the fire start with a can and gun, and we watched it burn, felt the heat, smelt the ash, heard the loud crackle.. we stopped to watch it all.. fascinating stuff...

Sew busy and happy

It's the school holidays, and we are busy busy busy!


There wasn't even time for Social Sewing Group today... family is amazing though. What a journey we get to travel watching children grow.

This is my show and tell from yesterday...



A little bit more to do and this block (one of 6 blocks in  Bronwyn Hayes' design "The Wish Quilt") is finished.

I've had so many ideas, and am quite excited to go shopping for Christmas fabric at $5 per metre... I just can't help myself when it comes to Christmas! Trying to stay away...

Mum leaves tomorrow, which was a surprise to me. I thought she was staying for longer, so I have been forsaking my sewing for family time. Stay tuned for more "Christmas in July" progress.

Stitchy fingers

I've been gagging to start something with these challenge fabrics. And finally, it's July!


My self imposed (or is that self allowing) month where I get to put aside the long term projects I've been working on all year, and finish off/work on/start some projects with a Christmas theme, or for Christmas gifts.

First up, I started another small redwork stitchery for the Bronwyn Hayes Christmas wallhanging. This little birdy block is stitched. It will become the centre of a tiny sawtooth star. There is another little one traced and ready to stitch.



Last night after little man went to sleep with his Daddy, I was in the right frame of mind to cut and measure fabric pieces for one of the redwork blocks, but the fabric was nowhere to be found! Dangnabbit. I'll have to work on something else. It turned out to be in a box under our bed where he was sleeping with Dad.... No way that I  would have been able to rummage around without waking up Bub, and that is why I couldn't find it last night.

Well, with itchy fingers (or should that be "stitchy fingers"? hee hee) I went searching for something else to cut and stitch.

Ta-da! Ooh, these fabrics are lovely. The challenge is to make an item no bigger than 50cm x 50cm using only these fabrics.

I liked the look of these flying geese blocks at Temecula Quilt Co. This link shows a photo tutorial for making the blocks starting with 5 squares to make 4 geese units.

I made these last night. It took no time to make 18 blocks.


All pinned together, and little confetti triangles cut off...



And here is the tiny quilt top ready to quilt. This is going to be a table centre. This will fulfill the challenge requirements and then it will be given as a gift to one of the children's class teachers for Christmas.



Then I really liked these green fabrics with the oranges.



I couldn't use them together for the challenge, so I decided to make something else with the leftover orange prints from the challenge.



 This will become a quilt about a metre square.



 Hmm.. I'm going to need some more orange and green fabrics. What can I find?



More geese!!



Uh-oh. I cut these squares too big! Back to the board to cut them down...





I've made 44 geese blocks... I think that will be about half the size I'd like.  I'm going to have to look for another 6 or so fat quarters.... that's all I could get up to today... school holidays! Busy Mummy!!

Earlier this week I took little man and my Mum (Grandma) off to the Townsville Show to look at the exhibits.



The craft and baking sections were so small.... I feel bad for not entering this year. I want to keep the exhibits going. Now, I know how to present everything, I am excited to enter a few sections next year.

It's an amazing thing to see everything new in the eyes of a child.



I feel totally blessed to be a parent...
Ooh! The Ferris Wheel.



Who is looking at Who?

Little Man couldn't take his eyes off the Dodgem Cars. I know he's going to love them when he's older... or maybe he will have a go-kart and won't need them. He's definitely a car buff like his Dad.