Off with her head!

I did it! I started early, and I finished late. Sewing with online friends on a Friday night, thank you. I enjoyed your company.

Diamond Hill block 3 is almost prepared. Just flower centres and a stray petal to prepare. This will be put aside for now, and stitched later. I am feeling as though I am on track, and that's the main thing.

Diamond Hill free BOM block 3

Secret Garden block 2 is ready for the last hour or so of hand stitching. (I hope to enjoy that process today).

Secret Garden block 3 is becoming interesting!

Secret Garden block 3 is in progress

I envisage very bright purpleish leaves. The queen heads are wonderful flowers for this block. Still auditioning the alternate flowers in soft, pale fabrics. I will know when I have made the leaves and trialled the Cheshire cat's head whether they need to be changed, or can be embellished with embroidery stitches.

Next: keep making Queen heads, and prepare the cat head. When I am in the mood for choosing fabrics, I really enjoy this process. This is so much fun!

Three blocks on the go

Ooh! I wonder if I can sneak in two nights quilty work in one night tonight? Bub is in bed early, and Mumma has 3 blocks out to work on. Eek!

Of course, getting two nights work done in one Friday night would actually mean restraining myself.
Yes. That's what I said. I am gagging to start the next thing, which is Secret Garden block 3. I KNOW that if I start the next block, the others will be kind of left behind....

I seem to be dragging my feet on Diamond Hill block 3 a bit at the moment... . So many daisy petals to prepare, and these aren't MY colours, they are for my dear MIL. I just don't really feel like working on it. That is why I will push myself to do it. This is what I've done so far.

Diamond Hill block 3, needs a couple more leaves traced off

 I am now thinking to just make one more daisy tonight, then reward myself by preparing flowers on Secret Garden block 3 with the Cheshire cat.

Secret Garden block 3 (still looks like a secret right?)

So far this urn looks like a cauldron! But it won't always be so. I have plans. Big plans! Ooh! It's so exciting doing something different! Totally Maverick!

And here's the update on Secret Garden block 2.

Secret Garden block 2, with flamingo

Still leaves to add and a few embroidery details to go. But only one stripebell left! yay!

Linking up to Friday Night With Friends... I hope to have lots to show and tell over the weekend!

Kicking goals

Slowly, slowly I feel like I am reaching my goals for this week.

"Time For Love" wedding quilt

"Time For Love" wedding quilt is bound. It needs a label, and I need to check over it for threads to be trimmed. Then I can post it to the gorgeous couple!

A little bit closer

I need to take some closeup photos of the blocks to share.

Secret Garden block 2 is almost finished. The flamingo legs and head feathers are stitched on (it still needs an eye). Most of the stripebell stems are stitched on. The only thing left now is a few stripebell stems and the flamingo eye, and to replace the large pink leaves, then attach the last stripebell. (If I hadn't been tea total for 6 1/2 years, I'd have a few drinks to celebrate that last stripebell). Secret Garden is a wonderful mystery applique BOM, and I am so grateful to be stitching along with 5,000 other people on Esther's facebook group page. I need the motivation to finish one block, and start another.

I've spent an hour drooling over fabric for Secret Garden block 3. I've picked a lot of the fabrics, and thinking about adding other colours and dimensions with fabric paint or embroidery stitches. Instead of hiding the cat behind flowers, I think I will turn the head upside down, and "disappear" the body, adding a toothy Cheshire Cat grin.

More leaves are prepared and basted onto Diamond Hill block 3. I am not even going to start stitching it yet. I'm not in the mood at the moment. I am happy to keep up preparing those blocks on time at the moment. I guess when it gets closer to piecing everything together in 3 1/2 months I will feel very inspired to stitch the pieces down.

Next post should be much more photo heavy.

Linking up with Esther's WIPs on Wednesday.

Working it

It's the school holidays here, which means so many of our regular family commitments aren't running. It is just what I need to get up to speed with my stitching goals.

I love the stripey batik for the daisies

Diamond Hill block 3 has begun!


I made all these flower petals before checking how they looked on the background fabric. Oops. They looked a bit dark until I took a photo. Then I could easily see where the flowers stopped and the background started. If I feel unsure later, I can always embroider a line around the outside edge of each petal.

Next: stems and leaves

The petals are a little bit too long, and will need trimming before stitching down. My plan is to have all of this block prepared by the end of Saturday.

Slowly, slowly, the bluebells on Secret Garden block 2 have been stitched on. Working on one little section at a time really helped with motivation. I finished a section with the embroidered stems. Looking at it and patting it was just the right incentive to keep going.

It makes such a difference to have the bluebells stitched down. The block feels soft!

Next the flamingo legs need to be embroidered, and one more little fabric bluebell stalk needs to be made. Then, 6 more bluebells (or stripebells in my case) need to be prepared. And I still plan to change the large pink leaves to a different fabric.

your chance to "virtual pat" the stripebells

By Saturday night I hope to have completely finished Secret Garden block 2, and fully prepared Diamond Hill block 3, and stitched at least one more side onto the binding on Time For Love (still two sides to go).

In the mood!

Starting to feel more energy bubbling in my creative juices, I thought I would take a break from stitching bluebells. It has always been my intention to have every block prepared within its month of release, and then it can be stitched at any time.

The preparing takes more space, more brain juice (to choose fabrics), and more equipment (iron, extension cord, paintbrush, starch, turning tools, scissors, glue, etc).

I was in the mood!

Last night I prepared 3 of the 5 daisies for Diamond Hill block 3. I have traced onto double freezer paper, and cut out, almost all the pieces for the block (I accidentally missed a few stems).

daisy pieces prepared from this fabric, hoping to give the flowers the feeling of movement

This morning I prepared another daisy. Woohoo! Only one daisy, stems and leaves to prepare! I am hoping to finish preparing the block tomorrow so that I can sink my teeth into the next Secret Garden fabric choices. Oh yay! The new block in the mystery BOM has a cat hiding behind some flowers! cue Cheshire cat, and perhaps some Tula Pink tiger fabric!

Tula Pink tiger fabric, arrived in the mail last week! Hurrah!

I am still thinking about whether to use pansies or something completely different for the flowers, or to make them in a similar way to the pattern. Oh decisions! Decisions! I am in the mood to make them too!

Then we went to a family Easter egg hunt and cooked breakfast near the beach.

The event is held every year to celebrate our children's great grandmother's birthday (she has now passed over, but she adored Christmas and Easter, as do I, and this is how she is remembered - in her favourite type of family gathering).

We are enjoying holiday time. It's almost my favourite weather of the year here (May-October), it's cool enough to enjoy parks and the outdoors.

Oh! Bluebells!

We are feeling truly blessed having dodged the bullet of  Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie by only a couple of hundred kilometers.
Only 2 hours away, an entire rural city was almost blown away.

strange sunsets in strange weather

I've typed and formulated 30,000 words of documents in the last month. Some days all I could think about was what else I had to include.

All we had was a day or so of gusty winds, and that was just what we needed to blow the cobwebs away.

After the negative energy blew away, we all felt so refreshed.. even my brain could start to get excited about choosing fabric once again. Before that, it was all I could manage to stitch on a couple of striped bluebells each day (if I truly had time to put a stitch in).

My new swearword was "Oh! Bluebells!" hahahahahhahahah... (no really, there are a lot of these!)

Even though the binding for "Time For Love" is half hand stitched down now, I really felt like I wasn't getting anything done. I certainly had nothing to blog about!

Tomorrow it's time to receive Secret Garden mystery block 3. So I took another look at  block 2.  and set about stitching down just one patch of bluebells so that I could embroider the stems, and give me that feeling I was getting something done.

One patch of bluebells with embroidered stems

And here we have it! Success! What next when there is so much to do?

Helping hands and a hat

I'm pretty chuffed that I've managed to get these two blocks stitched! Yippee!

Thank you Fandom in stitches! All of the free stitchery patterns are still there so far. We are up to week 12. It looks like another 6 weeks of stitchery blocks to come in "The Goblin King" stitchalong.

It's a tribute to the movie Labyrinth, but I feel like it's a tribute to the late David Bowie too, as he wrote and sang the musical score.

Can you read the writing I've stitched in?

Each block will have a quote from the Labyrinth movie that comes to mind when I see the stitchery picture.

At the same time, it's busy here. I am typing another 10,000 word document, as well as cleaning up and stocking up to prepare for Tropical Cyclone Debbie.

It's a strange thing... do we really want to say "Debbie did Townsville" or not?

Oh! And Esther has the most gorrrgeous free Easter applique patterns ready to download and print on her blog here.