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...