Mad Sewing Tuesday

It's the first of the Mad Sewing Tuesday sessions... a few of us are going to get together to sew and sew... I'm glad I started today, or I would have been mowing...then grocery shopping.. then by the time I go to dance class and yoga that would be it!! The day is gone!!

I finished something off first (well nearly.... it needs quilting)... You know, I have this rule that I need to finish something before I can start something new... so, it's almost a finish.. because it's ready to be quilted by Mum. (Thank you!)...

This is the Flower Of The Month stitchery I started in 2006. The last time I worked on it was May 2010. This how it looked then...

oh dear... It's been waiting for borders for 18 months! I just love love the colours and fabrics... I would love to keep it... but I had an idea while I was finishing it today that my gf Janelle would love it. She lost her Dad last week - he was a war veteran... with poppies quilted on this, I would name it "Rememberance".

This bunch of flowers will last a lot longer than some real ones that would fade too quickly. I'm not going to tell Janelle why she is getting this quilt. I am just going to give it to her.

My next task was to prepare for Christmas...

This Christmas stocking panel by Julie Paschkis is stunning. The prints have depth, and the colours are warm. I quilted the fronts, then quilted black pieces for the back... then added straight grain binding to the tops, stitched around the outside... and added bias binding to the sides.

Two made, two more to go... maybe next Tuesday? I think they took an average of an hour each... that's not too bad.... Still to make the birds (I want them to be name tags for the stockings).... Fun! Fun!

Raspberry Cream

There were only 2 hours between work shifts last Friday night... and I still managed to quilt this little item that had been sitting around for 2 years as a quilt top! Oh dear! Little meandering around the stitcheries, with stars here and there... There was no time for quilt-marking, so I completely free-formed it. The stripe border contains little flame shapes...the green sawtooth border has swirls, and the white sawtooth border is diagonal squiggles.

I'm loving it to bits. The binding was stitched on today... That's a Finish - now I can start something else!! Yippee!

Playtime

Oh, I'm going mad with joy over these Egyptian prints!!

These came into my LQS just at the time the Tutankhamen exhibition opened in Melbourne... Was I happy and inspired? Oh yes!! Now, when was that? Perhaps June? I really can't remember... but my fabrics were purchased immediatly... and dutifully left in the bag they were purchased in... oh my!

It's definitely playtime for me and these fabrics. This is the start: strip piecing the width of the bolt. It reminds me of the way heiroglyphics run horizontally across walls. Well, no, actually, perhaps they run vertically? However, I think it will be more pleasing to the eye if these strips run horizontally....

I've organised a sewing get-together day on Tuesday with Rosie, Andrea and Amanda. We are going to stitch our little socks off! I'm not yet sure whether this quilt will be worked on, or the new idea I have with the stunning indigenous prints in my LQS.

Ah, that's 4 days away.... let's just see what is talking to me on the day.

Birds In The Air - ready to launch

I have finished another little quilt ready to hang on the wall!!

I so enjoyed quilting this miniature piece - Birds In The Air.

The finished size is 20in x 16in. It was such a pleasure to machine quilt. It turns out that the teeny tiny "birds" (i.e. triangles) did not actually need quilting. See this close-up for quilting details.

I just scooted around the large base triangles a quarter inch away from the seam.

All that remains is to add a label, which I shall do.

I call it finished... after 10 years...

I hereby name this quilt Dharavi - after the Indian slum it now makes me think of. Look at the quilt as though it is a birds eye view.

Mum quilted it with swirls in the centre - over the slum roofs. The swirls remind me of dust moving in little eddies with the wind, or with the monsoon rains that pour and pour through the bits of plastic and tin used as housing.

Surrounding the patchwork of roofs made from varying found materials are people walking in bright colours. There are some make-shift tenements that have escaped the boundaries of the legal slum.

Then there is the ribbon border- depicting barbed wire. Legal slums have very specific boundaries. The ribbon border is made of three different materials, just as the barbed wire fences would be made from whatever wire is on hand.

Lastly, the slum is surrounded by tall buildings. Slums are always next to high-rise buildings. It's where the workers live while they are doing the building.... then the high-rise tenants move in, and they don't want a slum view from their windows.... so the slum dwellers move once again, taking their temporary dwellings to another site where they will hopefully be employed to make concrete once again.

Luca is one

This is my little nephew Luca.

For his first birthday I quickly (and I mean quickly) whipped up this little quilt/playmat.

What a great panel! It has both roads and train tracks. Whip it down on any dirty floor space and let the little one vroom and broom to his (or her) heart's content!

Happy birthday darlin'. Love from Aunty Lozza. xxx

Freshly Quilted

I just felt like moving in the gentle trance of the stitcher...

...line-following... the hum of the machine... they seem to induce trance-like states... our minds flow...they think of other things... but they don't worry... and they don't feel pain....

This little mini quilt has been sitting around for quite some time... (okay, that's over a year).. now it is quilted. Binding to follow very soon. I feel sure it won't be sitting around like this for long. These birds want to be in the air.

(Birds In The Air miniature quilt designed by Lori Smith).