A bit of deliciousness

Ooh! What do we have in this bag?

It all started this morning when I met my best local quilty gf for coffee before she goes away over Christmas. I was gathering my show and tell, and came across some blocks I made some time ago. I guess I have been making them for a couple of years now. I started them in 2013 when I was living in a caravan and storage space was short.

 The applique blocks were prepared from Lori Smith patterns and Kaffe and friends fabrics in my stash, and they came along for the ride.

I was showing my cross-stitch progress to Su, and some more crocheted snowflakes (feeling a bit bored with those now), then out came the applique blocks. We counted how many were finished and thought about how they might be arranged. The Indian wedding is on today. I felt like making a quilt for the couple rather than giving one I'd already made. Bright colours are definitely their taste. Yes! I felt inspired! My sewing mojo is here!

So at lunch today, I drew on the back of a free calendar while sipping ice coffee. Here is a possible layout.

Fabric requirement calculations.

Right, now all I need is 20-30 minutes in the quilt shop. The fabrics I chose seemed to work.

Usually I prefer to make the centre of the quilt, then audition the next fabrics when the design radiates from the centre, but the quilt shop is 40 minutes away and it might close over Christmas JUST when I am keen to get my sewing thongs (not boots) on. I bought all the fabrics.

I've trimmed down the applique blocks, cut sashing and cornerstones.... and decided to write a tutorial on how to accurately centre and trim odd sized applique blocks. I have included it as a separate post.

Here are the trimmed blocks.


Tomorrow I get to pick up my fixed machine, Yay!! I can feel another "sewing retreat" weekend coming on!

Delicious fabric before it got the chop.

Christmas creations

It's a crazy time here at the end of the school year, heading for Christmas. Full of Christmas parties and get-togethers.

What a perfect time to create!

Staying up late, and getting up early for creative baking is just as exciting as it is for creative sewing (although it's a necessity here in the tropics to chill and roll out bikkie dough or to ice and decorate treats in the cooler times of the day). It's also child free time, when I will not be distracted by little feet running about, and perhaps touching the hot oven.

I had been planning to make extra oven mitts as gifts until the sewing machine became sick.  So at the last minute I was making these snowflakes as ornaments. I once went to a quilty gf's house, and she had garlands of greenery hanging everywhere absolutely covered in crocheted snowflakes. Susan gave every visitor in December one of her snowflakes. It made a stunning display, and a touching gift.

Even though there wasn't time to block the snowflakes and hold in place with ironing starch, I think they still look cute.

I was amazed one of the oven mitt recipients didn't appreciate her hand made gift. I don't even know if she knew I had made it, but it was brushed off as "I will have the chocolate, and my husband can have this".

It happens occasionally, but I think as crafters, we cannot be upset about what someone does with a hand made gift. We have given it to them. It is theirs now, and we have released it. Although we can be sure they will never bloody well get another hand made thing again!

Here are the baking creations made for the children this week.



Both recipes are from the December 2016 Coles magazine.

Andrea, I thought of you as I made the candy cane swirly bikkies. I remember you telling a story where Daniel as a toddler was able to describe how to make the curly twirly bikkies and you thought "Ooh, maybe we've made these more times than I thought". I wonder whether these are made in a similar way.

What to make next? I am keen to finish the owl Christmas stocking when I have my sewing machine back, and to machine stitch the binding onto two quilts ready to hand stitch for the children for Christmas. But, what else?

I was thinking of making quilts for two weddings I have been invited to. The first is in India (cannot take baby boy as it is too dirty for him while he puts everything in his mouth), and the second is in New Zealand (cannot go as it has been declared an adult only wedding, no children). Luckily I think I have two quilts in my stash ready to be gifted.

This one, Samsara, is going back to the town where it was made after the married couple return from India. Originally, I was going to keep it for myself. But the fabrics suit a cooler climate, and are too warm for my home where we wear cardigans for only 2 weeks of the year.

The other one is  a Persian tiles design which I've made 3 times now. Funnily enough I can't seem to find it on my blog. Did I miss adding a finished quilt? I am so curious I will go back to check.

.... Aaaah, here it is. La Petite Ecole Persian Tiles

And so, I will take a look at my projects to see what I'd like to work on next.

That sewing retreat weekend feeling...

It feels like I've had a weekend retreat! I left the sewing machine out yesterday. It was another very hot morning, and after a big Sunday pancakes brekkie, it was "free" time for everyone again. Including Mummy! Woohoo!

Another four oven mitts - not a scerrick of batting left. Then my sweetheart says "which one is ours"? Ummm... might have to make more...



As I stitched these ones, I found my natural rhythm and the machine just flowed under my fingers... *peaceful sigh* The stitching on these is a vast improvement on the ones I made yesterday. Ooh, I feel adventurous! What else can I sew? Most of my fabric is in storage 3000km away. I have plenty here, what can I make?



I have ideas of making mitts for the neighbours and our mothers too, but that would mean batting shopping, so we will see what happens (the shops are just crazy this time of year, and my gift shopping is finished).

Next I started to make Master 1's Christmas stocking. The older children each have one already, so I wanted to follow the same theme, although this one will have owls on it.

I got this far...

Two sides quilted and cut out, ready for owl appliques.

All the free motion done.... And then the machine decided it wanted a holiday.

 Dangnabbit! Something happened - I think it's the timing. The Janome bobbin case won't correspond properly and the needle punched a couple of holes in the bobbin case. This has happened several times. I wonder what causes it. Now there are so many of us online, I might just give it a google.

The Janome 6500 really has been a wonderful machine. The hours and hours I have used it, I just cannot count.

The funny thing is, according to my facebook history "on this day", the machine went to the Doctor at exactly the same time a different year! Hahahahha. I must know how to get into a Christmas sewing frenzy.

Let's hope it's back soon.

Enjoy your Christmas crafting. xo

Let it sew! Let it sew!

Oh! What a fabulous morning! And a wonderful day for the first weekend in December.

There's something about the decorations going up, wrapping gifts, and going to Christmas break up dos that makes me want to Sew!

While Master 6 was happily playing dinosaur cities, and Miss 5 was playing horsey play dough, Master 1 was playing all over and around Daddy watching a movie in the air con, Mummy bravely rummaged through her fabrics and pulled out some Christmas pieces.

Next thing you know, these appeared!



NB. Mummy had to dip her hair many times under the tap - it's hot sewing in the Darwin kitchen, but it was the only way to sew without worrying about Master 1 and electrical cords,

Ah..... The gentle feel of the fabric under my fingers..... the scissors skimming through the fabric.... the hum of the sewing machine...

Oops, haven't done this kind of sewing in over a year! The first two will be given to non-sewers (children's teachers) who won't notice if they are a bit wonky.

And I've started 4 more mitts! Then it looks like the end of the batting scraps I had. Looks like I need to make more quilts (just to get some batting scraps.. hee hee)...

To top off a lovely morning, we went to the local grandparents house (we are so lucky our children have two sets of grandparents. although one is far away), where the children helped to put up the tree.

We won't be putting up a tree this year at home. Master 1 cannot help himself and pulls off every bauble to chew it.

Oops! All the decorations are at the bottom!

We even took some presents to put under the tree, so that Bub doesn't unwrap them at home.

The 40 D'oiley

Phew! Breathing a sigh of relief that the 40th birthday d'oiley is finished.

I think I can safely say that my penchant for very fine crochet has come and gone. I think I will save it for the edging on fine linen tablecloths now - and I have already made two of those.

I am tempted to pin the d'oiley out and paint on spray starch to "block" it, but I am posting it to the U.K. and I don't think my gf will even notice if it's a little crinkly.

Besides, I like the way it feels soft.

Ecru and white in size 20 crochet cotton.

It's getting close to Christmas. Before then I would like to make a Christmas stocking, bind two quilts, and make some oven mitts - something I would do in one week when I wasn't a Mum! ;)

Observations and ramblings

There are a lot of things a busy Mum of young children misses out on in terms of time for herself and her hobbies.
Yes, it's been difficult to get the sewing machine out. I thought about it tonight at about 5pm.

"Ooh", I thought, "I could get the sewing machine out after the children are in bed, set it up outside (only space possible at the moment), and crack on with the Santa stocking for the youngest member of the family"....

Um... no. When 7:55pm came, I decided by the time I cleared and cleaned a space to sew and cut and spray and baste, there would be 45 minutes to sew and then it would be time to pack up, and that would be a late night! Woah there Nelly!

So how do people do it? And are they doing it?

I know my blog posts have suffered, but after having a look in the last week, I see that a whole lot of blogs I used to follow and read avidly, now show their last posts as 1 year ago, 2 years ago. Surely not everyone in the world had a baby in the last year.

Then I thought about it again. Blogging is largely a thing where we write, read and post while sitting at a computer desk (really, I would never type this many words on the phone). People don't have to sit at a computer desk anymore to see if they have an email (Yes!! Woohoo! Somebody wrote to me!), now they can use the internet on their phone if they want to (dang it, the phone bill is due). We are not sitting down to blog or read as we used to do. We are looking at our phones in the doctors waiting room, on the bus, eating our lunch at work or over a coffee. And we are not looking to see if anyone sent us an email.

What are we doing? It seems the new trends are: Pinning links on pinterest; Show and telling on Instagram; and raving about the latest fabric releases on Twitter. None of which have snagged me. However, facebook has fan groups (fabric designers, fabric ranges, shops, styles of quilts), and message groups, and show and tell pages, and I do get to see some inspiring works on there.

When I think about it, this really is my quilting journal, which I choose to share,  because I have been inspired by sooo many others' quilts and quilting journies, that I wanted to pay it forward and inspire others too. It is also a way of easily keeping a record of when a project was started and finished. What an easy way to archive the quilts I have made in my life by printing out a year at a time into a hard book.

There are quilts I made and gave away, and never kept a photo of, after promises by the recipients of a lovely pic with the baby when it was born. I have no idea how many quilts I made, let alone what they looked like. I was always whipping up a baby quilt and giving it away. Another reason for writing my blog - to keep a record for my ancestors and for recipients of quilts I have made. You can always find me online. Especially as I became interested in antique quilts, and if there was no label on the quilt, we didn't know its story. Always label your quilts.

Lastly, hellooo and a big wave to my quilting girlfriends all over who can keep up with my sewing, here on this blog, even if we don't keep up on the phone very often. Big Love to you all. xoxoxoxo

Almost a year's work

It was last December I started planning a special 40th birthday gift for my Soul Twin who lives in the U.K.

We were going to be on the road for about 6 weeks, and as a passenger I would be able to take something small to work on.

Having decided applique would be too much to organise before we left, and stitchery wouldn't be special enough, I took a few 1970s vintage patterns and some crochet cotton along for the ride.

The first piece I started ended up being too difficult to follow as a pattern, and I would have to do hours and hours of crochet before finding that I might have made an error.

Next!!!

I really needed to have the gift posted yesterday, but as you can see I am still working on it.

In the last few days I made 50 of these little flowers in white, to contrast with the main part, and started to attach them to the d'oiley.

I found these lovely, lovely needles at my local quilt shop.

The packaging is lovely - it looks like fimo flowers, and it's useful. The needles cannot be accessed from the jar by my 15 month old toddler who is FINDing everything!

These particular ones are for hand quilting with perle thread, so the eye of the needle was perfect for hand stitching the little flowers onto the d'oiley and weaving in the thread ends (ohhh! the ends! Will they end?)

Best get back to the actual stitching, the d'oiley needs to head off on Monday.