Powering away on the Eight is Great Challenge

I feel like I have absolutely powered away on the Eight is Great Challenge.

The first stage of the wallhanging looks like this.

It doesn't look like much yet, but add a little quilting and you get this.

Ooh! One layer at a time will add depth and richness.

The back is just as exciting!

More to come very soon, as there is only one week to start and completely finish the challenge piece.

A new challenge

The first challenge has been posted at Persimon Dreams. It is the eighth season, and so the very first challenge for this year is Eight Is Great.

After googling and reading a variety of images and background information, here are my first sketches.

My brain has been going all day, I'm sure my eyes were also googling like Cookie Monster's going in all directions, if they were following my thoughts.

This is the fabric pallette pile. Thank goodness for half price sales at this time of the year.

As well as a full brain, my fingers have been working on the Pears embroidery.

I am so excited to be starting the challenge!

Celebrating 20 years of quilting

Yes, that's me.

Quilting in the kitchen

New iron for Christmas after the one melted!

This year I am celebrating 20 years of making quilts!

Yes, really in the kitchen

If you ask any quilter, they will have their own story as to how they first got started... and here is mine.

I was in between university courses - having finished an Honours degree and was waiting for the Grad. Dip. Ed. to start (at the time I wanted to work as an Education Officer at the Zoo). I had six months without the Austudy supplement, and I needed an extra job for rent while I lived in a share house. I went for a job interview in South Melbourne and arrived early. While I was waiting I browsed in the newsagent across the street. And there I saw it... an issue of Naive and Country Patchwork, and I fell in love. I decided then, if I got that job I would come back to buy that magazine (I didn't even have a spare $7). I got the job. I bought the magazine with my first pay. I pored over it, I looked up quilt shops in the phone book, and I found a hand piecing class at a shop in Essendon. That was ok, I had a car and a license now, I could drive there. Mum gave me the class and the materials I needed for a special combined birthday and Christmas present. I have never looked back.

To celebrate 20 years of making quilts I hope to show you some of my pre-blog quilts during the year, I plan to challenge myself more rather than follow patterns, and I hope to make a naive and country quilt to commemorate the finding of quilting.

I am excitedly waiting for Project Quilting's first challenge item to be released. I think it's in another 12 hours, as they are 16 hours behind our time. To get ready, I finished sewing the binding on the second last runner. When the quilt shop reopens I will buy enough fabric for binding on the last one.




Not really wanting to start anything else until after Project Quilting, I have been patting this collection of fabrics all day. I found a whole 15 metre bolt of seeded muslin, 4 metres of linen blend with spots about a metre of linen blend with red flowers, a couple of waffle tea towels and fat quarters from the big sale last week.. and here they are all together with some Bronwyn Hayes stitchery patterns. I am going to work them together somehow. It will all just come together!


I will keep going with my Pears for now..... Happy New Year!

Twelve Red Robins

It has been an absolute delight to have the sewing machine perched on the kitchen table for use in the cool of the morning and the evening.  It's going away tomorrow... perhaps to be brought out at night, and used in the morning, then put away during the day. After all, it is the dining table, where 5 people eat every day.

I've made a wonderful use of the machine time over the holidays, but the family are all home tomorrow night, and we like to do things as a family. That includes eating at the table. (plus, I don't really want play dough and spaghetti on my sewing!)

Twelve Red Robins stitchery designed by Cinderberry Stitches

Just in time to end the year this little wallhanging is finished. The pink Twelve Red Robins (designed by Natalie Lymer of Cinderberry Stitches) was stitched when I first lived in a caravan while I was travelling. I started it sometime in 2013. Then, it took about a year to find the right fabric to match the stitching.

I didn't want to frame it, as it was designed, so finally today it received borders, and I really enjoyed the quilting of the little quilt. Even just a few quilted lines make it look like patchwork over the stitchery. Can you see the holly and berries quilted into the borders?

The more I look at it, the more I love the colours. The dusty pink and beige are just so soft and natural.

Just this morning I finished blanket stitching around the fabric squares. After all this time I had run out of the thread colour, and I remembered to pick some up at Lincraft's 50 percent off sale yesterday (what a great time to stock up on threads!!)

I am so glad I used the green Artline fineliner pens to trace the stitchery. It washes out very, very easily in water, even if you've ironed it. And for longer term projects it doesn't fade away before you've stitched it.

A warning though: I used it to mark in quilt lines once, and they never, ever washed out. It's like the ink stuck into the batting. If you use these pens, make sure you wash the stitchery in the hand basin with plain water, before it is quilted into a project.

used some new FQs bought last week on the back of the wallhanging

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I was rummaging under the bed (where the UFOs are ), and I found the 12 Days of Christmas Birds. I looked at the borders where the blue pen has faded sooo many times after they've been redrawn, and decided stuff it! It doesn't need the final borders all the way around (I've been making those blocks since 2010. That's six years. Oh my.

Twelve Days of Christmas birds

I do think it needs some pretty fabric around the outside though. I will keep the project in the car now for the next time I go near a quilt shop.

Sounds like I have been clearing the decks? Well, yes actually. I have the Pears to keep working on, and I want to start a little(?? who knows? I bought enough fabric to sink a battleship, but I will design my own quilt with the Red Brolley stitcheries)  redwork Christmas wallhanging  for my sister's 40th birthday in 2017...

Plus, I am keen to challenge myself. Something I really miss is the inspiration and drive that comes from a quilt group. Just in time I have found Project Quilting, where we will have 8 challenges over 3 months to start and finish a small quilt following particular guidelines. I will do what I can, and see what I can get up to! I am excited! I even joined Instagram to share the photos. It starts tomorrow.

In the meantime, Happy New Year.

This last one is for my DH, as our whole house is a sewing room at the moment.

I did it!

I did it! I stuck to it, and I've finished machine stitching the six QAYG table runners!

Trois Oiseaux  (Three Birds) QAYG tablerunner

And I need to buy 10cm of fabric for the last one. It was pretty close I can tell you! But, somehow I had cut up more of the red squares than I needed (I have enough for another table runner), not yet! Not now!

I like to use the pre-printed labels to attach the label before quilting, then the label can never be removed. I usually remember, and I've even done it on 5 of the runners (not that they are likely to be stolen). It is a good practise, nobody can ever remove your information without ruining your quilt.

I enjoyed studying quilt history a few years ago, and there are so many quilts with no known story. Are you telling the story of your quilt on the label?


Keeping along with the pears, 4 calling birds is finished. A few more have been hand stitched, but I cannot cut them out yet. I've been economical with the fabric and put them close together, which means if I cut them out without stitching all of their neighbours the hoop wont fit.

Three pears so far

I have a tendency to keep projects in bags like this.

 I am often called the "bag lady" for taking so many bags around with me. I like to keep each project in its own bag. I also like to see what is in the bag. I wonder what I could make from tea towels as projects bags, maybe with a clear window. And my threads are becoming tangled. It looks like my baby boy has been into the threads, or perhaps I have dropped some, there are less colours in here than when I started...

Hmm... what to do on the sewing machine next? I might finish another Christmas project... let's have a rummage.

Counting the 12 days of Christmas

I think I must have the most lovely DH in the world!....  *LOVE* .....Feeling very pleased with myself, instead of starting to cut up my new stash into bits and pieces, I continued with the last two table runners (which now have the backing spray basted on, and the centre is started for each one).  When I professed how well behaved I had been, my sweetheart says I don't have to finish everything now, I can have bits going here and there.. oh! My Heart! He really is my True Love. Hee Hee. You know you have Mr Right when he says "You can never have enough stash", although, that was before I went shopping yesterday. xxxx

It is wonderful to read other dear quilters' blogs and hear about their families who support their crafts whole heartedly too.

As for evening handwork, I am working on the Pears for the 12 Days of Christmas.

I haven't yet decided whether they will hang off a dead branch or a little appliqued tree mini quilt type thing.

I bought fabric to make two of these, I wonder who will end up with the other one. Maybe I could have one in the house and one in my studio, and keep them both?

I modified the Hatched and Patched pattern a little bit. The stitcheries are the same - I am hand stitching them onto muslin, then I have machine blanket stitched them onto synthetic felt from Kmart, and inserted a ribbon and used a triple stitch on the sewing machine to join the front and back.

Ooh, I have cracked open yesterday's new stash - the 75c ribbon. It's a lovely jacquard cotton.

I had to google when the 12 days of Christmas start. They start on the 25th December. I wonder if I will have them all finished by the 5th January, which is the 12th night.

Happy 4th day of Christmas. xo

SEX and another runner

Hahahaha! Don't be fooled by the title of the post! SEX is Stash Enhancement eXpedition... and yep, another QAYG tablerunner.

I was up early, out and about in the sales this morning. I only went to one shop! I was in there one and a half hours! I think it must have been the sales assistant's first week on the job... bless her...

Last night I was swanning around on here feeling awake and inspired when I should have been sleeping. *hand slap*. Somehow I found a swag of free redwork and Christmas stitcheries by Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolly. I downloaded all the PDFs and went to bed with redwork in my head.

I love sewing and making, and quilters are usually so giving that we give a lot away... (for example, out of 6 tablerunners I am making, one is for me). but I have decided to be good to myself, to love myself more, and that means to make more for me.

If I am going to make a little ornament for someone else, I am also going to keep one. That's my new rule. And to celebrate, I found this little Santa ornament stitchery also by Red Brolly. And... this tree skirt on the moda bakeshop site.

That was it! I was inspired to get out of the house early, and got to the Spotlight Christmas clearance before it opened. We were accidental earlybirds! Oh my goodness! I've never been to the frenzied after Christmas sales before, and luckily it wasn't too bad. Actually, I might have been the one everyone was talking about afterwards that was taking all the sales assistant's time!

With Christmas redwork on my mind, It should be no surprise that I bought stacks of these fat quarters. Silver and gold on white in FQs and red and cream scandi FQs.

An absolute bargain, it worked out at $4 per metre.

Keeping in mind Jo's recommendation to buy on sale, and use it throughout the year, I bought a stack of tea towels.

Such a big stack they are nearly falling over. 

Under $5 for a pack of three high quality tea towels. Ooh! I am going to be looking for tea towel projects. Do you know of any? Jo directed me towards some aprons and I found a pattern here. There are so many tea towels. I won't want to make quite that many aprons, even though I do seem to have a run on a particular project now and then (see sidebar for mini quilts, oven mitts, journal covers, 12 FQ quilts, QAYG runners... you get my drift?) . Any other ideas?

Ribbons on sale, I thought would be useful for apron strings and Christmas tree skirt ties. Ah. And can you see the batting I went in to buy? It's there in the back left corner. Ooh, and on the right you can see a Christmas mug. A couple of those went into the stash, a mug and mug bag can be useful gifts.

Coloured homespun to use with the Star Wars and Motorbike fabrics I already have under the bed.

And I became quite excited about these napkins. At under $5 for a pack of 4, with a bit of redwork on them I thought they would be very special gifts.

Honestly, I don't think I bought myself anything much. Except for my new rule to make one for me!

It's all still Christmas, Christmas, Christmas in my brain!

And then here is the fourth QAYG tablerunner finished so far. I pieced fabrics from the panel to create the centre.

Now I have more batting I can start two more. ... as soon as I finish googling for tea towel projects!