One UFO down

I was really disciplined today - in the mood for a little sewing, instead of starting something new, I actually went to one of my many UFO drawers and pulled out this table runner. It was pieced and basted so it just needed some quick quilting and binding.

From memory, I pieced this simple runner from a charm pack, however, I can't remember the name of the fabric range.

Stitchery door pillow

My patchwork friend Caz surprised me with a wonderful parcel for my birthday, including the kit for the little Birdhouse door pillow which I made up yesterday. This was a fun quick project and the pillow looks so cute hanging from a door by its rick-rack handle. It has little bells on the ends of the prarie points so I there's a delightful little jingle too!

Caz also sent me a huge and gorgeous selection of vintage doileys, too many to picture here, as well as a cute knitting kit for a toy octopus.

Autumn is random .... and maybe a little ugly

Long time, no post! My boss has been away for a few weeks at work so I've been super busy and haven't been able to do much more than collapse into bed at the end of the day, so I am way behind on everything else - housework, gardening, crafting, emails, blog reading and of course, blog posting.

But in the little time I have had to sew, I've been back on a stash-busting mission. The above is one of the stash-busters I've been working on. This is a disappearing nine patch with two alternated colour blocks. It's in autumn colours although in the photo they don't seem very autumny at all. The colour placement was really random, and hence it has come out a bit clumsy and maybe a bit ugly. But what the hey, my goal at the moment is to use up fabric, not make anything gorgeous! The above used the equivalent of 18 fat quarters - yay! I still need to trim the blocks and sew them together. That is my least favourite part so I'm having a rest for now.

I'll have to post about the great birthday gifts my friend Lyle gave me too. The cutest sewing basket, a huge pack of mixed blender fabrics, a full quilt kit, a book on colour and composition (which maybe I should have read before piecing the above!), and some geisha panels. I was soooo spoiled! I started the kit yesterday as it was pre-cut and the pattern is super quick with big chunky pieces, perfect for showing off all the beautiful fabrics.

I hope my bloggy friends have been well, and I hope to catch up on your blogs soon.

Random Acts of Kindness Gift

I got a lovely surprise in the mail this week - a gorgeous gift from Tarnyia as part of Maree's Random Acts of Kindness swap.

Inside these packages were the most wonderful gifts, including this absolutely gorgeous notebook slip-case:

It is just as beautiful inside as out, and has handy pockets in the front and the back:

Tarnyia also sent me a huge box of chcocolates, an equisite lace bookmark, a handy lanyard and some blue thread (I can never have enough blue thread!).



Thanks Tarnyia for spoiling me with your thoughtful and beautiful gifts!

Fun with scraps and orphans

Yay! I think I finally got some of my mojo back!

I have been really uninspired and unmotivated lately, but today I was just in the mood to sew!

First up, this little yo-yo cushion. I made a few yo-yos in front of the television last night and decided to put them together into a cute little cushion. I really love the pretty, girly colours.

Then I had some fun with some orphan blocks. I put borders around them to make them the same size, and was going to make it into a table runner.

Then I realised the top was almost the same size as some duck feather filled body pillows I bought in a crazy moment on the internet, for no other reason than that they were on sale for 60% off. (Does anyone else do things like that?) So I changed my mind and decided to make it into a big pillow cover.

I've put some ribbon ties on one side as I may tie it to the headboard of my timber bed for extra cushiony-ness when sitting up reading or sewing in bed. Not sure how comfortable this will be, but I'll give it a go. 

Don't look too closely at the quilting. I haven't tried to free-motion quilt in a long time, and I was never much good at it to start with. The quilting on this though was a shamozzle even for me! I should have practised on some scraps to get my rhythm first. Although, I don't think I ever got my rhythm when quilting this, so it probably wouldn't have helped. Back to straight line and grid quilting for me!

Or even better, tying! Last weekend was rainy, and the only plans I'd made were outdoorsy so they were cancelled. So after houseworking (as little as I could get away with), I spent some time on an old quilt top tying. The quilt top was one I made almost 10 years ago. It isn't great - I was making it up as I went along in rounds, and some of my calculations were less than inspired, so some of the borders terminate in the middle of a pattern or block. My calculations were also so off that I planned to make it 240cm square, and it ended up closer to 280cm! I'd basted it, and started trying to quilt it but soon came to the realisation that it was too big for me to quilt on my little sewing machine. And I didn't feel it was good enough to bother sending out to be professionally quilted. I've got it out of the cupboard and played with it, given up, and put it back, many times over the years. To the point that half the basting was coming undone and it was in a very shabby state.

Last weekend I had the brilliant idea of trying to tie it instead of quilting it. And so far, it is working! I spent a fruitful few hours in front of the TV with the quilt over my ironing board, lowered to a good working height. The weight of the quilt over the edges helped hold it taut where the basting was coming undone, and the ironing board gave me a nice flat surface to work with. It's about half finished now and can't wait til its done. No photos at the moment, but will take some soon!

Hexagon progress

I'm having fun with my hexagon cushion cover. I spent a couple of hours yesterday hand quilting the hexagons and hope to start quilting the background later today. Not sure how I am going to quilt it yet, but knowing me, probably just some easy grids.

I also finished my jumper this week. There are a couple of wonky stitches which really show in the chunky yarn, but I think I can fix it. I am happy with it because I never finish any large knitting projects, so I am just impressed with myself that I finished it at all!

I spent a little time weeding the vegie gardens this morning and putting in some winter seeds. I surprised a lovely, plump frog though so had to stop so I didn't disturb him. I wanted to take a photo but he was a bit upset with my attentions, so I decided to come inside and leave him alone. I think frogs are beautiful.

Works in Progress

It was a wet and miserable day yesterday so I spent a happy hour or two playing with those rainbow coloured spot fabrics I posted about previously. I had originally planned something plain, quick and strip-pieced but I was in the mood for some hand piecing in front of the TV so started these paper pieced hexagons. I don't know that I'll have the perseverence for a quilt top, but I have been promising my Mum some big cushion covers (as in 80cm+) for some months now, so maybe these will become a part of those.

I didn't have any die cut commercial papers, so I went to this site I have used before which I think is quite wonderful. You choose your shape, then your dimensions, then it generates a template for you in PDF. I printed off a few sheets, gave them a quick spray with adhesive (actually, the nearest thing to hand was quilt basting spray, but it worked quite well), smoothed them out on old manila folders and cut them out. I chose 1.25" which was the edge size of each hexagon, and got 11 templates to an A4 sheet. Quick and easy!

I've been doing a lot of knitting lately. I still haven't pieced together the grey cabled sweater I was making, but I have started several more projects since then. My favourite is this short sleeved sweater in a deep forest green:

The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra and the pattern is a free one from the terrific Lion Brand website. I bought some end of lot yarn from the Jo Sharp shop which was 40% off thinking I'd make a simple vest, but changed my mind and started making this which is bigger and ran out of wool (I bought a pack of 10 balls). This yarn is discontinued, but I was lucky enough to find another online shop which stocked it in the right colour. It most probably won't be the same dye lot so I am just going to have to cross my fingers that it will be ok. It better be, this is turning out to be a very expensive project!

The yarn is lovely to work with though, soft and supple and doesn't pill and has a very slight sheen. I also bought some in grey and am nearly finished a vest. Again I'm not sure I'll have quite enough, although it will be close.

With all this knitting I think I have developed knitter's thumb! My right thumb has been painful for more than a week now, and I can hardly move it. I have pre-existing RSI in my wrists, so I am used to them suffering if I knit or crochet too much, but thumbs?! Is this normal?