A couple of stitcheries

Here's what I've been working on over the last week. I have been looking through old magazines for fun little stitcheries to do while I catch up on DVD watching:



This one was in an old issue of Homespun and is from Cinderberry Stitches. In the magazine, it is turned into a wallhanging. I'm not sure if I am going to do that, or make it into a cushion instead.

I also made this stitchery, and can't remember for where it came from:



And made it into a simple hand quilted cushion.

Almost there!

I spent all day yesterday and this morning on this quilt top. I still need to add another border but I need to find the right fabric for it so will need to go shopping this weekend.



I don't normally like making big quilts. I just don't have the room for ironing, laying out, pinning. There comes a point when it starts becoming a bit of a wrestling match, when every row starts taking half an hour to pin on to sew, when I start getting entangled and tripping over between the ironing board and the sewing table, when I wonder why my sewing machine is dancing on the spot and find a dog sitting on the other end of the quilt top ..... you get the idea. It is too HARD!

I also managed to run over my finger twice with my rotary cutter in the making of this one and will probably lose half a finger nail.

This one is going to be 250cm square, so it will be a nice bed sized quilt. I'm glad I persevered, even after it stopped being fun, but I'm also glad I can soon move on to something else.

Changing the subject, while at Bunnings getting medicine for a sick orange tree and mulch for the vegie garden the other day, I came across these little cuties:



Aren't they cute? They were less than $3 each so they were hard to resist. I noticed a couple hardened tradesmen in the queue with them too!

The sun is shining

My friend Anne popped around yesterday and gave me these lovely blooms, that started opening up overnight:



And yesterday, I finished off this old log cabin quilt I pieced years and years ago. My quilting is a bit dodgy. But that's okay, because it goes with the dodgy piecing! I was quilting through the centre of each row and the rows were of varying widths, the borders a bit fluted and well, it's not a very good quilt. No wonder I never quilted it before.



But I think the quilting hides a few of its flaws.

Did I mention I am on annual leave for a couple weeks? I had so much leave accrued they have been harrassing me for months to take some, but I have been too busy. Work finally quietened down enough for me to oblige. So I have no excuse not to finish more projects, which is my aim. Today, though, the rain has finally cleared so I am going to do some gardening.

Jelly roll sampler quilt top finished - sort of

I've finished my jelly roll sampler quilt sort of. Sort of because I realised I wasn't going to have enough of my chosen fabrics for sashings and borders, so decided to quit while I was ahead and stop at 9 blocks.



It's a nice lap size at this stage. Gee it's hard to get quilt photos in this house. There's always the occasional dog walking through and giving the quilt top a bit of a road test.

I've received the next two installments of my Faeries in My Garden Gift of the Month. I still haven't finished the first few! But here is a little embroidery from the one I am working on now:



One thing I am finding a little frustrating with these is the iron on transfers for the embroidery. In short, they don't work. I've re-read the instructions, followed them diligently, and they still don't work. In the above, I managed eventually to get a faint transfer after about 20 minutes pressing. Some of the others haven't worked at all. There's always the option of tracing them, I guess, but some of the designs are quite tiny and intricate, making it rather difficult.

That's the only dispute I have with this GOM. The patterns are lovely and the instructions very detailed.

What I've been working on this weekend

I bought a set of lovely blue and white fat quarters recently, on sale. They're from RJR's Redwork Bluework Revival range and have a nice mix of small and medium scale prints; florals and abstracts. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but started out making a few experimental four patch blocks, then played with arrangements.



And this is what I've decided on.



The only problem is I've inexplicably decided to make it a big queen sized quilt, so only have half the amount of fabric I need to finish it. So I'm going to have to go shopping again ......

Birthday pressies and reversible apron

I got a bit spoiled by my patchwork group secret sister for my birthday with lots of lovely goodies, including this gorgeous Mary Engelbreit pincushion:



Excuse the dodgy photo, the pincushion is so nice I didn't want to take it out of its packaging! And I also received this lovely Singer tin:




I also spoiled myself and went on a bit of an online spending spree. It's hard to resist all the sales that are on sometimes! I got stacks of gorgeous new fabrics - just what I need!

I made a reversible apron with two of the fabrics:



And here is the other side:



Yum! I was going to make this as a gift but I made a couple of little mistakes in it (I was making it up as I went) so I am not happy enough with it to give it away. Luckily, I bought A LOT of yummy fabrics so I can give it another go. And this one can live in my kitchen as it looks quite cute hanging up:

Crazy Patches and Other Things

I've been having fun with Victorian crazy patchwork this week. These are parts of a bag which is the latest in the Faeries in my Garden Gift of the Month club. So far I've just made the back and front of the bag:



This has been a good project for doing in front of the fire on these cold nights. And it's been a great project for practising some of my rusty embriodery skills too.



Apart from that, I've been catching up on my Jelly Roll sampler blocks and am now up to date, although another one comes out today.



Only 3 more blocks to go and then I can start putting it all together.