2nd Week of October

It has been a pleasantly busy week with sewing days .....

At the weekend I spent a day at a friends and did the tracing to start a new child quilt...... it is one I have had a kit of for a long time......

I miscalculated just how long tracing and cutting would take and just how much sticky paper stuff it would need.

There is no picture or indication of which fabrics go where with the kit and there weren't enough fabrics for some bits so I had to have a dig in my healthy stash..... a bit annoying but I guess that's what happens when you buy a kit at a good price off a destash which someone bought years before!

Nevertheless - I will enjoy doing it.... I will machine buttonhole stitch around the applique but the plan is to get all the blocks prepared first ..... I need more sticky paper stuff before any more happens

Tuesday at Quilt club I took another new project.... Sashiko 365 (no I won't be doing one a day but that is how many blocks there are)

Blocks are cut at 4 1/2".... My first job for it all was to go around all those edges to avoid fraying.  And then I need to mark grids for each block.  I am not doing it traditional as you may have noticed but got a linen colour I loved and that big hank of thread I was given by a friend....

Wednesday I went on the bus to Brisbane for the Quilt Show...... a lovely day was had with my friend Michelle - we spent hours drooling over the extraordinary quilts and raced around the shops so that we had time to sit and chat a bit..... a lovely day.... sorry - I neglected pictures!!!

Michelle gifted me some of her beautifully done eco-dyed card and bookmark...

It really is gorgeous - I will frame the card..... I know she had a witches pot brewing on her veranda for hours to make these.... love them - thank you

I also got gifted an early Christmas decoration which made me laugh out loud.... I am always such a grumpy grinch about Christmas and Michelle found me a grinch with a patchwork sack!  How perfect!

Thursday was Embroidery Guild day and I sewed one and a half leaves!

This is part of a tablerunner - Field Journal left me with a very healthy stash of Cottage Garden Threads and I thought this would be a good way to improve my embroidery as well as use up some of the threads....

Evening times has been the calming repetition of backstitching a picture on one colour thread...  I will always love this style I think....

Another pattern and preprint I bought years ago - I need to go and dig for a sweet Christmas fabric to border it and make into a wall hanging...

A few more crochet blocks are done... still need to thread the ends in....

.... and that has been my week!

I hope you all have a lovely lovely weekend.....

Righto, Gotto Go... thread those ends in and do a bit of a tidy up (not the house - the sewing room!)

Coffee, coffee, coffee.....

Hubz and I enjoy our coffee ...... 

We still have our pod machine and I do use it every now and then but a few months ago we got ourselves one of the drip machines..... like the ones we used to have way back when ....

So we experimented a bit with coffee beans and used our grinder so it was fresh...

Now it is really fresh....

A selection of Green beans purchased... we got Ethiopian, Kenyan and Brazilian ones

This is how they look.... green....

Hubz roasted them in a popcorn maker.... if you are interested there is lots on youtube and we had to experiment a bit with amounts so the beans would turn.....

It is interesting hearing the crack and then watching the outer chaff go off, then watching the colour change and waiting for a second crack....

Here are some of our first home roasted beans... they get sealed and wait a few days before grinding... there is a definite difference in the smell of coffee developing over this time....

Here is our home grounded coffee.... you can see bits of chaff in it that were still there (it was our first attempt after all)

We are still experimenting a bit on the amount of grind to the amount of water but I have to say I am pleased with our first result.... I recently started having black coffee as my first thing in the morning drink and this coffee is certainly very smooth....

We started off with the Kenyan.... this next week it will be Ethiopian... will be interesting to note any difference

So there we go... our new home roasted coffee... I wonder if I bought Hubz a few coffee trees we can really become self sufficient????

These blocks were finished this week....

Betty Butterfly ....

Cheeky Monkey....

Lady bug in blue.....

Gentle Giraffe....

They need some borders/piecing which I will get round to some time....  I will need to do a bit of thinking so that I can make them sizes to suit ....

Righto, Gotto Go.... time to try that Ethiopian coffee. 

Have a lovely weekend....

April FNSI

I joined in with Wendy and others for FNSI on Friday night.... even though I hand sew virtually every evening there is something about sewing with others isn't there?  Well in my little dreamworld there is.....

I finished my little angel wallhanging this week.  It goes perfectly in my sewing room.

The stitchery was offered as a freebie by The Quilters Angel on their 'tribe' facebook page.... feel free to join in the support and fun during social distancing when we can't get together....

I love that fabric I used in the borders... I've had that fat quarter for ages waiting for just the right project.

Last night I added the last stitches for this Field Journal picture....  I had got quite a bit done over a video chat and sew with Michelle....appreciating technology during social distancing

I really am enjoying doing these so much

Today I continued with some sewing.... leaders and enders were done and another round is together on my scrappy pineapple blocks...

I was leading and ending whilst sewing up these HST's to make up this little quilt

I went in search for some backing and made the binding too....

... and now it is safely in the Quilting Queue.....

My other most favourite technique is needleturn applique and I finished off this centre this week....

LOVE fits in a circle made up with lots of different elements... it's going to take me a while but i have started on making some tiny little circles for berries....

My favourite tools for doing needleturn is the fine bottom line threads and using a colour to match the fabric.  I like the size 11 milliners needles as they are lovely and fine, and then my lovely old thimble that used to belong to Granny and serrated edge scissors that are great for snipping the fabric.  

Righto, Gotto Go..... off to trim up the pineapple blocks and cut a bunch of white strips to do the next round....  but first a cuppa tea....

Hope you have a lovely weekend..... and manage to get some time doing something you love...

Keep safe, keep smiling, keep stitching.....

It's Christmas time!!!

Kris fancied up some pillowcases previously and whilst chatting to her a week or so ago I decided I could do some for young boys who will be here at Christmastime

I got out Toni's Happy Quilts book and printed out a few pictures.....

I wanted to do raw edge applique and so I threaded up my Sweet Sixteen and did it on the quilting machine....  saves turning the fabric round all the time and I just had to make sure I tucked in the bits of the pillow case...

.. we have a B for Blair ... 

 

…. and Jack for Jack ……

… and X for Xavier (widget)….

somehow we have got into a tradition with the children for a night before Christmas parcel... a movie, a book, pyjamas and this year pillowcases ….. 

Thanks for that idea Kris, they worked out well (I wonder if Hubz would like one too?)

I prepped these Christmas quilt blocks long long ago.....  I had done the applique in matching colours and then got out thread to do the embroidery... whilst I had the SS quilting machine threaded up I decided to carry on and do these in the contrast.... 

… and while I was doing that I decided to do the embroidery also on the quilting machine..

In this picture you can see I have sewn in a matching colour around the edges of the applique

… and here in a contrast black... as well as the embroidery

I like the look much nicer... informal and shows up well

I had a happy day yesterday playing with the other letters ……

On the handsewing in the evenings I finished off my fourth block for Flowerville - all I had left was to sew down the stitchery circle.....

My butterflies for 'Wings' have been done and the border is all sewn on.....

I have put this one away to work on next year now... but I just love it so far....  thank you Michelle for sharing this with me... 

I have an update on my African Violet leaves....

All 8 of them now have new little leaves... the second from the right bottom row only sneaked through yesterday so it is teeny weeny....

My lovely African violet big plant is dying a miserable death with the leaves slowly just wilting.. .there is some sort of fungus I haven't been able to get rid of and I am just hoping it doesn't get to these babies...

Righto, Gotto Go..... I am going to continue playing with those Christmas blocks... 

Variety is the spice of life....

This weeks Blockheads block has lots of little pieces.  the finished block is 6 1/2"

Here are all the blocks so far - I don't know what the setting will be like but I am trying to get a mixture of colours in the bigger and smaller blocks....

I am using fabrics from my stash for this with some bits from the scrap baskets ….

ChooseDay sewing I did lots of machine buttonhole stitch.....

… and made 16 blocks with big daisies in them....

I am going to be using this cute hedgehog fabric I got from Michelle and a fat quarter pack of Eureka

with a bit of extra metreage for borders

… it's a cute pattern by Melly and Me....

When I was cleaning up I found a 'mug rug' kit which I think came with a magazine many moons ago.... it didn't take much to make it up and it's one less thing in the cupboard.

Then I got onto making up some needlecases with some arbitrary stitcheries that I had. 

A little page of wool in the centre is nice to needles...

There are a couple more I still have to stitch down

Today a surprise in the post.  Cheryll found a couple of pretty doilies and sent them - I do like a play with the doilies and these are nice and small so will be fun to make up into something.... maybe even more needle-cases, or special coasters/mugrugs?  Thanks Cheryll …...

Righto, Gotto Go ...…  I am going to peruse this lovely book to find a project that I can make with scraps on ChooseDays….. 

Has anybody else used this book to make something?