Oh my goodness I forgot to blog!

Hello!!

I'll keep this short as it's late and I really should be in bed! Lots of sewing going on in the Elefants house at the moment, thanks in part to the new arrival:



A couple of WIPs to show you today. (There are a few others too, but I'll just stick with two, in the interests of brevity, and hopefully to be able to provide more fodder for blogging over the next little while...)

I've had this little birdie in a tree lurking in my WIP pile for a very long time. It's from a pattern by the marvellous Kellie. I had already started the quilting but wasn't very happy with it so put it away. With the lure of a new machine, I thought I would try and finish it. And I have! And I LOVE swirly quilting on my new machine, it quilts like a dream. I'm so happy with how this one has turned out. So I hope you don't mind the plentiful photos...

The binding has been added since I took these pics, now in the process of hand-sewing it down.

I've also embarked on a Swoon quilt. I bought Camille's pattern approximately five minutes after she released it back in May and had my heart set on making it in French General fabrics (of which I have a rather large, ahem, stash). Two blocks done so far. These are fun to make but deceptively rather intensive! Lots of cutting and trimming. But beautiful! And big! 24 inches.


And one more birdie pic!


Linking up to Lee's WIP party today.

Put a bird on it!

My arm is gradually feeling better and I've seized the moment to catch up on some machine time. Here's what I've been doing this weekend.

1. Working on my doll quilt. I'm still at the quilting stage. As I may have mentioned once or twice before, although I do love my swirly quilting, it takes an inordinate amount of time. Anyway, we are getting there! I estimate it is about 75 per cent done. This will be hard to part with! I hope my partner likes it as much as I do!
2. Working on some bee blocks for the 3x6 sampler bee. This is where you're grouped with 6 other crazy girls, you choose a block style and then make it in their choice of colours. So six colour ways of the same block. You theoretically have three months to complete your blocks and send them off (and in turn receive six different style blocks in your own choice of colours). This time round I've chosen a wonky star block. (I say theoretically, because it seems some people take the three month thing as a lower limit.... This may or may not include me.)

This is block #3 (the other two I made some time ago, before my arm went kaputt). Very happy with this one!

And this is block #4.... Hmmmm. I'm not sure about this one, as you can see I kind of over-exaggerated the wonk on one of the star points! Not really on purpose, but just not really thinking about what the result would be. On the one hand, I really like it. On the other hand, I don't know if the intended recipient will like this level of wonkiness. It's not for everybody.

Anyway, I would really love to know what you think!

**Please leave a comment and let me know if you like the extra-wonkity star block, or if I should pick it undone and try again!!**

3. Finally - OK this one doesn't involve the machine, but I have to report on it, because I've reached the milestone of having all the leaves in situ. Did you notice how I dropped in a little Latin there? Granted, the leaves are not all sewn down, but nearly all of them are - well, there are 32 leaves left to sew. At the current rate of sewing these should all be knocked over by next weekend.

If you look closely you might also notice that my tree has grown a flock of birds. Who are at the moment still wingless. Not to mentioned legless. I had to put these in at this stage to facilitate accurate placing in situ of the final set of leaves. In contrast to the leaves, the birds are not hand sewn, but raw-edge machine appliqued (along with the trunk and branches). This stage happens after all the leaves are done. So - soon!! And then more swirly quilting!! Hooray! I might even run a little competition to estimate how many hours the quilting will take.



And, finally finally, just had to share with you this video I found about how things are so much better when you put a bird on them. I couldn't agree more!!

Here goes - my first doll quilt

DQS 10 - the first attempt
Originally uploaded by Petitselefants

I have agonised over this one quite a bit. You see, I always thought I would do a tree for the DQS, but it seems this is a pretty popular idea and I didn't think I wanted to do be seen as derivative. But then I realised, even though there are quite a few trees appearing in the swap, they are all quite different. And, moreover, everyone seems to love trees, I'm sure I can't go too far wrong with this.

I'm very happy with the colour palette I've chosen, which is a little outside my comfort zone (I would normally have gone with one tone, rather than so many). So - mainly pastels, but then a few reds and oranges to add some contrast, and I like it! The fabrics are almost all Amy Butler (Love) and Kaffe Fassett, plus some Valori Wells.

So far so good! Check out the growing pool of doll quilts over at Flickr.

My creative space - it is done!

Well after many hours (I don't like to think about how many!) Willow is finally complete (OK, I admit I still have to hand stitch the binding down, but that doesn't count, right?) Sooooo happy with this, and even though there is something slightly irksome about the wonky swirls in the top right hand corner of the quilt (why didn't I pick somewhere a bit less conspicuous to start?), it is kind of satisfying to notice how much better my technique has become through doing this project. I'm so proud of it.
Just had to share with you also a little binding accident. This has never happened to me before, but it was inevitable really. I don't know about you but I struggle with the last bit of joining the binding together with a mitred seam. It is just so unbelievably fiddly and I can never remember exactly how to put it together. Anyway, I thought I'd managed it, after about 10 minutes of wrestling and only a couple of swear words, when I went to iron the seam open (and yes I trimmed it first!! Big mistake!!) I realised that the bloody thing was twisted. There is no fudging a twisted binding I quickly discovered. And now thanks to the trimmed seam allowance I had even less fiddling room. All is well that ends well and I succeeded in covering up what was an extremely dodgy seam. You wouldn't even know!
I even added a hanging pocket. Really! How organised! I amaze myself sometimes. This is going to go up on my daughter's bedroom wall. And hopefully she'll love it for a very long time.

More creative spaces (from clever people who have probably never twisted their binding) at Kirsty's.

Moving on...

Two little birdies - for Modern Swappers
Originally uploaded by Petitselefants

I loved quilting this project. Never mind the fact that I started quilting it only to discover about twelve beautiful swirls later that the backing fabric was folded over and I'd quilted through both layers.... eeeerrrrggghhh. My time is so precious I hate to waste it unpicking! But never mind, it could have been worse!

And yes, it did take a lot more than 10 minutes. Maybe an hour all up. Not counting the unpicking. Ahem.

Anyway, so proud of this one and so pleased with how the swirls are going - getting better and better. Practice definitely does make perfect. I am nearly ready to show you the completed 'Willow' too - very happy with that too!

Two little birdies will be winging their way to my Modern Swap partner this week - along with some other goodies.

Hope you are all having a lovely Tuesday.

Oh, and if you haven't already seen it you absolutely MUST go and check out the most amazing craft room ever. I have serious craft room envy. Says the woman sitting at the dining table surrounded by sewing crap, with numerous toys strewn at her feet.

My creative space

Two little birdies - for Modern Swappers
Originally uploaded by Petitselefants

Two little birdies sitting on a wall....

Crafting is in 10 minute grabs these days - sadly! Ten minutes to draw the designs, 10 minutes to trace onto fusible and choose the fabrics, 10 minutes to iron on and cut out and iron on, 10 minutes to get sewing machine out, whizz around all the shapes, pack sewing machine away again.

Can I quilt this in 10 minutes? Ahh, no. But I'll try!!

More creative spaces as always at Kirsty's.

A quick progress report

After yesterday's post, I whizzed away on the machine and the red tree quilt was 'finished' in almost no time at all! Well, the applique/embroidery part of it anyway. So much fun! I love doing this! This is a really forgiving technique - it's nice to give it a "sketchy" kind of look as you do two or three rows of stitching around each shape or along each line.

I actually have another couple of projects on the go too (using the same raw edge technique, so I'm economising by doing all three at once).

For those who have tried this before, you'll know that changing the thread and bobbin for each colour change can get rather tedious, so I'm trying to be clever by doing all the shapes in a colour across the three projects, then changing colours and doing it again. No doubt a huge time saver!!

My creative space

Under my sewing machine today.... love love love this!

More creative spaces at Kirsty's.

Sunday Sewing

Hello, how was your weekend? Hubby was away for the weekend but I still managed to squeeze in some sewing! Hurrah! This is now the third Pleated Tote I've made from Ali Foster's pattern, it really comes together so quickly now. I barely even need to consult the instruction sheet anymore. The longest part is cutting out all the pieces. Or perhaps trying to decide which beautiful fabrics to use.... I finally settled on an Alexander Henry print (Birdsong) for the main part of the bag, and some Amy Butler Floating Roses for the yoke and handle. The handle looks really short from the angle of the photo, but it's not - it's the perfect size to put over your shoulder and still have access to the bag. There is a magnetic snap and a little internal pocket.

This one is for a friend's birthday. I'd so love to keep it for myself! I know she's going to love it.


I've also started putting some thought into what to make for my swap partner for Modern Swappers, and yesterday started doodling with some pretty fabric scraps courtesy of Mr Kaffe, some Moda natural muslin and some fusible, and came up with this inkling of an idea. Not sure yet where it's going to take me but I'm liking it so far.

Stitching with the Prints Charming Girls!

Well I can never resist the call of a beautiful design and some yummy embroidery thread, so yesterday I went to my LQS for a few hours of stitching with the very clever ladies from Prints Charming. Not only do these girls design the most amazing, unique and fun fabrics, the likes of which you are never likely to see replicated by other designers, but they also design beautiful stitchery/embroidery panels with their signature motifs (birds, flowers, leaves, combinations thereof) which you can then embellish to your heart's content.

Love these colours!

It was so much fun seeing everyone's take on the same design - a simple bird pattern, but with everyone's different choices of colour, stitch style, and where on the bird these colours and stitches appeared, they were all so unique.

This is the same bird motif we were stitching - looks fabulous on the natural linen and simply framed

Cath and Kirsten (the brains behind Prints Charming)

The girls also had a lot of their quilts and other goodies on display - which only serves me to wish (again) that there was more than 24 hours in a day. And now those clever people at my LQS spotted an opportunity to suck more people in to start a Prints Charming block of the month program! Arrgghh!! When am I going to get all this done??

If you haven't ever heard of Prints Charming you must go and check out their website right now!! Oh, and they also run screen-printing classes at their studio in Sydney which I would love to do. Cath gave us a quick demo yesterday and it looks super fun and so easy!

In other news, I have been embarassingly absent from the blogosphere recently and it's occurred to me I haven't even posted a photo of the completed quilt I made for my hubby. So I must get onto that. (In case you were wondering, I did go with the natural chambray sashing and it looks great - even if I do say so myself! Thanks to those who offered suggestions!)

Last week I returned to (paid) work for the first time since my youngest was born (20 months ago) - working 3 days a week as that's really all I can manage at the moment with 3 kiddies, of course there will be even less time for sewing :(

My creative space (one amongst many!)

Creativity hasn't been on the backburner chez Petits Elefants these last few weeks, despite the absence of posting. On the contrary! Lots has been happening. But for now, just a taste of what's happening today.

Some Simple Abundance, from Bonnie and Camille (love this line!) getting acquainted with my rotary cutter. The print on the bottom left in the pic below is from My Mind's Eye by Riley Blake. Isn't it adorable? Love those little birds (obviously!!)



My sewing machine has been at the doctors for the last week and I'm just about to head off to collect it! Hooray!

More creative spaces, as always, over at Kirsty's.

My creative space

I can't explain it. I have approximately 4,623 projects on the go, but still I had the uncontrollable urge today to start something new. Linen and red thread, cute bird .... how could I say no?..... The pattern is from here.

More creative spaces over at Kirsty's place.

One for the birds

Not only do I have a thing for trees at the moment... and anything red.... but also birds. Sometimes I like to combine all three. Right now I'm wearing a cord necklace with a red metal bird on a gate motif - found last week at the National Portrait Gallery shop (the BEST shop for gifts in Canberra, surely?). Made by Elk. Their jewellery is delicious. I could easily take it all home.
























Something else I've found - Indiefixx Feed Your Soul, a great art site with free downloadable pictures you can print out to your heart's content. Luckily for me there is an abundance of birds on board. Here are a couple of my favourites.


















And finally, a peek at the Helleborus-in-progress. Going well so far - I'd say I'm nearly at the halfway point, and it hasn't been too painful (despite Terhi's warning of death-by-boredom-scarf).

This beautiful quilt....

...is being given away by the incredibly talented Kellie of Don't Look Now. I don't normally gush, but I have to say of all the artisans out there in the big wide world of quilt-land, she is surely the pinnacle. One lucky person is going to win this quilt, and it would be great if it were me! Whoever wins will be the envy of many.

I am so in love with the bird and tree combination, as well as the selection of colours. Before I started lurking around the blogworld, I had various designs based on birds and trees floating around in my head. Little did I know that others before me had also stumbled upon this wonderful concept - who would have thought?? Anyway, such a simple concept really, but Kellie takes it to a whole new level. Her work is simply beautiful and it would be a privilege to own one of her quilts. Maybe one day I'll have the confidence to try one of her patterns....

The competition closes on 2 September - good luck!