All sorts of quilty pursuits

I have a big task ahead, the basting of the Stars and Sprigs quilt. I now do it the Sharon Schamber way (over here) by rolling the backing and the top onto boards and then stitching with tailors tacks that get removed as one quilts. It worked so well the first time I used this method that I'm sticking to it.

My boards were just long enough and It did require two people to do the rolling part. I  tape the fabric to the boards with masking tape to begin otherwise I do it the same way as in the video. I've set it up in the lounge room so I can listen to the telly at the same time.

This last week saw me stitching a few blocks up. This one is block three of the Cherry Tree quilt I talked about in previous posts. I'm glad it's over is all I can say. The finger shapes are supposed to be wonky in case you're wondering.

I've caught up with the Circle Game blocks, the next two came out perfect so practice is helping with the hand piecing.

Lucky I checked the accuracy of the next block because it just wasn't right so I drafted it up from scratch.

It'll be an interesting quilt, the blocks have a very blended look so you'd have to examine them to see that.

Stars and Sprigs, the top.

What a biggie, it's 96" square! Now to quilt it. For a moment there I did think about hand quilting it. I like the softness and drapeable cosiness of a  hand quilted quilt. I will be basting this up for machine quilting, it's just too big a job otherwise but I've decided to try and keep it soft by not doing anything too dense and using silk thread, (I think) after all I may change my mind. I have so many other quilts on the go that I need to make.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments that helped me keep my blinkers on. Thanks also to Kim Mclean for producing amazing quilt patterns for us to enjoy stitching. I posted this and a couple of other shots over on Glorious Applique.

Something else to share

Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of my moving to Australia and I think my DH is glad that I did since he sent me these flowers. I'd like to share them with all my readers and friends to say thank you for all the wonderful visits and kind, thoughtful and encouraging comments you leave me. I'm very appreciative and am so glad of the friendships and connections I've made from the community of bloggers that share my love of stitching. You guys often make my day!

I have been trying to be productive in a snail pace kind of way. I'm still making a loaf of sourdough every second day. It's such a soothing and satisfying thing to be making and eating hand made bread. I didn't think Mr Quiltsalott would get so fond of it that he'd let a bought loaf of bread go mouldy.  I'm committed to it now, there's no going back any time soon.

It's been ages since I made any klosje blocks but here's another 19 to add to my pile. I think the total now stands at 168. At this rate, it'll be a slow growing project, not that that matters in the least.

Below is a very piddly little photo but it's really hard to get the whole border in one shot so this will have to do. I just have to join this to the rest of the quilt and then the top is complete. I'll be back to show the whole top soon.

Holiday snaps from New Zealand

Warning, photo heavy post. You can just scroll down through to the bottom if you want the quilty picture.

In New Zealand, you can see a lot of Maori art and these next two were part of a memorial for fallen soldiers. Maori culture is very strong and incorporated into everyday life in NZ.

My children, grandchildren and a sister and brother in law live in Auckland, near the top of NZ so that's where we spent most of our time. I was there for the first week by myself and Mr Quiltsalott joined me for the next two weeks.

There are lots of old character homes around Auckland that have been restored, I loved seeing all the decorative details on them.

We needed to travel to Wellington at the bottom of the North Island to see another sister, bil and my mum. My mother has just been moved into a home as she is at the stage of Alzheimer's where she needs to be safe and taken care of. The short term memory is not good but otherwise she's in great health and I was happy to see her and spend some time out and about for an afternoon to catch up.

It takes about nine hours driving from Auckland to Wellington but the roads are excellent so it wasn't too tiring and there is plenty of scenery to look at.

The native Kowhai trees were nearly finished flowering but this was was at it's peak.

These remind me of home as there were trees planted all down my street where I used to live.

On the drive back to Auckland, I took some photos from a moving car of the two mountains, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe in bottom photo. Both are active volcanoes.

This is such a stunningly green country, it's one of the things I miss about home.

When you drive, you will see farmland all around you and there were plenty of lambs and calves to stare at. If you click on the photos, you'll get a better idea.

Two of my favourite people, Sophie, 5 and Ella, 3.

Noah, born to be a gardener maybe. No photo of my 11 yr old grandaughter, not sure that she'd like that.

I celebrated my birthday while over there and my daughter made me a chocolate mud cake especially decorated in bling style by the three girls. It was a high fat one too, I loved it! I haven't had a birthday cake in years.

It was so great to see my Mum and Dad, three sisters, two kids and four grandchildren. Thank goodness they're only three hours away by plane.

As for the sewing,I did get the border on the left appliqued while I was away and joined it up to the top as soon as I could when I got home. It's shown over on the Glorious Applique blog as well.



Spring at my house.

It could be a little warmer since it's spring but the season has given me a boot up the backside to get going on a few things.

I finally finished border number 2 for the Stars and Sprigs quilt and I'm raring to go on the next one.

After that, I whipped up this hand pieced block. The fabrics and the quilt are on the wild side for me but I like to do something new, stretch the repertoire a bit, get out of the comfort zone. It's the block of the month from Amitie. I'm not an experienced  hand piecer so Crispy's new blog Hand Piecing With Crispy has been a big help. If you look on her sidebar, there are  lots of tutorials to check out.

Since Friday has rolled around again, that means it's free motion Friday at my place. The only sewing I did was some more on the cushion top that I started at the Don't Look Now workshop. I'm still not able to stitch this one the way I envisage, it's tough going and as a result, I find myself spending time on doing something I don't love. We all know how to solve that problem. I may just have to accept that this particular filler pattern is not my thing and move onto something else that I find easier.

I've been trying out this Supreme slider, a teflon sheet that sits on the bed of the machine when free motion quilting. It's lived up to the claims and I really like it a lot. It helps the quilt sandwhich move under the needle and it's very noticeable when I don't use it. It pays to tape the sheet to the bed of the machine so it doesn't accidentally get flipped when manoevering a big quilt under it.

Spring can make us do rash things and I think I acted a bit hastily when I decided it was time to destash and reorganise the main fabric cupboard.

Now I can hardly move around in the sewing room and I've only emptied the bottom two shelves. It really needs to get done. Hopefully I can make the stash work better for me. I'm not even going to go into the bins or drawers, that'd be scary because I think I must have twice as much stuff hidden away.

Glorious Applique

You know about the Glorious Applique blog by now don't you? I hang out there a lot because there are some darn good appliquers over there, all stitching away on Kim McLean's patterns. If you're not following along by now, you're missing out. There are a few tackling the new Roseville Album, Vases, Birds and Other Things. I bet you thought I'd have succumbed by now. Kim McLean has even started blogging there and I think we're in for a treat when we see some of her other quilts.

I was happily cutting away pieces for my Stars and Sprigs one evening. When I'd finished doing that and while I had scissors in my hand, I thought I might as well cut up the pattern sheets that just happened to be hanging out in the same room. Then I thought, I might as well cut some freezer paper pieces for a block, just while I had scissors in my hand you understand. You can see where I'm heading, right?

Next day, I thought to myself, well I might just cut up a few pieces of fabric and see what they look like on my background. Maybe I could even prep blocks and bag them for later stitching pleasure. Just think how organised I'll be after Stars and Sprigs. At this stage, I'm not thinking about UFO's. It's a slippery slide but I'm still convincing myself that I haven't started it. I'm just prepping don't ya know.

I did post about my progress on the Stars and Sprigs over at Glorious Applique and I'm beavering away on border number two, even if those blinkers have slipped a little.

For the chocoholics

Chocolate Fondant

200 gms dark chocolate

100 gms butter

 3 eggs

2/3 cup (150 gms) castor sugar

1/4 cup (40gms) self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180°C

• Melt together the chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water. Set aside to cool.
• Butter 6 ramekins very well and sprinkle cocoa powder inside to thoroughly coat. I add a small square of baking paper in the bottom to make turning out less stressfull.
• Beat the eggs and sugar together until thick and pale.
• Pour warm chocolate mixture over eggs and sugar.
• Sift the flour into the mix.
• Fold gently together.
• Pour into 3/4 cup ramekins.
• Bake 12-15 minutes. The center should still be a little wobbly to the touch. 
• Stand for a few minutes, loosen around the edges with a knife and turn onto plates.

I like to serve these with berries and icecream.

There you go, a dessert for a special treat. Enjoy.

Melting the chocolate and butter. I used 70% Lindt chocolate. Don't let the simmering water touch the bowl.

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale.

Ramekins buttered and coated with cocoa, I added the square of paper inside on the bottom.

It will probably look something like this when cooked. If you overcook them, you won't have the flowing chocolate center but it'll still be a nice moist dessert. You'll have to judge when they're at this stage by your own oven, it may take more or less time.

You can keep the uncooked mixture in the ramekins for a couple of days or even freeze them. That makes it a great do ahead dessert.

Thanks to everyone who left some tips on how to minimise the damage I was doing to my fingers. I found this at the local pharmacy and sprayed some into a container and dipped my finger in it. I also had some thimble its and cut one in half and now use that with ease. I also like the pad of leather you can buy on my right hand on the finger that pushes on the eye of the needle.

I even managed to get another couple of blocks sewn without saying ouch once. Only a few more to go.

I've been asked what the interfacing was that I used on the pincushion. It was Peltex (Pellon) double sided ultra firm satbiliser and the number on the packaging is 72F.

Just dropping by for a chat

I'm just popping my head in to have a natter about all sorts of things that have been going on. I just got these two books in the last couple of days. The Encyclopedia of applique by Barbara Brackman is one I've been meaning to get for awhile. It's a great rescource book full of sketches of applique blocks and will be usefull when deciding on blocks for a design.

The cookbook is self explanatory really, I need to have a go at the macarons now that I have a new oven. I'll let you know how that goes. Macarons are the new cupcake it seems. This one has the easy method, not that Italian, thermometer, meringue, bound to go wrong method.

I picked up this piece of fabric at the LQS which I thought could be very useful for broderie perse,. It's Broderie Perse by RJR, an older line. You don't need to see the few Kaffes I got, it's more of the same luscious stuff I've shown before.

OK, it's confession time, I've taken the process pledge as you can see from my side bar and I've been holding back, I'm ususally a die hard needle turner who uses a toothpick on the side when it comes to applique but I've been harbouring secrets from you my friends. Yes it's true, I've been feeling guilty and it's time I fessed up.

That's not freezer paper templates you see in the photo below, it's Floriani Stitch 'n Wash fusible tearaway. The glue used for the fusible coating is water soluble.

I've been speeding up my sewing on the Stars and Sprigs blocks by using this product

I iron the reverse template to the back of the fabric and use a glue pen to fold and stick the seam to the back. It's important to use lower heat with the iron. I'm going through those refills fast!

I can then just pin my pieces as I need them on the background and sew away to my hearts content. It really has sped up the process, works brilliantly for simple shapes and it's not messy. I feel like a traitor to needleturn but I think I'll get over that, I'm just open to using more than one method.

After I've finished the piece, I wash all the glue out and slit the backs of the shapes to remove the tearaway with my tweezers.

This border I'm doing should be finished in a couple of days, it's been great doing lots of leaves, I love them. I also love choosing those way out colours. I think this is my favourite leaf.

Cut from this fabric, it was placed so that the colour change occured inbetween two sections. It's Aurora by Brandon Mably.

I thought I'd show off my absolute favourites, these ones have so much pattern that you get more bang for your buck when cutting out pieces. This one is Coleous from Phillip Jacobs.

Shell Montage, again a Phillip Jacobs.

Varied leaves, Phllip Jacobs. I love that all these come in six different colourways.

I hang my head in shame because I've been remiss in showing you this giveaway I won from Elaine at Soggy Bottom Flats. So sorry Elaine. I love it because it's a wool pincushion kit and you know I love pincushions. The wool might stop the rusty pins in our sometimes humid weather. Elaine has some kits in her Etsy store if you'd like one.

I was really lucky and won this fob from Kaaren. Now my scissors look flash! I love the bird charm. Thanks Kaaren.

That's not all, I must be having a lucky streak, this RAK (random act of kindness) came from  Anna at Thimbleanna. I left a comment on her blog ages ago about how much I'd love to get my hands on one of these colour cards and she remembered. What a kind gesture, thanks so much Anna.

Haven't I been chatty today? Finally, Happy 125th Birthday to the fabulous Scandinavian designer Josef Frank.

This one looks so much like Kim McLean's leaves, how could I not be impressed.