Project rotation

I couldn't be happier with the cornucopia. I took out the orange and turned it into a nashi pear and toned down the colours of one of the other fruits. It could be a peach now. As long as they kinda look like fruit, I'm happy and the colours go with my other blocks. I have butterflies added to quite a few blocks so added one to this as well. Onto the next one soon.

When I don't have any applique prepped, I'll sometimes break out and do something really different for a change.A stitchery block is a nice change.

My sewing room is so trashed, I left this block off the last lot I blogged about. It was buried under a pile of stuff.

I just had to say that so you don't think I do without sleep and stitch all night to get so much done.

I've been having a bit of ufo guilt lately, I seem to bounce from one thing to another. It's good for blogging but it's starting to bother me a bit. I used to love the project rotation, I think it adds variety and stops me burning out. At times like this I wish I was one of those quilters that just had three projects going at any one time. One to piece, one to applique and one to quilt. I'll be thinking about it, at this rate I'll not get a finish any time soon.

Accessories

Here's the strawberry stitchery all made up into a needlecase for DD. It's so her with it's varigated thread and the fabrics used. The stitchery came from the December kids issue of Homespun magazine. There are about five designs for strawberries that were made into a baby bunting. The needlecase pattern came from a Hatched and Patched book called The World As It Should Be

The stiffness of the case comes from the heavy interfacing used.

Craft failure

Being an overachiever type, I thought I'd make a drawstring bag, to accessorise the needlecase of course.

Hitch #1

I didn't have a big enough fabric piece for the outer. No problem, I think to myself, I'll just make a piece of fabric big enough. I like it! Improvisation is good but it created extra bulk I think.

Hitch #2

I didn't want to sew a channel for the drawstring and have to cut a slit to thread it and then have to handstitch around the cut.

I made a bias strip for the casing. Now the bag won't pull up well with the cord threaded trough. Too much thickness? Type of cord? I tried several types. It's starting to not be fun, sigh.

The inner circle is sewn on in sections to create pockets. I'm making this up as I go by the way based on a common design that's out there.

Hitch #3

Which was a hitch from half way through the *&*%#*! project.

I had just bought this low lint Aurifil thread for piecing. I had heard great things about it. I had it break in the needle so many times, I was nearly ready to throw it out but being too lazy to change threads, I persisted. I wasn't saving time I can tell you. Anyone had a similar problem with it? I had a new #10 needle in.

I nearly threw it out but decided to sleep on it. I thought I'd unpick the casing and sew the chanel in for a start, then  un-pick some sewing and re-sew with my old thread. Good idea?

Onto more pleasant things thread, this is 35wt varigated Valdani thread which is going to be used for some handquilting on a Kaffe project or two. I ordered it from here with Judy's recomendation. It is 100% cotton, I love it! La la la la la la.!

While in a stitchery mood, I finished off another Cinderberry Stitches block. Slowly but surely, they will all be done one day.

Now I did say I was an over achiever, or is it persistant? I made yet another Christmas cake. Don't worry, they freeze well. I made this mix lighter than the last and cooked it in my old tin. I wanted to make the comparison between using the tin and the cake box.

I lined the tin with cardboard and baking paper then I lined the outside with a rolled up sheet of newspaper tied around. I even put a folded square of tinfoil loosely over the top and cooked at a very low temperature.

Guess what? It burnt around the edges which surprised me. I'm going to use the cake box from now on which didn't require the lining saga and it didn't burn.

The utensil you can see in the bowl is a Danish dough whisk I got from here. It does bread dough and biscuit (cookie) mix with ease.

Off to do my last bit of shopping today, the incentive is that the patchwork shop across the road is starting a sale, I may go there.

Santa's coming you know.

The Grandkids are ready, with the tree up and the sacks out no doubt. These are the Santa sacks I've made for the grandkids from Christmases past. I'm behind, I need to make one for my GS but he's just a baby and won't mind this year. When I was a kid, we never called him Santa, he was always known as Father Christmas, when did that change?

This was the first,  from a Homespun magazine, (vol 6.4) with the same Robyn Pandolf fabrics and it's my favourite, it looks oldy worldy. The pattern is called Santa's Treasure sack by hugs n kisses.

I have found the pattern here, if you scroll down the page, you'll see it.

I made use of the newer Christmas fabrics at the time for this one. I've smudged out the names I embroidered on the name pillows.

This was the last one I made, fairies were requested so instead of redwork, I made the fabric do the work.

I've been playing with a little stitchery the last couple of evenings so next time, I'll show what I'm going to do with this.

 

Taking stock for the week.

I've had some lovely mail this week. This book is one that Kathie recomended and I'm so glad I got it. It's quite big and has some fabulous quilts in it. I've looked at all the photos and will enjoy reading it this Christmas holidays.

The lovely Mrs Schmenkman sent me some of her favourite chocolate wrapped in some of the newest Kaffes. I hope Lindt will keep making it and then they may bring it to Australia. I have to say it's good, really good. I might have to take some salt with my chocolate now. Thank you Amy for the taste sensation, and I love the Kaffes!

I've had one of those weeks where I thought I hadn't got much done and so I thought maybe I had better get on and make a couple of softies I had planned for the grandkids. Here's where I'm at so far. I was sitting in my chair last night with a giant bag of stuffing and my chopsticks and other high tech stuffing tools when I had a revelation. I actually don't like stuffing things, It's not my forte and I often get wrinkles and lumpy bits, I'm so intense when I'm doing it that my hands get sore.

These strange looking things are going to end up looking like a sausage dog and her four puppies. I hope.

The downside of living in a different country from the grandkids is that everything I post has to be a reasonable size and weight. This mother of a dog is a bit large. I took the pressure off myself and decided I'm going to buy their gifts this year and take the softies in my bag on my next trip.

So onto the next thing. I have that quilters ADD remember?  I have been trying to have some quality time with my Susan McCord quilt for ages.

Finally some leaves are prepped. Has anybody had trouble with the freezer paper lifting off the fabric? I think it could be the humidity.

Some of them are so tiny, if I sneezed, I think I might inhale one. I'm just doing the prep for  two branches on the panel, yeah and that's #52 leaf. I counted, there are 250 leaves on this panel to do. One branch at a time is my mantra.

This week I actually did manage some small progress. One redwork stitchery.A few Basket blocks.

One Joseph's Coat.

And a Cockatoo on the back lawn. No partidges in a pear tree here.

I love my curves

I don't mean my body silly, I'm talking quilts and blocks. I'm magnetically attracted to designs that feature circles and curved piecing. I've made a few as you can see, I've shown all these quilts before on my blog.

I especially love to foundation paper piece the arc shape and I'm having quite a good time with the pickle dish shown on my last post. Thanks for all the encouraging lovely comments, I feel spurred on by you all.

I've had a couple of relaxing evenings doing some more handquilting on the quilt in my new header, I may even finish it sometime this decade. Oh so slow going but it's being quilted within an inch of it's life. Don't ask me why I do that to myself, I'm such a sucker when I start these things and then I find myself committed but I'm happy at the end and it's just as well.

I have so many long term projects lying around and here's another stitchery block that's done and dusted. This one has taken me ages to finish.

I have done no cooking for several weeks :) while I've been in recovery mode but Mr Quiltsalott has gone back to work and I've had to re-aquaint myself with the kitchen. Sad but true.

I made these little quiche pies to go with a green salad for a light meal, they are so easy and the leftovers freeze wonderfully. You can use anything you like for the filling. Want the recipe? I'll give it to you anyway. Great for picnics too.

Rustic pies

3 sheets puff pastry

3 large eggs

300 ml's cream

3 rashers middle bacon, cut into small dice.

1/2 small onion finely chopped

3 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

about 1/4 cup grated cheese

Grease a 12 hole muffin pan and pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C

Using a soufle dish or large cutter, cut 4 circles of pastry out of each sheet.

Place pastry in muffin pan, the tops will flute a bit.

Put a little chopped bacon, onion, parsley and cheese in each pie.

Mix the egg and cream together well with a little black pepper in a measuring jug.

Pour egg mixture in each pie and top with a little grated cheese.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until puffed up and golden.

you may have to turn the oven down a little during cooking if they are browning too fast.

Is anybody interested in me talking about and showing how I'm tackling the arcs and curved piecing on the Licorice Allsorts quilt? If so, I'm happy to give you any info that might interest you next time I do a post. Let me know, I'm happy to oblige.

A cot quilt and a cushion.

I really wish I had bought some more applique to do on my trip but I didn't plan to be here so long. I'll have to settle with showing you DD's 2nd quilt. She made this out of small leftover strips of Japanese fabrics in my scrap bin on one of her visits to me. Wonky stars crib quilt a la Gwen Marston, aren't they great?You can see I showed her how to do the big stitch quilting with perle cotton which is ideal for beginners that don't have a lot of time or have the skills yet to machine or hand quilt.
Unfortunately, the bright pink perle cotton bled a little so be aware and plan for the washing with dye catchers if you use the cotton.

I've taken the opportunity to wash a few cushion covers and quilts while here and this bolster cushion I made for one of the grandchildren needed new ribbons.

I quite enjoyed the stitchery on this but I'm sorry, I just can't recall the name of the book I used.

Two fabulous giveaways to tell you about that maybe you have already entered. Kellie from Don't look now has a quilt that she's giving away that will knock your socks off.Rush over to Lekaquilt to be in with a chance to win an adorable pouch, she has five to give away and you have until September 9th.

Thank you so very much for all the warm and wonderful best wishes for the new baby in our family. It really is appreciated. As yet he still doesn't have a name.

handmade

Nine years ago I started a Christmas tradition, I wanted to make or buy a Christmas decoration for my grandchildren, I have to do it for three of them now. That way when they have their own place they will have some decorations to start them off.

These little hanging bags are a pattern by Melly and Me and I have some little treasures to put in them. They can be hung on a door handle or wherever.

Here's a top secret project for another handmade gift, I have made some other stuff but can't show themThis is Mia, a sock monkey made by Kellie from Don't Look Now

I was lucky enough to win her by being the 1000th person to leave a comment on her blog. I'm going to have to make a go at making one of these.

Janet

Applique and Stitcheries

I was inspired to make a crib size quilt after purchasing Gwen Marston's book on four block quilts and then I saw that Lucy had the same idea so I cut some shapes from freezer paper and placed them by eye and made it up as I went. It was a lot of fun and quite freeing not to follow a pattern. I won't be quilting this one until next year.

To answer the questions on my double wedding ring quilt, I don't usually design my own quilts, originally I wanted to make a double wedding ring and used perspex templates and machine pieced in the watercolour style. Well I got bored looking at it and put it away, as you do. Then I had the idea to spark it up using an applique border and was inspired to draw up one similar to the above quilt by Kathy Nakajima which was on the cover of a quilters newsletter magazine. This was before the pattern was available so I had to draw it out on paper to suit the rings. Of course I had to buy the pattern when it did become available.

Needle turned applique is a real love of mine and I have started to make quilts in the red and green colourway which may become a theme for a series, more of those later. I'll have to show some finished quilts or you might think I only do ufo's.

This is what I took to my sewing group last night, we meet in each others homes every Tuesday night and there are eight of us in the group. I don't work on this too often but it's a good take-along project, so I don't care if it takes a long time to do.

Come to think of it, I have a lot of these types of ufo's which is why I probably justify starting new projects.

When I was young, my mother said I shouldn't start anything new until I had finished the last thing so I think I missed out on the fun of making and creating. I'm in my rebellious period now! My mother also said a hobby should be one that earns you money so that it pays for itself, I guess that's to do with the period she grew up in.

There are 9 blocks in the quilt and the pattern is from Cinderberry Stitches. As you can see I'm doing it in girly girly fabrics and so it will probably end up in one of the grandaughter's hands.

Thank you all so much for the warm and welcoming comments, I really appreciate them, I hope I answered some questions for you.

Janet