All Day Sewing - April

Yesterday's session of All Day Sewing by the After Dark Quilters was filled with laughter, interesting conversation, show and tell and plenty of food.  However despite the fact that I dragged the entire contents of my sewing room down to the church hall (so I could pick and choose which project I wanted to work on) I had forgotten to take the CAMERA!  Oops, so sorry :(

 

So instead you will have to make do with my recent achievements, photographed this morning.

 I recently finished my pink Sister, for my Seven Sisters quilt.  I don't have a pattern, so I am just making seven stars in a colour way and joining them with matching shirting's.

 All laid out this is my progress to date.  I do have some chocolate brown stars that are not in this shot.  The purple sister needs one more star and then sewing together.  The madder reds also have been missing  a star and I haven't joined any of them yet.  The red stars I only started this week.

 A quick trip to Hettie's on Friday netted me one more brown print, for more brown stars.  I also brought the rest of the bolt of a cream print (picture further down) , because this was my third trip to get some more, so I decided to go the "whole hog"!

 Then my friend Heather kindly brought in her entire collection of reproduction fabrics (to All Day Quilting) so I could borrow steal cut some pieces of fabric in the colours I was missing for my Sister stars.  I took some red, madder red, two browns and a purple.  Then I got greedy and begged a couple of strips of blue.  Heather is collecting reproduction fabrics for a special project and I am very jealous of her collection, so I was a bit like a kid in a lolly shop unsupervised!  THANK YOU HEATHER! ;)

 

So as well as choosing fabric from someone elses stash, I cut lots and lots of strips in blue and the sought after cream print from Hettie's.  Then I stitched and stitched, cut and cut and stitched some more.  Sorry all that work still didn't eventuate into any completed nine patches...not one!

 I did however finish putting this small table topper together.  I ran out of the shirting print with blue circles, but as I couldn't find any at Hettie's or Tricia's I had no idea where I brought it and the general agreement was that adding a different fabric for the corner triangles would be fine....so I did! 

 And lastly but not least, I borrowed Heathers 20" square so I could cut all of the 20" backgrounds for my Dresden Plates. 

 

I managed to sew two plates on before it was time to pack up and go home!  I did mange to squeeze in plenty of talking as well ;)

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

I am back on line...finally!

Yippee after more then a week of being without the Internet, it is SO good to be back online!  Lucky for me DH is way more techno savvy then I am, although he claims he doesn't know how he fixed my PC, he has reconnected me to our modem.  The modem died and we then discovered it didn't have a warranty (it was written on the box - so cannot blame the company) but we did have the receipt.  So off DH goes to Officeworks and YES they not only happily replaced it (it was 9 months old) but they gave us a CREDIT for the difference, as the price had dropped since we brought it!  Yeah for Officeworks I say, definitely my new favorite store....well that's where I will send DH for all our techno needs in the future! 

OK now for some quilty progress.....

 While I have been without the distraction of the Internet I whipped up this kids quilt top for Heart Kids SA.  Its a bit bright and busy, but I was using what I had on hand and thought transport with dinosaurs would be an interesting mix?!  School holidays tends to reduce my fabric shopping how ever I managed to fit in a trip to Hettie's Patch yesterday to buy some more background print that I was using to make more of these blue nine patches. 

I had been cutting up 1.5" strips of blue fabrics from my reproduction stash (hmmm might have added a few lately) and just couldn't stop myself making nine patches.  I have become quite addicted to piecing and when I am a bit lost/overwhelmed by my to do list/or want a easy "non thinking project, I tend to piece .  I have always wanted to make a Nine Patch quilt and I have always wanted to make a Blue and White Quilt - however neither is on my current wish list! 

Still here is the beginnings of the Blue n White Nine Patch quilt, that I will be adding to my WIP list today!

What I should be piecing is the rest of the blocks for this quilt = Modern Quilt by Lyn Uphill.  I took this class two weeks ago and have made a bunch more blocks since, but then stalled.

 These are my fabrics (top centre - bright dots and strips) and all the fabric requirements come out of a jelly roll and matching layer cake, plus yardage for the sashing.  I love my fabrics and really enjoyed the class, but I have decided that I am really a traditional girl at heart with a love for reproductions.  Hence I am easily distracted at present!

Perhaps I could blame the weather/school holidays/lack of internet?  I have made a new pile of leader and ender spool blocks with all my piecing of late, however that project has resulted in me accumulating a collection orphan 1.5" squares.  So I decided to piece some of those into a mug rug for my sewing table!  Combining red and pink is very "out there" for me, but I love the colour combination now.  I also love the satin stitched edging I used, it was quick, easy and left me feeling like I was a little bit "modern"!

And I also spent some quality time in front of the telly sewing the binding down (finally) on my "Winter" Table runner aka the blue and white left overs from my big twister.

I was a bit concerned that I had under quilted it, but decided that I liked it as it was and will see how it washes up...can always add more quilting later!  Yeah right!

So while I have a Spring and Autumn themed table runner on my wish list, I have made a Winter one...but I was using up left overs, so that makes it OK, right? LOL.

Happy quilting Sue SA

PS I am linking up to Shays favorite things Friday...my favorite thing this week is blue/white quilts and Officeworks!

Post Easter Catch up

In my pre Easter clean up efforts (my sewing room doubles as the guest bedroom) I finally got around to making the boys their dinosaur cushions.  In an effort to also check how Mr 6yo would cope using my machine, I reduced my machine speed, lowered my office chair and got him to sit in front of me and "drive" the foot pedal, while I "steered" the fabric through with his help. 

Needless to say he was chuffed with his efforts (red cushion) and I think will be keen to do some more sewing in the future.   Mr 4yo just helped me to push (or pull) the fabric, while sitting on my lap.  Lets just say that I was glad we were only sewing four sides of a cushion!  He was equally happy though and offers to help now every time he steps foot in my sewing room...luckily he is still easily distracted with my extra long tape measure...loves counting the numbers!

We had a lovely Easter, hosting my in laws, who drove over from Victoria.  Before they arrived I planted winter veggies and annuals...which are just starting to bloom in the lovely autumn sunshine we have been having.  I harvested a few pumpkins, but I still have some green ones, so wasn't game to harvest them all...butternuts, my favorite for roasting!

 
 I won one of the Easter raffle baskets from DS1 Primary school, stocked full of chocolate....given I am lactose intolerant I have tried to restrict myself to the dark chocolate!  My Easter egg display (felted eggs on Right) was my dismal effort at Easter decorating.  I need to get my act together...I seem to have an oversupply of Christmas decorations but not Easter.  Mr 4 made the purple card, so cute...using his fingers and palm print :)

Without access to my sewing machine I was very pleased that the paper diamonds I had ordered from Hettie's arrived just before Easter.  I basted and stitched EPP diamonds all over Easter and made individual stars in many colours, so things are progressing nicely.  I finished sewing the blue sister together last night, (sorry no photo).

After the visitors left (and I had worked, caught up on the washing and ignored the cleaning) I managed a few hours stitching Friday and FINALLY finished this bag!  Just in time to take it to a workshop Saturday!

And just in case I forget who I am, I used these too pretty scraps to make a name badge.  This was an experiment in trying to use tiny pieces of fabric, using a method that I had read about.  I am interested in learning how to make miniatures, but clearly I need some help...HELP!  If anyone knows of any good books or a class/teacher in Adelaide I would love you to drop me a line, thank you.  Oh and by the way I used my snazzy magnetic closures that Lisa gifted me, so no nasty stabs from safety pins for me... when I get to wear my badge! :)

Happy quilting, Sue SA.