Got my Postcard Swap Card

What a beautiful postcard I got from Dianne! I just love the colours and the scene looks so realistic. Thank you very much Dianne. She also included a lovely centre piece mat and a bookmark. The mat goes on my table perfectly.

Don't you just love the little quilting note card and envelope. I haven't seen anything like that in my travels. But I will be looking out for it now :)

I was asked to review some digital scrap booking software recently. I decided I didn't want to and went looking for free digital scrap booking kits to use with my Fireworks software instead. There are some lovely free papers and embellishments out there. I was just going to put up a picture of Dianne's handywork but decided to add it to some of the free scrap booking files I found. The paper and embellishments I have used are from Shabby Princess - harvest spice. She has quite a few beautiful kits for free

Update: I am so excited to have made this tea cup element. If you right click and 'save as link' you get the transparent background. On my Mac I just 'option click' to download.

Happy Quilting (and now scrap booking)
Val

Oh Dear! No sewing for a week :)

I have been a bit remiss with keeping up with my online friends. I have spent all my spare time booking things for my trip next year and we bought a new toy - an iPad 2. It has neat templates for putting in my trip info. DH complained I was hogging the iPad and the laptop last night. I needed to check a flight itinerary online so I could fill in the form on the iPad.
Here I am with my laptop, the iPad and my hard copy of receipts in the folder next to me.

We had a bit of excitement the other day. DH opened the front door and jumped back and closed it to stop the big python from coming inside. He crawled away and looked like it was going to go under the car so I poked it with the broom handle to make it change direction. It moves surprisingly fast when it is poked (so does DH) :D

Happy sewing,
Val

Pincushion Sewalong Returns

I was very excited to find my pincushion in the mail yesterday. It has been to Fiona in Toowoomba which is just over the mountain from me then to Sheila in Nova Scotia Canada then I think it went to Dee Dee in Texas then all the way to Sandi in Florida and back home to me in Brisbane. I love it and might keep it in my coffee table with the photo albums rather than upstairs in my sewing room.

Thank you so much ladies for doing such a lovely job of it.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Crazy binding, a bag and an apple pie

I have been sorting through my scraps in between sets with my weights. It seemed such a waste of time to stand there for a minute between sets so I dragged my scrap box into the gym and sorted into colours. Took me a couple of days but I felt like I was getting something done.

I wanted to make crazy binding and use my bigger pieces to make the project instead of making a crazy block and using the big piece for the binding. I think the binding turned out OK. I made a metre and will use it to bind an appliqued mug rug. I have a design in mind but I just have to get going with my travel jacket. I cut out several pieces of it this morning. This is the pattern. It is from Safe-T-Pockets.

Here is the crazy binding.

 

 

And here is the string bag I knitted. I put in a few oranges to stretch it a bit.

I also found a nice recipe for apple cake on one of the sites I found in my list. The blog is called Linden Grove and is just a nice blog with some cats and chickens and trees and some crafting. She has a recipe blog as well with the cake. Cake recipe.

Later in the afternoon...
I found a Moda Blog Hop on Sharon's blog post and promptly went for a look. At the first site I found a cute soap bottle apron pattern and just had to make it immediately. I used a little spray of basting glue to hold the layers together and free motion outlined the tea cup.

Happy Crafting,
Val

Sunday into Monday Show and Tell

Someone was doing a string bag which reminded me that I wanted to do one too. (Edit - Of course, it was Creative Kate) I had a pattern in the knitting desk calendar that DD1 bought me for Christmas and some cotton blended with acrylic to knit it out of. I am making it fairly small but it is very stretchy.

I just had to make the Lazy Lemon Pie from Bev's blog . I made a half quantity and put it into single serves. I put things in the jug in no particular order since you just mix it all together. I popped out and picked a couple of lemons then juiced them in the electric juicer on the other counter. I put the filled dishes in the oven and turned around to see the lemon juice sitting in the juicer. I pulled out the dishes and divied up the juice and stirred each dish with a spoon.
Can't believe I nearly had Lazy Pie :D
(Edit - They taste and feel delicious. Good job DH doesn't like them much :)

I wanted to make a little album of my Morpeth trip so I made a crazy block cover for it. I used Keynote to make slides and printed them off 2 to a page and cut them in half to make my album pages. I called it a mission because on the day if I thought of it as a mission I didn't feel so nervous about the trip. I tend to stress out whenever I do something new. I had never done a plane day trip before and was worried about getting back to the airport on time. I had never hired a car before or driven in and out of an airport before so I was stressed about that too. I found that if I pretended to be on a mission like Mrs Pollifax - If she can do it, I can do it - I felt adventurous rather than nervous. I know Mrs Pollifax isn't a real person but what the heck, it seemed to work :)

I used my teapot fabric for the inside

Not quite finished

I haven't quite finished the album. I will punch two holes in the pages and use a needle to thread a ribbon in the covers to tie it together.

Today I thought I might just go through every blog I follow and leave a comment. I follow quite a few more than I have included in my side bar so I thought it might be nice to visit them all and remember why I followed them in the first place or maybe even strike them off the list.
I will be linking up with Monday Show and Tell on Sandy's blog tomorrow.

Happy Quilting,
Val