Sew, sew, sew. Blog, blog, blog

I am so glad I am retired and have time to sew and blog.

Lots of positive things happening .

I received a lovely gift of some woven felt wool from Mel at the House on the Side of the Hill. It was a nice welcome to the Summertime Sewalong she suggested earlier in the year. There are not many sewing along because it is a fairly piecy looking appliqué and even I have decided I will only make 9 of the blocks to make a square wall hanging. It is nice to play and sew with felt.

I purchased some new fabric called Avalon from the Fabric Patch online .

A lovely lady sent me some photos of two block keepers she made with my cat appliqué on the fronts. I was so pleased she liked the patterns. You can see them at Mairsmusings.

I had a great time meeting some of the people behind the blogs at a sewing meet we had for the Brisbane Stitchers Inc. It is basically Brisbane bloggers but all sewers are welcome. Believe it or not I won the lucky door prize of a lovely pattern and a pincushion made by Maree of Ollie and May

I had my first go at needle turn appliqué when I started the Holiday lap quilt from It's Quilting Cats and Dogs. I have nearly finished two of the blocks. They both have some finishing off to do. I plan to make the quilt from the Avalon fabric.

 

I have also been doing more of the Debbie Mumm sampler . Some little log cabins, the fish and I have started the stars.

 

And the weather is just perfect today.

Happy Quilting,

Val

 

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Cross stitch

I just love watching the picture come into being.
The Busy Bees needle case uses the chart I got from cross stitch happy. Under the archives in the right side bar is a list of all her free charts. There are lots of nice ones.

P is for pins is free from Brookes Books Publishing. There are charts for the whole alphabet. Scroll down the page. The back is felt so I can use the slit and turn method. Make a little slit in the middle of the felt backing then with wrong sides together sew all around. Enlarge the slit enough to turn. I fill most of the cushion with rice mixed with some lavender then finish off with stuffing so the rice stays in while it is sewn up.

This dragonfly and pond is one I found on Pinterest. It will be another pin cushion.

I have also been making the mug bag that Carin found at Red Brolly. Hers looks great. Visit her blog for the link to the free pattern. I haven't quite finished it yet. I will show it in my next post.

I am going to go to the Craft and Stitches show in Brisbane on the Thursday in a few weeks time. I hope to get something nice to use as a give away prize for all my Australian followers. It is just too expensive to post things overseas so maybe I will get a gift voucher for international followers. I will have to think about it. It is really nice to be part of such a friendly blog community.

Happy Quilting,

Val

Friday Night with Friends

I love looking at what everyone is making. A good way to see what lots of like minded bloggers are up to is to 'link up'.
Today I have linked up to FNWF over at Cheryll's Gone Stitchin' cubby hole.

Everyone has signed up here.

Be sure to look at what others are doing.

I have to admit that I am not a night time sewer so I worked during the day yesterday on some cross stitch and the table runner and early this morning I sewed up the needle case.
Here is what I have to show.

7,8,9,10 on the 12 Days of Christmas table runner.

A double sided scissor fob.

Nearly finished a pin cushion top.

Sewed up the needle keep.

These three items are gifts for the quilting group next Christmas. I have decided I will make lots of little cross stitch pieces and make them into fobs, pin cushions, needle keeps or pin keeps.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Some free things around

I have seen so many blogs in the past week and there are so many nice free things out there. Just thought I would make a list of my favourites.

I have also made a list of all the books suggested in my give away comments up to about comment 110. There are about 50 different authors and books of all types. You can download the list from my left hand side bar.

Some favourite things -

Mouse pin cushion

Apple and pear pincushions

Cute cup and mug hot pads or coasters

I love this chicken stitchery

Make covered button magnets

Red Brolly Christmas sampler ( From last year - I might make it this year)

Another cute mouse

A cute stuffed doggie

Patterns for the cutest jungle animals in felt - 4 parts to download

I have no sewing done and no decorations up. Too busy reading an Elm Creek book  and another Rebecca Collins Pemberley book.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Crows and Kitties

This project was started just before I entered my cockatoo phase so I had to keep going with the crows. I guess they are now blackbirds because I gave them yellow beaks. I love working with wool felt and wool fabrics to do applique. I also love the cute little designs that can be made out of felt. You can get so much detail.

On Pinterest I started up my 'I love felt' board to collect lots of cool felt projects for a rainy day. It always helps to have a bit of inspiration. I recently discovered the  Downeast Thunder Farm blog and lots of gorgeous felt bird patterns for free.

I was first introduced to the crazy wool pincushion by Kaaren at The Painted Quilt. And then Fiona at Bubz Rugs had a pincushion traveling swap. I was still feeling my way around blogland then :)
I still love using my international pincushion.

My latest creation has woven wool for the top and wool felt for the elements. I also used felt for the base and just cut a slit in it for turning and stuffing. I used baseball stitch to sew it up. I had a bit of rice and lavender mix in the draw so I popped in a few spoons of that then made it nice and plump with hobbyfill. I put in one of my washers to give it some weight and stitched the edges together.

If you would like to collect this pattern you can download it from google docs.
There is also a flickr photo stream with some construction steps.

I thought the kitty salt shaker should get a look in today. There is a ginger one for pepper but I don't use pepper much. I bought the pair in the Lakes District on my UK trip earlier this year.

Now I have to get busy and tweek the design and put in cockatoos instead of blackbirds and gum leaves instead of apples.

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

Pincushion sew along

I put the finishing touches on Sandi's pincushion this morning. I took some artistic license with the kangaroo since I only had dark brown felt. I tried to make the existing greyish band look like a tree and put a cockatoo next to its nesting hole and a bit of bougainvillea on the country fence. It is off to DeeDee now for the final addition. They must be all quite close to home now!

Happy Stitching,
Val

Monday's Show and Tell

A couple of things today. Firstly The Pincushion Sewalong has moved along to DeeDee. This is what I did with Fiona's pincushion.

Then there are the butcher birds. Our neighbour usually feeds them on her back balcony but she has gone away for a few weeks. They figure I am a bit of a softy so they come and look in my kitchen window and back door. Sometimes they sing beautifully. I fed them a few cat bickies this day.
They are not actually cute birds I suppose. They have a nasty hook at the end of their beak for killing little animals and they have a reputation for swooping during nesting season. These ones are quite friendly all the time and I have never actually seen them kill anything.

I was ironing the interfacing onto the back of the second border of my Christmas quilt and smiled at the sorry state of my ironing cloth. It is a piece of lawn. It used to be twice as wide but I hacked off half to line something then I ironed an applique paper piece upside down and when the paper fell off I had to cut out the gluey section. I think it is time for a new cloth :)

Then there are the kitty pictures. Kitty swooped into the spare room as soon as I opened the door and made herself comfortable on my pile of acrylic wadding. Her little black tail is cute.

You can see the Easter left overs waiting to go in the cupboard.

And lastly, I have seen a few posts about feedsacks and couldn't understand why they would be made out of quilting fabric. I finally had to find out. I found a lovely story at this site:
http://www.womenfolk.com/quilting_history/feedsacks.htm

Sandy at Cookies and Cream Crafts hosts Monday Show and Tell. So pop over and see what others have to show and join in.
Happy Quilting,
Val

Fiona's pincushion

If you are looking for my FNSI post it is here.

I don't think I can do any more swap or share work. It is ridiculous I know, but I have had a headache for a week because I hadn't finished my bit on this pincushion. I felt pinned down by the external deadline and I wanted to do other things like my selvedge tote and I felt guilty because I wasn't doing the pincushion.
When I was working on the pincushions I was enjoying it. I loved trying to design something that fitted and then stitching it so it looked the way I wanted so I assure you they are all stitched with love and care. I had just forgotten why I had to retire in the first place. My ability to handle stress is greatly diminished and this is very obvious to me after being retired for a while. Appointments and deadlines and events cause me to tense up noticeably because in between I am quite relaxed unlike when I was working. I guess I was just stressed all the time then, sometimes worse than others.
Any way, enough moaning. I have a teaser for Fiona. She has to guess what I put on her pincushion before I show it all.

No pressure Fiona. I will show it all tomorrow anyway :)

May your sewing be stress free,
Val

Pincushion update

I received Sheila's pincushion the other day and very quickly worked out what I would do on it. It already had some whimsical looking things and I liked the idea of a pumpkin. Instead of the usual crow I added an Australian magpie. I still need to add a few bits to Sandi's pincushion. It is coming together nicely. Here is Sheila's. After I chose the pumpkin I thought it looked a bit like spring, summer, autumn.

Happy Stitching,
Val

Monday's Show and Tell

I have been making a few more tea towels. This time with pumpkin pie and chocolate cake. I used my silicone mat. It really makes it easy to put the bits together. Here is the cake ready to put on the tea towel.

I also got Sandi's pincushion in the mail today. I looks great and it feels really nice too. All soft and blankety :)

The weather here today is perfect autumn weather. Just a few clouds gathering and a balmy breeze. There is supposed to be a storm this afternoon. A few weeks ago I took a few pictures on my walk up the road. About 500m down my street then turn right into this street and down to the creek.

Then up the hill and around the corner to the top.

This is looking back down my valley towards my house. You can't see it. It is past the white roof pretty much in the centre..

Hop on over to Cookies and Cream Craft to see what others have to show. Why not grab the Show and Tell button and join in each week.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Pincushion update and my silicone mat

I have finished DeeDee's pincushion part and have sent it along to Sheila. It was fun to do and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I hope DeeDee likes it. I thought that even close up my stitches weren't too shameful.

I think I might try some of this wool applique on some bigger things like all the 6" blocks at Wee Folk Art.   They lend themselves to crazy backgrounds and lots of embellishments. Perhaps it should be a 10 year project and I just keep adding to it :)

I have discovered how to fit the pieces together using a silicon mat. It is a thin non stick sheeting that I bought from Aldi once. You are supposed to cut it out and use it in your frying pan. I have seen it sold for the barbeque as well so you could probably get it from a kitchen shop or a place that sells barbeques.
It means I can lay the pieces over the drawing to get them in the right positions. As long as they overlap a bit they will all stick together in a single unit when it is ironed. The mat is made to withstand the heat and it is non stick so the glue stays on the fabric the way it does when you peel off the applique paper.

Get you pieces ready and peel off the paper.
Put the mat over the drawing on the ironing board.

Place the pieces over the drawing. Carefully lay a cloth over and press.
Gently peel it off the mat.
I peeled this off and moved it a bit to show the matching drawing.

Happy Embellishing,
Val

Time to Evaluate the Schedule and Get into the Garden

This is my lychee tree. We got a few lychees last season

After answering some comments about my housework I thought it was time to do an evaluation of the routine. The last few weeks I have not been looking forward to 90 min of housework on Mondays and Thursdays. It is becoming a chore! So today (Thursday) I am cutting down on the vacuuming. There are three sections. Now on Thursdays I will do the bedrooms and the family/kitchen and on Mondays i will do the lounge room and family/kitchen. I picked that breakdown because I already have clean out our bedroom for the first Thursday of the month and clean out the lounge room on the second Monday of the month.
I also thought that I have been wishing I could find time to get my vege garden going again. So instead of wishing I scheduled in 1/2 hour just after breakfast to be in the garden. Started today.

The whole bed was full of weeds. I have pulled a few out already.

All done.

The bed was delivered by Birdies. They have all sorts of sizes.

I have also been letting the non dishwasher things build up a bit and get a bit lazy stacking the dishwasher so I have written at the bottom of my schedule page that I will do the dishwasher on Mon, Wed, Fri and washup little things every morning before breakfast. I hate washing up at night. I was scheduled to have my shower between 8:30 and 9:00 but the water is off so I am at the computer.

I did some more bitty sewing with the triangle scraps from my star quilt. I made a pincushion and needlebook that I will offer to my neighbour.

Everything I do now has free hand machine stitching :)

Now I am 7 mins late for vacuuming!
Edit at 10:15 - 1 hour today. I finished at 10:07.
Happy Quilting,
Val