Little Christmas bits 9

So many things to do. Sewing is only one of them so here I am behind still with the posting. I had a great time putting Michelle Ridgeway's Ginger Tea stitchery into a project. I like anything to do with tea and I love having fabric mats to put my teapots on while making tea. There are three new cute Christmas stitcheries for free on Michelle's side bar now.

My design process is a bit haphazard. I was looking for some background fabric and a cream layer cake piece just fell out of my homespun bundle. It was perfect. I looked through my floss for some ginger and spice brown thread. I opened my box of 'small fabric pieces' and three spicy pieces were just sitting there together so I pulled them out.

I did enlarge the original pattern a bit but I knew the stitchery was too small to feature by itself so I decided to put it towards the top of the square and settled on echoing the heart theme with some applique hearts underneath. Luckily my 'small' pieces were big enough to make the border too.

I am not big on taking time to quilt all my projects but this one needed something. I remembered I had a heart quilting design on my Quilt Pinterest board so I looked it up and copied it onto the mat. I used my pink chalk pencil to get it set out then went over it with the blue water washable pen. There is still a touch of pink there but a turn through the washing machine should fix that.

Instead of finishing this in one day I took two. I spent time looking at the travelling tea cosy show (from the 2010 Miles competition) at Beaudesert Community Centre. Not many cosies but fun to look at. Here are some.

Later I went on the hunt for some knitting needles and ended up in the Endeavour charity shop. Saved several dollars on knitting needles and bought a knitting pattern book. I still dream of knitting some nice jumpers and cardigans. We get at least 5 cold mornings here in winter. Then I went to Big W and bought season 2 of Covert Affairs. So I had to watch some of that too.

Two more small things on the go today so hopefully I will catch up.
I am having much more fun playing with all these small projects instead of finishing my Christmas quilt. I had to take a forced break from my North Pole quilt since we bought a block of land. I just can't afford more wadding and border fabric before Christmas but this means it will be back next year to be blogged about :)

...and if you don't have time to leave a comment on my many blog posts this month why not pin it (I have the hover pin button on my photos) and +1 it.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Another Tea Cosy

When I can't think of what to make, a tea cosy or a tote bag are such wonderful props for a bit of fun sewing.
I like to collect greeting cards on my trips around. I display them in my glass top coffee table and cabinets that I walk past all the time. I have quite a few and every time I swap them around I find another favourite.
This one I got at the gift shop in St Martin's in the Field in London 2010.

I enlarged it a bit and made myself a tea cosy.

I love breakfast out in the sun and the path outside my winter parlour is a perfect spot.

Stumpy thought it wasn't quite warm enough for him yet so he stuck to his sunny chair on the inside.

I was pleased to get some mail. A lovely book on making landscapes that I won on A Quilting Reader's Garden blog. Thanks Angie.

I wasn't celebrating 4th July but it just happened that mum and I had a wonderful high tea at Tea and Niceties on Tamborine Mountain on Thursday. We joined the lovely ladies on the Brisbane Australian Sewing Guild tour. Mum and I knew a lot of the regular tourists from the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide tours. The tea was $45 each but a real treat. Those little scones are to die for!
I took this picture with my phone and found it linked automatically with my Google+ albums. It was ready for me to just upload to this blog post. So easy.

If you like cute applique (and who dosen't?) check out Fat Cat Patterns. I have started collecting the doggy faces. I may not get time to make them yet but I just love them.

Val Spiers on Facebook

Val Spiers on Flickr

Happy Quilting,
Val

A Finish for FNWF

Twice I have backspaced my intro because it just sounded too corny. I feel really happy. I love all the sewing projects I have on the go. I love how joining in with the various blog sew-ins and sew-alongs motivates me to finish things. I love getting inspiration from other people's blogs. It is just nice to feel so positive about everything.

For FNWF I started the Paris block from the "Adventure" free BOM. I changed the thread colours a bit to suit me more. No matter how good I feel there is no way I can take on another quilt so I have decided to make things with each of these stitchery blocks blocks through the year.

If you have been reading my blog for a while I don't think you will be surprised to see what I have turned this block into. 

Strangely I do not have any tea souvenires from Paris so I have used some of the fabric I bought in Paris to make a tea cosy. The Eiffel Tower charm is from a pair of earrings I bought at Melbourne markets last year because I thought they would make good zipper pulls. It seemed perfect to top off my Paris tea cosy.

There is a list of lovely people joining in this Friday Night with Friends on this post at Gone Stitch'n.

Thanks to Cheryll for hosting the sew-in.

Happy Quilting,

Val

ps

I can't believe it has rained non stop so far today. Hope everyone is keeping dry.

My Visit to Morpeth

I had a lovely time in Morpeth on Tuesday. Mum and I caught the 6am flight to Newcastle. It only took a bit over an hour. We picked up the hire car and drove the 40 mins to Morpeth where we looked around a bit then had a hearty breakfast at Crisadas Riverview Cafe.

The Hunter River, Morpeth , NSW

The main street - Swan St, Morpeth, NSW

By the time we had finished it was nearly 10 so we headed up to the Morpeth Gallery to see the teapots and find my tea cosy entry. I didn't win but my owl looked very respectable next to all the other entries. The winner of the birds section had a nest with chicks in it on top. I will have to work on increasing the cuteness factor for next year :)

A few of the tea pots

That's my owl in the bottom left corner :)

We had a leisurely lunch then back to the airport for the 4:30 flight home. A wonderful DH picked us up and we could relax on the way home. The weather was a bit cloudy in the morning fining up to quite sunny in the afternoon. DH said it had been rainy and windy at home.

I chose a handsome chicken tea pot to buy and mum very kindly bought it for me.

Happy Days
Val,

Being Creative

This month I joined up a fun arty group where you can use any medium to create something related to the given theme. March was 'garden'.
I made two tea cosies and a butterfly brooch and a pumpkin applique and stitched tea towel. My regular blog friends are probably sick of seeing what I made this month. Next month I will try to save my finishes up for the final reveal at the end but I was just too excited about it all this month :D

Front

Back

The yellow is felt background and the feelers are thin wire. See how I made it here

Thanks everyone for your nice comments on the flickr photos. I also enjoyed looking at all the photos and can't wait to visit blogs with the linky.
Being Creative is hosted by Julia Crossland. There is a linky on her site for visiting other 'Being Creatives' at the end of the month.

Cheers,
Val

My finishes

I have been busy creating. I want to share my ideas so I have created a  post for each design showing how I made it so I could use it to link to from my 'My Designs' page. The posts are directly beneath this post so you can just scroll down for a look.

Happy Sewing,
Val

Butterfly tea cosy

I am part of the Being Creative group. This month's theme was 'garden'.
I wanted to make something all my own so I drew some butterflies from photos and put them on a tea cosy. This cosy fits over a medium tea pot - 2 or 3 cups.

View and download:
The butterflies
The cosy body
The cosy gusset

To make the butterflies I cut out the shapes and used them as patterns to cut out the fabric. Any future butterflies will be traced onto fusible applique paper in reverse. The fabric needs the extra control afforded by the glue.

I placed the fabric buttefly onto a large piece of felt and free motion sewed the edges and details. I then trimmed around the felt leaving 1/8" border.

I cut out the tea cosy body in 2 x outer fabric and 2 x wool for the lining.

I sewed a front outer to a front lining 1/8' from the edge to hold them together then I sewed on my butterflies in free motion just around their body leaving the wings free. I added the legs and feelers.

I sewed the back to the back lining close to the edge then with right sides together sewed over the curve between the dots.

In order to make the tea cosy stand straight I put in gussets. Sew one side of the gusset to the front from the bottom to the top seam allowance point. Sew the second side of the gusset from the bottom to the top seam allowance point. Repeat for the second gusset on the other side. You may have to trim a bit off the bottom of the gussets before you do the binding to stop the front kicking up.

I used a 2 1/2' binding strip folded in half. I sewed it to the inside and folded it to the outside and finished with machine sewing close to the fold of the binding.

Happy Quilting,
Val

A change of pace

I think my hand stitching has had enough of a display. Anyone looking for my Christmas items they are in the post below. Since my sewing machine is under repair I thought I would show some of my knitting and crochet. The scarf is made from alpaca in a moss stitch rib. I love the feel of it. I knitted several scarves, vests and hats last winter but my favourite finishes were the tea cosies.

Mohair crochet owl

Here is my crochet owl from Killer Tea Cosies. He sits on display all the time cause I just love him.  The others below were made for specific pots. I like the pineapple stitch one. I got the stitch pattern from an old book of knitting stitches that my mum gave me.

Knitted cosy and pot stand

Crochet with two strands of wool. Pattern from Wild Tea Cosies

Simple rib with beads.

I also did some shopping. Even though it is way too hot I had to have a go at some patterns in the Gourmet Crochet book I got for Christmas and I needed more colours. The pink bit is the start of a cake. I also had to get some embroidery threads for my felt stitchery. Maybe it's my tools causing the trouble :) And since I was at the fabric shop a bit of fabric just jumped out at me!

Stumpy just likes to know where I am.

I bought a thread to match every colour felt I had.

I nearly forgot. I drooled over the magazines for a while and ended up buying Magic Patch ( a European magazine ) and Inside Crochet that had a great mittens pattern. I was inspired to dabble in my crochet again after visiting Kate at Creative World. She has a great blog. Thanks Kate.

Happy quilting (and crocheting and knitting)
Val