shopping bags

Only managed to get 3 shopping bags made this week.

Made from remnants of curtaining fabrics, these are lined with rubber backing which should make them ideal for carrying refridgerated items home from the shops.

Hopefully will have a good supply of nice strong shopping bags by the time the plastic shopping bags are eliminated which is proposed to be at the end of 2008.

gifts for Easter

these terrific face washers arrived in the mail this week - bought from a squilter who is a seller on Oztion.

The seller, Sue, dyed the flannels and embroidered the motifs to my requests.

They will be used as gifts for various members of the family along with some choccies for those that can eat them.

I keep fondling them, think they are so cute ;-))

If you would like to see what Sue has her blog is:

http://quiltingbeginner.blogspot.com/

there is a link there to her oztion site.

extra borders for round robin

This is the design that Tara came up with to make my stay at home round robin larger - I love it!!

To think this all started with a 6" orphan block.

Never having done a round robin before an quite fascinated by the process.

These are the healing hearts that I have made to send this week, I find it very therapeutic to make them while thinking of the person each one is for.

one of the factors behind me reviving this blog is to get me in the habit of regular posting, to learn about uploading photos etc. so that I can blog/document the making of my son's healing heart quilt.

It had been my intention to have the quilt finished by May 2008, however when I visited the eye specialist last year and realised I could not read even the large single letter at the top of the chart I knew I had to stop sewing anything of importance, until there is improvement courtesy of surgery.

There are many hearts received for my son to be photographed.

Will make taking the photos my ongoing project for March.

we once lived here

My camera has flat batteries so cannot take any photos today.

Having a blog gives me an opportunity to reflect on some things that have happened in the past.
This property was one such priviledge, we lived here between 1984 and 1991.
We left this place to go on our grey nomad travelling.
Have been back on visits since as we have many fond memories, the photo of hubby at the pond was taken on our last visit. as were the others.
The palm trees are replacement trees for the original trees which had died and were planted wheb quite small whilst we were living there.

On the quilty front my stay at home round robin that I would like to be larger - the designer Tara has come up with more borders that complement the original design.
So will be doing some fabric dyeing this weekend - well that is the plan, then I can proceed with taking the project up to cot size.

Also have two projects to take out of their bags and give them an airing: 1 is a lilac quilt for Elaine and the other is the start of "Third Weekend in October" usually referred to as TWIO.

Need to see where I got to in Elaine's quilt and work towards getting it finished.

The TWIO will be worked on as an online project in April.

angels and mortals

The Southern C ross Quilters online group have an annual retreat helf in a different area each year in 2007 it was in Bendigo and was the first time I attended, had booked before but I actually got to attend last year - YAY!!! great fun!!

Part of the fun is an angel/mortal swap held for 3 months prior to going , you send a gift each to your 'mortal' all the while attempting to keep your identity secret.

So the swap has begun in readiness for Perth in 2008.
Today I received my pressie from my angel "Becky J"
Now this year there are 'rules' - gifts to be $10 in value and fit in a sandwich bag.

So my angel knows that I need to be better organised ;-))

Must be married to a truck driver, the size of the 'sandwich' bag ... LOL

Now to discover whether the photo uploaded - it was there and then it dissapeared.

QuilterGeek: How to make a Tetris Quilt

QuilterGeek: How to make a Tetris Quilt

Was hoping doing a blog would help to make me accountable and get my quilty stuff finished!!!
But I keep being alerted to patterns like this ....

Now remind me - what are the 12 steps to recovery???

Second thoughts - do I REALLY want to recover????

butterfly round robin

The third border is on!!!

Think will make this a little larger so that it would better fit a cot, then it will be on hand ready to bless a newborn baby girl ... there will be one at some time in the future .. grin

Will dye some fabric on the weekend to continue on with the project.

Visited a thrift shop today and bought some more garments today so hopefully the bargello will soon be a top.

Had a 'funny' experience last night as we were watching cricket - India v Australia in a one day game, and suddenly noticed the numbers on the players' caps - I have never seen them before!!!

I knew from listening to radio broadcasts that they were there but I thought they must be miniscule as I could not see them ...

The joys of modern eye surgery .... yay!!!!!

round robin

Managed to get the second border on my stay at home round robin, just the one more border to add - then what to do with it?

Any ideas?

must admit to being pleased that it used a leftover block and all the fabrics came from stash.

raffle quilt

This quilt was raffled last year in order to raise funds for the Leukemia foundation through my shave for a cure.

Like the raffle quilt below, this quilt was expertly, beautifully quilted by Lisa and Roy of the Blackbird Quiltery, the links to Lisa'a blog and the quiltery are on my sidebar.

Many of the nine patches on this quilt came from participating in swaps.

This quilt was won by Margaret P. who was my roomie in Bendigo last year.

Crazy Shortcut Quilts: Quilting Desk

Crazy Shortcut Quilts: Quilting Desk

This sounds like an interesting and inexpensive,way to create a great machine quilting space - however i don't have enough room, maybe you do.

quilt for raffle

This is the only photo I can find now of the quilt for the Mothers' Day raffle - and I think it is actually on it's side ... I dyed some fabric in green for the binding.

While I was down the street today called into the senior citizens op shop and found 3 more cotton shirts so the bargello will be underway very soon.

Do I want to count and list the UFO's, WIP's and whatever else???? ... nah ... I'll just continue to work on projects as the opportunity, and the mood, arises.

In the Studio: Am I REALLY a Headcase??#links

In the Studio: Am I REALLY a Headcase??#links

My absolute first foray into the wondrous world of patchwork was hexagons, the quilt was never finished it disappeared and I forgot all about it for a very long time.

Never wanted to do hexagons again .. ever .. then tonight I read about this quilt in progress on Christine's blog ...

A good thing that happened today was that I went down the street and when I returned the missing piece for my sudoku mat was on the cutting board!
There had been a visitor while I was gone so my guess is that it had migrated to her bag by mistake when she was here before.
Now that project can be completed - it is just the right size for the 2 person table that we have.

Have the second border ready to sew on to my stay at home round robin so that is inching towards completion as well, though don't know what it will eventually become.

The scrap Irish Chain quilt was collected today in readiness for it being raffled for Mothers' day in May.

sophie junction: Hearts & Sparks

sophie junction: Hearts & Sparks

This diappearing nine patch by Sophie uses pieced heart blocks, there is also a link to a tutorial in her post.
Well worth having a look at - now my overflowing list is getting even longer ...
Did cut the fabrics for the 2nd border on my stay at home round robin today so hopefully that will soon be finished.

These fabrics are the ones I used to create my sudoku puzzle mat which is now together, so wanted to make a mug mat using the small leftover pieces of fabric to create a key for the puzzle - 8 of them are there no worries, but the green fabric on the upper left in this photo is no where to be found!!

Because these are charms I received in a swap I have no more ...

After much fruitless searching am thinking the missing piece must have either got knocked or blown off my cutting mat when the door was opened then sucked up the vacumn cleaner along with all the other fluffy threads and snippets that had landed on the floor.

An almost finished UFO now stalled for the lack of a snippet!!

Another bit of my bah humbug day - which actually had started well, was when I was piecing a scrappy 4 patch quilt and the sewing machine began looping the threads on the bobbin side - rethreaded several times all to no avail.

So here we are in our own home till the morning and I can sew without disturbing others' peace and the Nina is not feeling well...

Other than that cut some of the high dry grass today, so that *chore* is almost finished now, alas I don't do anywhere near enough physical work these days and every muscle and tendon in my body is letting me know they are there!!

So instead of sewing for a couple of hours I will go to bed.

Just remembered another good bit about today, I picked up the no mail round robin which I had left behind last month by mistake so I have it safely in my bag ready to take in the morning.

Copied off the directions for the 2nd and 3 rd borders, the old faithful workhorse Bernina at Trevor's will go into overdrive to get this finished in the next couple of days and at least then something will be FINISHED!!!

coffee anyone? quilt top

these are the cobblestone blocks sewn together - was too anxious to see what they looked like so took the photo before pressing the top!

Started cutting the strips today for the bargello bowl quilt, have been checking out the op shops for cotton shirts - most here are a mixture of cotton and polyester, have found some cotton shirts though probably not yet enough to get sufficient variety for this quilt.

have been playing around with some cobblestone blocks today, coffee and cream.

Think I'll add a small black border followed by a wider cream one.

This will be a donation quilt for the spinal injuries unit.

Did manage to get some grocery shopping bags made from some of the sheeting squares before I went to hospital a week ago.

Progress is slow but slow is better than no progress.

camera bag

Took 4 of the crumb blocks out of their tin and used them to make myself a camera bag ... my camera came with a grey bag but with my dininished vision I cannot see it so decided to male one that I CAN see ;->)
Trevor had my finished items for this week on his tray, he managed to look elseqhere so the camera did not catch him looking at me.
went to a massive 75% off Christmas fabric sale today so hopefully the Christmas tablecloth will be finished soon. Am hoping to get the lilac quilt blocks out of the bag they are hiding in tomorrow and have a look at where the progress stalled.
Next week is my first eye surgery so dont think I'll be doing too much "good" sewing till the recovery from that is done.


The photo of Trevor somehow got stretched, sure have a lot to learn.

Sunday

This pile of poly sheeting squares is maybe about 1/4 of the pile my mother gave me to use.

These days I do not want to sew them into quilts, so decided instead to make them into shopping bags - or grocery sacks as they are referred to in the design I use.

Takes 20 of these squares to make each lined bag so hopefully tomorrow I'll have some bags completed.

Friday and Saturday

Grandpa had his 88th birthday on Friday - so what's a man to do but check out the fabric swap that arrived in the mail!
Then Saturday was Australia Day so friend Leanne came dressed in her finery to share some cheer with Trevor.

Christmas tablecloth

By posting here I am hoping to make myself more accountable this year.
This is a Christmas tablecloth that I made from an online table runner pattern with a group prior to Christmas.
The tablecloth is not quite long enough to be comfortable on the table at my dad's place so
had found this batik fabric online and it arrived yesterday.
Hopefully it will soon be added to the top - then I'll start to think about the back of it .

Made the back for Noah's quilt today so finishing that quilt is now a bit closer.

quilting disappearing 9 patch

this is my quilting outlining the blocks on the disapearing 9 patch.

Want to do sprigs of leaves in the "sashings" will however wait till after at least my first eye op and maybe after the second eye has the cataract removed before tackling that part.

Must admit am really enjoying the hand quilting instead of wrestling the sandwich through the sewing machine

Certainly no great work of art but am hopeful of the quilt going to a hospital where it can offer comfort to a sick child.

dusappearing 9 patches

As there has been talk of dissapearing nine patches online thought I would post my example.
The birdhouse print was used in the corners and a small print in green for the centre with the other 4 squares being a brown colour which is a hand dye fabric.
Currently hand quilting this quilt, calling it "Home Tweet Home"
At the moment it is full of safety pins - makes me feel like a punk .. grin

crumb blocks

I put some of my latest crumb blocks out on the table and just as I got the camera ready ... whoosh!!! off they all went - the wind would not let up then so took a pic of them in a heap!

I always call them 'mile a minute' blocks.

Have made quilts from then in the past, good for teens etc as the variety of fabrics and colours 'hide' things like coffee stains.

The current collection of blocks though are destined to make covers for the pedestal fan and room heater which collect dust - and are hard to clean - in the 'off' seasons for them.

Thought I would be able to add the next border to my stay at home no mail round robin alack and alas I have left it all at home so now will have to wait till Wednesday to be able to get to it. Drat.

sudoku table mat

This is the photo that I could not upload last night.

sudoku table mat

Today I almost finished making my table mat top, just a few finishing bits to go on the top before sandwiching and quilting.
Want to make a matching mug mat with the 'code' on it - will also put the code on the labal on the back
Managed to make 7 tissue pack covers from some upholstery samples by using them as the leaders and enders.
Blogger does not seem to want to upload any photos tonight ... will try again tomorrow.

no mail round robin started

This is an interesting concept to me:- doing a round robin but at home and according to a "recipe" given at intervals.
First off it was to have a 6+1/2" unfinished size block, so instead of starting something new I chose to use a leftover block that I made for a blue/green swap. Then the first border required four fabrics - first an accent so I chose a burgundyish hand dye, then a commercial batik/dyed look alike and a green of my own and a blue butterfly print that I had 'hanging' around which never quite seemed to fit in anything else I worked on.
Though the photo shows I hadn't pressed the block properly am really pleased about how it is looking.
The next border recipe should be posted in a few days.
Never been involved in round robins before.
Think this project will be about a table mat size when complete, at this stage I'm thinking it might instead become a cushion. We'll see.
Interested to get other's comments on this.

The customs people are ever vigilant in Australia, friend in New Zealand sent me some fabric squares, the package was intercepted by the customs when repackaging it they included a brochure on what can and cannot be imported.

This fabric will go into an "African" quilt for DH who lived in South and East Africa for a number of years and remembers the time with great fondness.

Bonnie Hunter has now posted the final layout for Carolina Crossroads so am anxious to get that all together, but first I absolutely MUST get Noah's quilt finished.

This is the lined tote bag I made for a young friend, she called in this week so I was able to give it to her.

As a tiger lover she really liked the bag .. whew!!!

When I make something always get the feelings of .. will whoever it is for like it?

This is a pic of the yellow blocks done as the alternates for Noah's baby quilt, hope to have this quilt finished this week.

no photos today

The blogger upload has been out of action/not responding both yesterday and today so will have to try again tomorrow.
Did get some more blocks made for my Carolina Crossroads quilt - it's a mystery quilt happening on Bonnie Hunters quiltville blog, over a thousand quilters doing the same quilt in different colours all over the world - quite an amazing experience!
My version is using scraps of blues and lights with solid black as the accent however am already planning the colours for my next version ....
No wonder I get into a mess - I start far too many projects!

mariners compass

My husband had always wanted a mariners compass quilt esp as he was in the Royal Navy.
I never did manage to make him one but found this top for sale on the net.
Needs to be quilted and then it will be done.
It has been on the back of the recliner that he sits in so he has been able to enjoy it.

A W.I.P.

hmmmm.. my plans for posting *something* each day have gone awry.

My camera has dead batteries as well so this is a pic of a giraffe applique I'm stitching down to make a cushion for a giraffe loving grand daughter. The background fabric is one of my hand dyes.

We are at our own little cottage just now, just hubby and me, every thing is very dry, another extremely hot day today so will have to make sure we keep the water intake up, promise of a cooler day tomorrow so if we get through today we will be fine - going back to Trevors tomorrow.

A high bushfire risk today and I didn't manage to get all the dry grass cut down so will hope there are no arsonists around about.

My friend Lisa has found this blog and as she had reminded me of a lilac quilt I'm making for a niece I'll dig it out of it's bag today and see how much more needs to be done, take it back to Trevor's with us and work on finishing it there so it can go to Lisa and Roy's Blackbird Quiltery they have a wonderful flair of adding special quilting on my tops.

Together they transform the humdrum to the stunning.

my scrap organisation

Nothing like the size of Bonnie's scrap bins on quiltville, but this is the system that works for me!
A stack of ice cream containers holds squares cut in 1/2" increments from 1 1/2" - 6"
The tins and strong boxes have prevented fading from the strong sunlight that comes in here.

my first ever postcard

made my first ever postcard today - guess I have a long way to go, but at last I have started - prcrastination taken to the nnnth degree

in the garden

Apart from the more common pink hollyhocks we have this single plant which produces flowers of almost black colouring.

Sudoko quilt

This is the fabric I have chosen for the new years eve sudoko quilt project on Stashbusters.

They are from a pack of charms from Vonne in a swap earlier this year.

Have cut them into 1 1/2" squares to make a mini quilt, or maybe a cushion.

Sweltering in a heat wave here so this project will help keep my mind off the weather.

my favourite moment from Christmas

Promise this is the last photo from Christmas ;o)

Grandpa comes from a generation who were not given to shows in public of affection.

Here he is giving his grand daughter a hug - she had gifted him with a model of a Chinese warrior and Grandpa had taken her to see the exhibition when she was just a young child - lots of evocative memories there!

bblocks for Noah's quilt

Laid out some of the blocks today for Noah's baby quilt - wondering now whether to do some blocks in yellows with the dolphin print to mix in with the blues ... any suggestions?

sparkling

Sarah was fascinated by having two sparklers alight at the same time - and with them burning at both ends too!

current projects

This blog is both a self indulgence and a place to track what gets achieved so to that end here goes with my list of what I am up to at the moment.

Along with over a thousand other quilters from all over the world am working on Bonnie's mystery, havent started step 4 yet.

Making some small quilt pins for Australia Day - Jan 26th

Assembling a Dorothy Young mystery in a dolphin print and hand dyed blues to gift a new born baby boy - needs to be completed next week

sewing machine cover

This is the most amazing sewing machine cover- made by my Perth room mate Sue.

It is absolutely stunning!!!

Not only is my name embroidered in letters large enough for me to see - it has embroideries on every side - and the top!

I am truly blessed.

This is the layout of the back.

This print on the back represents their two daughters

this is the label

This is the front of Twenty Annies

Tomorrow is DD and DSIL's wedding anniversary, when they were to celebrate their 20th anniversary I made them a quilt and called it "Twenty Annies"

This photo was taken when they realised it was THEIR quilt they had opened.

The front of the quilt is done in the 'colours' John prefers - black/grey/cream and white.

The back is pieced with vignettes of their lives.

wallhanging photo

The photo shows my daughter checking out all the wonderful textures in the wallhanging

starting over

had actually forgotten that I had started this blog ... and another, can't find how to delete old/unused blogs so will continue to post on this one.
My intention was to have a blog which deals with the journey of a heart quilt, however my eyesight is almost non existent at the moment till surgery in the new year so all work on the heart quilt has stopped for now, somehow I still hope to have it finished for Perth in May 2008.

I am so very blessed - a wallhanging arrived in the past week from Gypsy as part of a swap - my contribution is 'on hold'.
The package was unwrapped yesterday as part of our Christmas day thinmgs to do, it is reverse applique on black - stunning - so many different textures!!
Now to try to rediscover how to add photos..