Sewing machine cover!

Hi all,

This weekend I cleaned up my sewing area a bit and wouldn’t you know it….I felt inspired to sew!

Sorry for the dodgy pictures. I bought this panel a few weeks ago on sale, it is so cute although I don’t think I would like mice to help me sew!

 
I have used the 2 biggest pictures and framed them with fabric out of my scrap draw. I quilted around the outlines, which unfortunately can’t really be seen in the pictures.

By the way, it is a sewing machine cover! I made it like a rectangle quilt with ribbon ties at the sides. I wanted some freedom with the sides because I usually leave the quilting table on, you can see that the bottom just flaps out at the quilting table.

I have some more little panels left, I am thinking mug rugs or pot holders….we will see!

I have also been playing with ideas for the Mug Rug Swap Adventure. My partner doesn’t know I am making it for her, and I don’t think she frequents my blog. Here is a peek at some ideas I have….

  
What do you think? I am leaning toward the bottom right one and hubby likes the top one.

I’m back!

Hi all,

I have actually been back for a couple of days now, but I have been quite sick and haven’t felt like doing much other than blog surf!

I have tried to leave comments on a few blogs and I come up as anonymous and then it still won’t go through. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it something to do with my new email address?

Anyway, I did get a tiny bit of sewing done before the sick set in.

This is Kyisha’s May block for Bee in Oz. I went with a pretty easy option but I think the effect is still good. 

Here are my hexie flowers for my May partner and myself for the Inchy Flower Swap. My partners are the red ones and mine are the green, I think I will do some more vibrant flowers for my garden next month.

Thats about all the sewing I got done. Oh wait – I did get a couple of rows put together on my very patient Pure Schnibbles quilt. You can see a WIP photo of it in this post.

Hopefully I will do something exciting soon, I don’t know what though!

A forced hiatus!

Hi all,

From today until about Tuesday I will be taking a break from the internet, it is a forced hiatus but I am viewing it as a time to focus on the more important things. So hopefully we will have some fun family time, some housework will get done and I certainly hope some sewing will happen too!

So I am going to ask you a favour! If you are blog surfing and happen to see that I have won some giveaway somewhere (wishful thinking I know) can you let them know I will be back next week! I will also have a new email address when I come back so any emails that get sent to my current address will be lost forever. I will update all my online accounts as soon as I am back.

But before I go I thought I would share a couple of things. On Tuesday I went to a sewing day at Christine's, which was fantastic. It was so nice to sit back for a couple of hours and relax! There where six of us there including Jane and my mum.

 
This is what I worked on. I haven’t touched this quilt for ages so it was nice to pull it out of the cupboard.

Jane also hand delivered some goodies I ordered from her shop.

These are so beautiful! Terrain is gorgeous and Hometown is a bit more masculine and I love the text prints. I love anything Sweetwater!

  
I made this little pouch for Jane. It is the first zippered pouch I have attempted so I am quite happy with it. I used the Make Life fabric range. For more pictures check out Jane’s blog, I forgot to take a photo so we can thank Jane for this picture.

I will catch up when I come back online, until then -

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Hi all,

I thought I might join in with the Quilt Festival this year, I have never participated before – only admired everyone else’s quilts!

So, I am going to show you another french braid quilt.

This one I made for my mother in law. Who as it so happens loves purple as much as I do! It was a real pleasure to make this quilt.

We went to the local patchwork shop and I started pulling purple fabrics off the shelves until we had a nice graduated effect. I made it in a class at a shop called A Patch of Friendship (which sadly no longer exists) using the book French Braid Quilts. It is a huge king size quilt, I doubt I will ever make another quilt quite this big.

I needed two tall fully grown men to hold her up for me!

This quilt was finished in May 2007, and professionally quilted in an all over pattern.

Thank you for checking out my quilt, click on the picture below to check out all the other quilts in the festival!

Easy Scarf Tutorial

Hi all,

I whipped up this little scarf and thought I would share with you how I did it. It is super easy! This is also my first tute so go easy on me!

I made it light weight because it doesn’t get freezing cold for long in my part of the world, but this could easily be made warmer with some batting or some thicker fleece for the back. It would be lovely with some soft fluffy material on the back!

You will need –

16 x 5” charm squares
Co-ordinating fabric for the back, I used ½ metre of 112cm wide soft corduroy from spotlight

Step 1. Lay your 16 squares out in a long strip, check placement for even colour spread. Sew together using ¼” seam.

Step 2. Cutting your backing fabric. From the corduroy I cut 2 strips 5” wide x width of fabric, trimmed off the selvedge’s and joined them together. I left it longer until the next step.

Step 3. Lay your backing fabric strip right side up with your pieced front right side down on top. I started at one end and pinned at each seam and then at the other end I trimmed the backing fabric to the same length.

Step 4. Sew all the way around with a ¼” seam leaving a 2.5” gap in one end. Trim off the corners.

Step 5. Turn right sides out and press lightly.

Step 6. Top stitch about 1/8” in from the edge all the way around the scarf.

Yield – a one of a kind scarf that measures approximately 73” x 4.5”.

This is so I don’t look like all the other school mums! LOL

Rainbow Braid Quilt

Hi all,

Long time no chat! I guess life gets busy sometimes! My sewing machine is at the repairman's again, I am trying a new guy who seems to know what is what, so we will see!

Anyway I have a quilt to show you, it has been finished for a week but the first lot of photos were blurry due to little fingerprints on the camera lens….

 
This is BW’s first “big bed” quilt. (Don’t I live in paradise?)

This is the front. It is a french braid quilt with black sashing between every piece. It looks like lead light! It should have 4 braids running the length but I used the 4th across the top to make it longer, I should have made a 5th braid because doing this made it a bit narrow.

This is the back. I pieced it with the left over fabric and some bits if braid that were left.

   
The boys quilts on their beds and a rare glimpse of BW! I seem to have trouble getting the size of the quilts right for single beds. BW’s is really not wide enough, it could be 12” wider. TP’s is about 8” too short. But they do the job of providing warmth and that is the main thing!

Quilt Stats -

Started about 2 years ago, Finished 29th April 2011.
Size – 81” x 43”
Pattern – from the book French Braid Quilts
Quilting – by Christine