Seeing stars...again

This has been on my UFO list for ..... 7 years now.... I have spurts of working on it, and then it gets relegated to the shelf again. It is a "scrap" quilt made entirely of bought fabrics. Yes, the irony is not lost on me :)  I saw the pattern in a scrap quilt book and fell in love. At the time I really liked feedsack fabrics, and wanted to make a project in 30's repro fabrics and so the Texas star project started. Each star (400+ required for the completed project) and row is hand-pieced which makes it a very portable project.

2013 is the Year of the UFO for me, and having completed 3 UFO's so far I decided it was time to grab this Texas bull by the horns. This is the maths - I have 88 stars left to assemble and can average 2 stars pr day.

I have 9 rows left to assemble and add to the top. It takes me a week to assemble a row and to attach it.

I can do this!!

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a mother who found a pattern for a fairy tale quilt which she thought would be perfect for her daughter..... 3 years later she picked it up from the UFO pile and completed the hand quilting and binding...

Happiness is..... A new craft table!

MOH made me a new work area. Until now my cutting mat lived under the sofa so that it could lie flat, and whenever I needed to do some cutting I used the dining table. But no more of that :)

On a trip to IKEA on our wedding anniversary we bought 3 Expedit bookcases and bolted them together to form a perfectly sized work station. I had seen a similar thing in Pinterest using 4 small bookcases, but decided that the deeper Expedit shelves would offer more flexibility. I'm in love :)

Woven

As we wait for Turtle's Tetris bedspread to be quilted, I completed Little Possum's bedspread. She already has a fine collection of small quilts, mainly in pink princess or fairy themes. But as LP has now outgrown her pinkness, she was in the market for something a little more funky and altogether more grown up.

The Simply Woven pattern I found on Moda Bakeshop caught LP's eye, and when I found the Snap Pop range by Sandy Gervais for Moda I knew we had a winner :)  Beautiful bright colours in fun prints perfectly match our lively girl.

The pattern was very easy to follow, but my poor old sewing machine was going on strike. I think it is overdue a service and some TLC, but I battled through with slipping tension and feed-dogs that were not working properly until all the blocks were assembled.

I have started making some noises about getting a new sewing machine that can cope with quilting. My poor old faithful Brother machine was purchased long before I started quilting, when I envisaged simple sewing projects. When I take it in for a service today I will look longingly at the new machines, most probably lingering a little longer by the Janome 1600p QC.....

Woven..... a sneak peek

There's a Little Possum at my house who wants a bedspread

We're well on the way :)

Japanese prints "Gathered in"

Back in 2010 I bought a layer cake of Japanese prints. It was unplanned. I had probably made the trip to the quilt shop to purchase some thread or something small when the layer cake caught my eye and spoke to me. (Actually, it may have been shouting .... "BUY ME! PLEASE!). Ever obedient to the voices, I made the purchase and brought the fabrics home waiting for the perfect project idea or pattern.

As it happened I didn't have to wait long. Down Under Quilts (or is it Quilts Down Under?) published a pattern by Kate Conklin and it was perfect. I decided on a crisp blue/white look, and here is the result:

I shadow quilted the small squares,using light grey thread in the centre panels and red for the border.

I wanted a pieced backing - stashbusting again. I had some blue white striped cotton - almost like ticking, and used that. (Looks a bit odd in the photo, though). 

back for more

I have had a long break from blogging... and also from quilting/sewing. But I started to miss it, so I'm back for more. I declared 2013 to be a year for completing projects - both a long list/big pile of UFO's sitting in my craft room, as well as those projects I have been planning but not quite got around to, like this bag:

This was one of Little Possum's favourite jeans skirts which she would wear with the most colourful tights or leggings and a lot of panache. But she outgrew it. I didn't want to part with it, and thought that the straight design would make it fairly easy to turn into a tote. I boxpleated the base, made a lining and a handle. Hey presto. 3 years in the planning, an hour in the making......

Turtle has been asking for his own bedspread for over year now, but he was very specific about colours (black, orange, green and turquoise) and pattern - he wanted lot of squares in varying sizes, randomly arranged. My muse deserted me, and I couldn't really think of a design that would meet his requirements, until he started playing Tetris, and I thought we could work with that. He agreed to increase the number of colours. 

Here's what we came up with:

It will be quilted soon , not sure about whether to just have it done in a grid pattern, or something more elaborate. I decided that a border would confuse the pattern, so I will just bind it in black without a border.

The back is pieced:

This quilt has sat around waiting for me to bind it, and I finally got around to it:

I'm quite pleased with my gemstones, front and back.

On holiday

Paint swatch craft ideas

My Redwork quilt is in slow progress... I have been doing it in a monthly class but am a little behind, so I feel like my kids when they go to school not having completed their homework! I have a week holiday coming up though, so I think I will have caught up for the October class at least. Phew.

I'm going to campaign for more hours in a day or one more day in the week or something. There just isn't time for all the things I want to do. Balancing all the essential things with the necessary things and the nice things.

Having discovered Pinterest probably didn't help matters! But I did find this little gem today.

I feel completely inspired and when I go to Bunnings to get some seedlings for the veggie patch, I may just visit their paint swatch aisle.......

Thoughtful Friday

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness"

- Viktor Frankl

Thoughtful Friday

"Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

still here...

With the weather turning colder, my hands will be turning towards the quilts again, but for awhile there hasn't been much sewing... or photographing... mostly because I have a very fancy new camera that I am learning how to work =)

  Life has been full of good moments though, I am happy to report.

 When there are so many terrible disasters and events around the world I need to recognise and express my gratitude for our very blessed and peaceful existence.  

Here are some of the things I have done since the last post:

Indulged in some of this food of the gods

 Participated in the Warrior Dash

with this awesome group of people - Active Aussies!

back to school (don't they look excited....)

celebrated wedding anniversary by going to the Open Air Cinema in the Botanical Gardens with

this awesome backdrop

back to blogging and a raffle win

 
I didn't manage to get an auction off and running in time before going on holiday, but I was happy to participate in Toni and Carli's fundraising for the flood relief. I bid on auctions and donated money have a go at the raffles. What an amazing result!

Big excitement! Emma from Ballarat Patchwork emailed me to let me know I had won the raffle on her scrapblog. WOO HOO!!  Can't wait to receive my lovely fabrics. I am thinking that I should pay it forward by turning them into a quilt to auction off.

last minute handmade Christmas

 The Christmas songs are playing, the tree is up with presents starting to pile up under it. The kids are increasingly excited. Yes, Christmas is definitely on the way. My sewing machine is running warm at night with the last minute presents like this bag

Little Possum is getting a smaller version of this bag in some very special girly fabric...... can't pull it out to take a photo of it now though....

Midweek Meditation

planning a getaway

We thought we might go away for a camping trip to Jervis Bay between Christmas and New Year

(the joy of living in the southern hemisphere!)

I'd really like to stay here:

Paperbark Camp

Perfect for some al fresco quilting under the gum trees!

but

...

 we're more likely to end up here:

I'll let you know!  :)

more quilting humour

Seeing stars

Little Possum and I were both seeing stars before the weekend..... 

albeit of different kinds.

Little Possum had a general anaesthetic on Friday

 while she slept, I sewed my stars

I hadn't touched my Texas stars for a while, but it is the perfect portable project.

It's not going to be a finish for this year, but I'm enjoying my star journey even if it's one with many long pauses :)

Midweek Meditation

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

Alexander Graham Bell

Handmade Christmas - part 1

 2010 is the year of the pillowcase, seriously!

The turtle pillowcase is for Turtle who just happens to love green. This pillowcase will compliment the jigsawpuzzle quilt I'm making for his bed in which the turtle fabric will feature prominently  :)

The orange/red pillowcase is for a very colourful niece

The dr Seuss pillowcases I made just for fun, and I don't know where they'll be going yet.

These tube pillowcases are shockingly easy to make. I learned how from watching this tutorial.
Gotta love YouTube!

 Here's a set of a small quilted reversible tablerunner/mat and coasters. Nothing fancy and very quick to make!

 There's a scripture tote for a special little Possum with extra special sparkly embellishments which I have still to sew on when said little girl is in bed asleep.

Some wall art to go with a quilt that is still in production, but that will look something like this:

The pattern is called "Dandelion Windows" and was designed by the very clever Kate Conklin.