WIP Week 6 - Stippling of a Cat.

The last few days I have been stippling. And it has been fun! I think I must be in the stipple groove after finishing off the last quilt a few weeks ago cause so far this has been easy and smooth sailing. All my curves are curvey and even, no jagged ones lurching off into their own world, all is smooth. I'm sitting there, pedal to the floor thinking how much I like doing this!

I have quilted around each cat and then stippled the 4 patch blocks inbetween. Then a few rows of straight stitching on the outer border and more stipple around the edge, but this time in a yellow thread for some interest. Don't know how clearly that comes up in the last photo. I have the binding picked out, a deep spotty blue. At this rate, I think I will be sewing the label on the back on the weekend. Love that bit!


Thank you too for those who took the time to comment about Daz and his big week this week. Your comments and thoughts mean a lot to us, thank you. :)

AJ's Mystery Quilt all cut ready to go!

Well I have finished sewing all my blocks for AJ's Mystery Quilt, now just have to wait till we are up to the layout instructions. Hmmmm, never noticed how dirty my iron board cover is! So I have 4 x 3.5 inch squares, 22 flying geese blocks, they measure 6.5 x 3.5 inches. Also 10 hourglass blocks and 8 pinwheels, both measuring 6.5 inches square. Look at that! I pick a pinwheel to photograph that doesn't match up! Opps! And also 24 flying geese with a square on each side, they measure 3.5 x 12.5 inches. So it is very interesting seeing how it will all fall in place. I think there are 4 of us sewing along with AJ now? Bee, Car and Ads who had issues.... AJ I am happy to wait till the others have caught up before going onto the next stage.

I'm thinking though...... I reckon the flying geese blocks will make a star with the 6.5 inch feature fabric??! Thats my little guess. I still haven't cut my feature fabric, maybe I should go back to that blue butterfly print? Oh the indecision!

Saturday Nights Dinner....

I came in here yesterday to post these photos of our yummy dinner on Saturday night that Daz cooked but I got distracted by that Jane Austen quiz! So I'm a few days out of whack.

Here is the lovely dinner that Daz cooked on Saturday night. Pan fried chutney chicken breast with kashmiri pilaf, garnished with corriander and served with a glass of bubbly. Mmmmmmmm! Followed by home made chocolate mousse, freshly whipped cram and grated dark chocolate on top! Is the man a legend or what? We didn't do anything for Valentines Day as we have plans for this weekend instead, so he thought he'd make a nice dinner and we'd toast this week.

It is a big week in our house this week, feels like a cross road of our lives. Those who know me in other walks of cyber and real life may remember the grant money we got to develop Gracie Lou back mid last year? Well this is the week that it all comes together. It has taken all those months to get together a team of 4 writers, including some dude from Sydney who has flown over especially, an Executive Producer, an Early Childhood Developmental Specialist and Daz to spend this week brainstorming, researching and writing proposal/pilot episodes for series 2 of Gracie Lou. Basically this week they write some episodes, then we go and play the submit to ABC game again and then if they like it, series 2 then goes ahead. Thats the plan. But I was thinking the other night, depending on this week, if it goes ahead, it will change our lives, we'd be in the TV guide, Daz would work from home or we'd hire an office, he'd be living his dream job. And then on the otherhand after this week if we submit it to the ABC and they say, naaa, don't like it, then I think it would all be over, we'd admit to oursleves that we have taken it as far as we can and then Daz would go off to do a years study and take a total career change and become a primary school teacher. So we are at a cross roads. I sent him out the door this morning with his coffee in a travel mug and told him to go live his dream, live it! He has come a lot further than other people have in this industry, and at times girls I'll admit it has been a battle and many times we have nearly thrown it all in, but he has continued, bounced back and I am so proud of him. My job this week is to make the house run smooth and listen.

And just to get myself in the mood for it, I went fabric shopping this morning! I hit 3 fabric stores, Lincraft were having 50% off all fabric, ends on Wednesday, didn't go that crazy there. When I got home too I found some FQ's in the mail I had brought off Ebay. Not my usual colour pallette here, finding myself drifting towards blue fabric and crisp white. What is happening?

I am Elinor Dashwood.....

Take the Quiz here!

You Are...Elinor Dashwood!
You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Hmmmm, I thought I would have been Elizabeth Bennet, she is my favourite Jane Austen character. These silly quizes, what do they know anyway!

WIP Week 5 - AJ's mystery quilt started!

Well I receieved a pleasant suprise yesterday in blogland. My Dissappearing 9 Patch quilt I made in December is featured on the Sew Mama Sew blog in their 9 Patch Highlights! How cool is that? I felt quite chuffed when I found out. So it was with great enthausism that I jumped into AJ's Mystery Quilt today.

Here I am, all ready to go. Everything labelled and piled in zip lock bags. Whoever invented zip lock bags was a genius, where would a quilting girl be without her assortment of zip lock bags! I have had a change of heart with my feature fabric though. The butterfly print as much as I loved it, wasn't going to work. The blocks had to be 6.5 inches wide and the butterflies were bigger than that size, they would have looked odd with their wings cut off. So I'm using this print below, a Valori Wells print.

I don't know which one yet, maybe 6 blocks of each as 12 are needed. I'll see when it comes time to sew those bits, I'll cut them then.

So here I have my hourglass blocks, 9 blocks of those from these instructions here.

And here is my GHF blocks! Instructions from here. 32 of those! I'm certainly getting to practise my points lining up so far. I stuffed up on my left and right on these though. The blue triangle is supposed to be on the left, not the right. But that won't make any real difference to it will it AJ??

Okay, onto my flying geese now. This will be fun as I have never done flying geese. Bring it on!

Ad's Birthday Quilt

Well, most of the readers of my blog would know that Ads is my sister, my younger and only sister! A girl couldn't ask for a better sister, she has such a relaxed and easy going nature with the world, gets passionate about the things that matter, her children and sewing. She got very passionate at the end of Christmas last year and decided the 2008 was the Year Of Handmade Gifts for herself, Mum and I. So we agreed to give hand made gifts this year. And guess who's birthday was first? Yep, hers! So I had only a month and a half to pull something out of my sewing hat!

This is what Mum made. Ads does love her cats so it was quite fitting. I had seen Mum working on it, so it wasn't suprised to see it finished. My comment of "The hanger is quite nice" were quite innocent! It is a nice hanger!

I'll admit it, I started this quilt in February 2007, here. And it wasn't really a good start, cut the squares the wrong size, ran out of fabric, hand to unpick it all... In late March I was more in control, only had a few more squares to go here. And on April the 1st, I finished the top here! I was out of wadding so I folded it up and put it away and there it sat for the rest of the year.

So I pulled it out a few weeks ago, sandwiched it then spent the last week quilting the life out of it, flowers, stippling, some writitng along the edges and some decorative vine stitching from the auto button on my machine. I was pressed for time though and ended up sewing the label on the back on the drive down to her house today! And then my camera batteries died right after I took this shot of her lovingly admiring and stroking her new quilt, absolutely in awe of my fantastic work! Written with my tounge firmly planted in my cheek as there are a few chringe worthy sections of the last green border!

So I don't yet have any close up photos of the quilting, in hindsight I think just the large flowers would have looked hot, and left out the stippling. But for a "quick" quilt, I think she liked it.

Happy Birthday for Tuesday Ad!

WIP Wednesday Week 4 - Practise! Practise! Practise! Practise! Practise!

This is what I am doing today. Lots of stippling and the occassional flower thrown in. This is just a practise peice as I haven't done any free form quilting for ages! So I sat down this afternoon, Milly was at her FDC, Grace was kicking back on the couch watching Barbie's version of Swan Lake, after a hard morning at school. Don't even get me started on Barbie and her take on Swan Lake! The rigid animation! The corny voices! But the music, *sigh* it is beautiful and every time Barbie started to dance Grace got off the couch and started pirouetted across the room. But back to the quilting.... It is wonky in places, but I am hoping that the quilt it goes on, it will be less noticeable than on the white here. la la la la, practise makes perfect hey? Here's hoping!

AJ's Mystery Quilt

AJ is running a Mystery Quilt. I have been rummaging through my stash and come up with the above options. Supposed to be 1 feature print, 1 light, 1 medium and 1 dark. Happy with the dark (the green) and feature. I thought the light (the yellow) and medium (the blue) looked good layed out on the bed, but now looking at the photo..... AJ! Help! Would it work? Too close??

Grace's First Day at School

Was it only a year ago since we had Grace's first day at kindy? *sigh* Surely not? Today was the first day of school, but big girls school this time, she'll be going for the whole day! Well, not until week 4, they ease them in with half days for the first few weeks at our school. We have been talking it up in our house for the last few weeks, making a big deal of buying new shoes and socks. Going to pick up her book list, driving past the school to check it out. And today was the big day. She ate her 2 rounds of vegemite toast and yoghurt and then declared she was ready to get dressed. Popped on her shoes and socks and picked up her backpack, not before I saw her shove her teddy in there. I asked "Is teddy going to pre primary too?" to which the reply was,"Yes, he is so excitied!"

I dropped Milly at her FDC before school to make the first day just me and Grace. Thankfully Milly has adapted going back there so smoothly. Dropped her off with a kiss, she didn't even watch as we left the room, too busy playing with the toys. So off to school Grace and I went. She was walking slower as we approached the building, or maybe I was walking faster? It was chaos in the room, loud teacher assistants trying to make the kids feel welcome, parents and kids not knowing where to put fruit, bags, water bottles. Early day chaos! We found her bag hook and hung that up, and noticed from the other bag labels that none of her little girl friends from kindy where in her class. A few boys we knew, but no girls, I felt sad for her then. Silly as I'm sure in a few weeks she will have new girly friends in her class, but she looked a bit lost sitting on the mat at the back when it was time for me to go. I had to really concentrate on not letting her see me cry. I know she's going to love school and she is so ready for school, its just, well... I want her to be okay. She'll be fine I am sure, she is independent, confident and an extrovert. Why am I worried then?

The Yellow Square deliema....

Well after I posted the photo of this quilt just stuck on the design wall, the comments about the positioning of the yellow squares flooded in. And I didn't even see it till it was pointed out to me! I showed it to Daz and after 5 minutes of staring at it, he's like "Its FINE!" Think he just wanted to get back to staring at the cricket on telly. Hmmmmm, then I took in to Mothers Group today to show the girls and again, they looked at it and didn't notice anything odd about the placement of the yellow squares. Must be quilters eyes that only see these things.

So the above photo is how it is looking, I am going to add a 2 inch border of yellow which will hopefully balance it out. I didn't have any more of the yellow squares to add to it. I did ponder over unpicking it all and repositioning it to something like below which may of worked as I had one extra cat panal to replace the yellow one once it was moved. But, all that unpicking. Not that I'm scared of bonding with my unpicker, I just wanted this to be a quick and simple whip up cot quilt. I don't think the person it is for would notice the placement of the yellow. Thats what I am hoping. So I think I will chalk this one up to better layout planning next time Helen, don't be so eager to start sewing as soon as you have cut the squares, you can pause you know. I am going to have some fun doing some meandering stippling with some stars or hearts, hopefully it won't look that bad.

WIP Week 3 - The start of a cat quilt.

Isn’t this the cutest print?? Its a range called Meow Magic from a lady called Edith Ellen. I brought it off ebay a few years back, it came with all the marching fabric from the range, it was a sample I think. I had the intention of making a baby quilt for one of the girls, well they are getting a bit old for that now and it has been sitting in the back of one of my storage tubs for ages. And now a girlfriends pregnacy is ending, I felt the urge to cut it up.


So I cut up 28 4 inch squares and thought I'd make those into a 4 patch and then alternate them with the larger squares. Something quick and simple. Here it is plonked on the felt wall, ready to sew the strips together. A bit busy maybe and not too sure about the yellow now I see it like this.....

And despite me starting a new project and saying that last weeks WIP had to be done, I haven't touched it since taking the photo for the blog! I got stuck back into my log cabins. I have added a 1 inch border of black tones, like below and then arranged the smaller log cabins around the outside. All I need now is to add another 1 inch border of black around the edges and then all finished! I am going to get this one professionally quilted. I want it to look nice. Well, nicer, you know what I mean. I haven't got enough of the black though, and am chasing some like the prints below. Any at your nearest Spotlight that you see, would you mind grabbing them for me! Pleassssseeee!

Australia Day Morning Cloud Vale Annual Darts Championship

This is a non sewing related post, just a warning! I married into a family that holds an annual dart championship! Well they try to make it an annual event but the last one was held back in December 2005. This year it was tied in with Australia Day which was yesterday, my favourite holiday of the year, but I had to work so it didn't seem like much of a celebration, today felt more like Australia Day, hot weather, beer at lunch time, swimming in the pool, yummy food and a dart championship!

Here we are about to start. Left to right, Daz, MIL, BIL#1, SIL, BIL#2, mate of BIL#2 and FIL getting ready to draw the names out of the hat to see who plays who. Its all official, a game plan is drawn up, if you win your round your through to round 2, if you loose you go to a loosers round and then you get another go, win that and your though to the other winners, loose and your out! Understand all that? I didn't really, just stepped up to the line when I was called! My path through the championship was quite simple. Straight out after 2 games! Not that I really minded as I could then just float in the pool with the girls. I haven't actually played darts since the last championship!

This was my view from the pool of the action. BIL#2 getting serious now wearing his sweat band!

Here we are having a break. The girls are half blood from a family of serious dart players, I think there is more chance of their name being on that throphy one day than mine! Can't wait! Happy Australia Day everyone!

Ekkkk! What a mess!

Doing a blog surf last night, as you do! I saw that Kylie had posted a photo of her messy work space! (I couldn't see the hat Kylie!) She found over at Sister's Choice Quilts there was a little comp going on for the messiest work space with the idea to play Eye Spy, 15 things to find. Okay, here goes.....

1. Sticky tape dispenser with no sticky tape in it!
2. Can of "air".
3. Zip lock bag of Jan Mullen scraps.
4. Zip lock bag of scraps for Grace's school craft stuff.
5. Pile of scraps for upcoming scrap swap with the EB Sewing Girls.
6. Blue Christmas baubles to write on before next Christmas.
7. A cardy of Milly's to fix before winter.
8. An overlocker!
9. A tube of freezer paper.
10. A length of dowel for a rod to hang a quilt from.
11. Two cutting boards, one flat, one upright!
12. A dust duster!
13. Post it notes.
14. Notes from friends when swaps have been received.
15. A tumble drier!

What a mess! I usually pride myself on working in a tidy spot cause as you see I have such a small space to work in. I call it my sewing room but it also goes by the name of laundry! I had a girlfriend over yesterday with her 2 son's to fix some dress up costumes and I was sewing away and she was standing at the door watching and commented that it is amazing I churn out the work I do in such a "compact" as she polietly put it, space! If you'd like to share a photo of your mess, pop into comments to let me know!

And just cause it is WIP Wednesday, a teaser photo of what is going on today. I am over log cabins, time to chat about something else. I have sewn all 27 or was it 28 that I needed, now I just have to lay them out and sew them together. But in the meantime I have to finish this too. I can't say any more about it, just that I have to finish it!

Barbie's Quilt.

Look at these two! Don't they just spell trouble! Santa brought Grace a Barbie Hot Tub Motorhome. I won't tell you what Daz calls it! Its pretty cool, it folds out to a little room and the fridge and microwave and other cupboards open up. There is a door at the end with a little toilet and on the other side is the hot tub which you pull down and you press a button and it plays a disco tune and lights flash. Just the place where every girl would like to hang out! Can you tell I like playing with it as much as Grace!

But it was missing one thing, a quilt. "Mummy, can you make Barbie a pretty quilt like the one you are making me?" was heard every time Grace walked in the sewing room. So I took one of the small log cabin blocks I am working on and made a little quilt for Barbie. My first finished quilt of the year! I have just left it all set up in the above shot for Grace in the lounge room so when she wakes in the morning and discovers it, she'll think it is Christmas again.


When I was quilting this, it was interesting as I felt excitied about quilting again. Haven't felt that for awhile. I was looking at the fabric thinking what to do, the possibilities excitied me. Only ended up doing straight echo stitching and sort of a star in the centre but it got me itching for more. Anyway, sleep tight Barbie!

WIP Wednesday Week 2 - Lots of log cabins!

More log cabins did you say? More?? Well here are 10 more! Taking the grand total of finished border log cabins too *drum roll please!* 11! Quick metal maths in my head tells me I still have 17 to go. Here's 10 below in various stages.

I do them in bits and peices, rather than cutting up 28 1.5 x 3 inch rectangles say and sew all them to their centre square, I'll start by maybe cutting 5 of one colour, sewing those, then on the next colour in that same log cabin. Then maybe when I have got a few layers in, I'll go back to the other ones that are still just a centre lonely square and start building them up. Does that make any sense??! Just keeps me from getting bored at sewing the same thing 28 times over, to do it in various stages. And with the two munchkins at home with school and day care not starting till next week and also next month, I'm interupted every 10 minutes anyway! I'm stoked too as I haven't had to buy any new material to make these, using up bits of scraps and starting of the year denting the stash.

Was thinking last night though, and I'll throw the idea out here into blogland. What about the idea of setting up a Work In Progress Wednesday group on Flickr? Everyone shows the finished quilt but quiltmaking is such a long journey, it would be nice to see some action shots of the journey along the way. Would having a WIP group encourage us to get those UFO's finished? What do you think? Would you join up? Interested to hear your thoughts blogging buddies.

WIP Wednesday - Week 1! - More log cabins...

My first WIP Wednesday post for 2008. I'm going to start the year by working on and finishing a quilt that will be staying in our house!

Okay, this is how Grace's quilt for her bed is looking at the moment, hanging up on my felt wall. There is a little bit more hiding behind the Horn cabinet there. Initially I thought I would just sew a 3 inch border of hot pink around it and wolah, all finished. But as it has been hanging there, I thought, nope that isn't enough, it needs more.

So I fiddled around and designed the above layout. It is 31 inches across for the two centre log cabins, so I can make 4 little log cabins of 7 inches with a bit left over inbetween which I'll fill in with a strip of black or maybe the colour inbetween each of the blocks? Unsure, work that one out when I have sewn the 28 blocks needed, make that 27 as I have just done the one below to see if my measurements are correct. 27? Thats a lot of WIP Wednesday posts coming up about log cabins! You have been warned!

Milly's new top!

I have rediscovered the joys of sewing clothes for the girls! It is just too hot to sew quilts here at the moment, I'm looking for something quick and easy to satisfy the sewing bug. I have made this style of top several times before, the last time here. She still wears this one although its nearly a year old, fits her nicely now. Funnily enough whenever Daz dresses the girls, he always picks out that top.

So this was just some cheap cotton from Spotlight, thought it would look cute with denim shorts. White though! Dressing a 3 year old in white is just asking for trouble but it looks so crisp and cool. When I tried it on her for the hem, she looked down and said "Oh Mummy, its perfect! Thank you! Thank you!" Which made me laugh, is this the child I once had to bribe with a lollypop to get a photo taken of her wearing the latest item I had made?!

Welcome to 2008!

Seems like ages since I posted last. Things have been busy over the New Year period, we went to Rottnest for a week. Its a tough life but someone has to live it! :) For those that don't know, Daz's folks work and live over at the island so we stay with them, we don't have a holiday house there, well unless I call their place our holiday home! The girls had a ball as always. They made friends with this quokka which we called Queenie, every afternoon it would come out by the front gate and the girls would pick leaves off a climbing geranium plant and feed her. Not the quokka's natural diet I am sure!


Our mornings were spent at the beach, with the girls brightly coloured bathers, the sparkling water and endless sunshine, I was taking photos in all directions. I love the above shot of Milly, she is so hard to catch in a photo at the moment and here she is rolling her hands around and around each other like we are trying to teach her to do in the water to swim. She was doing it, then walked out with her hands still going!

This was my view from the beach. Lots of fancy boats in the bay as its peak holiday season there, we would just dream about which one we would like to own. Grace stomping on another sand castle moments after she has finished it. Milly wadding back in cause her hat has blown off. And Daz lying back in the water, maybe holding a beer? I can't work out if he was in this shot, but most likely yes!

And this is Daz's veiw from the water back to the beach, me huddled under the umbrella! I do venture in the water but I burn so easily and prefer kicking back on my little beach chair watching the action. I did read Jodi Picoult's Second Glance which at first I was struggling getting into then after 2 days had finished it. Milly is a girl after my own heart, she gets tired of the water before Grace and is happy to sit on the chair next to me before its time to load the pram up with all our stuff and walk the 5 minute stroll back to the house.

So a lazy week of hanging at the beach, reading, feeding quokka's, eating and drinking too well was had by all. Absolutely no sewing! Kind of lost the sewing mojo at the moment. I have a top for Milly in progress which is slowly coming there. Bring on 2008 I say!