Where did you come from?

I have tall purple irises opening into flower now but there is a rogue in the garden, where did you come from? I love the colour. I hope it does well.

This is the 'Snowball' tree. It was here when we bought the house but I think it has enjoyed all the extra rain this year because it has grown and flourished  and the Echiums continue to be wonderful. They are humming with bees.

The X stitch continues to grow too but I still find the 'single thread' stitching
very tiring on the eyes so I will lay it aside again for a short rest. The next 2
areas to be sewn are a cat behind her chair and a little stitchery on the stand in front of her. Both are single thread work, then onto the last row. I need to get the trinkets, a key, an acorn, scissors and a heart to finish it off.

           

Homage to Mary Brown quilt

This is my centre of the Homage to Mary Brown quilt that is shown in my last blog from the Quilt show. I had cut all the applique pieces and attached them to the background fabric months ago but hadn't started stitching it until this week.  There is soo much sewing in this pattern that I can see myself putting it aside and bringing it out among the other pieces I have. Just now it is a lovely alternative to the close -up work of my X stitch. To give a better idea of size to you this centre is 37" - 94cms. The fabrics are from Reproduction ranges which I love to use.

Quilts, the Garden and X Stitch

These are the photos of the quilts from the Barn that I took. The light shining on the quilt has lessened just how beautiful this quilt is. It is called The Burnt Quilt and is Di Ford's latest pattern.

This one I was really happy to see because I have already started to make it. I took quite a lot of close up photos to show me the colours of fabrics they had used for the birds in the outer border, which will be quite a while away as I am only in the middle at the moment.

This was so different. The Broderie Perse was magnificent. I loved how the picture of the little temple had been surrounded by flowers and all needleturn-ed to the background.

As the first lot of Irises finish, the dark blue ones flower. It is lovely to have  continuous colour in the garden. Behind them the roses are out on the Rugosa hedge and the aphids have arrived enmasse. Time to get them sprayed.

I have spent the last week x stitching in the evenings. I have a really good light and a magnifyer but it is slow going. The verse is stitched over 1 thread.

Quilts Quilts and more Quilts

Unfortunately photos are not loading at the moment. So this is just an update. 
I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Quilts In the Barn selling tickets for the entry and the raffle.
Linda has a quilt show in her barn every year to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. It was terrible weather the whole weekend which included rain, hail and snow but it did not stop the Quilters from coming.
I didn't take many photos because Linda will show them on her Blog. @ http://www.quiltsinthebarnaus.blogspot.com/
  and you can see them all and maybe make a donation to this worthy cause.  Each year a different Australian quilters' quilts are displayed. This year it was Di Ford's and her ladies of the Secret Sewing Sisterhood group, who also have a blog, under that name.  You can see their amazing beautiful work there. These ladies spent the weekend chatting to the visitors and the workers and are just lovely. Everyone had a wonderful time.
I have been spending the last few nights x-stitching but it is very slow going. I will add a photo of it later,too.

Applique with Felted Wool

This is the first quilt I made with felted wool for all the applique. It is called Primitive Garden and I got the pattern and kit from Primitive Gatherings. It is lovely to work with and soft on the hands. I made it in 2009 but only got it back from the quilter yesterday hence the untrimmed edges. This will be a winter quilt as the wool makes it heavier than normal.

This one is wool applique on cotton as well but I have just finished it and did the quilting on this one myself. It is called The Scrapbook quilt and I used my own material and wools. I now buy old wool coats and jackets and felt them myself. Depending on what colour I want I have also dyed some of the wool

myself. I have combined my love of Prim with my Reproduction fabrics which I used for the small pieced blocks in the centre. This quilt was designed by quiltsbycheri.com

 

 

Putting Together

                         

                 

I have stitched the borders of my Ann Daggs quilt to the centre piece.It took 

a bit of time to get the sawtooth border to match on all 4 corners. There is still quite a bit of applique to be sewn over the mitred corners and the pattern has a dark border on the outer edge.

 

 I get together with a couple of friends that are making the same quilt, monthly and it is keeping us motivated . We all sew other projects too and this one hasn't ending up in the cupboard as a UFO.

            

Ready For The Quilter

I won a voucher towards the cost of having a quilt quilted by Kelly of Fernview Cottage. The quilt is booked in to be done in November, so I knew I had to keep sewing and get it finished in time.
Having had the last two weekends busy with 'footy' finals and this week with the Commonwealth Games on the TV, I have happily sat at my machine and sewn.
The pattern called for a 4 1/2"wide border but as there had been more than enough fabric supplied in the kit I cut the border at 6 1/2". This has now made the quilt 82" square.

A Touch of Summer

This my border for the Ann Daggs quilt.

The border has mitred corners. The next job

is to attach it to the centre then there is more applique to be sewn over the seams.

The sun is out and it is 23C, a beautiful day.

Because it has been a little bit warmer the irises have all flowered at once.

The Echiums are all in flower too, so my garden
is full of colour.

The next photo is one I took on holiday. We are

sitting in a beach-side restaurant having breakfast.

This is the beach at Noosa in Queensland where they have a saying.

"Beautiful one day, Perfect the next"

It certainly was.

Holiday Time

While I was away DH and I went to the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane with my daughter to see her artwork on the Bandstand.

We also went round the Japanese garden. It was soo quiet and tranquil. My daughter spent a lot of time here when she was 'Artist in Residence' last year.





I also visited a sculpture festival called SWELL. The sculptures are along the foreshore of Currumbin in Queensland and as you walk along looking at all the sculptures, in the background is the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies which made it just perfect.There were 56 different sculptures. Here are three of my

favourites.

The Sandwich

The Race

The photo shows the actual Lifesaver flags on the beach.

The Picnic is Over

This was made of wool check fabric and it was in a perspex box.

The one behind was called Fiddlesticks.

All the sculptures were for sale and ranged in price from $2000 to $80,000 AUD

I have been sewing too, I am putting the Prairie Bound blocks together and will show you a photo of it when I get this finished.

Just Home

I've had a lovely time in Queensland and although I did take some sewing with me, I did so little it's not far enough along to take another photo. I have returned to a garden in flower and how. The Spider Magnolia, the Flowering Apricot, the Irises and some of the Echiums are blooming. Everything has grown soo much. All the rose bushes are heavily leafed and looking very healthy.
I have taken a few photos of the garden and will show you them, the holiday snaps will have to wait till later as the computer is playing up and is going away tomorrow so that my files can be transferred to a 'new' one.

This is the flowering apricot. It is only a third of what we had last year. The other branches were too heavy and were bending over almost touching the ground so we removed them.

Here is one of the Echium bushes and the rose hedge behind with it's new growth.

and this one is the front garden [jungle]. The dark pink flowers are a flowering Sage and what looks like white [behind] is the pink Magnolia.

I will post some more photos later.

Sue Spargo's " Greta" Needleroll

I finished my needleroll that was the workshop with Sue Spargo at the weekend.
This is the inside. The light coloued fabric R +L is 2 large pockets with zips.
The red wool pocket for scissors/pencil/pen or ruler. The centre is a pincushion bird and a wool needlecase below and there is a ribbon to hold reels of cotton too.

The outside has a pocket on the left, a label on the back and the applique front. The big button
and loop for holding it closed.

When it is all rolled up, this is how it looks.

I'm off to visit my daughter for a couple of weeks and may not get to put any photos on my Blog, if so I'll tell you about my trip when I get back.

Miss Piggy

To Market, to Market to buy a fat pig,

Home again, Home again,

Jiggity Jig.

Only I didn't have to go so far.

My husband made my Miss Piggy for me.

Do you like her?

Should I paint her pink/ flesh/ nude / naked/ natural. ?

OR

Should I just put a coat of oil on the wood?

The ears and the tail ? I think they need a bit of colour.

I tried to dye some 'roving' today but it hasn't really worked.

I had white roving and tried a brown dye and a strong yellow dye.

I have ended up with a very pale beige and creamy lemon colour.

Do I have to use a special dye? for roving.

The dye didn't go to waste as I dyed some wool [cloth] and I will felt it later.

It turned out a beautiful pale yellow.

Sue Spargo Workshop

Up bright and early this morning and down to 'Amitie' in Bentleigh. I spent the day at Sue Spargo's workshop. I did a workshop with her last year and it was wonderful. Today's was even better.
Today we were making her 'Greta' needleroll. You can see hers if you go to her website and also her blog.
We could have the background in any colour and fabric we liked, although hers had been done with velvet and silk matka. The applique is done with felted wool and embellished with beads, ribbon,velvet and thread.
Here is Sue explaining what she uses for embellishments on another project of hers.



This is a close-up of the bird on the above piece. I love the shape of her birds and although this shape seems to be used throughout her patterns no two are ever the same because of the fabric,ricrac,beads and threads that she uses.

This is another workshop. Every leaf is totally different. They all have different stitches and fabrics.

We had a delicious lunch supplied by Jenny and her husband and the day just flew past.

Here is what I achieved. This is the outside of the needleroll. It will fold into three when finished,

so the centre piece of fabric, will be the back when closed and it will have a label on it. The piece to the left- the patterned fabric on the lower half is a pocket and the piece on the right is the front of the needleroll and still has a velvet flower to be added along with threads, beads and felted roving balls for decoration. Melissa who is Sue's travelling companion on this trip showed us how to make the balls. The inside when I get to it has several pockets, scissor keep, thread holder,needlecase and a velvet bird for a pin cushion. I highly recommend ,if you get a chance ,you go to one of Sue's workshops.

It was a great day and she's coming back to Australia in 2012.

Results

I had a lovely afternoon of sewing on Saturday and traced and cut out the templates for the border pieces in the evening. On Sunday I pulled out my box of felted wools and cut out the
applique for the border. I have just finished sticking on the pieces with Roxanne's Glue.
Here is what my Scrapbook Quilt now looks like. It is lovely to sew wool applique on as it only requires a whip stitch and is soft on the hands.

A Weekend Retreat

I went to the Ballaarat Quilter retreat. It was held at a 4* Convention/Motel centre which was on several hectares of land with beautiful gardens. Unfortunately, Ballarat is one of the coldest places in Victoria at this time of the year and although it only rained now and then, there was a continuous howling wind. The room which I shared with Bev was good, having the beds made,
meals cooked and the dishes done was wonderful. Morning and afternoon tea was accompanied by homemade biscuits made by the Ballarat ladies.
Bev, Ros,Linda and I had come to do a quilt designed by Di Ford called Drayton Hall.
Janet O'Dell, who owns the original quilt was also there for the retreat and had brought the quilt along for all to see.
Here is a photo of some of the fabrics in the quilt.

This is the whole quilt. It is enormous. They were photographing the label which was hand written.

This is a photo of Di Ford's, Drayton Hall. Beautiful.

This is a photo of what I accomplished over the weekend. It seems so little. I had bought a floral fabric with these medallions on it and decided to have it in the centre with the hexagons around it instead of having the hexagon centre and floral wreath like Di's. Fussy cutting hexagons took up a lot of time and even more, to sew them together. The ones on the left have still to be stitched together. I machine stitched the edge of the centre to the background and I have a lovely chocolate coloured fabric for the scalloped edge.

On the Friday night after dinner we met all the tutors and saw a Show n Tell from them.

On Saturday night after dinner we were entertained by a female comedian, Monica Dullard. I haven't laughed so much for a long time. The tears were running down my face. We discovered there was a large number of stitchers called Pam and a lot of them owned Pphaffs, Noeline caught the comedians attention, so much so that at breakfast the next morning when our eyes met we both burst out laughing as we remember the night before. One of the tutors' was caught answering a text message on her phone, it was her 60th birthday, and as she said the next morning she will never forget it after the ribbing she got from the comedian. Those that had decided to go to bed early truly missed out on a great time.
Here is a photo of Monica during her show.

Don't you just love the size4o Bonds cottons.

Work in Progress

Before I ever discovered patchwork I spent my time doing X stitch. I made different things
or framed them but mostly I put them in a box and forgot them. Recently I got some new furniture for my craft room so I changed things around and came across my x stitches. This is one I have now made into a pincushion. Do you like how he looks? Maybe a bit of ageing is
needed.

I have slowly but surely been working my way through the blocks for the Scrapbook Quilt and now I have them all finished. Next come the setting triangles and then the border. I was going to make them in black wool but feel it would be too heavy for the centre which is mostly cotton. I will now use cotton and do the applique on the border in wool which should work well.

An Ending and a New Beginning

I spent yesterday and today sewing on a binding so I have come to the end of making a quilt.
I first saw this pattern when Corliss, Threadbear quiltshop, released it at the quiltshow in Melbourne. I have also seen a picture of the original quilt that she designed this one from. I have changed the bottom border slightly to suit me but apart from a leaf missing here and there I have copied the pattern.
Pam Hammer from Threadshed quilting, quilted it for me beautifully, she knows I like my quilts lightly quilted so they are still soft and cuddly. It will now get washed to give it the more wrinkled look I like.

This is my Civil War Bride's Quilt.
A quilt with a new beginning. This one is going on my bed.

A Wander round the Garden

We are almost into the last month of winter and the garden still has colour.
The buds on the Daphne are opening to reveal their strong perfume.




The Snowdrops are always so dainty. I must remember to thin them out later.

and the Hyacinths and Cyclamen are in full bloom.
The bowl of 'green' is minature daffodils that don't look as if they are going to flower this year.

Did they need less water or more fertilizer, I wonder. The perfume of the Hyacinths is too overpowering for indoors so I sit them on the table at the window so I can see them from inside too.

Something New

Something new.
It sat on my sewing table for a week, that great big bundle of fabric and that was long enough. I spent a few evenings cutting. Then some afternoons sewing strips. Then some more evenings cutting and then 2 afternoons sewing. I now have my 81 - 9 patch for the centre. The bundle on the right are for my 1/2 square triangles. They have the diagonal line drawn ready for sewing but that will be another day. Sorry the picture is so shiny!

We saw this quilt at the Quilt Show last week and I kept thinking, this reminds me of another.

It took me a few days to work it out but as you'll see below....

............I knew it reminded me of another quilt.

This is a Kim Diehl quilt I made in 2007.

A Day at the Quilt Show

Janine and I spent the whole day at the Show. We started with the traders. Janine is a lover of 1930's and brights, a lover of pink [ and raspberry] and I love the 1800 fabrics, darks and cheddar and greens. I didn't a lot time at the bead or scrapbook stalls, just enough time to buy a few glass beads, some bright blended thread and 1 fat quarter of Kaffe Fasset fabric for the Sue Spargo workshop I am doing next month. More on that next month.
I bought a quilt pattern at Threadbear for the Basket Quilt that Corliss has designed. It is very nice and can be seen on the shops' website. I also saw the beginnings of a new quilt and pattern by Di Ford due out in September. The centre is an applique and there are pieced blocks around the edge. It looks lovely. After wandering along and seeing all the stalls, bumping into many people we knew, we went into the quilts on show.

I think this was a challenge. They were all grouped together but they couldn't all be seen at the same time.
The same quilt pattern had been used by many people, so this was one of many. It was lovely to see what the difference colour could make to the one design.It was also amazing how each quilt changed by the placement of light and dark fabrics. This was my favourite one, after walking around the stands, this was the one I immediately came back too.

This quilt was lovely. I loved the colour, such a beautiful yellow. A simple design. Very nice.

This one was very fresh! The design - different. I liked it very much.

These 2 quilts were beautiful. This one was very bright which is so not me but very pleasing to the eye and I do like dark backgrounds.

The next one is me, I love brown fabric in quilts, don't know why, and those minature hexagons - Oh! the patience to make them. The centre was applique not a panel, like Broderie Perse, magnificent. Do you see a ribbon? No - well I thought it deserved one. They both deserved a ribbon.

We both has a wonderful day out. My legs were exhausted from all the walking around but we did get a seat on the train home. Not always guaranteed.