embroidery hoop art

a new wall display for my sewing room, made from some old embroidery hoops, some scrap fabrics and buttons...

i LOVE it!!

a sunny day in my winter garden

well, my sewing room is renovated and starting to look gorgeous but for the moment my interests have been diverted by a large pile of books and my garden!

it is a lovely sunny day here (despite being only 14degC !) so i thought i take advantage of the weather and spend some time updating things...

a cute stack of pots, planted with dutch irises and violas (i got the idea from here)

and a new garden arch to grow some sweet peas on - i am looking forward to having a scented arch to walk under in a couple of months time...

my dad built me a planter box to replace the tatty pots on my verandah - i planted it with an ornamental grape vine, dutch irises, species gladioli, white crocus and silver dichondra

the other pot on my verandah got a freshen up too

there are a couple of other areas in the garden that need a freshen up too, so i am hoping my motivation sticks around for a bit longer!!

 

hellooooooooo

hi everyone, long time, no post!  life has been crazy busy, sadly not much sewing but way too many hours at work and some house renovations haven't left me much time to be creative.

i did manage to take a short holiday and attend Grampians Textures, i was lucky enough to be able to do the 4 day bag making workshop with Nicole Mallalieu (the genius behind You Sew Girl).  i picked up some great tips and techniques for designing and making bags that look professional (handmade as opposed to homemade).  thanks to Nicole i think i have finally conquered my fear of zippers!

a couple of photos of the bag that i designed, drafted the pattern for then made (just a couple of little things to finish off and it will be ready to use)...

wishing everyone a slightly belated happy st. patricks day (and happy birthday to me!)

 

selvedge madness at the art gallery

my quilting group holds an exhibition every second year and we are very lucky that our local art gallery hosts the exhibition - we choose a theme, then make the quilts and drop them off at the art gallery.  the curator then decides which quilts will go in the exhibition, hangs them beautifully and does all the necessary signage.  this year the exhibition has gone for around a month, from mid December to mid January, and from all accounts it has been very popular

our theme was "from scraps to heirlooms", a nod to the origins of quilts.

i had my quilt in planning and was working on it in the 12 months leading up to the exhibition... but being the procrastinator that i am, i finished burying the last of the threads in my selvedge quilt the evening before i had to drop it off at our local art gallery!

i cant tell you how excited i am to have my quilt hanging in an art gallery! i took this photo on my phone...

the quilt is actually quite bright in person and there are a lot more selvedges on the back of it, but obviously i cant get a photo of the back until the exhibition is finished.  i will post more photos when it get my quilt back.

i plan on hanging it in my newly redecorated sewing room, and call me crazy but i think i am going to do a lot more selvedge projects to go in there... recovering my computer chair, recovering my sewing chair, a new ironing board cover and probably some curtains!

2012 new years eve mystery quilt

yippee its new years eve mystery quilt time again!!  i am doing one from Delaware quilts.

my fabric is chosen - a variety of pinks, the finished quilt will hopefully be used to raise funds for breast cancer research...

the strips are cut...

and i am ready to sew when the rest of the clues are posted!

quick strippie quilt

one of my last minute sewing projects this christmas was a quick strippie quilt (a free pattern from Mary quilts), i made it as a gift for a friend's daughter... i LOVE the fabrics and it is so quick to whip up a quilt using this pattern!  (edited to add - my friend and her daughter LOVE the quilt too!!)

my dad was kind enough to hold it while i snapped some photos (dont you love his socks!)...

FRONT

the back was pieced together using left-overs from making the front, and i added the pink at the top/bottom so that it would be big enough

BACK

and a close up that shows the gorgeous owl print (fabrics were from spotlight and must have been printed for them because the selvedges didn't have much info from the manufacturer)

i used 1m of each of the owl print, stripey fabric and blue floral fabric, then added approx 1/2m of the pink fabric.

i used hobbs heirloom fusible wadding (it only fuses temporarily so the finished quilt is nice and soft) to minimise pinning and save time (i still like to put a couple of pins along the edges) and then quilt using a variegated thread, my open-toe walking foot and a snake/curve stitch on each seamline

unfortunately my walking foot broke mid-way through the quilting process, but i am very lucky that my mum lives 5mins away from me and she had a walking foot that i could use to finish the quilt

see the 2 white brackets that hold the foot to the machine?  the top one snapped off (circled in red), the foot moved out of alignment, then broke the needle and caused the machine to shudder around and make all sorts of horrible noises.  thankfully, it doesn't seem to have caused any damage to the machine.

it's christmas day...

 

merry christmas everyone, i hope the festive season is full of cheer and the year ahead is a joyful one xxx