Short holiday and new inspiration

Last week my husband and I decided to take a short 4 day break to Kangaroo Island which is just off the coast of South Australia. 

 We had to drive about 1 1/2 hours south of Adelaide, then take a car ferry for about 20km and 50 minutes to get there.   It was a sparkly sunny day.

 We landed at Penneshaw, had lunch at the local pub, and started our tour from there.

It was a very relaxing few days and I had a little time to do a bit of fabric shopping in the only quilt shop on KI, and had a balcony to sit on to do a little sewing.

A couple of pieces of Out Of Print Kaffee fabrics

View near Cape Borda on the north coast 

 This was a bit sad  -  the cemetary for the light house families.  Little children included.

So while I am sitting about enjoying the view, I started thinking about making something new.  I want to be inspired to make something beautiful.  What is beautiful to me, may not necessarily be the same for others.

While scrolling through Pinterest I found a photo of a quilt, and loved it straight away.  I love red and white and I love unstructured, whimsical quilts.

I traced the photo back to Barbara Brackman's blog but with very little information, apart from labelling it British and the makers name, which you can see on the quilt.  If anyone reading this knows anything about this quilt, I would love to hear from you.

So when I got home, I could not wait to try and work out how to make this quilt.  I found some cream linen fabric tucked away (that will be a good background!) and I have lots of reds, but they have to be the "right red"....not the madder kind of red,  but proper kind of reds.  Yes, I found a few of those as well.  I wonder how to make those shapes (I ask myself) and decide that they are made by folding and cutting paper.

Yep, I think that will work.  Looks a bit like the original.  Does not have to be just the same but close will do..............................and I was off and running!

I think I will do all the big bits first, then add the little pieces as needed.  I think I will have this all done in............maybe a year!

Last week I continued with kitchen renovations and had a new oven installed.  Very nice!  However, the electrician had to get access via the cupboard in my sewing room.  It was not a pretty sight, and had to pull everything out of one cupboard to get in.  I found something.  An almost completed Whig Rose quilt.  I can remember starting this, and I checked the dates and it was started July 2004.  The border went on in 2005, it was basted and some parts marked in 2006..........

and.....there it sat for all these years.

What went wrong?  Did I fall out of love? No. It was, and still is, a very heavy quilt.  It is Kona cotton solids for all of the applique, plus cotton batting and cotton backing.  As I was quilting it, it seemed to slip a lot within the hoop.  I could see lots of ripples in the hand quilting.  I lost heart. 

However, having another look at it after 12 years, I have decided to finish it and make the best of it.  It had been marked with a blue wash out pen...my favourite....but after all these years I have no idea what brand it was and if it would come out. Usually I spray the work with water after it is quilted, and hope the marks come out.  I am very happy to say that after all these years the marks did come out......mostly

You can see here (along with the ripples!) that the blue lines have disappeared.  Once it is washed and blocked I expect (!) the quilt to be smooth and flat and free of any marks.

However, some lines had turned grey.  I have no idea what I marked this part with, and I hope it washes out.  I will just quilt over the top and hope for the best.

You can see these very faint lines.  Has anyone else had this happen?  I have never had a problem with the blue pens and have used them for probably 20 years.

This is the book where I first saw the quilt I am making.

 I am pretty sure that I have seen it in other books, but this is the one that took my eye

I changed the colours a bit.  The original is made from prints and mine is all solids.  I love the way the solids shine against the background.

Things are not working for me

Thanks for the welcome back.  I will reply to you all in time.

My Legend and Lace website is behaving very badly and requires an update.  I have turned it off!

If you have ordered any of the PDF blocks........you won't get them! 

I will over the next day or so reconfigure the Blog homepage so that they are not being offered.  Just have to remember how to do that :-((

So, in the mean time I will give you something else to look at.  I started this hand pieced Trip Around the world last year as I needed s "slow stitching"to keep me sane. It is fabric from my stash again.  It does not seem to matter how much you use out of the stashed fabric, there never seems to be less!  Does it breed?

Something ele that has taken over my life in recent months is this zig zag quilt.  I started using Kaffe Fasset fabrics, but really did not have enough to make the whole quilt.  This is a photo of only half of it.  It is huge!  so, I added some of my brighter repro fabrics, to the Kaffe fabrics.  I am hand quilting with perle cotton, and big stitches.  The appropriate way to handle the size (I think) is to "quilt as you go:.  I have never done this before, but I figured I would work it out.  So far I have 2 halves done.

You probably don't need to see this, but sharing anyway.  This is my DH in hospital in Bangkok.  The rooms were like hotel rooms, and I stayed in the room with him.  WE were here 6 days before getting back to Australia for his surgery.  Much improved now and causing a nuisance about the house again!

More stories and photos to come.....

I'm Back!

I bet your thought I was dead and buried, or won the lottery and moved to the moon, or some other exotic place.  No, I just got lazy, and sucked in by Facebook and Instagram.

It has been since November 2016....almost 2 years and I wonder what I have been up to.  Today I found this in my cupboard.  An old friend that I think I started....hmmm....15 years ago.  I started the quilting and for some reason decided it was not good enough, and I would have to unpick.  Today with a more experienced eye, I think it is ok, or at least fixable.  Will work on this as I renew my friendship with you all.  This is an opportunity I think.

a few ripples in this quilting, but if I wash and block when complete, it will be ok.

What else have I been up to?  Well it is the beginning of Spring in Australia, and in my part of the country, we have had plenty of rain, so the garden looks pretty good.  It is a bit later than usual, but maybe it will pick up.

 These trees I saw on my morning walk.

and the Jasmin on the fence.  Always flowers 1st of September.









In the sewing world I have been busy.  No more Block of the Months for quite some time, but I am thinking of something, I just have to get my Mojo working again.

I fell into a bit of a deep hole last year when my DH John, took sick while we were travelling in Burma.  Beautiful country, but horrible place to get sick.  It was a long way home, and he ended up with heart surgery at the end of November.

While he was convalescing I had a lot of time on my hands, and managed to make a quilt that really inspired me.   It is from the pattern by Susan Smith called Stevie's Garden.  I called mine Midnight in the Garden for obvious reasons.

 It was made entirely from my scrap bag, and the background and the border was in my stash.  The Blue Ribbon was special....I had never had one of these before!  Right now i am doing a lot of knitting, and looking at UFO's and hoping to find some inspiration.

I know it looks funny, but this is a shawl I am knitting by a talented German lady Martina Behm.  The yarn is silk and baby camel, and divine to knit.

I have run out of oomph today, so will find a few more things later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wendy