Lemon tree - and the rest of the garden

After the encouragement I got when I showed you the little Lemon Tree quilt, I thought I had better find the "mother" quilt and see what stage I really am up to.

Good news!  All the main floral blocks are done - all 14 of them.  So that is good.  Tick!  There is one bird missing on one of the blocks, and most of the birds need some embroidery for their legs.

 There are 4 stars in the corners, and I have made 3.  Good news there as I thought I had only done one or two.  I made two on the machine, and one by hand.  I think the one I made by hand is the bottom one, and far nicer than the other two, so one more by hand.

 Looks like all 4 side baskets are done.  Don;t like these baskets.  The handles are to high, but they are done.  Tick!

3 and a half of the side floral pieces.  I will finish that 4th one today, then it looks like only 2 more to go after that.  Almost done.  There are 4 corner motifs as well, which are just flower heads, so that will not take much time.

Perhaps I should concentrate on getting these pieces finished.  This is the first antique quilt I attempted to recreate.  I painstakingly drew up all the blocks, from enlarged photo copies of the quilt, then when I was almost done I found that they are all on EQ!  How about that?  Not fare, but I probably value it more because of all the preliminary work I put into.  I went off it a little because of the fabrics I chose.  It is all in solids except for the bowls, and I have used Kona cotton, which has wonderful colours, but the fabric is very heavy.  I know I will end up with a very heavy quilt.  If may be difficult to hand quilt as well.

So there you are - one star to go, and 2 triangle border pieces, and 4 corners.  Piece of cake!

Lemon Tree

I was asked to produce an applique project for a retreat - something that could be handled in a weekend, and finished at home.  I dutifully completed the applique, and the retreat was called off!  Darn!  The little piece has been sitting about waiting on the right moment to be completed.

Because it is hand appliqued, I figured I really should hand quilt it, and my machine quilting is not all that good.  However, it is assembled by machine, so I thought maybe I could do machine quilting on some of it.

All the layers are pinned together, and how is this for good luck, the quilt is about 40" square, and I managed to use just one width of backing fabric.  Must remember that in future when making little quilts, to try and keep them this size or less - saves heaps on fabric.

My plan is to machine quilt in the ditch, and use one of my favourite stencils for the borders, which means I don;t have to do free hand quilting, but use the walking foot instead.  Around the applique shapes I will hand quilt as there is no way that I could not make a mess of that if I tried free motion quilting.  Even with such a busy background, I am sure to make a mess of it.

In case you wonder where I get my ideas from ......well ......they are not my ideas. 

This is one my all-time favourite books on antique quilts, and I have made quite a few quilts from pictures seen here.  Look at the bottom RHS of the book cover.  Recognise anything?

Another confession - I have actually made every single block of this quilt on the cover, and I have given up as I don;t want to do the border half blocks.  I am thinking I will just get out one of my beautiful border prints that I have been hoarding for years and finish it.  Take the easy way out. I started it 7 years ago......time to give in, don;t you think?

New Threads

Something new for me.  I was teaching one of my regular Saturday classes at Mallee Country Crafts, at McLaren Flat, and one of the girls, Julie,  had this bobbin saver with all the beautiful threads in it.  I had seen them before, but thought of them mostly for machine work.

However, the thread in this bobbin is Masterpiece - which is the 100% 50 weight cotton - perfect for hand applique.  I lusted after it a bit, and found that they come in another colour group

in this lilac bobbin saver.  I wanted them for myself - has anyone seen my thread case?  It is a disgrace!  I wondered if I might get neat if I used one of these. Miracles do happen.

So I bought them for myself, and while I was at it bought some for resale.  They are now listed on my website for $50, which includes postage within Australia.

Now all I have to do is find a project which requires more colours than red and green, and I will be in seventh heaven.  I have been working on red and green quilts for so long, and I need a little more colour in my life. 

Last Days of Autumn

We have had some rainy overcast days this month and it really makes me feel miserable.  I don't do winter at all well.  Today I walked through the front garden inspecting weeds, and noticed how pretty it was looking.  We have to have the rain, or we don;t get the flowers - fact! 

There are some plants that keep colour in the garden all year around - mine are Salvias.  There are hundreds of varieties, and some of my clever gardening friends will tell me the names of all of them.  You have to cut them back when they finish flowering in summer, and then you get this for the rest of autumn and into winter.  People describe my garden as "cottage garden" style.  Really, it has no style - if it lives it stays, if it dies it goes.  We just keep re-planting things that survive our harsh summers.

I picked a few of the pretties and brought them inside for the kitchen window.  It looks like a spring 
bouquet!

the very last of the red glory vines leaves.  This is like an ornamental grape vine.  We have it all over the outside of the house, and there are just a few pretty red leaves left.  Winter will be here next week.

Quilt Encounter

Back in November I went to a meeting to form a new committee for the annual Quilt Encounter, as part of the Quilters Guild of South Australia.  When no one volunteered, I put my hand up to be the co-ordinator.  I thought it would be ok, as I have had lots of experience in my past working life, looking after staff while in the work force.  There were a few ups and down during the 6 months, and I was getting really stressed about my ability to keep it all together.

I am putting this all down, so that anyone from SA who reads it will know my real reasons, and not some gossip, which does happen.

My health seemed to be affected, as I was loosing sleep over it, having anxiety attacks, and heart palpitations.  I got out of bed on Monday morning, and talked with my husband and my daughter about it.  My DH said that I was as stressed as I was when I was at work, and this is why I left.  My daughter said "it's only quilting, Mum".  And that really did put it all in perspective.

I contacted the President of the Guild, and tendered my resignation. I feel really bad about leaving the group, but we still have a few months before actually taking the reins, and I know that they will pull together on it.

Good luck!

Amongst the comments this week was one from Cyndi  from Busy Thimble, about the quilt which is the background for my blog.  This is a little cot quilt I made from left over bits of fabrics about .....hmmm...3 or 4 years ago.

I saw one similar, but in large scale, in a book on scrap quilts.  My plan was to make lots more blocks, and kind of float them across the quilt in coloured rows.  Of course I ran out of enthusiasm, and finished it off as a cot quilt.  The borders are a brown polka dot, which I love, and a large pink print on brown print.  It was published ages ago in Australian Country Craft and Decorating Magazine.  The blocks are about 4".

When I was looking for something to put into the background of my blog, which was not too intrusive, I found the photo on my computer, cropped it, and it worked ok. I also used this image on my latest batch of business cards.

I have lots of little quilts like this, perhaps I can show you one from time to time.

Do you love new gadgets?  I must admit I am a bit of a "gadget girl" and love to hear about things that might make my sewing life easier.

My friend Maureen told me about these Cutting Edge Rulers, and asked if I was going to stock them.  I had never heard about them, so started the research about how they work, and where I get them from.  Lucky for me that I could source them from the manufacturer who have an office in Australia.  The way they work is that every time you use them to cut, they sharpen your rotary cutter.  Right now, just about every time I use my rotary cutter, I seem to take a nick out of the ruler.  These have a diamond powdered edge that does the sharpening.  Rotary Cutter blades are expensive to buy, and I seem to use a lot of them.  They are a little more expensive than your conventional rulers, but if they do the job as they are suppose to, then it is worth it.

They come in several sizes, but I just bought in a few to see how they go, before I lash out on heaps.  The concept of very new and was created by Pat Sloan, quilter and author.  You can see a little YouTube demo here.

 I must apologise to all those poor people who subscribe to my website mailing list.  I wanted to tell everyone about these rulers, and I had real gremlins in the works.  With the mailing list, I can only send 200 emails at a time, as the server wants to prevent me from using  this for spam, so I accidentally told it more than 200.  Ooops!  I got heaps of emails rejected, about 95 back into my inbox, and I did  not know if people were going to get them eventually or not.  What to do?  I have to wait 70 minutes before I can do it again (spam prevention) and now, I am not sure who got them and who did not........anyway it was a nightmare.  Some people got 5 emails, some 2, and some lucky people only 1.

Something worked, and I sold out of some sizes, but I had a new shipment arrive today.  All ready to go again.

This last weekend I went to Kadina, in the Northern part of the York Peninsular, to do a workshop organised by Sue at Country Chix.  I met Sue last year between Christmas and New Year when I called in after having spent a few days staying in the lower part of the YP.  About the first thing I noticed was her lovely shop full of treasures, and then how friendly she was.  Lucky for me she asked me if I did classes as she was working on her class list for the new year.  We had a few back and forth emails, and settled on 2 days - one day doing applique and one day of English Paper Piecing.  I had a ball - and hopefully the others did too.  They were very friendly and welcoming.

Country Chix

Kadina is a very old mining town, and part of the "Copper Triangle" of Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo.  This is where copper mining was carried out in the mid 1800's.  You can still see the beautiful old buildings from that time when the are was very wealthy.

 We had the workshop at the old Ascot Theatre, which is a treasure on its own.  It use to be a real theatre, and now it is used as an art gallery and community centre.

Ascot Theatre

We started at 9.30 am on the Saturday with hand applique, and I was able to show them something new, when we did "back-basting" applique.  They are all converted!  Hooray!

All set up - ready for action!

Hard at work

 Second Day  was English paper piecing.  This has been around for centuries, but we are now modernising it with new fabrics, and simplified techniques.

This is Sue, on RHS, who made it all possible with her organisation and hard work.

This is for the Kadina girls who said they would never rmember what it is all suppose to look like. 

Treasures in the mail box

and I could not wait to get the box open.  A friend told me she was "downsizing" and had a heap of fabrics to get rid of, and did I know anyone who might be interested in buying them from her.  They were Smithsonian fabrics.  Yes, please, I would love them!  I already have a project in mind.  The box arrived with four packs inside.

 Some of these are my all-time favourite fabrics.  Never thought I would see them again.

 This large print is interesting and will go into my "borders collection"

Some of these greens I have been eeking out here and there so that I could have just a little bit in some recent works.   Now I can be a little more carefree with them.  Some I am not all that crazy about, but still love them for what they are.

Now that put a little smile on my face, and now all I need is the appropriate project.  I am making the Maltaville Quilt, and Margaret has used mostly Smithsonian fabrics in hers, so I will be using many of them there. 

Just a little more

and now I really do have something to show

only 112 more triangle segments to go and it will be a quilt top!  I am not going to sew any of them together until they are all made, that way I can get a really nice mix of fabrics.  in the future I can see lots of lovely hand quilting in the yellow star centre.

That is the last for today.  I am going to watch an old movie on the TV now - John Wayne or some other favourite.

Straight from the Scrap Box

My scrap box is overflowing still, so it makes me think about new projects.  years ago I made a String Pieced star quilt and never really like it  much once it was finished because it was so heavy.  The reason it was so heavy is because I sewed the "strings" onto a background - double and tripple the thickness.

Instead of sewing through to the background fabric, you just use it as a guide and sew only onto the next fabric.  Press all the pieces once you finish sewing them, flip it over, and trim with the edge of the background fabric.  You can press as you go, but that is such a waste of time to me.  Now cut that background off as it is no longer needed - it was just a guide.

I am working straight from the box, just checking the pieces for length, and trimming with the scissors as I need to.  There are two boxes like this, and there are some real old time treasures in them.

The background fabric is one I bought ages ago, for something special, and changed my mind.  It has just been sitting in the very bottom of the cupboard.  So I am doing a good thing freeing up all this fabric :-))

By the way, the top photo is not the finished result - it grows - so stay tuned!

Winter is on the way

and I have started knitting already.

Is this not spectacular!  I bought this yarn back in March when I was staying with my cousin in Sydney.  I went for a walk one day and came across Mosman Needlecraft

This is a shop on Military Road, at Mosman, on the lower north shore of Sydney.  It is chocker block full of beautiful threads, yarns, kits, and fabrics.  I was just window shopping inside, and spied this scarf hanging up.  I just loved it!  The nice lady in the shop got out all the colours in that yarn, and I could not make up my mind which one I wanted, so I bought 2 of course.   One is kind of warm colours and the other more primary colours.  Anyway, it is knitted on the side.  kind of hard to describe, but I will give it a go.

You start with 3 stitches, and add one each end inside the first and last stitch, until you have as many as you want.  I stopped at 35.  Every row is knitted, and every second row has no shaping.  Then you start to add one stitch at the beginning of the row  and decrease one at the end, by knitting together the 2nd and 3rd last stitches.  Again, knit only every second row.  When you get the scarf as long as you want, you kind of do the reverse, and make it smaller by decreasing at the ends of the needles until 3 are left.

It is turning into a very long scarf, but I can see this wrapped several times around my neck this coming winter, and it is not too fluffy or itchy to wear.

Have to get it finished soon so I can get back to my applique.  I need a break from time to time.

Gone to the Dark Side?

or have I simply seen the light?  I have always done hand applique.  Hand work, for many reasons,  appeals to me.  It is portable, sociable and I like the way it looks are amongst some of the reasons.  However, just lately I have had a hankering to learn machine applique.  For about the last year I kept thinking about joining a class or something to learn.  When I started talking to people about it I decided to teach myself.  Everything else I have ever done (in the craft line) I have taught myself, so I figured I could do this as well.

This is what made me hasten things along.

 It is Kim McLean's Flower Pot quilt.  There was discussion on my Yahoo group Repro Fabric Lovers, that Cabbage Rose quilt shop in Texas was offering this as a Block of the Month, with fabrics already lazer cut with vlisofix applied - all ready to just stick and stitch.  How easy is that?  Must be the ultimate lazy BOM!  Of course, you have to know how to do machine applique, or at least be ready to do hand buttonhole, in order to do it.  I could not work out how else to do it, so I paid my money and off I am going with something new to learn.  The first block arrived last week, and I really was torn between doing buttonhole by hand and risking making a mess with it on the machine.

The first bit I did by hand, and I did not like how it looked, and it was a bit tedious.  I have not taken these stitches out yet, but I will

The rest I did by machine and it was done in a flash!  No wonder people love doing applique this way.

Even the circles turned out well.  The next challenge is the threads.  All the people I asked gave me lots of different tips on threads, and stitch size, and bobbins etc.  I listened to it all, and just played about with threads.  I used Bobbin fill underneath, and on top just any thread that looked about the right colour.  See with these circles the one on the RHS the thread is a little darker, that was the first one I did, and then changed threads to something lighter.  I think it looks better.  The stitch size I varied (in the Bernina) between 1.5 and 2 wide and long, depending on how little the piece was.

My thread box got a going over.  There are cottons, and poly threads there, and some silks - I used them all to get the right colour.  However, I must tell you that my favourite is DMC machine embroidery thread.  I use it for hand piecing and applique, and I think it was pretty good for this job as well.  As yet, I have not found a place in Australia where I can buy it.  I did buy some when I was visiting the USA, then purchased online at Soft Expressions.

In no way am I attempting to tell you how to do machine applique like the experts, but I am telling you to have a go and experiment if you are in doubt.  Play about with the threads, and the stitches and see what you can come up with.  I love this project, and the fact that you can get a block done in less than a day has me hooked good and proper.

Just to prove that I have not totally "gone to the other side" I have got one whole border done on the Little Sisters quilt, and another one ready to do.

Family matters

I have been away.  Did you miss me?

I went to Sydney for a week to visit my family and attend my Uncle Ted's 90th birthday celebrations.

These are some of my lovely cousins - L to R - Sandra, Pam, me, Yvonne (the baby) and Rhonda.  It has been years since we were all together at one time.  The opportunities are rare now.

This is the "birthday boy" Edward J (Ted) Bennett.  Still looks handsome and has a smooth tongue.  Always ready with a compliment.

This is my Aunty Val - my mother's youngest sister.  Is there a family resemblance?  Yes indeed!

We had the luncheon at the Mosman RSL club, on the lower north shore of Sydney.  There are views right to the harbour from this roof top dining area.

I stayed with my cousin Pam for the first few days, then went to Newcastle for a visit.  Back to Sydney and to Rhonda's house are Killara.  I was lucky enough to meet up with my quilting buddies Sharon one day and with Maureen another day.  Went to a few quilt shops including Material Obsession which I have wanted to visit for years.  I have both their books, and really wanted to see the shop.  I also went to a new shop in Balmain - Calico and Ivy.  Very pretty shop with lots of Liberty fabrics, and lovely yarns as well.

Now back to the real world and work.........need to get into that sewing room.