Moore Patchwork & Quilting

Fabric

Still on my new stitchery quilt - Sew and Sew - thinking about what sewing means to me -

Baskets of fabric!  Yes, I know I'm trying to reduce my stash, but I still love fabric.  I just love the feel of it and the colours and the possibilities.  I can remember when I first did a patchwork class (more years ago than I like to admit), I was told that 'yellow' was a colour to avoid.  Now I think yellow is a colour that gives 'zing' to a project. 

The other stitchery block shows two of my favourite patchwork blocks - the Four Patch and the Nine Patch.  Both are so versatile and can be made in a jif. I like simple when it comes to sewing and they fit the bill.

You can see how I fussy cut some of the fabric to make the blocks - there were so many nice 'pictures' on the fabric that it seemed a shame to waste them.

Rain...

It's raining buckets up here in paradise. Not very good considering how much water we had last summer.  Hope you are dry where you are.

Until next time

Lyn

Relax

At the start of the year I always write out a list of goals I want to achieve in the year and then at the end of the year check back and see how I went.  I surprised myself last year - I actually achieved most of my goals and the ones I didn't reach are in progress. Last year I went a bit further and chose a 'word' to reflect what I wanted to achieve.  The word for 2011 was Bloom.

For 2012, I've chosen Relax.

Sometimes life gets very busy and there always seems to be a million things to do and not enough time to do them.  I compound this myself by trying to do more than I need to. This just makes me tired and stressed.  So this year I'm going to do things a bit differently. I'm going to relax.  Relaxing for me involves taking time out to do something creative especially something with my hands. For example, knitting or stitchery or drawing.  Helps me to slow down, take a deep breath, and re-group which helps me to get things in perspective and focus on those things which are most important.  The funny thing is, those days when I feel like I don't have time to stop and relax, that's usually when I need to!

But things are going to be different this year, when I feel my blood pressure rising and I'm breaking out in a cold sweat - I'm going to reach for the knitting needles/stitchery/pencil - and take a break.

I made a mixed-media poster for my studio noticeboard to remind me to refresh, renew, revive - in other words Relax!

Until next time

Lyn

Sew and Sew

Over the holidays, I started a new stitchery design called Sew and Sew.  It started with a selection of fat eighths from Lynette Anderson's Stitches range.  The fabrics are bright and fresh and have some lovely sewing related images on them.  They sat on my work table for a while until one day I decided that they would look nice in a small quilt to hang in my studio.  For the theme, I looked to the fabric for inspiration and settled on 12  stitcheries with each stitchery depicting something I like about sewing. 

I debated about what colour thread to use but in the end went for a single colour - DMC 107 - which is a nice variegated red.

The first stitchery is 'dream'. For me sewing is very relaxing and gives me a chance to slow down and let my mind wander.  I sometimes find myself in a world of my own thinking through problems or just dreaming about things I would like to do. It leaves me feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the world again.

In the next few days, I'll show you some more of the stitcheries.

Until next time

Lyn

Noddy

Last week on Life Matters (ABC Radio National) there was story of a man who collects jaffle irons.  He started off innocently enough when he found an old jaffle iron in a op shop. It brought back lots of fond childhood memories so he took it home and cleaned up. He then found himself looking for jaffle irons wherever he went until now he has a collection of over 70.  I laughed the whole way through the story especially how he tried to hide his purchases from his wife (how do you hide 70 jaffle irons?) and the lengths he went to to secure his next 'find'.

The reason I found it funny?  Confession time - I am a collector of Noddy books!  Not just any old Noddy books but vintage Noddy books.

Like the man in the story, my collection started innocently enough when I found a Noddy book in the secondhand shop.  It  brought back those lovely warm memories of sitting on Dad's lap and listening to the latest exploits of Noddy and Big Ears and then later on, cuddling my boys on my lap and reading them the same stories.

I just couldn't resist buying it.  It sat alone on my bookshelf for a few months until I discovered a whole world of collectors and collections on EBay. 

Now, my collection is steadily growing and I even set aside its very own shelf with a special security guard!

Until next time

Lyn

Another small quilt

A few months ago I bought a pack of charm squares from the Little Apples range with the intention of making a baby quilt but despite my good intentions, the charm squares sat waiting patiently in my stash.

I was looking for some inspiration when I came across this pattern from a Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

Ruth Buchanan had done a series of quiltlets and each one was named after an Australian place with a different letter of the alphabet.  This one is N is for Nuriootpa made from 5" charm squares. Just to digress - I loved that series - they were all such handy little quilts each featuring a different technique. As an added bonus, she also had a description of the place the quiltlet was named after. Nuriootpa is a town in South Australia.

Anyway, back to the quilt.

It was very quick to make and I had just enough charm squares for the top.

 

I quilted it all over with grey thread and the binding is some red fabric from my stash. (For the backing I managed to use a couple of fat quarters.)

Finished size is 20.5" x 20.5" - a handy little table topper.

Meanwhile, I'm still cutting out the little corner squares for my Snowball quilt.  I might actually start sewing sometime tomorrow.

Until next time

Lyn

Snowball Quilt

I was trying to think of another SBS project when I stumbled across a quilt on Cluck Cluck Sew's blog featuring a snowball block. She had used 5" charm squares and made a table runner, but I'm going to make mine bigger and make a quilt about 36-40" square.

I'm not using pre-cut squares, but cut my own 5" squares from fabric in my stash.  I'm mainly using reproduction fabrics but noticed that there are a few 'stray' fabrics in the mix as well.

The only problem I had was the corner squares.  They are cut at 1 3/4" and you need 4 for each block. That works out to a lot of little squares.  I realised that I didn't have enough of any one light fabric to make all of the squares but sticking to my resolve of only using my stash fabrics, I've chosen to use a couple of similiar but different shirting fabrics. I think it will work okay. 

Soap...

Aaron returned from his holiday in Malaysia and Thailand and brought me back a couple of gifts.

One of the gifts is this beautiful hand painted circular box.

The box is approx. 3" in diameter and is a lovely polished wood.  The detail in the painting is just amazing.

 

 

The surprise is when you open the box.

 

 

 

Inside is a hand carved and painted soap.

Isn't it amazing.  The detail and colours are just magnificent.  The added bonus is that smells good as well.

 

 

Until next time

Lyn

Death Comes to Pemberley

I read this book, Death Comes to Pemberley, by PD James in the holidays.

As the name suggests, it's set in the Jane Austen world of Pride and Prejudice.  Elizabeth and Darcy have been married for six years (they have 2 children) and are settled in the beautiful Pemberley Estate when their tranquility is interrupted by a murder on the Estate. 

Being a fan of PD James' Adam Dalgleish series, I expected a bit of a mystery but was a bit disappointed because although it starts off well, the mystery turns out to be not such a mystery at all.  The book concentrates instead on the day-to-day life of Pemberley with the murder a secondary event.  We are given no clues to try to figure it out but the whole mystery is revealed by one of the participants in a confession after the trial is over. 

The book is more about Elizabeth and Darcy and their relationships with the staff and in some ways themselves - but I thought they had become a bit boring - where were the verbal clashes?

Despite all this I did find myself caught up in the whole thing and fascinated by their everyday life. It was an undemanding holiday read

Until next time

Lyn

Cushion and small quilt - stash busting

While contemplating my stash, I 'found' a significant amount of Where the Wind Blows fabric range (Mellya and Me).

There was a small bundle of about 6 fat quarters, some large scraps and some pieced charm squares. 

I remembered that when I pieced the charm squares together, I decided that it needed another row to make it a more useful size.  The charm squares are only 4.5" cut which meant they are 4" finished.  The piece was made up of 6 rows of 6 squares.  I wanted it to be 7 rows of 7 squares but obviously never got around to finishing it.

A few months ago, I had made a cushion with this range so my first decision was to make a matching one.

 

It's a log cabin design and I wanted it to fit a 16" cushion insert (also in my stash), so I adjusted the size of the strips accordingly.

I then machine quilted all over in a greyish thread.

It looks nice sitting with the other cushion.

After I did that, I added the extra rows of charm squares to the little quilt and I still had quite a bit of fabric left, so I decided to add a border (2.5" cut) as well.

I quilted it the same way as the cushion - in an all over stipple design with greyish thread.

I didn't have enough of any one colour to do the whole binding, so I used a different colour for each side.

I quite like the effect.

I had enough fabric to piece together for the backing and that finished it off.

Finished size of the qult is 32.5" sq.  It's a handy size for a table throw or for the back of a sofa.

I'm liking this Stash Busting!

Until next time

Lyn

 

Another year older....

Well, as it happens every year, last Friday was my birthday. We celebrated by having brunch with one of the boys and his partner and then in the evening we went to the Brisbane International Tennis Tournment to see the womens semi-finals. It was very exciting and I must say, much better than on tv. You get a real idea of how fast and hard they hit that tennis ball. At times it was difficult to see the ball so I don't know how they manage to hit it at all.

I picked up my mail today and there was a parcel from my very thoughtful friend Caroline.

The big button in the front is actually soap - very nice smelling too. Isn't it great? Being such a button lover, it really took my fancy.

Just behind it is a set of beautiful note cards with very summery photos evoking feelings of lazing around.

The parcel was a complete surprise to me and really made my day. Thanks Caroline.

 

 

Nigella in the Kitchen....

Another present I received on Friday was this Nigella Lawson cookbook.

I have to confess that I am a Nigella fan. It only happened quite recently - in the last month or so - when I started watching her cooking show on ABC1.

I think what I love about her is that her recipes are easy to make and she uses ingredients which are readily at hand. (Admittedly some are fairly indulgent like the bread and butter pudding made from croissants.) I also love the way she enjoys eating what she makes. (You should have seen how she tucked into the aforementioned bread and butter pudding.)

I'm not a keen cook but when I do cook I like it to be fairly straightforward and this book is full of recipes that fit the bill. There's a great recipe for Blondies in the book - keep turning to that page - think I will have to succumb!

Until next time

Lyn

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Hope you had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to a great 2012. 

I've had a lovely 2 week break - went to the movies, read some good books, ate lots yummy food, did some sewing, had an afternoon nap - now I'm feeling ready to start 2012.

Stash Busting Continues....

Remember the Charm Square Quilt I was making before Christmas?

Here it is - all finished.

For the quilting, I machine quilted in an all over largish stipple design.  I managed to find some red and white stripe fabric in my stash which I used for the binding.

It turned out to be a very hand sized little quilt - 24" x 24". It looks very nice on the table on the deck.

As I finished this off, I realised that one of the greatest uses of fabric from my stash is in the backing.  This backing took 3 fat quarters.  I think it's in the backings that I will start to see the stash diminsh.

I'm sticking to my resolve to make 'things' from my stash this summer and am pleased to say that I haven't bought any new fabric yet (although I have been seriously tempted especially when I saw some lovely new fabrics by Jo Morton). Will see how I go.

At the Movies...

Went to see Ides of March the other day. Stars George Clooney and Ryan Gosling (he was very good) and it's about American politics.  Being such a huge West Wing fan, I absolutely loved this movie.  I understood all that was happening especially all the back room drama. Loved the ending too - which way will he go? Take the moral high ground or accept the status quo?

Until next time

Lyn