Matching Pegs

This is a project I designed ages ago, but have never got around to finishing.  In fact I was a little surprised to see that it was actually January 2009 when I started.

I have had the whole design drawn up on Illustrator for over a year, but am only now nearing the finish line, as it has been put away in a box for ages.

Initially it was going to be a cushion, but I am leaning towards the idea of turning it into the centre of a medallion quilt.  Once I finish the applique I will reassess my plan.  The design is called “Tea in the Garden”, you can see it here on my ironing board.  I only have three more butterflies to work, before I have completed the whole block.

So what do you think?  Can you imagine this better as a quilt centre, or as a cushion?

Would you buy this, if it was a pattern for sale?

For the last two weekends we have had nothing but childrens parties, all of which have been lovely.  I have made several different gifts, but finished them all at the last minute, so I don’t have much to show you.  For the lovely Miss Elena, I embellished a lavender coloured tee with the letter “e” similar to Michaela’s one above, which I have made since.  I think Michaela must have just slept in it when I took this photo, I really should have ironed it for the blog shot.  I simply needle-turned the M in place on a tee from Target.

I did actually manage to get a photo of Master Mason’s Robot Apron, before it was wrapped.  It was the second present I have made featuring the lovely Robot fabric I picked up at Candleberry Country in Yarragon, on our trip to Loch for the quilt hanging, a few weekends back.

I have been on the lookout for a feature fabric for boys presents, so I bought a whole metre of it.  I rarely buy that much of anything.  I wish I knew more about this fabric, it looks Japanese, but there is no information on the selvage, and I could not find it online in my rudimentary search for “robot fabric”.

Speaking of boys………………….

I never thought I would be a party to this.  Not only did I allow it – I cut it!

This was for a “silly hair day” at school, and we cut the mohawk on the condition that it was temporary.  Funny part is that we had the date for the “silly hair day” wrong – it’s next month!  Rory is going to keep it until Friday, which is school photo day – there is no way he is having it in his school photo.  He wants to keep it until he can show his mate Hayden, who is away in Queensland.

I am sitting here bubbling with excitement, listening to Ben Lee sing “Catch My Disease” and today my disease is pure fabric-love.  I have finished putting together the string quilt top, “New House Quilt” that I started at the quilt retreat back in August, when we had just signed the paperwork on our new house.  I am extremely happy with how it looks.

I was trying to capture the full width of it, and so I laid it on the lounge room floor.  Sadly the light is a little grey today, so it is a pretty ordinary photo, but it did make me stop and think – what an awesome rug this would make!

I changed the planned format a little, it is 10 blocks by 6 blocks, (instead of the planned 8 x 8 ) because I am going to hang it on this wall.

Early this morning (7:30am – which is early, because it is still the school holidays) there was a ring on the door bell.  It was delivery of a lovely box of fabric happiness, which was ordered weeks ago from the States.

Initially I was just going to order these Kona Cotton packs, ( 44  x 2 1/2″ strips in the Dusty colour-way, and 21 fat quarters in the Greener Pastures colour-way) but then I found some more delights to tempt me – it was all 35% off.

Some Kaffe – Roman Glass in Leafy, Pastel, Gold and Jewel (actually my first purchase of Kaffe fabric).

and finally, some beautiful “Wildwood”by Erin McMorris – Sophie’s Garden in orange, Forest in lime, Pressed Leaves in fuchsia and Forest in green.  Don’t they all look wonderful together.

Looking at them I realised that the Wildwood and my previously purchased Far Far Away and Meadowsweet were going to play really nicely together (they look more harmonious in better light – it is very overcast today).

I think I have bought enough fabric to last me all year.  What prompted it all was Elizabeth of Oh Fransson!’s “Paintbox Quilt Along” ( for which I bought the Kona Cotton Roll Up) which I plan to get to eventually – go and check it out, it looks fantastic.

So, have you caught my fabric-love “disease”?

So here is the next canvas, that you only had a peek of at the end of the last post.

This is a present that was gifted last night.  It was actually the last of all the Christmas gatherings I have been to – almost a whole month after the event!  The group of ladies from North of The Yarra Quilters Guild, who I sit with, do an annual Kris Kringle gift swap, and this was the earliest that we could assemble to do a big exchange.

This “Welcome” canvas was for Christine, who has a new blog called MacDonalds Patch (I must update my blog-roll over there).  I was really pleased with the fabric I used, as Christine is a lover of all things country and romantic, and has a home decorated in maroons and greens.  I thought this was perfect.  I believe the fabric is from a French General (Moda) range, but the fat quarter I bought did not have the selvage with information on it.  Unlike the “Eight” – I got the fabric stretched nice and taut on this canvas, using slightly damp fabric as described in the last post.

This is a little more sewing I have been doing to set up my studio/sewing room.  I had this old, very narrow, fold-up table, to sit my computer on.

As it sits close to the lounge room end of the room (in other words the part of the room that is for other members of the family as well) I wanted to make it look a little nicer.  3 metres of homespun from Lincraft later, and I have a lovely skirt/tablecloth for the table, to hide the horror of this view from the casual observer…

This just happens to be the same fabric that I used in the centre of my string blocks, and co-ordinates nicely with the cutting table and the little desk draws on wheels that Luke and I painted black and pale green way back before the millennium.

Speaking of the Millennium, I have read through the first two of the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and am waiting for my Mum to finish “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest”  The books are very hard to put down, and I had to discipline myself to get some sleep.  It is just as well I don’t have the next one yet.  What are you reading – anything gripping?

Since we moved into our new home at the end of October, we have already received a couple of packages that were intended for the neighbours on either side of us.  Each of the three houses (including ours) had inconspicuous house numbers that were small or hard to spot.

I have finally found the time to whip up an Eight!  I made our Eight to hang on the front of the house, on a wide piece of wall between two windows.  It would not have looked right with a portrait shaped canvas, but neither would the number 8 all on it’s lonesome on a landscape canvas – hence the Eight spelled out with letters.

I happened to have this floral canvas hanging around that I had used to decorate the mantle in the old house while we were selling.  I just love this fabric, and I thought it went rather nicely with the bricks.  The first step was to prime the fabric with ModPodge (or other Acrylic Medium/Varnish).

I found a font I liked, (I thought it went well with the floral) printed it onto ordinary paper, and cut a template.  Then it was just a matter of tracing the outline, and getting painting, with a good brush and a steady hand.  I used more of the paint I had left over from painting my new cutting table – a very, very dark blue.

I knew there would be a contrast problem if i just painted on the letters, so I painted out the surround, just like I did for the old house number.

If you would like to try this yourself, have a look here*.  I followed the method called “Fabric Silhouette Painting” that Anna Maria Horner demonstrated on Martha Stewart’s show at some stage – a link I found on Anna Maria’s blog.

My only contribution to this method is a couple of hints.

I have found that giving the fabric a very light spritz with water prior to stapling, allows you to get it nice and taut over the canvas, to avoid wrinkling once you varnish it.  I didn’t quite achieve a snug enough fit with this one, as I had attached the fabric quite a while ago with no intention of varnishing it at a later stage.

The other hint is about cutting out words (or numbers).  Some letters, like o’s, have a space in the middle that ends up getting cut out, even though you want it there for the stencil.  Others letters you might choose to cut have thin delicate areas that might shift as you trace through the stencil.  I make little sticky-tape bridges to hold these areas in place.  I just cut very thin pieces of tape and apply them on both the front and the back to hold things in place.   In the case of a centre of an O, I cut around half, make a s-t bridge on that side, and then cut out the other and repeat.

Once your stencil is in placed on the canvas, you can still see through the cut out area for positioning.  Trace the whole area that you can, remove the stencil and join up the lines where the little bridges prevented you from tracing.  You can put the stencil back on to check that you joined it up in the right places.

So that’s how I made my house number, and while I have remained coy about exactly where we live, now you know it is at number 8.

Do you have an interesting house number?

* This link opens on Martha Stewart’s website, with a video tutorial of the “Fabric Silhouette Painting”, but if you click the video closed, there are written step by step instructions behind it.

I made these 6 blocks today for my New House Quilt that I started back in August.  It is amazing how much sewing you can get done if everyone stays home.  There has been more Monopoly, some Marbles, Mastermind, Cluedo, and collaborative story writing/illustrating going on.  There has also been tears and someone has been sent to their room more than once.

Christmas time + Daylight savings always = tired kids, in this house.

These blocks just make me so happy.  There will be 64 blocks in the quilt which will finish at 80″ x 80″.  I only have 10 more blocks to make.  I hope to finish it before our New Years Eve party.  I would love the label to say August – December 2009.

Are you racing to finish anything this year?

Here are the ornaments that celebrate my peg matching habits.  I separated the mini-pegs into colours, but if you look closely, each bauble also contains a singular gold peg.  A bit of contrast never goes astray.

As I type, there is a mammoth game of Monopoly continuing, and some wonderful Christmas Carols playing.  They are very groovy Christmas Carols from New Orleans, the Album is called , “Crescent City Christmas, by Lars Edegran and His Santa Claus Revelers” we break this out every year and it is the best Christmas Album around – so there.

In case you think I am the only creative one in the family, I thought I would share some of Luke’s recent creativity.

When the kids and I took a break in the Monopoly proceedings yesterday, we were all greeted with a plate that looked like this.  The kids really liked the boogers coming out of the carrot noses, while I was just repulsed by the idea.

This was the creative way Luke dressed Michaela this morning – I think she looks like a rainbow had a party in her chest of drawers, but she is very happy indeed, and insisted I take a photo.  Perhaps I can convince her to put on plain skirt, to tone it down before we appear in public.

What great Christmas Albums are you listening too?

These are not quite as clever as some others I have seen on the web, (featuring mini knitting and made up as tiny terrariums) but I had lots of fun filling these glass baubles with some buttons, and some tiny felt offcuts, which I have been collecting all year.  I have 4 more left, and I am thinking at that they will contain tiny pegs.

I think I will string these together, to hang as non-seasonal ornaments, so that I can enjoy them all year round.

There has been quite a bit of last minute crafting going on, which means no time to take photos before gifting.  This kind of means the gifts don’t exist, blog wise.  I thought I would show you other versions I have made of the same things.

This is “Thank-you Flower, which I designed in February 2008.  I made these for the three carers at Occasional Care, in three different colour-ways.  The spots you see are all french knots.

I also made a version of one of these (which I first designed in 2004) for the Kinder assistant – I have made her a different one every year, which together make up a set.  This year’s one was gold, and said “Family” on it.  Others have been “Love”, “Peace”, “Hope” and the “Joy” one you see here.

The officially started the long summer school holidays yesterday, so we are going to have lots of time at home.  Thankfully it is not too hot yet, so we are really enjoying relaxing in the garden around our new house.  This little fellow (or gal) has been hanging out a lot in our yard too – a juvenile kookaburra.  He/She is often in the tree outside Rory’s window (where I took this photo) waiting patiently for his family to feed him/her.

I think if we ever named our house, it would have to be called “Kookaburra Hollow”.  Does anyone out there live in a house with a name?

Michaela and I are off to a little party today, for her friend from Kinder, Sienna.  Here is the little bag I made yesterday, with some direction from Michaela, (you have to use some of the hedgehog fabric Mum) to give to the birthday girl.  That is Michaela’s hand, holding it, to give you some idea of scale.

I dipped into my box of cut strips, that I have been using for my string quilt.  The best thing was that I was able to use the “strings” that are to short for the blocks, by sewing them together.  I really like the random patchwork effect – I was able to get in lots of my favorite fabrics, and I like the fact that it was thrifty as well (who doesn’t like a thrifty present at this time of year).

Gotta go – off to enjoy some fairy bread!

I spent about 2 hours  today colouring in.  Such a calm thing to do as we race towards Christmas like a meteor rushing towards earth, gaining momentum (being sucked into the gravity of the big day).  Christmas time also means the end of the school year here in Australia, and I was colouring in the presents for the kid’s teachers.

This was actually meant to be a little framed stitchery of children’s faces thanking the teacher.  I designed it a little while ago but have not left myself enough time to stitch it up, so instead it became a framed coloured picture on cloth (calico or seeded homespun, I’m not sure which).

Months ago I drew up a few pages of little faces in my sketchbook.  I scanned my favorites and drew their line work again in Illustrator, so that I could make them all the same relative size.  Just this past week I drew Amelia and Rory to join them, as this is their thank-you to their teachers.

Those familiar with my kids might be able to pick them out, I think I have captured a fair likeness (Amelia is the one wearing the headband – she wears one to school every day, and Rory is  at the bottom right).  I hope the teachers like them, if not they can use the frames for something else .  Now I just have to whip up something for the Kinder Teachers and the Occasional Care Carers (5 more presents).  What is your family giving to the teachers?