Matching Pegs

Over the last few days I have completed a quilt top, and co-ordinated backing for a very special person, my twin-brother’s partner, Liz.  Liz had a milestone birthday, earlier in the year, and although this is much belated, this quilt is to mark that milestone.  Actually, it is much more than that.  This quilt is to show her how much I love her, and value her place in our family.

The photos of the quilt top and backing were taken in pretty dodgy light, and so are not true representations, but they are the best I can achieve in the middle of winter.  The predominant colours of the quilt are ruby, coral and chocolate, with the addition on the back of some dusty blue.  Both ruby red, and dusty blue are colours I associate with Liz.

Quilt Particulars – The quilt is another “Disappearing-Nine-Patch” made with 108 x 8 1/2″ squares.  The finished quilt top is approximately 94″ x 71″.

It is a pretty big quilt, but I am going to attempt to quilt it myself, and have purchased some Ruby Red thread to do so.  Now I just have to baste it!  Are you wrangling any large quilts at the moment, or are some hiding in your cupboard because they are so large?

I have had this idea for years and years, to put quirky versions of the toilet-door-people on our toilet door.  I have just never gotten around to it.  A year or two ago I first saw mention of using starch as a temporary (and completely removable) glue, and thought that might be the best way to do it.

I finally had a go at it last week.

Sadly, this qualifies as one of my failures.

The people looked great as they were drying, but once they were dry, they started to peel off the door.  I think the problem is that the door is very glossy – I think it would probably work really well on a section of wall, where there would be more grip.

I will have to find another way to get these guys on my door.  Have you ever tried sticking anything to your wall with starch?

Have you heard about Project Selvage yet?  It has got me very excited.

Spoonflower and Michael Miller Fabrics have joined together to hold a competition to become Michael Millers next designer with their own fabric range.  To enter you need to design a fabric suitable for a baby boy.  I have spent all week working on my design, which you can see a tiny part of up there.

The very first thing I did was come up with a palette of colours that felt comfortable and promising.  Next I started thinking about nocturnal creatures and the night sky (after deciding that I was not feeling inspired by monsters – sorry facebook friends).  I did quite a bit of work with moths, which looked great, but not baby-boyish.  Finally I hit on an idea I liked – a nocturnal critter that is really working with the colours and the baby-boy theme.  I spent several days fiddling with the repeat, tweaking the colours of each element and adjusting the line thicknesses, and now I think I am happy.  Hopefully I will get chosen to be one of the semifinalists and then I can tell you where to vote!

This critter is not nocturnal, and has been in a bit of trouble lately.

Here she is looking wet and bedraggled after she escaped and joined us, unexpectedly, on our walk to school the other morning.  Clearly, she felt that we should not go for any walks without her.  I only left her home because she is not allowed on school grounds, and I knew I needed to go in and chat to the teacher that morning.  Lotta and I have been having plenty of walks during school hours, because I have been trying to get more exercise, so it was not like she was missing out on all the action.

While we were walking (very fast) on another day, we startled a brown snake on the path, who in turn startled both of us.  Luckily it was in a hurry to leave, (they are very venomous) but I had horrible visions all the way home, of what it would be like if Lotta had been bitten – I don’t think a tiny dog like her would survive the experience, even if I got her straight to the vet for anti-venom.

It is just as well that she is strong enough to withstand bees though – she was stung yesterday on the paw, and was quite miserable for about an hour.  She has been snapping at bees near a particular bush for months, I am only surprised that it has taken this long for her to reap the consequences.   I am hoping she has learned her lesson – I hate seeing her miserable and in pain.

Anyway, I will show you more of my nocturnal fabric critters when the competition entries close, and the top 75 semifinalists are anounced for voting, at the end of March.  Cross your fingers for me please .

I have a new long term goal.  You noticed I said long term didn’t you?  As in, I have made a purchase, but I am not quite sure when the next steps will happen.

Michaela has a lovely bedroom, most of which is painted a soft lavender.  Sadly, not all of it is.

One wall is painted this intense purple, which is hard to photograph, but is the colour of Singapore Orchids, when you are standing in front of it.  It probably suited the grown up daughter who used to live in the bedroom, but it is a little much for a 5 year old, even with the butterflies stuck on it.

That is where the swatches come in.  When we get around to repainting the orchid wall, I would like to repaint the whole room with a colour that is similar to what is on the other walls, but a tad clearer (the current colour has quite a bit of grey in it).

Before all that happens, I am hoping to make curtains, to replace the horrible vertical blinds that currently hang on the windows.  They don’t block out all the light, and they rattle noisily when the evaporative cooling is on.

The floral fabric is a piece that I recently found that fits in perfectly with the current pale lavender, and with the potential new colours.  It is only dress weight cotton, but I have bought 10m of it, and 10m of block-out lining, gathering tape, lining tape, and curtain tracks.  This means that once the tracks are up, and I have exact measurements for the drop, I am good to sew.

Yesterday I finished quilting the swirls in the border of the baby quilt that Mum and I are making.  Now it is going back to Mum, who is going to bind it, before posting it off to the USA.  This is what the swirls look like on the batting.

Mum is very nervous about trusting the postal service with this quilt.  Can anyone give me any advice (or anecdotes) on using Australia Post or a courier service to send precious things to the USA?

Lately I have felt like the rolling stone that gathers no moss, always on the move.  Things keeping me busy have included an escape dog, and the resulting fence modifications; travelling right across Melbourne for a replacement Microwave turntable, after I dropped my 2 week old one; doctors visits; parent teacher interviews; and all the other usual stuff that keeps a Mum busy.

The only bit of moss I have been ‘gathering’ has been my Moss Stitch scarf, which I have been knitting in the evenings again, as the summer we never really had, has turned into Autumn.

On the evenings that I have not been knitting, I have been continuing to quilt my Mothers version of the Fairy Tale Star Quilt that I made a while back.  I am on the final border, tracing about half of the swirls, with stitches.

I have also been reminded to share these pictures.  This is the lovely gift I received in the Kris Kringle swap we have amongst our friends from our sewing guild.

Jennifer makes the most esquisite, well executed stitches.  She uses the beautiful Cottage Garden Threads, which you can peruse here.

Her stitched leaves are such a thing of beauty.  Thank you Jennifer, for such a lovely gift, that must have taken you ages.

I seem to have a lot on the go at the moment, lots of pots simmering, but nothing ready cooked.

I am quilting another Fairy Tale Star Quilt, this time made by my Mother.  When I finished the first one, I still had lots of fabric left, so I passed them, and my hastily-scribbled-up pattern on to Mum, who has remade it with a few more fabrics, and an extra border.

Together we are making this for my cousin’s new baby girl in the USA.  I am really happy with the curly-scroll quilting around the edges of the pieced stars.

I have also been making another “Teacher Thank You”, prepping it for stitching.  I know it is a funny time to start one of these, being the very start of the academic year, but this time I am making it up again to write up the pattern.  Each time I have made it, I have tweaked it further, and this time I am writing down all the colours I am using, both for the pencils and for the embroidery floss.  This time I hope to make it with plenty of time to photograph it for a pattern cover!

Monster Chef is another project on the boil.  I have written a first draft of the pattern, and have purchased some more fabrics to make up some more monster friends.  I still have to draw up some diagrams, and I will make copious notes on the draft as I make more of these guys, but I hope to have the pattern ready for some volunteer testers soon.

Speaking of making creatures – check out the fabulous “Elements of Soft Toy Design” over at While She Naps.  Number 13 in the series has blown my mind!

What have you got simmering along?

For the past two months I have been doing quite a lot of quilting.  First it was the Fairy Tale Star Quilt, and then I pulled out the rather large “New House” String Quilt that I started in August 2009, when we bought our house.  I think I pin basted it about a year ago, but have not been confident enough to start quilting it.

The loan of my Mother’s sewing machine has made all the difference to my confidence.  It is a Janome, Memory Craft 6600, which has a lovely large throat and a huge extension table, a home quilters dream.

It has a built in dual feed foot, which is swung up out of the way when it is not in use, (such as when you are quilting with a free motion foot).  Unfortunately, even thought it was “out of the way”, yesterday I managed to catch the dual feed foot on a safety pin, and I have somehow jiggered up the lever that lifts the foot up and down.  There will be no quilting until it has been repaired.

Luckily my Mother loves me.

Ever broken anything you have been borrowing?

Welcome 2011.

Dorothea Mackellar knew what she was writing about when she described Australia as a land of Droughts and Flooding Rains.  After experiencing more than a decade of drought, I never thought I would be hoping that the rain would be finished for a while.

As the world surely knows, Australia is in the grip of a La Nina Weather Pattern, which has lead to huge amounts of rain being dumped right along the east coast of Australia.  Our fellow Aussies in Queensland, far to our North, are living in the most amazing flood zone – I have read several times, that an area bigger than Germany and France combined is underwater.   The death toll stands at 15 so far, but “more than 15,000 residential and commercial properties have been affected by significant flooding”.  Many thousands of people are displaced, and it will be months before many families can move back into their homes.  There have been incredible acts of bravery, like the one that cost this 13 year old his life.  If you want to donate money to the Premier’s Disaster relief appeal (administered by the Queensland Government) you can do so here.

It seems trivial to talk about what I have been making, while all this is going on.  Ironically, I recently finished my first quilt of the year, and posted it to our niece in Brisbane.  Who knows when, (or even if) it will get there.

I will return again another day, with creative news to share.  I hope everyone you love is safe – I am extremely grateful that all of the people we love, are.

I am busy building butterflies, on piece at a time.

I am pleased with this colour combination – I just have to decide what colour to use for the little french knots that adorn the lower wings.

The upper wings spots are appliqued to the upper wings before they are cut out.  Once the spots are attached, they are appliqued, as a complete upper-wing-unit, into place on the block.  This method is called “Off the Block” construction, and I have shown a tutorial for how I do this before here.

Next month I have a pattern being published in Australian Homespun, which features applique using this method, I can’t wait to show you.

There are no butterflies on it, but it might make you hungry……..care to guess what the applique might feature?  Just a hint – there is a peek posted way back in April, here.

Well I have finished my teapot, and I am really pleased with these colours – they make me so happy.  On Friday, I worked a little on this, while I was Multitasking again – this time Michaela and I were doing jigsaw puzzles on my cutting table.

Also making me happy are some recent music acquisitions.  I won a copy of Mark Sholtez’s album “The Distance Between Two Truths” after listening and writing a review online here.  Listening to him makes me feel the same way as I do when I listen to Norah Jones – relaxed and uplifted.

I have also bought “Anchor” by Mindy Gledhill after reading Sandi Henderson’s rave review on her Portabellopixie blog.  Sandi has a Mixpod music gadget on her site, where you can listen to quite a few tracks (from her post, it is clearly something she has permission for).  I listened a few times through, and then purchased the album from itunes.  I love it – So happy and quirky.  Being able to listen to an album sure makes a difference between me purchasing or not.  I am usually more likely to spend spare money on a book than some music, (I rarely buy either) but music does make me so happy.  I always listen when I sew.

These purple butterflies are fused from Michaela’s choice of fabrics, for her party cushion.  I am almost through free motion stitching around all the other cushions, but hers is still to go.  They are the same butterflies that are going to go on the “Tea in the Garden” Applique, but I am yet to chose which colours to make them in (and they will be needle-turned, not fused).

Michaela repeated the purple theme on Saturday with her costume for a Witches and Wizards birthday party she attended.  The emphasis was more on pretty than scary – that’s for sure.  It thrilled her to bits to dress up in the cloak I made for her big sister about 5 years ago.

What’s making you happy at the moment – music, a colour, a book or something else?