Matching Pegs

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”?

Our family is having a very quiet Australia day, but I thought I would mark the occasion by sharing these photos of some regular visitors, these Rainbow Lorikeets, a favourite Australian bird.  Surprisingly they have been coming to plunder a conifer out the front which I think is “Thuja orientalis”.  They have been eating the small berry-looking-things that I think are actually female cones.  It surprises me because the plant is certainly not native, (as the birds are) but the birds clearly love it – as they are very thorough, and return regularly.

These two systematically made their way around half the plant – occasionally one would disappear into the interior, and it would look like there was only one bird there.

These birds remind me that we are very lucky to have a house and garden in one of the leafier suburbs of Melbourne, and lucky to live here in Australia.

Have you had any interesting visitors this Australia Day?

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.

Once I saw it on sale I just had to get some of the beautiful “Far Far Away fabric” by the ultra talented Heather Ross.

She had me at Unicorn.

I bought half meters from online stores Earthgirl Fabrics ($9.95 AUD per half metre) and Modern Retro Textiles ($12.60 AUD per half metre) which both have free shipping here in Australia.

I bought some of the “frog prince”, “Snails”, “Wildflower” in Magenta and Gold, “Princess and the Pea” and “Unicorns in Blush and Magenta.

I bought 3 Sandi Henderson fabrics from her new line “Meadow sweet” to co-ordinate (also from Modern Retro Textiles at $11 AUD per half metre).

Eventually this will become a quilt, but I am not exactly sure what form it will take, of when I will get to it.

In the meantime I have to get back to work.  We are hosting a belated Christmas BBQ tomorrow for 27 – almost all of Luke’s family are going to come, and it is the first time we are hosting “the Christmas-do”.  That’s why there are still Christmas decorations up in our house (see the first photo).  Have a lovely weekend.  Oh, and perhaps you can tell me what you have bought that you couldn’t resist…

Amelia received these wooden words from Father Christmas, and yesterday she finished painting them.  She was so pleased with how they turned out and I know they will look great on the aqua walls of her bedroom.  We had quite a bit of fun taking this picture – that’s Rory holding onto the dream (he he he, pun intended).

Rory was busy with some decorating of his own.

This is his capital R, that he painted, then covered in monsters.

He took ages selecting just the right stickers – I am glad he didn’t end up choosing the skulls.

Michaela had a ball painting her capital M.  Just like her hair, her M is covered in every decoration possible.  She is not at an age for restraint, when it comes to all things glittery and pretty.

This was a great project for the school holidays.  The kids now have something each (that they have made) to decorate their new bedrooms.  It was easy enough that even the youngest could participate (because we chose to use stickers) but had enough challenge for the eldest (who painted her own patterns).  All I had to do was wait for ages as stickers were chosen, do up the smocks and mix up the desired colours of paint.

I had the privilege of being a pattern tester for one of Nikki’s new patterns last week, which is soon to be released.  This is her lovely, little girls Tulip dress (in sizes 2 to 8 ) modeled by Michaela.  Nikki’s pattern was very detailed, and full of tips and photos, which I really needed, as a garment-sewing beginner.  I made the sleeveless version of the dress, but the pattern also has sleeves (that’s a white tee you can see up there).  Below is a shot of the dress on it’s own.

Michaela was pretty excited by the whole experience.

Here she is hamming it up for the camera when I tried the bodice on her, as I was making it.

I have some fabric to make another for Amelia, who has put in her order for one, and I am sure I will be quicker the second time, but not as quick as the girls would like – as soon as they see the fabric, they want it whipped up in a snap.

Make sure you keep an eye on Nikki’s blog, or her online shop, Nicole Mallalieu Design, where this pattern will soon be released.  While you are there, browse through the vast array of hat and bag patterns and related hardware.  If you sew at all, you are sure to find something you like.

You can see two other versions of the dress over at Lara’s blog.

Way back in August, I went on our guild’s sewing retreat for the weekend.  We were given lots of little freebies, including a tiny little pattern for foundation piecing this tulip, and the bits to turn it into a badge.  Some guild members sewed them up and started wearing them straight away, indeed several of them were made using some of my little scraps.

Unpacking from the move, I rediscovered the pattern.  As I had never tried this kind of foundation piecing (only the string quilt kind for my New House Quilt) I thought I would give it a go.  I thought it was kind of sweet.

Theoretically, it is 2.5″ square, but as you can see, mine is not very square, and the binding (and everything else) is very sloppy.  Regardless, it was fun trying a new skill – I can see while some people are drawn to the accuracy of foundation piecing.

Have you tried your hand at a new skill lately?

Last night we welcomed in the New Year, at our place, with our dearest friends who always gather at our place for NYE.  It felt festive, relaxed and went a long way towards building me up again after our difficult Christmas.

The light show was all supplied by nature – we had quite a thunderstorm, and received a decent amount of rain, which here in Melbourne is always good.

We have had a very quiet time at home in the last week, and one project I accomplished was to put some of my fabric up on the shelves in my sewing studio.  I still have a couple of small crates of fabrics, which are designated for specific projects, but I have emptied the largest crate onto the shelves, which was general stash.  Because applique is what I am mostly into, I keep even very small pieces of fabric, and while I have a fair breadth of fabrics, my stash isn’t really that large.

Needless to say, I took great delight in lovingly sorting my fabric into colour stacks and lining them up on my shelves.  You can also see my supply of “little stuff” – mini pegs and tiny buttons, (lots of tiny stars, dragonflies, bees, ladybirds and tiny button-shaped buttons).

I didn’t quite make my target of getting my new house quilt top finished before the close of 2009.  I have finished all the blocks and after arranging them all and labeling the block placement, I have started joining them.  2 columns joined – 8 more to go.

Luke gave me a fantastic present for Christmas – this fantastic book.  I am itching to start experimenting.  It is full  of tutorials on using Illustrator and Photoshop to create textile designs – so this is fair warning of what might grace the pages of this blog before long.

The other fantastic present we got each other was a dishwasher – the gift that keeps on giving, every. single. night.  It made cleaning up after dinner for 15 people last night easy peasey.

I am deeply grateful for all your messages of support after my last post.  I have not felt quite up to replying to them, but please don’t take it personally – I really appreciated that my family was in your thoughts.

Spending quiet time with my family has been the balm I needed to get me through the past week, and I did not feel up to being on the computer.  Things are not a lot better, but Christmas is behind us, so that helps.  It felt really good to type in 2010 – that’s my optimism coming back – I’ve read that we have just entered the ONEder years – I kind of like that description of the decade to come, I wonder if it will stick.

So, what are you looking forward to doing in 2010, or what have you heard the next decade being called?

There are so many things I love about Christmas time (carols and ice-cream-plum-pudding especially) but it is also a very difficult time of year for many people.

I am one of those people this year.

My family (of origin) are all a little fragile and heart sick.  My twin brother has been ill since the beginning of June, and spent the bulk of these months in the psych hospital.  Over this time he has been discharged several times, each time too early, and has ended up back there again – usually after going missing because he is confused and ill.  Late last night he was readmitted to hospital, after another period where we were wondering where he was and if he was safe.  He is very, very sick.  We have all lost our faith in the system’s ability to get him well.

His continuing illness is all down to hospital mismanagement, as we know that he can be well on the right level of medication.  If the hospital hold him long enough to get him to the right level, he willingly continues to take his medication and look after himself.  He does not have the skills to do so when they release him early.  We have been extremely lucky that he has not lost his life during one of the periods where he has been missing.  He is confused enough to walk in front of traffic, and in yesterday’s heat (39 degrees C – 102 degrees F) dehydration could have taken him.

I will pull myself together tomorrow, and enjoy my children, enjoying Christmas day, but it will not be the same.  There will be someone missing from our Christmas table, who has missed all the family events in the last half a year.

2010 is going to be a fabulous year, mostly because it will not be 2009.  I am looking forward to new creative challenges – I have plans!  I am generally an optimistic person, and I will regain my optimism.  There are lots of things I am really thankful for, and things are going really well in our nuclear family – it is just hard to enjoy them as much when someone you love is suffering.

So, with the knowledge that Christmas is a very hard time in many families, and the festivity can feel like salt in raw wounds, I wish you peace for Christmas.