A Christmas Gift

I made my sister a pillow cover for Christmas.    A variety of fabrics from Liberty, Allison Glass and Joel Dewberry made for a vibrant centre piece which was constructed with the the mandolin block EPP  pattern from Tales of Cloth.

This was hand appliqued on to a soft grey shot cotton, quilted and then a finished with cobalt fringing echoing the deep blue in the centre hexagon and the edging strip on the envelope enclosure on the reverse.

She was quite delighted with it, and it will live on her special reading chair in her bedroom.

Sewing and Gardening

In between moving piles of mulch around the garden, I have managed to get a little bit of sewing done. 

Firstly this pin cushion constructed from one of the wrongly sized blocks I made for my solstice dream quilt.  The finishing touch was the beautiful rainbow fringing.  This was gifted to a fellow sewist at work for her birthday.

I have also joined the #summerofbasics2019 sewing challenge.  This is where we list three garments we intend to make over the summer months.    I have started November's one, which will be another Eva dress in this beautiful maple coloured linen.  Just the skirt and pockets to sew , top stitch and hem before attaching to the finished bodice.  This will be the third version of this dress, which is one of my favourite things to wear over the hot summer months.

A few before and after photos of my garden all freshly mulched and  most excitingly, the first of my dahlias are flowering.  The top one with dark leaves is Dracula and the bottom one is an anemone type called Purpinca.

Wish you all a wonderful weekend ahead.

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

During the weekend, my cousin had her first child - a little girl,  so finally I can reveal the secret sewing my sister and I have been doing.

Earlier this year when we found out she was pregnant, my sister @janinemehrtens suggested that we make her a wall hanging for the baby's room.  I agreed to the plan as long as I was told what I was doing.

So my sister who lives in Australia designed our pattern,  to the theme of the children's classic picture book - A Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  She made half the blocks, including the fabulous caterpillar, fruit (check out the detailing on those strawberries and oranges) and cherry pie and then sent them to me with background felt  ( which is a very pale blue, so I could make mine, and backing fabric and binding to finish it off.

Thankfully they were very quick and easy blocks to do.  After assembling them and stressing somewhat over quilting felt, I opted for a very narrow quilting line somewhat close to the seams,
It was backed and bound in a coordinating print from from Andover Fabrics Hungry Caterpillar collection.

It has now been posted off to my cousin, along with a piece of dowling cut to fit, so it was ready to hang and a copy of the book for many future story times.

Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share

Lacey at the Circus, one of my Mother in law's award winning dolls

Another project knocked off my to do list.

My MIL (a porcelain doll maker) asked me to make an ironing caddy/portable ironing mat for another doll making friend of hers.  I had made my MIL one a few years ago, that she takes to  doll classes/conventions/competitions with a mini iron in it.  Of course I said yes.  She purchased the fabric and notions required and then posted them to me.  I duly procrastinated on starting it.  It is hard to sew for other people when the fabrics aren't what you would pick yourself

Last week I finally started working on it, a little bit here and there. The part that took the longest was actually marking out all the measurements for stitching.  I used a white colour pencil for this, all my other fabric markers didn't show up on the heat resistant fabric.  Over the weekend just gone, I finished the machine sewing and then was able to work on the binding and buttons in the evenings.

I haven't included a photo of the caddy unfolded,  it was very hard to photograph silvery fabric and get a decent photo.

My "must makes" for other people are done, so now I can get back to my never ending wip list.

Now, it's YOUR turn to share, by linking up your sewing and stitching projects, whether they are starts, wips, or finishes, following these guidelines.

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching,
2. Somewhere in your post, please link to this post.
3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew,Stitch, Snap, Share links - it's fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and keep blogging too.

Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE

Woo hoo, I have a finished bag.  The Open Wide Bag, I was making my sister is completed.
This was the first time I had used soft and stable,  I really like how the bag holds it's shape. I made the large bag which is approximately 9" x 12" x 6", and omitted the front contrasting fabric panel, because I didn't want to lose any of that beautiful Kaffe print.  I may make another one in the medium size for me, and would increase the binding width to 2.25" for the binding around the zipper, which I think would fit slightly better.

Overall, I am really pleased with how it has turned out. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed making bags (even if they do cause a little bit of bad language to be muttered).  I think my sister was planning to use it for crochet projects, and it looks as though it will hold quite a lot.  Now to package it up and post it off to Australia with some treats for her.

Now, it's YOUR turn to share, by linking up your sewing and stitching projects, following these guidelines.

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching,
2. Somewhere in your post, please link to this post.
3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew,Stitch, Snap, Share links - it's fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and keep blogging too.

Thanks for joining us.

Julie and Linda

Hexis and Pom-poms

Sometime last year my sister sent me a couple of hundred 2.5" squares of scrap Amy Butler fabrics, leftover from quilts she had made.  As soon as I saw these fabrics, I knew  I wanted to make her a pillow similar to my AMH hexi pillow for her birthday.  Now that it is finally her birthday, and she has opened her gift,  I can show it off.

 Lots of lovely jewel toned 1" hexis were stitched together and bordered with a white solid.  I love how this framed them and really let the colours glow.  I drew overlapping circles over the whole pillow top.  The hexis have been quilted in a variegated reddish/orange Sue Spargo thread and the white in a matching perle 8.

I had intended to use an Amy Butler fabric for the binding, however while trawling the aisles of Spotlight one day, I came across this orange pom-pom trim and thought it would be perfect to highlight the quilting and add a little whimsical fun and POP (she has an aqua blue chair in her sewing room, that I envisage this pillow living on.) to her pillow.

This was rather challenging to attach, I hand basted it on first, and curved the corners of the pillow, so the pom-poms didn't all bunch up.  My walking foot still didn't like sewing this much, after one broken needle, I swapped over to a denim needle. The back is a basic envelope enclosure in an Amy Butler fabric too.

I love how this has turned out, and think it plays very nicely with my AMH pillow, so there may be another one in my future one day.  I  have, however, decided that only very special people will be worthy of pom-poms.

Mum's Quilt - The Big Reveal

Remember that secret sewing I told you about in March.  Well I can finally reveal what it was turned into.  Over the weekend Mum celebrated her 70th birthday, and the double sided quilt my sister and I were making was finally gifted to her at a surprise birthday party we held at my house.

My side of the quilt was inspired by this quilt. I sought out the pattern and found it was the Morocco Quilt, from LIVELOVESEW,

Needless to say the pattern was purchased, downloaded and fabric was cut that afternoon for the first block.  On the whole it was an easy if some what time consuming block to make.    I had a few issues with blocks not ending up the correct size (how does that happen, when everything is cut and sewn the same), but I was able to work with that.  Part way through the creative process, I decided it was looking a little to dark and heavy, so I made three blocks up using some green Kate Spain fabric as the inner star,  I love how these have lifted the quilt and highlighted some beautiful fussy cut flowers.
I added an extra 5 blocks to the original pattern and ended up with a top almost 70" square.

My sister had a little trouble deciding on patterns and colours for her side, (three different patterns were started) but in then end went with Anna Maria Horner's feathers. which she made at 83% and used a soft dusky pink as the background for them. She used a combination of Kaffe Fassett, Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner fabrics for her feathers.  She is very much a bright and scrappy quilter, so these really reflect her.

Funnily enough, Mum was the courier for taking my quilt top over to Brisbane, so my sister could get it quilted.  We decided that an all over design would be best, not really highlighting either side. Quilting was done by Chris from Sewco.  The binding was made from the original fabric that Mum picked.

So the big day has now been and gone, the quilt was given to Mum, tears almost flowed, bubbly and birthday cake were consumed, lots of photos were taken, and now the birthday quilt is at it's new home.