Weekending

The birthday girl - Rachel

Show and tell

Deb busy finishing the other Rachael's belated birthday gift.

Those margaritas were everywhere.

My sewing girls and I had our bi-monthly get together on Sunday.  This time Rachel (Woodenspoon Quilts) was the birthday girl.  After the present opening session in the designated birthday chair, we did our usual show and tell of swaps received, new quilty books and projects to ooh and aah over, and of course a beautiful potluck lunch.  New margaritas - this time plum sorbet flavour (made by Gwen ,  a new member in our group) were a big hit,

The gifts I made Rachel were: a Liberty pincushion, a Liberty covered wooden spoon to hang in her sewing area and a Denyse Schmidt and linen zippy Pouch.  I used a new tutorial for the pouch from Tessa at The Sewing Chick.  This pouch has tabs at each end of the zip and covered seams, so there was no need to turn it inside out,, which made it nice and easy.  It has a lovely flat base too, so stands up nicely.  Tessa's tutorial has great photos and clear instructions, so I will definitely use it again.

Now I am at home recovering from a full day of fun, good food, a little sewing and lots of laughter with friends.

Scenes from my Week

From the sewing room

•  raspberry kiss blocks for my scrappy sampler quilt, made using my friend Rachel's tutorial

From the letterbox

• my fabulous Mr Fox pillow I received from Kirsten in the X Factor Pillow swap. Details about the pillow and fabrics on her blog.  Round 11's theme is HST (half square triangles).

From the EPP box

• the first of my cart wheel blocks is done - now it's decision time for the next row

From the book pile

• Shotgun Love Songs by Nickolas Butler.  I enjoyed this book set in small town America, however I see it has had mixed reviews on Good Reads. 

From the back yard

• I have a Tui that visits my back yard regularly and serenades me. Also known as the parson bird they have two voice boxes which means they have an incredible range of sounds they can produce. I am hoping The Scout will make me a bird feeder to put in the trees for the Tui's and waxeyes that visit my garden.

Scrappy Sampler Quilt Progress

Today I made a temporary design wall, so I could see all the blocks of my scrappy sampler quilt together.

The mini dresden/solid block really dominates the blocks so far, but it will be cut  to a smaller size when I start assembling the quilt top, it has just been  left larger because of the amount of fraying that happens with the shot cottons.

I think I need to find some  fabrics in my stash that bridge the warm/cool spectrum for a few more blocks, then it will be onto the low volumes for filler blocks.  Luckily some new ones arrived in the post a week or so ago.

Overall I like what has been made so far, and am having fun trying new blocks and techniques, and fabric combinations.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party Pillow

After watching on the sidelines for a couple of years, this year I plucked up the courage and joined the X Factor Pillow Swap group on Flickr.  This swap differs from others in that we are given a theme each round to sew to.  Previous themes have included Drunkards Path, hexagons and Low Volume. This rounds theme was Liberty Fabrics.  We are not allocated a partner, and are able to sew whatever style of pillow we want, as long as it fits the theme requirements.

Once we have finished we send a photo and details of our pillow to the group administrator, who then posts it on Flickr.  This way no one knows who has made what.  At the end of the round we all vote for our favourites, the person with the most votes for their pillow, gets to have their first choice and so on down the list of participants.

I decided to use all my Alice in Wonderland/Tea Party prints.  I had an idea of making a Mad Hatter's Tea Party themed pillow. Luckily I was able to find free tea cup and saucer paper pieced patterns here.  I sewed them all with a contrasting solid scrappy strip on the saucers and used Kona white as the background.  I wanted it to look like pretty china tea cups on a crisp a white table cloth.  Simple cross hatch quilting in the white fabric only completed the front.  The back is a plain natural coloured linen with a hidden zipper and binding is a simple floral from Dear Stella - Flirt collection.  Pillow size 20" square.

 This has now been sent off to it's recipient, and I can't wait to see what pillow I end up with. and what the next round will be.

Weekending

• Twiggy branches have been found for my sewing room and butterflies have been attached, and some  for a vase in the house
• I made start on my EPP Cart Wheel - and changed my mind on the previous post's colour musings
• some days all the good books arrive at once - perfect for perusing in front of the fire
• another little block finished for my sampler quilt

Hoping you all had a relaxing weekend too.