WIP Wednesday :: January 2013

I managed to get through an almost entirely handmade-by-me Christmas - bow-ties for all of the dogs at Christmas lunch, luggage tags and zippy pouches, a table runner, some aprons, jewellery travel rolls, boxer shorts, laundry bags and a few more little things not pictured. All in all, it was a success and everyone was super grateful.

January's Stats:

Completed projects

My first quilt of 2013 - a baby quilt for a very special baby who will be born in May (I know, how good am I to be finished early). More photos will follow when it has been gifted.

Bee Blocks

For Jane

For Fiona

Wombat Stew December
Sewing supplies for Kristy @ Quiet Play
(Pattern by Kristy)

Wombat Stew January
Retro Kitchen for Marieka @ Bespoke Bites
(Pattern by Kristy)

Pattern testing block for Kristy - she's going to make these into a quilt for charity. There will be 2 patterns, one for the alphabet in uppercase and one for lowercase.

Currently in progress
And Sew On Block of the Month (1/9 blocks completed)
QCA Bee #1 Polaroids for Fiona (polaroids complete, need to finish block)
Swoon in Denyse Schmidt - 2 more blocks completed in January (4/9 blocks completed)

 

Pile O' Fabric's Skill Builder Block of the Month (2/20 blocks completed)

Tasha Noel Baby Quilt (no progress)

                                                                                                          

Yet to start 
QCA Bee #3 for Emily - Carpenter Star (fabrics pulled)

               

On Hold projects 

Christmas Tree Skirt & Christmas Bunting

Selvedge Quilt

Plus in Tula Pink (quilting)

Bottled Rainbows (3/16 blocks completed)

Daisychains Embroidery Sampler (up to N)

Easy Zig Zag Quilt (fabrics cut)

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced!

 

Sunday Stash #5

I mentioned in my last Sunday Stash that I had done a huge order on Hawthorne Threads to try to improve my stash builders, or helpful fabrics and after feeling guilty, had purged a huge amount of fabrics on a destash page to try to get some $ back! 

After just a week of waiting, a very stuffed flat rate box arrived at my doorstep - hello beauties! 

Some much wanted Saltwater, Architextures and Alegria Triangles

Finally, some Chicopee!

Color Weave, a nice change from Sketch...which I still think I prefer

Very useful Kaufman Ring Toss

Probably my favourites...they need no description

Lucky Penny Bike Path

Couldn't resist a few from Patty Sloniger's Les Amis collection - how cute are those foxes?!

These prints from Patty Young's Textured Basics collection are not what I imagined, they feel really silky and look like they are thick woven cotton, but they aren't. When you are expecting to feel something textured and it's not textured...it does your head in!

A few randoms which I thought would be good for paper piecing (clouds, green, blue), a few sale fabrics, and a couple of low volumes?

I'm linking up with Fiona from Finding Fifth 

Dear Jane - a big Wombat Stew thank you!

Dear Jane,

How lucky I was to get you as a swap partner for our Wombat Stew secret Santa last year. I think I actually teared up when I saw the love and effort you had put in to my gift. I think we are definitely kindred spirits - the fabric choices, the quilting, the hexies, the selvedges, and the teapot card! You got it in one! It was like I had actually chosen everything myself. Thank you for your generosity, your awesome quilting/fabric advice, but most of all, thank you for your friendship. And that goes to the other Wombats too. 

xoxo 

My Secret Santa mini by Jane

(excuse the Washi tape - I'm waiting for hubby to hang it!)

Jane also sent me some lovely scraps, some handmade quilt row markers and some Washi tape!

And while we are on the subject of Wombats - the girls have been super creative whipping up teapot blocks for me this month. 

From top left clockwise: Jane's polkadot teapot and QCA Bee feather block, Kristy's Aviary teapot, Marieka's Bella teapot, Gemma's triangle teapot, Alyce's Kate Spain teapot, Fiona's retro flowers teapot

And Sew On BoM

Don't forget the linky for Quiet Play's And Sew On BoM will close on the 31st of January. There are some great prizes up for grabs and the 'Measure Twice' block will only be free for a few more days.  

I have planned to break into 'do not touch' fabric drawer and have promised myself to use a little piece of precious in every block to make it worthy of a wall hanging for my sewing room. 

My 'Measure Twice' block - a BoM by Quiet Play

Sunday Stash #4

For me, this week has been more about destashing than acquiring! It all started a fortnight ago, I was pulling fabrics from the stash trying to decide which colours to choose for my Pile O' Fabrics BoM. I'm hopeless at choosing fabrics, was getting frustrated and almost decided to throw in the towel and not join in on the BoM. I had a realisation that my stash had far too many 'unhelpful' fabrics, you know, those ones that don't have a dominant colour but are lovely by themselves. I seem to be pulled to them. I then realised that as is was, my stash would be difficult to use, I just don't have enough 'helpful' fabrics to pull from. I took some time out and after reading a great article written by Jane in a Quilter's Companion magazine on stash building, I filled up my shopping cart on Hawthorne Threads with 'helpful' fabrics during my lunch break, shared my login info with Jane for some personal shopper advice (she's great at enabling) which lead to a few more fabrics jumping in the cart, and then I paid. It was then that I had an attack of the guilts. Hubby is out of work and we have been trying to save money, and I had just added to the credit card bill! Before I got home from work I had a plan to make the money back by destashing, and I did....and even better was making back more than I spent. I managed to destash over 30 yards of fabric which were all either 'unhelpful' or I had fallen out of love with. The bad thing is, looking at the remaining stash you can hardly tell anything is missing!

Destashed fabrics with some of the pulled fabrics above

I look forward to sharing my HT fabrics when they arrive but for now, I'll share the little bundle of Japanese scrap goodness that I did acquire. 50 little pieces of Japanese kawaii loveliness from Etsy shop - Kiiss - thank you, I love them! 

I'm linking up with Fiona from Finding Fifth

Sunday Stash #3 :: And I'm hosting...

If you haven't heard of Sunday Stash - it is your weekly chance to stand up and shout 'Hi my name is .... and I am a fabric-holic'. Blog about your latest fabric purchases, op-shop finds, notions, or anything fabric related that you have acquired over the last week (or so). Sunday Stash is usually hosted by fabulous Fiona @ Finding Fifth, but she just so happens to be moving house and is probably lost somewhere among the boxes absolutely exhausted! 

This week I have been pretty good, no major fabric buys because I am waiting for the post-Christmas sales, am under strict orders from hubby not to, have run out of space....

During the week I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Sherbet Pips - Aneela Hoey Jelly Roll on the wonderfully dangerous Australian destash facebook page 'Sew you're destashing' - at only $22, how could I resist?

A trip to spotlight to buy some bias binding and a few Christmas prints to finish my tree skirt resulted in this....

 

Many of you know that I am one of those weird selvedge nuts - the kind that would happily swap fresh new pieces of fabric for those little bits of fabric that most of you throw away. A while ago I made that selvedge bag...which Jane @ Where Jane Creates was sweet enough to put into an article she published in a quilting mag.

I am now busily collecting enough to make a king-size quilt - that will definitely be a never-ending WIP project!

Here is my current collection, plus a pile I picked up yesterday from a lovely lady who I met on facebook who has been collecting them for me (here's hoping she never decides to do a selvedge project herself!) Thanks Cathie! 

Look at the little blossom one - Japanese selvedges are the best!

Add your link below!

 

Sunday Stash #2 :: Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to me! As my mum kindly reminded me this morning, I am now closer to 30 than 20! I woke up to some lovely presents (actually, just what I wanted so I must give good hints). Now, I'm just about to go off to meet some quilty friends - most of us first met in QCA (Quilt Club Australia - a facebook group), the internet is an amazing place! 

First present - a much needed sewing machine trolley to take my Ferrari (Bernina 440 - hubby gave it that nickname because he was so shocked at the price, and I like it because I think she purrs like a Ferrari after a good clean and oil!) to sit and sews! 

I piled her up with my most recent fabric buys from Pink Castle (not actually very recent, I got them all during their moving sale) and a few prints from Spotlight. 

I know this isn't exactly a Sunday stash photo - but it's my birthday so I can get away with it!

And my gorgeous hubby got me a free-standing hammock (just so happens that I made myself a hammock pillow yesterday - it's from an Italian souvenir tea towel and it says 'Go where the wine takes you' - perfect for laying in the hammock)!

 See you all here next Sunday, when I'll be hosting Sunday Stash!

I'm linking up with Fiona from Finding Fifth

TGIFF :: I didn't realise that my Christmas colours are red and gold...

...until we decorated this year. Our tree is red and gold, as is the wreath, and all of our Christmas wrapping!

Our old wreath was looking pretty tacky, so I found some Pinterest-spiration, threaded some baubles onto a wire coathanger, added a bit of tinsel and we've got a new wreath!

 

My TGIFF this week is the Christmas table runner I started a few weeks ago, which is actually on the floor for the photo because the light from the windows cast a horrible shadow on it making it look terrible! I am TGIFFing this because I am so proud that it was started and finished in one season!

Someone exhausted herself under the tree!

Wordless Wednesday...actually posted on Friday because I stuffed the scheduler!

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TGIFF :: the one about my rainbow reverse star quilt

In July, I was queen bee in the Quilt Club Australia bee block group #3. I asked my bees to make Reverse Stars in Rainbow colours from a fantastic tutorial from Diary of a Flutter.Kat. 

It was so exciting to see all of the snippets of fabrics and the degree of 'wonkiness' of the wonky stars as the blocks started to come in. (The perfectionist in me finds it hard to do wonky, so my wonky stars end up looking like they weren't meant to be wonky)! 

I wanted to do SLQ (straight-line quilting) around the stars and didn't like the idea of all that turning of a massive quilt, so I decided to quilt each block separately and then sewed them all together. It left me with a thick seamline at the back but as my backing fabric is canvas, you can't really tell. I put the backing on and just stitched in the ditch along each of the block edges.

I then turned to the girls (and guy) in the QCA group for suggestions on how to bind. Jane made the great suggestion of just binding in plain white (if I was brave enough), so I accepted her dare took on her suggestion and did just that! And backed it in my favourite Ikea Marimekko-inspired print!

I am ridiculously happy with this quilt!