Christmas Sewing - It's a Wrap!

As with every other household in the world, things here have been crazy!!  We've had my 16 year old God-daughter staying with us for three weeks - which meant I had five kids to sort out, children finishing school, organising school for next year.  Christmas parties, birthday parties and work work work.  I'm also struggling dreadfully with a horrid virus called "pityriasis rosea" - otherwise known as "the rash from hell". In between all of that and more, I've managed to get a ridiculous amount of Christmas sewing done.  I didn't actually realise just how much I had done, until I sat down to do this post.  You see, although I haven't been blogging very regularly lately, I HAVE been taking photos of what I've made and waiting until I had time to sit here and document it all!  Now is that time.....  Here are lots of pretty pictures, capturing all the pretty things that have been gifted or are waiting to be gifted!

 

Three lovely little zippered pouches.  The middle one was gifted to my Mum and is Liberty - it proved very interesting to sew.  Anyone with tips and hints on sewing with such fine fabric, feel free to share!  I love the other two pouches also, as I cut up little Cotton + Steel selvedges and added them.

 

I've become obsessed with metal zippers.

 

This yummy cushion cover has been sent to our December birthday gal from the Australian Handmade Birthday Club.  Simple AMH squares working together beautifully with linen and 12wt Aurifil thread.

 

I added a fat quarter of Tula and a little key fob.

 

We had our annual family Christmas party for my father in law's family this past weekend.  We only buy gifts for the kids under 16, and there's only our kids and two others left in that pool now!  So little Bianca received her own little personalised cushion.  She loved it!

 

Teacher's gifts have been received now.  This zippered case is for my daughter's teacher - a 23 year old man in his first year of teaching.  I was very happy with how enthusiastic he was upon opening it!

May have had something to do with the contents....

 

The prep teacher was gifted this yummy cushion.  I asked her what her favourite colour was a few weeks ago - yellow.

 

More 12wt Aurifil.  I freakin love using it for a distinctive finish!

 

After last week's horrible siege in Sydney, my lovely friend Molli took it upon himself to rally the quilting troops and whip up some of his hashtag blocks, which will be made in to some quilts for the victim's families.  These are my contribution.  If you want to know how you can help, head over to mollisparkles.com for all the details.

 

I joined the key fob gang, and whipped up these for little gifts.

 

I caught up on November's QCA Bee Blocks.

 

And put together this personalised cushion for my son's best friend's birthday.

 

And last, but certainly far from least, I participated in the Sweet Pouch Swap - Xmas edition - run by Ros at Sew Delicious.  This is my AMAZE-BALLS package I received from the ever lovely Peta!  I was gobsmacked, and thrilled with what she had sent me.  It was all a little overwhelming really!  The pouch itself it divine.  And when I took it with me to our Melbourne MQG get together, it got a whole lot of attention!!!  

 

In return - I sent off these goodies to Peta.  I forgot to take photos, so Peta very nicely sent these to me!  Peta is a huge fan of Bonnie & Camille, so I took out some of my charm squares and made her a linen and B&C pouch in Christmas colours.  The Christmas tree is really simple to put together - basically three little flying geese and then a trunk on the bottom.

And this is the other side.  Isn't she pretty?

So - that, my friends, is a WRAP!  I do have one gift left to make, but will get to it asap.  You know, given Christmas is two days away......

I hope you all have a super fabulous Christmas Day and enjoy time spent with family, friends and/or doing what you love.  I am looking forward to some time away after Christmas, so am unsure whether I'll be back here blogging before the New Year.  If I'm not, I'll just say Happy New Year now!
xxxx

Weekly Round up #2 - The Heat Wave Edition

As I sit here with leggings on (don't judge me - my top is covering my arse) and revel in the cool breeze, I can look back on the week that was and say "THANK GOD THAT IS OVER!"  You see, us Melbournians (and a few other parts of Oz) suffered through an exhausting week.  Five days in a row over 40 degrees (104+ farenheit) and we were all pretty much ready to crawl in to a rabbit hole and expire.  Thankfully the husband and I took the plunge a few months ago and invested in refrigerated cooling in the house.  We may be broke, but we were cool.  When inside.  On the few occasions I had to venture out, it was hideous.  Absolutely hideous.

Anyway.

I did manage to make a few things, buy a few things and ponder a few things.  For your viewing pleasure....

I ordered my divine Botanics bundle before Christmas.  And I seriously nearly hyperventilated when they arrived this week!  The colours and textures in the prints are just to die for.

Just because I don't have anything else to do, I decided to jump on board the Aurifil Designer of the month challenge.  Pat Sloan is the hostess with the mostest, and has a fabulous Facebook group! I fluffed around for a few hours trying to decide which fabrics to use, and then stumbled across my much loved Terrain scrap bag.  And that was that.  January's block can be found HERE.  It is a fabulous spool block, and I loved putting it together!  It also reaffirmed how much I love Terrain, and sent me in to a tailspin trying to track down more, so that when I've finished the full year of monthly blocks, I can put a quilt together.  I grabbed a bundle from #thegreatfabricdestash on Instagram.  Oh. My. Lord.  Did you all see that fascinating spectacle???  I swear I wasted at least a couple of hours that day cruising through everyone's destash photos, and freaking out at how big some people's stashes really must be?  Anyway, I also managed to find a fabulous store in NSW for us Aussies, who also has Terrain available, and at a very reasonable sale price!  You can find it HERE.

The freaking out continues as I put together all of my little Chloe's school items.  I was uber impressed with her fabric choice for her library bag!  I was gifted this gorgeous butterfly print from my Tokyo Bff.  Chloe was most impressed with my choice of pink Aurifil thread to free motion her name tag!  Win win!

My search for the perfect bee block continued.  My month as Queen is March, and I wanted to be organised.  I kept coming back to the block that was designed by Kate Spain for the Fat Quarter Shop's mystery BOM.  I made the block a few weeks ago, which you can see HERE.  So I took a leap of faith and emailed Kate last week, asking her permission to use the pattern for my bee.  Got a lovely reply, and went forth to experiment!  Now, if you just saw the original block, you would agree they look COMPLETELY different!  My vision for the bee blocks is for each bee member to choose a colour, and make this block in the different tones radiating outwards, from light to dark.  I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I am really really happy with how my aqua/blue block turned out!  I spent some time last night searching online for a version of this pattern that isn't on paper.  If you have seen it on the interwebs, please let me know!  It would be far easier to point my bee to an online version, than scanning the paper pattern or re-writing it in PDF form!

And last BUT definitely not least in my week....... I received my Wombat Stew Secret Santa gift!!!!  Yes, it's a little late, but given that my Santa had an international move to contend with over the holidays, I was very patient.  That doesn't mean that when I saw the package in the post box and saw Gemma's name on it, I didn't run, hands flailing in the air, then ripping the parcel open?  No, not me.  What can I say??  Gemma is one of my closest on line friends, and she has made me the most beautiful sewing machine cover ever made!

Every single part of it is divine.  I spent last night staring at the free motion writing on the sides, writing down the words Gemma had shared.  Some of them I have had to write ? because they've disappeared in to the binding, but like a true sleuth, I shall deciper them!

 

This is the INSIDE!?!?!?  WHA??!?!?!!?  As usual, Gemma has managed to incorporate her beautiful free motion quilting in to the project.  Sigh.

Thank you so much Gemma! I absolutely adore my gift, and I look forward to another fabulous year of being a wombat, and getting quilty with you and the other ladies! xxx 

So that's it my friends! In a nutshell. Another weekly round up, because school holidays are still in force. ONLY TEN MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm off to the beach house (sounds fancy yes?) tomorrow, with the six of us stuffed in to our car, and trailer full of bikes and crap behind us. Five days of relaxing and sitting around. Who am I kidding? Five days of refereeing children at a different location..... I AM looking forward to it! Have a wonderful week, and I will see you all back here next week with another round up! I'm sharing this all over the place, cos I can! You can too!

Merry Christmas!

A very quick Christmas Ever post to say…..

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all a safe and relaxing Christmas Day tomorrow and looking forward to the New Year ahead!

xxx

ps - I have just noticed that a whole lot of photos are missing, strangely, from a lot of my blog posts and I have absolutely no idea why!  I shall endeavour to fix it another day, when I'm not running around like a headless chook!

A Cushion For Christmas Blog Hop!

With just FIVE WEEKS until Christmas, I have some VERY exciting news to share with you!  I'm hosting my first ever Blog Hop!  That's right - little old ME!

On the first of December, the Cushion For Christmas Blog Hop will kick off!  Two whole weeks of fabulous bloggers, all whom I love and respect as creative peeps! That's right - TWELVE of the cleverist (that's a word yes?) bloggers I know. Each with their own take on A Cushion For Christmas.  And will hopefully inspire you to make your own!

Last week, whilst toiling away on THIS cushion, inspiration struck. Making quilted cushions is one of my all time favourite things to do. They are mostly quick and easy, economical and give you the chance to quilt to your heart's content - without breaking your back. So I thought "This needs to be shared on a bigger scale"! This is where my social skills came in to play..... I messaged and emailed my quilty friends and asked if they would like to take part in my blog hop and share with you all a cushion you can make in less than a day, wrap up and gift to someone you love for Christmas. And low and behold - they said yes!

I've also managed to round up some WONDERFUL sponsors to provide FABULOUS prizes.  Prizes?  For who?  And why?  Well, I want you all to join in!  And at the end of the Hop, I'd love for you to link up your projects for a chance to win said prizes!  Sound good?

Now, I'm guessing you'd like to know where you'll be hopping yes?  Well, here's the schedule….

Sunday 1st December - Me!  Here!

Monday 2nd December - Gemma at Pretty Bobbins

Tuesday 3rd December - Kristy at Quiet Play

Wednesday 4th December - Joshua at Molli Sparkles

Thursday 5th December - Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts

Friday 6th December - Fiona at Finding Fifth

Saturday 7th December - Abby at Things For Boys

Take a breath……

Sunday 8th December - Lauren at Molly & Mama Makes

Monday 9th December - Jodi at Tickle & Hide

Tuesday 10th December - Adrianne at On The Windy Side

Wednesday 11th December - Rachel at Little White Dove

Thursday 12th December - Gina at Party of Eight

Friday 13th December - Jane at Quilt Jane

Saturday 14th December - Round up of Blog Hop and link up YOUR projects!

I will also have some tutorials in between for tips on cushion making.

So make sure you're following me via Bloglovin or email or Facebook or……well, you get the picture!  Don't miss out!

A big shout out to the fab sponsors of the hop -

Patterns Only - $20 Voucher

The Oz Material Girls - $20 Voucher

Fat Quarter Shop - $50 Voucher!

Polka Dot Tea - Fabric Bundle!

Intrepid Thread - $25 Voucher!

Blossom Heart Quilts - Quilt Patterns!

Quiet Play - Paper Piecing Patterns!

NOW - if you'd like to join in, feel free to grab my button over there on the right of my blog >>>>   You don't have to have a blog to join in, if you would like to email your finished projects, you are more than welcome to!  I have also set up a Flickr group for those interested - HERE.

So, until the 1st of December!  I will see you back here to kick it all off!

The Go To Gift

A few weeks ago, I started thinking stressing freaking out about what the make the kids teachers for Christmas gifts.  Once I remembered I still had SIX WEEKS (cue the hyperventilating), I relaxed and put some proper thought in to it.

Fast forward to today - and I had only a few "have to sew" things in the morning, and once I'd ticked them off, I got down to the task of the first teacher's gift.  My "go to gift" - a cushion.

Isn't she beautiful?  I pinned THIS paper piecing pattern last week, and knew it would be perfect to use for a cushion.  And although I love the original I saw, with the coloured fabric centre, I wanted more negative space for quilting, so kept mine white.  I dragged out my bag of Sarah Fielke scraps - leftovers from my Flying By The Seat Of My Pants quilt - and got the star and borders whipped together in a couple of hours.  This is a GREAT paper piecing pattern for relative beginners.

And then I got my Free Motion on!  These swirly patterns are probably my favourite in terms of free motion quilting.  They seem to be the design I do best - my stitch length is uniform throughout - something I have a bit of trouble with when doing some other designs.  I used a white Aurifil #2024  for all the negative space quilting.  I then took to pebbling the outside border.  I used my recently acquired hot pink Aurifil #1011 for this - and I LOVE this colour!  Now my pebbling is far from perfect, but I quite like it that way :)

I think the straight line shadowing on the inside of the star gives it a bit of a 3D effect?  I just love it!

And the back?  This is from a fat quarter of the same fabric range (if you're wondering what it is, it's called "On The Pond") and was easy to make in to a concealed zipper back.  So neat.

So that's another finish off that invisible list of things to do for Christmas.  I'm happy to say that when Cadyn walked through the door from school today, and I showed him this - his eyes lit up.  He was thrilled when he saw it was for his teacher.  He has a real soft spot for this lovely lady, as do I.  She has brought out the absolute best in him, and he's gone from being a kid that was struggling a bit and was anxious about learning - to a confident young man who is excelling in his work and in her words, is eager to learn.  So, me thinks she deserves this little piece of heaven.

NOW - if you are still planning your handmade Christmas list, I have something coming up very soon, that just may interest you!  Watch this space!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday and I Quilt - You can too!

W.I.P. Wednesday - What to do with a jelly roll??

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to receive a lovely parcel in the mail from none other than Kate Spain herself!  I was rewarded with such loot after being involved in the Kate Spain Blog Hop hosted by Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts.  Apart from the fact it had Kate's actual address on the parcel and then a lovely hand written note inside, I was very excited to find it contained a Honey Honey jelly roll as well as a charm pack of Sunnyside.  After thanking Kate profusely by every means of social media I could, I put the loot away safely for when I found something lovely to do with it.

Fast forward to last Wednesday night when I was talking to the husband about Christmas presents.  I had a bit of a light bulb moment and said "If I get time, I'll make a throw quilt for _______ ". (Keeping that bit anonymous for obvious reasons!).

Thursday night, Andrew arrived home from work to a started quilt top - and promptly laughed himself silly.  "If you have time" he says……

By Friday afternoon, I sent him a photo of this…...

The Honey Honey jelly roll in all its glory!

I knew I wanted to use it for this project, but had no idea what sort of a pattern to use?  So I googled and Pinteresteddddddd until my eyes were falling out of my head.  I then decided to just go with the flow (sound familiar?) and basically ended up with this!

Andrew chose the green for the background, but I added a 1" white border around the blocks before adding the green sashing - SOOOOO glad I did!  I think it make the blocks sing :)

So.  Another Christmas present almost ticked off my non-existent list of things to do.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced - You can too!

Confession - A Christmas First

Yes, my dirty little secret is out...... I've never made Christmas decorations!  Shock, horror, gasp!  The closest I've gotten to making anything Christmas'y are my kids santa sacks - and they were very basic.  But it's ok, I've changed my ways - because on Saturday, I made a table runner!  A Christmas table runner!  Hoorah!

I bought some 1/4 yards of Hip Holiday a few months ago, because I wanted to attempt some Christmas goodies.  But what?  I started adding projects to my Pinterest board a while ago, but in the end, just made something up!  So here it is.....

Isn't she lovely?  So this is how I made it - I cut out a bunch of 4.5" squares, laid them all out on the floor, and worked out where I wanted my wonky star to be amongst it.  Once I had the layout sorted, I got to making the points for my wonky star, then popped them back in the layout (I use this tutorial if I ever need a refresher!).  I then got to sewing them all together in rows.  Once all the rows were done, I sewed all the rows together - Easy!  This took me probably all of an hour and a half to do!

Then came the really fun part - the quilting!  I sat and stared at the finished quilt top for a bit, trying to figure out how to quilt it.  I chose my go to Aurifil silver/grey #2605 in 50wt, whacked the walking foot on, and started straight lining it.  Basically straight down each and every seam - 1/4" out.  I went around the star also.

The walking foot came off, and the fmq foot went on!  I switched over to Aurifil #2024 - nice shimmery white.  I left the grey in my bobbin though - I don't do this often - don't ask me why!?  But because the backing on this was a plain white, I wanted to try letting the quilting really show.  I did some nice little swirls, which are almost the same as the swirls on silver in the fabric.

The back shows everything!

The other thing I tried for the FIRST TIME EVER - was burying my threads.  Now I had heard Gemma talking about burying threads before, but had no idea really what on earth it meant, but last week she explained it in her post HERE, and I thought "what the hell".  I was sick of worrying about my reverse stitch coming undone. So with nothing to lose, I started burying!  I LOVE the end result!  You can see on the photo of the back of this runner where I have reverse stitched before I started burying, no more reverse stitching for this little duck!!!!!  The burying of heads stitches was not half as tricky as I had imagined - quite simple really.  And it gives a far more professional end result.

So that my friends, is the latest in my quilting repertoire! Always learning, always learning.....

**This table runner is for sale over on my FB page HERE.

I'm linking up with I Quilt Linky Party & T.G.I.F.F. - OctoberQuest 2 - You can too!