Cupcake Party

Hi there, I had a very enjoyable afternoon today.  Harry and I were invited by a friends daughter Emily to a cupcake party to raise money for the RSPCA.  

 It is the first time Harry has met another Spoodle,  after a wary introduction  they were soon running around playing and having a great time.   That's Harry on the left and Max on the right.  All four dogs had a great time running around playing.  It was very entertaining, they were all very cute to watch.

Max didn't want to share the water bowl with anyone else.  Isn't he adorable?  On the right are Bailey, a very handsome Cockerspaniel cross and Sparky, Emily's Pugalier.  Sparky sure lives up to her name, she's non stop run run run.

Here are the lovely cupcakes Emily made for afternoon tea.  I had a chocolate choc chip cupcake it was delicious.  I never met a choc chip I didn't like!

One of Emily's friends wins the award for most interesting pet, she brought along her six month old Ferret.  She was really quite cute, if a bit hard to photograph in her cage.  She couldn't come out of her cage cause Max got really scared when she first arrived and barked for about 15 minutes.

 At one stage Harry fell into the garden, he might have been pushed....

 Last night I finally got the last 2 sides of the inner border sewed on.  What do you think?  It's only taken me about 4 months to get this far with this border.

This morning I had a very exciting time.  I was checking out my facebook page and saw that Bonnie Hunter had her webcam on and was streaming live while she sewed.  I'm sure everyone is familiar with Bonnie and her Quiltville site.  She has only been streaming live for a week and I didn't know if I was ever going to see it. 

Yes, I am a total quilt nerd!!

I spent the rest of the morning watching Bonnie sew while I sewed along as well.  Luckily I had trimmed more of my string blocks last night so I stitched the white and black corners onto them.  Here they are on my design wall below.

The absolute highlight of my morning was when Bonnie had a break for a few minutes I sent her a comment on her Quiltville blog.  When she came back and stopped stitching for a few moments she read out and answered a few of the comments.  I was watching when she read my comment out!!  It was so cool and so amazing.  I'm in my sewing room in Melbourne Australia and she's in her sewing room in North Carolina America and she's reading out loud something I wrote minutes earlier.  The internet is awesome!!!

I just love her scrap quilts and her whole quilting philosophy.  She is incredibly generous with her ideas and has a lot of fabulous patterns you can use on her website.  I got her latest book in the mail last week and there are a few quilts calling my name.

Must go now, I think bed is calling my name.


Bye for now,

Debra.

Busy week

Hi there, here are some of the pages from the photo album I made for Aleisha's birthday last week.  She was such a beautiful baby, but I might be biased!  I was very happy cause she really loved it.  It was so much fun to do and brought back so many memories of those years.  I really can't believe it was 20 years ago, the time goes so quickly.  I've got plans to do a few more albums in the future.

 

 We had a very nice dinner out at the local Mexican restaurant with my parents.  I even had a Wicked Woman Margarita! Yummm.

My week has been very busy, I usually only work 2 days but have worked 4 days this week.  I'm always happy to get some extra work, helps pay my fabric debt.hahaha

I brought this great cat scratcher/play centre home this week.  This is Dougal inside the cat cave and Ruby investigating, they seemed to enjoy playing and scratching on it.  It fits in a corner of the kitchen perfectly.    You can tell these guys aren't spoilt at all can't you?

Here's Harry after a visit to the vet to get his sore paw fixed.  He is quite fond of lying with his head hanging over the edge of the couch.  He is such a sook but he did behave very well while the vet did his examination and while he got his paw bandaged.

I took him back tonight to get the bandage cut off, I decided I'd rather the vet did it.  Harry was very patient and stood still while it was cut off and his foot seems back to normal.

I've eased up on crocheting for a while cause my little finger was starting to get sore again.  I have done a few more leaves on my applique borders, and finished a few more string blocks.  I'm hoping I might get some stitching done over the weekend.  I might have more to show you next time. 

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Show and Tell Journal

 This fabulous journal was made by a friend of mine who wants to remain anonymous.  She's very camera shy but gave me the go ahead to show her work all the same.  I think Ms A has done a brilliant job with the journal.  It uses lots of vintage pieces that she has saved over the years and some she has been given or bought online as well. 

Every page is full of interesting quirky pieces.  The family photos haven't been added yet so it isn't finished but it will be a wonderful family keepsake when it is.  It would be hard to choose a favourite page, there are some great old photos, pockets to put things in, old envelopes and tickets.  Lots of work to put it all together which Ms A has done beautifully. 

 I did love the photo on this page of the two ladies out shopping, with the caption above it- shop till you drop.  That's one some of us can relate to!! 

I think its great to be able to have a go at lots of different creative projects and this type of mixed media is very exciting.  Finding the time to do everything is our greatest challenge don't you agree?

On my design wall are the blocks that I have made so far from my leftover strings.  I like them so far, I cut a selection of white and black prints for the corners those big black spots really stand out don't they?  Next time I'll show you some photos of the photo album that I made for Aleisha's birthday.  I finished it early which is quite an achievement for me.  It was fun to do I sure hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed doing it for her. 

Happy Stitching

Debra.

String piecing and crochet

First up a photo of my wonderful son Jack on Saturday ready to take a girl to her formal.  There's something special about seeing your child all dressed up in formal gear, definitely a photo op.

Not so smart was my decision to keep sewing and crocheting till 3am Saturday night waiting to see if I needed to pick him up from the after party.  I have a very bad habit of staying up too late stitching.  I find I get a lot more done at night time, I guess cause I don't get the guilts about not doing the housework at night!  It is a bad habit I really need to break, I get so engrosed in what I'm doing that I often don't feel tired.  How do you get to be middle aged and still not want to go to bed??  Can a night owl be reformed?  I think if I'm going to survive the next stage of my life I need to try.  I've been spurred on by the sight of a good friend out on a run this morning, I can barely drag myself out of bed and there was Kay running down beach road.  Last time I saw her she told me she had just taken up running, she's very inspiring.  Stay tuned.

As well as working on my hexagons on the weekend I made these squares.  They're a bit bigger than the grannies I made last year I like playing around with the colour combinations.  I'm trying not to get too distracted from my hexagons I think I'm about halfway there with them.

I also decided I wanted to do some more string piecing.   This was a pattern in the book Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again.  The block was called Liberated Wedding Ring its supposed to turn out at 14".  I'm using the leftovers from the fabrics I cut for my Jubilee quilt.  Of course I cut way too many strips so I should be able to make a  quilt just from the leftovers.  I'm going to do black and white prints in the corners, should be fun.  Its nice to have some piecing that you don't have to think too much about.  I haven't done much machine sewing lately.

I did get 2 of the inner borders on my jubilee quilt and I think they'll be staying.  It has taken me weeks to decide what I was doing with it.  Next up will be the applique border, thats when things will get really interesting.  If I don't get it right I might have to find a floral.hahaha

Happy stitching till next time,


Debra.

 

Miss Rosie Quilt finished.

 We've had really lovely weather this weekend, the sun was out and it wasn't raining, what a nice change.  I finally finished the binding on my Miss Rosie quilt.  The pattern was called Six Degrees and it was made using a lot of Blackbird Designs fabrics, very similar to the pattern in the book.  This afternoon was the perfect chance to get a photo outside with my 2 helpers, Jack holding the quilt for me and Harry giving the quilt a quick once over.  This is the only quilt I've had professionally quilted it was done by Cheryl at C.A Quilter, she did a great job.  I've always loved this design and it gives a great texture across the surface of the quilt and I really love these fabrics.  I'm very glad its finished and I can move on to another one of my wips.

I was trying for a close-up, this is the best I could do.  Harry kept trying to get under the quilt while Jack was holding it, it was very funny.  It certainly is difficult to get a quilt photo without Harrys help. See him in the photo below.  At least he's not in the middle of my rug this time.

I've been working steadily on my crochet hexagon rug, as you can see it is growing slowly.  I made the big mistake of starting the rug using a pale lemon wool for all the centres.  I thought I had plenty of it.  Last weekend I discovered I'd used 2 balls and couldn't find any more.  I went on search of some more on Monday and at the 4th wool shop I found it.  I bought 4 more balls, I'm sure I won't need that many but I don't mind leftovers and if i decide to make it queensize I'll probably have enough!

I think that's it for tonight.

Happy stitching,

Debra.

Old Stuff out, New stuff in....

 Hi there, I didn't mean to disappear from blogland but sometimes time just gets away from me.  I have been busy but didn't feel like I had a lot to show for my efforts.  Think I'm not alone with that.
I have a continual battle for work space in my sewing room.  I know I'm very lucky to have a space of my own but cause its smallish and I'm always trying to fit more in I find it very hard to keep on top of the mess.  I've had a clean out yet again and a rearrage and bought more storage containers (bury me in a plastic container) I've got so many. 

I was so disorganised for a few weeks that I couldn't do any stitching till I sorted myself out.  Just when I looked like I might have made some space I got sidetracked on a new hobby - more about that in a minute.  Since I didn't take photos of this whole process I've got a photo above of the quilt I made for Aleisha's 18th birthday nearly 2 years ago. I used a jelly roll and layer cake of Love is in the Air by Deb Strain and a pattern from a book of quilts from Jelly Rolls and Layer Cakes which I've leant to a friend at the moment so can't remember the name.  I love the bright colours, it was a fun easy quilt to make I even machine quilted it myself.  Aleisha brought it over for me to wash, she was worried about doing it herself.  I put 3 colour catches in the machine cause the fabrics weren't prewashed.  It came out looking really good colour catches did their job.  I even finished off the drying in the clothes dryer, think its the first time I've ever put a quilt in the dryer.  Looks good.

One of the things I've wanted for ages is a nice display cabinet to keep my quilts in.  I know they're out there but it wasn't something I could justify buying at the moment.  Anyway a couple of weeks ago Aleisha showed my a website called gumtree where people sell things or give them away.  Short story is I got myself a really nice big cabinet for $150 which suited my budget.  It wasn't far away and Aleishas partner James and I went and picked it up in his ute.  It was very heavy and it poured with rain as James and the man who owned the cabinet loaded it onto the ute but we did get it home and into the lounge and it looks great. 

It is so nice to have somewhere to keep the quilts that aren't being used and be able to admire them as well.   Plus its a win win cause my quilts aren't taking up space in my bedroom where most were stacked and I've got lots more storage space in cabinet.  There is a drawer that I haven't used yet and the cupboards at bottom where I've got some xmas things and wips.  Yay for the internet!!!

A few weeks ago I spent a very fun afternoon at Traceys house where she got me started on a mixed media project.  I was so excited about the possibilities especially as I can make a journal of all my quilts and ideas etc.  I had one that I started in 2010 but only did 4 pages now I can add all sorts of pictures and ideas that I wouldn't have thought about doing before.  That started me on a quest to get more quilt photos printed out which then led me onto going through all our family photos and sorting them out, then I decided to scrapbook some of the family photos cause we have so many.  As Jack said I really needed another hobby!!  I've been shopping for supplies of course and then buying more plastic storage containers......I could be doing worse things right?

Needless to say I now have to find space for a whole lot more stuff.  Don't think kitchen tables were ever meant to be used for eating were they?  I'm making an album for Aleisha for her birthday in August I hope she likes it.  I had always tried to avoid scrapbooking cause I have enough hobbies already but what the hell.  Wouldn't ever want to be bored with nothing to do.  Last Sunday Tracey took me to a huge scrapbooking shop in Mornington it was amazing I could have spent all day there!

I did buy some paper even though I had told myself I already had enough.  Didn't realise how fabulous it could be and of course some of it's designed by some of the quilt designers I like.  There were also stickers and tapes and pens that I had to have it was great.  Whats even more exciting is we're going back tomorrow morning cause Tracey left behind a couple of books she bought there last week.  I will try not to get too carried away.Promise.Hahahaha

A Finish.

 I've finished the binding on my red stars quilt and its on the bed.  I like the pattern its very effective but I think I've got a problem with some of my fabrics.  I guess not washing reds is asking for trouble.  I used to wash everything as soon as I bought it but haven't done it for many years now.  I thought maybe I might have washed these reds cause red is a risky colour but its so long ago I can"t remember.  Anyhow the quilt was on my bed for a couple of days when I noticed one of my stars is bleeding!!

I don't know whether you can see on the photo there is a pink tinge around some of the triangles that wasn't there when I finished.  I will try to get some colour catchers to use when I wash it.  I think Harry has laid on the quilt when he's been wet from the rain we've had lately and its made the fabric bleed.  I really hope it comes out.

 On a happier note I've added some more crocheted hexagons to my rug, I think its wide enough now, I'll just add another ten rows or so....Since relearning how to crochet last year I've been really enjoying doing it, I love the colours of the wool its very relaxing and playing with colour combinations is lots of fun.

 I was playing around with my half square triangle blocks the other day I really like both designs not sure which way I will go yet.  Maybe some sashing maybe not. 

 Maybe I will try a combination of both patterns that might be interesting or just a big mess.

Last of all I have all my blocks sewn together for my jubilee quilt.  Thinking of calling it my Pointless stars cause of all the points I'll have cut off by the time its finished.  Okay I'll stop dwelling on those points now.  I sewed some half square triangles together and I think that will be the next border.  I made them just in pinks and greens but I think I might make them using all the colours that are in the quilt.  I think the charcoal grey needs some livening up rather than just stitch the applique border on.
I drew a picture of what I had in mind so I wouldn't forget as you can see drawing isn't my strong point but it shows what I want to do for the rest of the quilt.  I showed it to my son Jack (who is doing Art as one of his VCE subjects)  he thinks he's inherited my drawing abiltiy.hahahaha

I've picked out some fabrics for the next borders and I'd like to start them over the weekend.  I won't be able to start the applique till I know how big the quilt will be with next border done.  And find some pictures of dogs and cats that I can use that look a bit better than mine.

Happy Stitching

Debra