Ruffles 'n' Rows

Yesterday I sewed up the Ruffles 'n' Rows quilt (Natalie Bird design) using the lovely, bright LakeHouse Dry Goods fabrics I bought last week and fabrics from my stash.  I made the suffolk puffs while watching "Young Victoria" and "Elizabeth" last night.  "Elizabeth" is so gruesome in places but Cate Blanchett is sensational.

The quilt is too long to photograph is one go on my design sheet.  I'll get a better photo when the quilt is finished.  The quilt is for my great-niece for Christmas.

The backing is made up of wide strips of some of these fabrics.

One of today's jobs is to sew these pieces together, sew on the suffolk puffs tonight while watching tv and another is to find the requirements for a class I'm going to on Monday with Deborah Louie, to learn about all the features of my Aurora 440.

Also finished a quick tablerunner out of Fig Tree's Whimsy this week.  It will go onto the Christmas present shelf.  The pinwheels are from charm squares leftover from another quilt I have cut out and hope to start soon.

We are going to a bbq at Elizabeth and Matt's place tomorrow - Elizabeth is cooking the cake for her Red Cross fundraiser and there will be crowd there to help eat it.

Beautiful weather today - hope it stays around for a while.

Simple Arithmetic

Distance between my house and Canberra CBD?

8 Tarts.

I haven't sewn any of these for a few weeks -amazing how little hand-sewing I've done since I finished work.  No more lunch-time stitching.

Pies and Tarts

I have enough pies sewn to their background fabrics to make another 3 rows and plenty of tarts ready to fill in the spaces - except for the last 8 they were all made in lunch-times over the last few months at work.

We went for a drive to Canberra yesterday so that John could visit this exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Gallery

A private collection of vintage motorbikes - all running and ridden often - from early 20th century till 1960's.  I think John would have loved to have a couple of these in his garage.  After lunch and a wander around Civic, we wanted to visit another exhibition at the National Gallery but the bridge over the lake was closed to traffic as Mr Obama had just landed.

Last night I cut out a quilt from all those lovely LakeHouse Dry Goods fabrics - Row by Row designed by Natalie Bird.  I hope to have it finished by Christmas for my great-niece.

Another cot quilt is finished.

Teddy Bear Playtime

Shopping

Last week I received a text message from a local quilt shop advising the shop was closing down.  All fabrics were $10/metre and everything else was 50% off.  While feeling sad that another quilt shop is closing its doors, Sharon, Paula and I did our best to contribute to their closing down sales figures.

Fabrics, ruler, patterns, templates, blades, needles, threads

I bought the three fabrics on the left in the sale and they tone in so well with other Lakehouse Dry Goods fabrics, plus a few others, in my stash - plenty of plans for these fabrics.

The big bargain of the shopping trip?

A new sewing machine for the frame - at 50% off, how could I leave the machine in the shop? I've been looking for a larger-throated machine for a while now.  Haven't unpacked the machine yet as the quilting I've been doing over the weekend has been ditch-stitching small quilts.

Twirling Teddy Bears

 

Criss Cross - love the Peter Rabbit flannel backing

 And, lastly, the rosebud I showed last week, has bloomed.  This is a big deal for us - 2 roses now on the archway.

Pierre De Rosnard

Butterfly Garden

In October 2008 I bought a f/q pack of Ava Rose fabrics to make Butterfly Garden, designed by Leanne Beasley.  In April 2009 I started making the blocks.  Last night the final stitch was sewn.

"Butterfly Garden" -  62" x 62"

Backing

I am so happy that this quilt is finished - it's taken a very long time to make.  Leanne had a hand in choosing the colour of the fabric for the butterflies and hearts when I had a chat to her in Adelaide at the time I was just starting to make the blocks.  I'm still not 100% convinced that needleturn and I are friends.

Might get back to "Gingham Girls - My Favourite Things" one day soon and when that's finished I'll think about starting "Down in the Garden".  Too many beautiful quilt choices from our talented Australian designers.
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 Elizabeth has entered The Impossible Cake Challenge, which is a fund-raiser for the Australian Red Cross, taking place tomorrow.

All you have to do is click on the link – http://www.redcrossfundraising.org.au/elizabeth_hezemans  - from the web page you can make a donation and also leave a comment as to what cake you think she should bake.

 

The top 3 suggestions so far are below, pick one of these or suggest one of your own -

 

The Carousel Cake - http://notdrowning.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/carousel-cake-03.jpg?w=260&h=352

The Rainbow Cake - http://babyology.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Rainbow-Cake2.jpg         

The Chocolate Crepe Cake - http://cdn.taste.com.au/images/recipes/del/2006/11/14393.jpg

Almost Done

Big progress has been made this week quilting Butterfly Garden and I finished the quilting late yesterday afternoon.  The binding is sewn on ready to be stitched down.

We've had some big storms the last couple of days - very tropical weather here lately.

Another cot quilt top is finished and I have 2 others cut out ready to sew up but first I'll pin and quilt some of the finished tops. 

Criss-Cross

A couple of weeks ago a girlfriend showed me a book she'd bought which explains how you take a striped fabric, eg

Cut it into squares, then quarter-square triangles and re-arrange the triangles to make different patterns, eg

I think it's brilliant.  Might make some cushion covers out of these when they're sewn together.

Lady of Leisure?

I don't know about that - I've had one day at home this week and the diary for next week is looking just as busy.

In amongst the socialising, I've done some sewing - finished off the cot quilt tops I started a couple of weeks ago.

Teddy Bears

Backing

 Cut out some more quilt tops and finished two of those (no quilting yet).

Double Hourglass with sashings

Ric-rac and Spots

Made up sample blocks of a couple of the cut-out quilt tops

 

 

 

Love this block - the blue spot is flannel and is so soft and cuddly

Next week, in amongst more socialising and appointments, will be quilting week.  First up with be more quilting on Butterfly Garden - I'd love to have that quilt finished off this year.

And the big news at our place this week?

Both of the climbing roses on our front trellis have rosebuds.  We are so excited.  Neither of us are gardeners.  I hope that when the buds open no-one steals the flowers.  A large branch was broken off our frangipanni tree last summer when the flowers bloomed - the poor tree is now very lopsided.

Presents

Last year I knitted loads of baby/toddler garments but didn't sew up many of them.  I need a baby present for this week, so sewed up this jumper and pants set - it's so cute.

Knitted in Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8 ply Wool, Panda Pattern, size 6 months

Our dear friends, Phil and Louise, should be grandparents by the end of tomorrow - here's hoping all goes well for Lorretta and Sean tomorrow and their baby boy arrives safely and quickly.

The last few days, I've been so very fortunate to receive some beautiful presents as well as the gorgeous bicycle.

White gold/diamond pendant from Mum and my brother; pink pearl earrings from the children; sapphire and diamond earrings from Tammy; gold bangle from John; crystal perfume bottle from a dear retired friend; diary and Bronwyn Hayes felt flower from Kerryn, a sweetie who works at the Steelworks and recently joined our stitching group.

I received phonecalls and messages from people I haven't worked with for years, flowers, cards.  As I said, so very fortunate.