A little progress

Not much sewing has been happening here over the last couple of weeks. Above are 2 more basket blocks for the Waterloo quilt. The baskets are sewn together using English Paper Piecing, then appliqued down. I am using Superior Bottom Line thread for the EPP and applique. The embroidery on each handle is done with floss from Weeks Dye Works. The threads are hand dyed and there is quite a bit of variation in colour in each skein.



These pieces are for the next round of the AQ. They are much faster to sew together than the Le Moyne stars!

I have found a lovely blog by a lady who lives in Holland. She has recently started posting in English as well as Dutch. Danielle has beautiful work!

Where those Le Moyne stars went.....

Today I finally got all the Le Moyne Stars on my Antique Quilt!!! As the Janiacs say, its not perfect, but its done! A good press will help and some of the mismatched points may still bug me enough for me to unpick the stitching and do them again. Excuse the toes at the bottom of the photo!




Yesterday I made Pumpkin Spice Cake. The recipe came from here. I had never cooked pumpkin as a sweet before. Thank you Kim, for a yummy recipe!!

Finished!!!

They're finished!! Yay!! 28 Le Moyne stars for the AQ are all done.

The next step will be much quicker because I will be machining on the border fabric and machining all the stars together, I can't wait to see what the quilt looks like when the stars are on. I love watching quilts grow. I have the instructions for the next round already, so I have to get a move on! Most of the fabric in this quilt is from the Dargate Lavender and Mints range and I love the designs. Great fabric makes my heart sing!


I recently joined a blog group with this shop. Every few months they send out a little surprise package for you to create something with. I received this tea cup fabric and the card of buttons. The buttons look like mother of pearl. I'm not sure what I will make yet. Any suggestions???


I have been fabric shopping again! More brights. The pink spot fabric is a polished cotton. The purple with butterflies I will be using with something for my daughter; she loves purple and butterflies! The four fabrics at the bottom of the photo are Kaffe Fassett shot cottons. (the little bundle on the left is actually a lilac colour) They are quite a different texture to his prints. They are more loosely woven.

I am planning to use the polished cotton with some other fabrics to make a lap top bag.

I am almost finished the next MQ block. I am taking a days break from hand sewing because I have a sore finger. I think I might have some kind of allergy to something in the fabrics. I usually don't wash my fabric before I sew with it. (........too impatient to get sewing!!) I think I should start washing with my next projects and see what happens.

Below are some irises from my garden. The rose bush behind has single flowers that last only a day. It flowers for many months and almost always has several blooms. The flowers vary from a deep pink to an apricot/pink colour. All the spring flowering bulbs are almost finished now and the rose bushes have grown and are all in bud. Lots of native plants are in flower now too.
When I walk around our neighbourhood the most predominant perfume is Jasmine. We don't have a plant now, but it seems there are several on every street.


Have a great weekend everyone. :)

Another parcel.

I have entered some of the giveaways I have seen since I started blogging, and a couple of weeks ago I had my first win. :) Here is the little purse I won from Lena. Lena sent this parcel from Norway all the way to Australia. Thank you so much Lena. The sewing on this purse is exquisite and I love the butterfly fabric. Beautiful, Lena!!! :)


When I opened the purse, this is what I found inside! Lots of yummy goodies (have I mentioned before I love chocolate???) Those heart buttons are so gorgeous and they will be going on something special.
The Le Moyne stars for the AQ are coming along. I finished another one this morning, so there are 16 now; 12 more to go.
I finished this MQ block last night. I have finished 24 blocks now and have 4 more prepared ready to sew.


These azaleas are by my front door and this photo was taken early this morning. The plant in the foreground is called "Gretel" and it is my favourite azalea. There are several more plants that have darker red flowers in bud at the moment.

New fabric, weird weather and a special flower.

I have just discovered Kaffe Fasset fabrics! During last week I went to a quilting shop to buy some background fabric and decided to come home a different way. I was aware of another shop because it had been open for years, but I had no idea where it was exactly. Imagine my surprise when I found it, just around the corner from where I had been going for years!!! Inside is a treasure trove of Kaffe Fasset fabrics and more knitting yarn than you could ever use! (This is their website www.sunspun.com.au)
I just had to buy some of that fabric. It is far brighter than anything I have ever used before, but it is growing on me! I can see where I will be doing lots of fussy cutting. Below is a pattern I bought last week that I intend to use this fabric for. I love the butterflies and ladybirds! I don't think I will follow the patterns exactly; I want to use them as inspiration for something of my own. The pattern is by Kellie Wulfsohn. Her blog is here www.dontlooknow.typepad.com.
I have finished a few Le Moyne stars for the next border on the AQ. I have only about 1/4 of them done, but I have decided to try to make one a day.
We have had some weather extremes here (again!) recently. Yesterday was the hottest ever day for the first half of September. It got to 29.9 C (that is 85.8 F) ........I certainly hope that doesn't mean we are headed for another extremely hot summer.
It has been very windy here too. Yesterday a huge branch blew off one of our trees. The tree now looks very unbalanced because 1/3 of it is gone! The branch was covered in flower buds. If the tree lasts until after it has flowered I think we will have to remove it.

The photo below is of a fuschia that my Mum grew. Several years ago my parents had a wholesale/retail plant nursery specialising in fuschias and pelargoniums. Mum used to cross pollinate the fuschias to create new plants. Some were not very successful, but some made great plants with beautiful flowers. Mum named these new plants after members of the family. The flower below is "Lillian Mary" after Mum's Mother. The colours in this flower remind me of the colours my Grandmother used to wear. After the plant has finished flowering I am going to take cuttings and hopefully grow some more plants.

More Antique Quilt

I have finally finished appliqueing on the tiny Le Moyne stars. I fussy cut all the fabrics and hand sewed each star. The next round will be more of the larger Le Moyne stars after the narrow border of the brown fabric in the last post. It could take me a while! Thank you Ranette for all the help getting this together. :)

My old, faithful iron stopped working this morning. It tripped the safety switch and turned off the electricity for the whole house! ...thank goodness for the safety switch or I could have been zapped! I love this iron. It may be smaller than newer irons and it doesn't have a "shot of steam", but I love the feel of it gliding over fabric. I have a newer iron with a teflon base, but it just doesn't feel the same.....plus it seems to generate static electricity in some fabrics. Has anyone noticed that before with their iron?


This flower appeared yesterday. Isn't the colour wonderful!!
This is a bayside beach near where my daughter lives. That is her with her dog walking on the sand. At this time of the year there is usually no one else on the beach and you are allowed to walk your dog there.

Antique quilt

Today I sewed the triangular sections onto the centre square. There will probably be more smaller Lemoyne stars appliqued onto the smaller triangles.

At the top of the photo are 2 fabrics I am deciding between for a narrow border. I had thought I would use the green, but now I am leaning towards the brown . Anyone have an opinion???

I hand stitched the Lemoyne stars, but everything else is sewn on the machine. I haven't done very much piecing by machine before. There has been a bit of frog stitching this afternoon!!!




Cootamundra Wattle.



This tree is in our backyard. It flowers in mid winter every year and brings the knowledge that spring is not far away.


Our original Cootamundra wattle was planted almost 30 years ago. They are not a long living tree, but grow quite quickly. This tree came up by itself after the original one died. It is about 15 feet tall.

There are many varieties of wattle trees and most of them flower in spring.

A Productive Day

I turned this collection of fabric.................













......................into this...................
It is the centre of a reproduction antique quilt.

It is all sewn on the machine. I have never sewn quilt pieces that small (just over 1 inch square, finished) on my machine before. I have always hand pieced tiny bits of fabric. I am happy with how all my corners meet up. There was only one that caused me problems and I resewed that one 3 times!!! All the fabric except the background came from my stash!



There are lots of camelias in flower in my area at the moment. Here is one from my garden.