QuiltWest and WA Craft Fair

In the middle of a very hectic week hosting workshops for the WA Quilters Association I managed to fit in a visit to QuiltWest and the craft fair. There were some amazing quilts on display. One of my friends, Phil Thomas, was talented enough to win a 2nd place prize in the 'All Traditional Professional' category with her gorgeous quilt 'Purple Heather'. Congratulations Phil! You can visit Phil's blog, The Guilty Quilter, to see more of her wonderful work.

 'Purple Heather' by Phil Thomas

You can see all the other winning quilts on the WAQA website here.

I then had a bit of fun shopping with Mum & Miss M. Here are some of my purchases. I also bought some Solvy to play with.

I also went back to the fair on the Saturday morning to catch up with some of our wonderful WA bloggers. Tracee of Quilt Kitty Loves Life is an old friend so it was great to see her again. It was also lovely to meet Anthea of Hibiscus Stitches, Maria of Life on the Block and her daughter, Sandra, of Playing Tiddleywinks, along with Julia of Julia's Place and her daughter-in-law Janete. Unfortunately Miss M and I couldn't stay long as we were taking WAQA's guest tutor, Amanda Daly, to the airport but we hope to meet up with them again at some point.

During that same week I was lucky enough to participate in one of Amanda's workshops. I will post info and pics from that in the near future. 

Happy Stitching. Tracy xx

New Project

I have started my next project for another special person's birthday. Here is the fabric selection I've made.

I managed to join in a little with Cheryl for her Friday Night With Friends event last night and was able to get the initial shapes cut out and half sewn. I then finished them off today. The results...

I was also able to start putting on the facial features today and hopefully will finish these off tonight.

Thanks Cheryl for continuing to host this event. 

PS - Our friend's daughter loved her bag so I am one very happy camper! Happy stitching, Tracy xx

Mixed Results

Wow, what a busy few weeks. It's hard to believe almost a month has passed since my last post. Lots to tell you so will have to do it over a few posts.

I must admit that I have had to choose between a sewing project and blogging in my spare time recently as I have had less spare time than usual. The project won out of course :). Luckily for me I have been able to set up a temporary sewing room so that I am able to grab 20 minutes here and there when Miss M is sleeping to run in and do a little more sewing.

My latest project is an 18th birthday present for the daughter of a very dear friend. She will be receiving it this weekend as I was finally able to get enough time to finish it last night.

I started with some beautiful, Indian looking fabrics and the 'All Patched Up' pattern by Shirley Jenkins from the 'Crafts to Inspire' magazine. After cutting and piecing my squares I laid everything out ready to sew. I was a little nervous as it was the first time I had made pieced squares.

Eventually I was able to sew everything together and this became the outside of the bag. I was really, really happy with the resulting fabric. It looks awesome. The light purple fabric was used for the lining.

Outside of bag

Inside of bag

 

                                       Close-up of outside                    Close-up of button

                                       I love these fabrics

And ... drum roll please ... here is Miss A modelling the finished bag for me...

I'm happy with the look of the bag overall and very happy with how the pieced fabric turned out. 

I was very disappointed to get to the end of the construction process and realise that the instructions had not included any information on putting in the pockets, except for the zips. So, I went to all the effort of putting in 2 zips only to find that anything put through them would simply fall to the bottom of the lining. It was very difficult to add pockets after the fact because of the way the bag was constructed but, thanks to Vliesofix and fusible hemming tape, I managed to do so. I'm not sure how secure they are though and am not really happy with them.

The final step of construction was to sew along the seams to secure all 3 layers of fabric together (there is quilters muslin between the inner and outer fabrics). Not having done this before, and having no further guidelines from the instructions, I assumed this was easy. In hindsight I should have pinned the bag along the seams before sewing to get an even spread of fabric, so I am not happy with the sewing along the outside seams. However, you can't tell these faults unless you look closely. Suffice to say I will not be using this bag pattern again!

Hopefully our friend will like her present. I'll give you an update over the weekend and let you know how it goes.

Must get off to bed as Miss M has just over 3 hours on me now. 

Happy stitching everyone.

Tracy

A few stitches for Friday Night With Friends

I enjoyed doing a bit of stitching last night while my cake baked. I have been slowly appliqueing owls onto what will eventually be a cushion for my niece. Last night I managed to finish off the middle sized owl and start the outside edge of the large owl.

Medium sized owl - Outside edge completed

Detail of blanket stitching 

Large owl - Outside edge started

I love the bright fabrics for the owls which came with this kit. I'm think they may be Amy Butler fabrics.

And the cake went down well with my visitors this morning too. So all in all, a good night's work. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else did.

Enjoy your weekend,
Tracy

Sleep or Stitch? Hmmm...

I am soooo tired (little Miss M has a tummy ache and is teething) but really want to do some stitching. Luckily I have a cake in the oven so I've decided to join in with Cheryl and friends for Friday Night With Friends, even if only for a short while. :)

Happy stitching,
Tracy

A Crafty Weekend

How does that old saying go?...While the cat's away the mice will play. Well, dear hubby and son have been off hiking so I have been able to leave my craft stuff all over the house and have a wonderfully creative weekend. Hooray!

Before I tell you all about it though, at quilting on Wed night my wonderful friend Tracee from Quilt Kitty Loves Life gave Miss M a beautiful, handmade gift. She made her a lovely stuffy doll which Miss M loves. Not only is it soft and good to chew on, it sounds great because it has bells inside it!

The stuffy (no name yet but it reminds me of Miffy)

Big hugs from Miss M

So, back to my weekend... after dropping the boys off at the start of their hiking trail I came home and managed to get Miss M off to sleep. A couple of weeks ago I did a workshop, Free Wheeling Around the Curves with Jan Rowe, and I have been hanging out to get back to sewing my curved pieces together. Yesterday arvo/evening I got my chance. This is what I ended up with...

Then, this morning, Miss M and I went quilting with the WA Quilters' Association (WAQA) for their Community Quilts program. There were a lot of jobs to be done to get things ready for the Quiltwest show. Miss M and I chose to do some ironing. I did most of it while she slept :-)

It's so tiring being the centre of attention all the time!

After returning home and getting Miss M off to sleep for her afternoon nap, I got back into my Free Wheeling project. The next stage was laying it all out in a pleasing design. I'm basing my design on a photo I took at Ayer's Rock several years ago. So, this is where my project is currently at...

Design - Early stages

It's interesting looking at it in photographic form. It gives you a different perspective. I may move things around a little if I get a chance tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath though as the boys return tomorrow and everything will have to be packed away again.

It's early stages yet. I still have trimming of the blocks, sewing it together and some applique to do but I'm really happy to have had a chance to get this far. Can't wait to see if the end result looks much like my photo.

Hope you all had a creative weekend as well. Happy stitching. 

Cheers, Tracy.

Good for the Soul

Last night I finally had the time and energy to sit down and do a little hand stitching. Talk about good for the soul! I love little Miss M but you do forget just how much time babies take up (especially when it's been 16 years since you had your last one) and how worn out you are at the end of the day. Anyway, she had a really good sleeping day yesterday which gave me plenty of time to do the other things I needed to do, meaning I was able to do an hour's stitching last night. Doesn't seem like much but it was just enough to finish off 2 small projects.

First, my 'Snowmen Melt Your Heart' stitchery. I started this project when I was a member of the Joondalup Embroidery Group back in 2002. We used to take turns at picking a project to share with, and mentor if able, the rest of the group. I picked this one as I love Christmas. Unfortunately I can't remember where I found the pattern but I think it was an issue of Handmade. I finished 80% of it back then before I started another project and it went into the UFO box.

Last year I organised my UFO box and scattered UFO projects and came across the stitchery again. I was determined to finish it asap and I did manage to get the stitching finished fairly quickly. Then I hit a hurdle...I didn't have a carrot button for the nose. I really wanted to finish the stitchery before Christmas so I hunted around at the May Craft Fair and found one but it was waaaay too big. I tried several online stores but only found 1 more - turned out it was too big as well.

Last week I had another go at Googling 'carrot buttons'. I found a wonderful store, Sewing Box, which had a 'Build a Snowman Kit' that included a variety of buttons to create a snowman. It had not one but two carrot buttons in it so I bought it straight away. It arrived a couple of days ago and last night I was able to use the small carrot button to sew on my Snowman's nose. I'm so very, very happy to have it finished after 12 1/2 years! This is what it looks like....

Now I just have to find the perfect frame for it. Who knows how long that will take!!! I'll share another pic at the end of the journey.

Second, my 'Ta Da' block (better known as a 'Diagonal Square Quilt' block) for the WAQA Community Quilts program. All this required was closing the hole I used for turning it right sides out.

This amazing little block is double sided and looks exactly the same on both sides! It is really easy to make.

This is the 3rd type of block I have made for Community Quilts. In a future post I will share more info on the program and pics of the other blocks with you.

Until next time, happy stitching!