Monthly Archives: September 2010

A home for two of my orphans…

20 Monday Sep 2010

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A while ago I posted about all the orphan blocks I seem to have collected. Well the other day I was reading some of the blogs I follow and I found this post.

It’s on the blog of lady called Elizabeth McMahon and she’s posted about her friend of 33 years, Sue who has a brain stem disease and can no longer dress herself or walk without the aid of a walker.

A quilt for Sue

Sue is a quilter and has always made quilts for others but Liz felt sure that no one had ever made one for her. So Liz put out the call to quilters around the world to send her their orphan blocks which she will make into a special quilt of love for Sue. Isn’t that a lovely idea? Anyway I had to be in on this and so I sent her these two hand-pieced hearts made from some of my favourite Japanese fabrics.

Would you like to help?

If you’d like to help then you can email Liz at and she’ll send your her postal address.

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IBOL II Stitch Bundle

19 Sunday Sep 2010

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Sew Mama Sew has joined with IBOL (Iraqi Bundles of Love) to send thread, needles and pins to Iraqi families, individuals and sewing co-ops.

Art La Flamme (aka IBOL Guy) served with the US forces in Iraq and felt motivated to assist when he returned to the States and started this initiative last year.

According to Sew Mama Sew, last year “the sewing, knitting and craft community responded en masse, shipping nearly 3500 bundles of supplies to a US military address where it was organized and distributed by US service men and women to Iraqi aid organizations”.

They apparently got lots of fabric but not much thread. Sew Mama Sew aims to change this with their contribution to the IBOL effort this year. For $4 they will send, on your behalf

  • 2 spools of white thread
  • 2 spools of black thread
  • 1 spool of natural thread
  • 1 pack of sewing needles
  • 1 pack of straight pins
  • and this cost includes shipping.

I was very happy to help and I hope some of you will feel motivated to assist too. You can participate here.

Basting a quilt on a small table

18 Saturday Sep 2010

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I learned a cool way of basting a quilt from Sharon Schamber’s hand basting video some years ago. However whenever I have used it I found problems because the quilts I was basting were larger than the fabric she uses in the video and also because I only have a small table. You can see Sharon’s video here and below is my adaptation of it.

Basting a quilt on a small table – free tutorial

The first step is to mark the centre of the table with some masking tape, then line up the centre of the pressed backing fabric with this line both at the front and back of the table.

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Then flatten out the backing and put a board across it to weigh it down. Lay the batting on top of the backing and smooth it down. Then lay your top on top of the batting making sure you line up the centre of the top with the centre of the back and the masking tape mark on the table.

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Take the second board and place it close to the front of the table on top of the quilt top. Gently smoothing as you go, slide it until it meets the board that is anchoring the backing. Then baste from the board towards you starting in the centre and moving out towards the edges. Once you have several vertical lines of pins you can fill in the large areas between the lines.

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When you have pinned the portion of the quilt in front of you pull the whole sandwich towards you until all the pinned section is hanging off the front of the table and the boards are close to you. Fold the quilt top forwards over the top board.

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Then do the same with the batting. Slide the bottom board back towards the back edge of the table, smoothing the backing as you go. Remember to check the centre is still aligned correctly.

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Smooth the batting back over the backing then smooth the top over the batting.

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Then slide the top board back over the quilt top towards the back of the table until it reaches the other board. Smooth the quilt top as you go. Then you can pin the rest of the quilt. If you haven’t completed the quilt by this stage just repeat the last step until the whole quilt has been pinned.

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Pinmoors

As you can see I used my make-shift version of the Pinmoors product. I have actually ordered some of the real thing which I am looking forward to getting. Catherine from Catherine’s Place is running a co-op on them. The price is Aus$19.25 for  a pack of 50 and Aus$36.50 for a pack of 100 INCLUDING POSTAGE! That’s a really good price, in fact its the best I’ve found and believe me I’ve been looking. If you’d like to join the co-op just sign up a the Yahoo group here or visit Catherine’s Blog Big Blue Shed for more details. I have no affiliation with either Pinmoors or Catherine’s Place I’m just sharing useful info.

Beginning a new handwork project

17 Friday Sep 2010

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The beautiful Japanese hand-printed fabric I received the other day has motivated me to start a new handwork project. I’m not sure where I’m going with this but so far I’ve cut up 135 3″ squares.

I think hand-printed fabric deserves a hand-made project. So I’m planning to hand piece and hand quilt this.  I saw a lovely video on the importance of handwork. If you’re interested to watch it you can find it here. I agree with the presenter – Renate Hiller. I think handwork connects us to the universe, to the Divine and to the natural world in a way that nothing else can. It really is a form of prayer if you do it mindfully. What do you think?

Little blanket of love

16 Thursday Sep 2010

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A friend of mine told me about Little Blankets of Love. People make them for the local hospital to give to the mothers of stillborn babies or neonates who have passed away. I had some lovely flannel left from the blanket I made for my granddaughter so I made this little one. I hope it brings comfort to someone at such a sad time.

Beautiful hand-printed Japanese fabric…

15 Wednesday Sep 2010

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Yesterday the postman brought a squishy package. We all know what that means… fabric!

I ordered some hand-printed fabric from Hitomi Kimura of Kalla Designs. Take a look, aren’t they lovely? I’ll give you a closer look in a sec.

The fabrics are hand screen printed and are all a mixture of cotton and linen. I ordered nine pieces and Hitomi kindly sent me three other smaller pieces in colours I didn’t have. Wasn’t that lovely of her?

Now, what to make with them? I have so many ideas whizzing around my head I can’t choose. Remember the other day I said I was working on an Islamic tile pattern? Well I had a rough go at working out if I could use these fabrics for that design. Here are some rough drawings.

I’m still not sure though. I want to make something really special with them. I’ll keep you posted.

My first slideshow presentation

14 Tuesday Sep 2010

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Ort/gift bag

Ort/gift bag

As you know I’ve done a couple of tutorials here on my blog. You can see them listed over there on the right sidebar.

Well I’ve turned one of them into a slideshow with audio which some people may find easier as they can stop and pause it when they’re ready.

I’d love to know what you think of it. All constructive criticism is readily and happily accepted. Be gentle with me though as I’m new to this. 🙂

I had wanted to embed this slideshow here but I’ve just found out that the embedding code isn’t supported. I’ll try to find another slideshow that is supported and see if that works. In the meantime please take a look at the link and let me know what you what you think.
Thanks

Thinking, thinking…

13 Monday Sep 2010

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Hmm the creative process is fermenting.

I have started a couple of designs and now they’re just sitting bubbling away until they come to fruition.

The first is an idea taken from a Moroccan tile to use for an applique block, the second is patchwork pattern based on some Moroccan tiles.

You might have guessed that I like Moroccan tile work by now. 🙂 It’s called Zillij and I have a wonderful book full of it. While these two projects are fermenting I’m back to hand quilting my Andalusian Tile Quilt.

Scrap sewing… and strawberries!

12 Sunday Sep 2010

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Yesterday I began sewing together my scrappy squares in a haphazard sort of way. I’m not sure where it’s going and I’ll probably lay it to rest for a while now as I have another project in mind. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

On Friday a friend came and brought me four punnets of strawberries and this morning I made a lovely fruit salad for lunch. Aren’t the colours just beautiful?

Heirlooms…

11 Saturday Sep 2010

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These two afternoon tea cloths were embroidered by my late mother and my Aunty Joyce. Are they beautiful? Unfortunately I didn’t inherit the embroidery gene but I can certainly appreciate it. If you click on the images you’ll get larger ones and then you’ll be able to appreciate the quality of the “workwomanship” [sorry, I’m not a feminist but the word workmanship just didn’t fit here :)].