31 Sunday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
This stunning block plus the lovely yellow fabric bonus arrived the other day. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do it justice. The blue squares are actually much more purple – one of my favourite colours.
29 Friday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
28 Thursday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
27 Wednesday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
Tags
Andalusian Tile Quilt, binding, hand quilting, quilting, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, Which way? quilt
Well I’m on the last leg! Only 8 more of the coloured triangles to quilt and then I can bind it! I’m not sure what I’ll use yet but I might cut one of these two stripey fabrics on the bias and use it.
I’ve also been thinking about the Which way? quilt. I was going to machine quilt it but now I think I might hand quilt it with larger stitches and one of the Perle threads that arrived recently. What do you think? I’d be interested in your opinions.
26 Tuesday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
Tags
Bangladeshi food, Banoful restaurant, Bengali food, Henna design, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog
It was my husband’s birthday last Saturday and so we visited a relatively new Bengali/Bangladeshi Restaurant called Banoful. It’s located in a very ethnically diverse suburb of Sydney called Lakemba where you can dine on many different Middle Eastern and Sub-continental cuisines. The restaurant was empty when we arrived but that gave me a good opportunity to snap this lovely Henna-style decoration on the wall and these lovely Bengali cushions.
The service was prompt and very respectful. The waitress addressed my husband as “uncle” – so much more friendly than “sir” and it added a little quaint charm to the experience. I had every intention of taking photos of the food but when it came it looked so lovely and smelled SOOOO good that I completely forgot – sorry. We ordered parathas which came piping hot and flakily crispy, a dhal puri which was interesting if a little heavy and a lamb rezala for my husband and a chicken korma for me. My husband said the rezala was really very tasty but not like his mother’s or (wait for it) mine! The chicken korma was delightful – a little spicy but not too hot and not sweet and sickly like others I’ve had. You could appreciate the flavours of the different spices that had been blended. It really was the best I’ve ever had. We opted to take some of these sweets home with us.
They were doubly delicious as we haven’t had sweets or sugar for several weeks. At the end of the meal we were given a little dish of an interesting mix of ingredients to cleanse the palate. We didn’t partake but it looks interesting. We had a really lovely time and I’d be happy to go back as long as I didn’t have to face the big screen Bollywood film clips that played continuously. Can I have a gripe here? Why oh why do restaurants put TV screens in their dining rooms? They’re noisy, they’re distracting and you can’t fully enjoy the food or the conversation. What do you think?
25 Monday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
Tags
Horn cabinet, Jinny Beyer, Kaffe Fassett fabrics, organising, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, thread
My sewing room re-organisation is finished. I managed to get it done by late Friday afternoon. I’m very happy with the result.
Previously I had stored my fabrics according to colour. Well that just didn’t work for me. I mean look at some of those Kaffe fabrics! What colour are they? There are so many colours in each fabric and usually they’re all shouting “look at me. look at me!”.
So I decided to keep all my Kaffe “group” fabrics together on one shelf, loosely in colour order. Then I put all my solids and colour-on-colour and blenders together, roughly in colour order on another shelf. Then I have my Jinny Beyer’s and two plastic containers on another shelf with florals in one and Japanese and Batiks in the other. I have two more plastic containers on another shelf that holds all my scissors and some project bags. The containers are grouped into neutrals, browns and blacks and novelty fabrics. Then I have a plastic crate with all my flannels, another with WIPs, another with my inspirations and a fourth with empty plastic containers. My books and boxes of freezer paper etc are on shelves and a red container holds batting off-cuts. I guess you can work out where the ironing board gets stored.:)
My fabric bolts are in the wardrobe, together with my whole rolls of batting and crates of other craft things – knitting, painting clothes sewing etc.
My threads are all in containers in another bookcase and my cutting mat and sewing machines are in/on my Horn cabinet.
The only disappointment of this exercise is the fact that while I found the plastic bag and the card explaining its use, I didn’t find my errant Jinny Beyer Perfect Piecing tool. 😦 Oh well you can’t have everything and at least I’ve got a clean and tidy sewing room.
24 Sunday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
Tags
Catherine's Place, fabrics, French Hatbox, Presencia Perle, quilting blog, sewjournal blog, thread
The other week some of my orders arrived including this one from Catherine’s Place. My French Hatbox fabrics and my Presencia Perle threads. Aren’t the colours lovely?
23 Saturday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
One of my block swaps has arrived. It came all the way from Norway, accompanied by these two cute little Baboushkas which are now destined to fly all the way back across the world to my granddaughter. They’ll be very well-travelled Baboushkas by the time they reach her. Aren’t the fabrics interesting? I haven’t seen these before, though they may just not have been around in the shops I visit.
22 Friday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
Tags
fabrics, organising, organizing, quilt studio organisation, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog
Time to reorganise my sewing room. Here are some “during” photos. As you can see I found it very difficult to find enough room to sort stuff in order to reorganise it.
But I did get the fabric organised before I had to stop for the night. As you can see the bookcase is looking pretty spiffy!
The rest of the room however needs work and that’s this afternoon’s job. Wish me luck!
21 Thursday Oct 2010
Posted in Sew journal
For the last few weeks I’ve been working on a new blog. I’m planning to move this blog to another server soon and am hoping to do so without causing any disruptions and losing any of you along the way.
It’s quite a learning curve even though I used to be a developer. Things change so fast in the IT business.
Anyway after nearly a full day of exporting and importing posts and comments and tweaking templates, installing plug-ins and adding widgets I’m a lot closer to the big move. Below is a pic of what the new one will look like. What do you think? I’m hoping to attract some sponsors/sidebar advertisers so we can have more prizes and give-aways. Fingers crossed.
