Tag Archives: knitting blog

Quilt Market in Sydney

17 Monday Jun 2013

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Yesterday I went to Quilt Market with Kate of Kate Quilts and Erica of Creative Dabbling. I’ve never been before and it was interesting to see the new fabric lines.

The threads at the Aurifil stand were luscious and very cutely and cleverly packaged to make you want them ALL! You can see photos of them on Eric’s blog  Creative Dabbling.

The Leutenegger stand was my very favourite. Remember all the trouble I had with quilting minky and how it came through to the front when I used it as a backing for The Gaz Quilt  Well this minky almost had me thinking that it might be worth another go. What do you think?

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But that’s not all they had. Take a look at these two stunning quilts and then I’ll show you the fabric line they’re made from.

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And look at the back of this one…

P1060272I did ask for, and received permission to take photos for my blog of these quilts but you can see much better photos on the maker and fabric designer, Carrie Bloomston’s, blog here. She also has a pattern available as a PDF download for the Nest quilt that you can purchase there too. What a talented lady! You can also see an online flip book of great projects to sew with this line here.

The fabric line is called Collage by Carrie Bloomston, Such Designs for Windham Fabrics and it consists of 20 fabrics. Here they are:

P1060267 P1060269 P1060271You can see better photos on Windham’s website here.

Just to be clear – I have no affiliation with any of the designers, manufacturers or distributors associated with this line. I just really liked it and I can’t wait till it arrives in the Kate Quilts shop.

 

 

Less than perfect

09 Sunday Jun 2013

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You remember the disastrous day I had a week or so ago? Well I salvaged what I could of the makings of the zippered pouch, altered the design and this is what I came up with. Of course I had to scorch in the corner to add to its imperfections.

Pouch 2 Pouch 1I also managed to finish a cashmere scarf for my husband and I’m pleased with that and so is he. I made a little carry pouch for his two ipad nanos and earbuds too.

EnsembleSo while I haven’t had unqualified success with my crafty efforts recently, things are improving… I think.

 

 

A day of failures and minor injuries

30 Thursday May 2013

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Failure and injury number one:

I had a day of failures and minor injuries today. First of all I tried to make a zippered pouch. It was a very cute one that came with a free pattern and tutorial. Another friend had made one and as I have to make a zippered pouch for the Greater Western Sydney Modern Quilt Guild’s Zippered Pouch Challenge/Swap, I thought I would try it.

P1060070I have to say that while I acknowledge fully my shortcomings as a machinist I still think the instructions for this particular pouch left a lot to be desired. Several times I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to do and, of course, did the wrong thing… 5 seams unpicked later and re-sewn still wrong and I gave up but not before I dropped a pin on the floor, bent to pick it up and bashed my head on the sharp corner of my long plastic cutting ruler. I now have an unattractive red mark right above my nose. 😦

Failure and injury number two:

I decided I would wash and blow-dry my hair. The metal part of my large round brush got super hot and when I accidentally touched my neck with it, I burnt myself! Ouch! Another nice red weal to add to the collection I’m starting. Then before I could make it out of the bathroom to safety I knocked all the bottles and spray cans off the shelf and had to hunt for which top matched which perfume bottle etc. Fortunately nothing was broken.

Once out of the bathroom I decided to resort to a peaceful hour or two knitting the scarf I started for my husband. Half-way through I noticed an unfixable mistake and had to undo the entire thing. 😦

I hope your day has been better. 🙂

 

The GWS MQG quilt block

18 Thursday Oct 2012

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At the Greater Western Sydney Modern Quilt Guild (GWS MQG) we’re making a membership quilt top as a record of all the members. We are to use the three colours of the guild’s logo plus white plus one other fabric of our choice. You can see the details here.

At last week’s sit and sew some of us set ourselves the target of finishing our block by next Monday’s meeting. I managed to get mine completed today and here it is. Nothing particularly earth shattering but it is a record of when we started. I’m afraid it’s not my best work. I’m a little rusty on the applique as I haven’t done any for a while and Kona cotton really isn’t the best applique fabric as it’s not fine enough and tends to fray.

The GAZ Blanket

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

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My soon-to-be son-in-law Gary likes to watch movies on the TV. So I’m making him a blanket with a movie theme. I had to break my fabric fast as I didn’t have any movie themed fabric so I’m waiting for this to arrive but in the interim I’ve pieced the name GAZ using Elizabeth Hartman’s Fridge Magnets Alphabet pattern and embroidered a shirt pocket with a Hollywood star. The pocket will hold the remote. I’ve bought some lovely soft, warm, white spotted red minky for the back which I’ll show you when I get all the fabrics.

In the meantime here’s what I’ve done so far.


The Traveller’s Blanket continued

04 Saturday Aug 2012

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I’ve been pressing ahead with the traveller’s blanket. I’ve done a fair bit of quilting and I’ve added some more circles of fabric. I’ve been very careful to try to keep it tidy on the back and I’m really happy with the way it’s shaping up. Want to take a look?

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Apologies, apologies…

03 Friday Aug 2012

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Dear Readers
I have been made aware that some of you have received bulk posts in your readers during the time I have been battling to move my blog. It has been a very difficult procedure and I almost gave up at one stage. Please accept my apologies for any irritation I caused you.

The results

I have lost my last post on the Fabric Obesity Crisis and also there is no way for me to add my subscribers to the subscription database of this new blog. I have pleaded with WordPress to no avail. So please if you want to continue to receive email notification then can you sign up at the top of the left column? Thank you.

The future

I hope to keep blogging and sewing as before and hopefully be a little more productive than I have been recently. I have lots of ideas for new projects so please join me on this  journey.

Thanks

Thank you for all your support. I hope you’ll continue to get something useful, fun and interesting from the blog and, as usual I really like reading your comments and try to reply to each and every one.

Farrah has landed!

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

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Farrah the Travelling Stash arrived at my place this morning. There were several duplicates (in fact 10 of the 50 FQs were duplicates) but I didn’t mind as I like stripes so I took two of the sets of duplicates and put only one duplicate in what I sent back so there’d be a bit more variety.

I took a few photos so you could see her and see if you would have chosen what I did.

Farrah as she arrived

What I took

I took stripes and spots and a couple of animal prints for a baby quilt I’m planning.

What I put in

I put in a mixture of neutrals, 1930s, Japanese, Riley Blake and pale blues.

Farrah, ready to leave

I wonder whose next on the list? No I’m not teasing. I’m waiting to be sent the address myself so I can send her on her way.

Frustration and Farrah

07 Saturday Jul 2012

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I tried so hard to bring you a post with lovely photos of Farrah the Travelling FQ stash. She has now visited three members of the list. The problems arose with this blog template. It really doesn’t play nicely with photos. It takes no notice of any instructions you give it with regards to alignment, size etc. In the end I got so frustrated that I gave up. Hopefully when the stash arrives here I’ll have better luck!

Losing my blogging mojo

I’ve sort of lost my blogging mojo recently. This template is difficult to use and I feel that a blog post without a photo is like coffee without sugar, but then maybe you like coffee without sugar. I’ve bought lots of interesting books recently but I just haven’y got around to photographing them. I also wrote a book review on Elizabeth Hartman’s new book but the publishers wouldn’t let me use photos of the pages that I had refereed to in the review so I’m not going to bother publishing it and I’m certainly not interested in writing a second review. It’s a bit rich I think as I actually ask permission. I know lots of other people don’t, they just photograph the pages they want to show which falls under the “acceptable use” guidelines for a review. However, it’s their loss.

Hand quilting

I have been hand quilting my In A Spin quilt but progress photos of that aren’t that interesting, so I don’t really have anything to show you but I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten you all as you’ve supported me so wonderfully throughout the evolution of this blog.

Till next time… keep sewing. 🙂