This Week in the Sewing Room

I was able to finish off those bibs that were cut out when we were without power for most of the day a couple of weeks ago due to an upgrade of the system.

There is another 10 to go then I will have reached the 20 bibs that was requested.   I have run out of this teddy bear fabric but have another lot to start on. 

I have also been working my way through more aprons.

There are 6 of the coral coloured fabric and 4 of the lime green fabric.   I was also given cotton tape to use for the neck and waist straps which certainly speeded up the process without having to make the straps.    With the 10 aprons that were completed in December last year this will bring the total to 20 that I have made.    

Linking with Put Your foot down

                      TGIFF
                      Peacock Party
                      Finished or Not Finished Friday. 

I have been working on putting the finishing touches to my Colour it Red item for the reveal date of 18th February.    

Back soon and in the meantime

 

Happy sewing all

There is a first time for everything

And yesterday was a first for hubs and I.    We have lived in our house since 1975 and we have never been evacuated before (we were on standby to go many years ago for bushfires but it did not come to that) but last night we received this message on our phones and also on our landline.   This was the result of 3 days of non stop torrential rain and lashing winds from an east coast low which was hanging right over the coastline and not moving very far or fast.

We did have a few phone calls from family and friends advising us of what they had heard and on checking the SES website this is what I found

Residents affected should relocate personal possessions to a safe place. By 10:30PM, leave the high danger area and move to safety.

Once floodwater reaches 2.4m, the Pittwater Road will be cut. If you remain in the area after 10:30PM, you will be trapped without power, water and other essential services and it may be too dangerous to rescue you.

This flood will be higher than the 2016 flood of the Narrabeen Lagoon.

Where to go: Stay with family or friends outside of the flood area, if you are unable, an evacuation centre has been established at Mona Vale Memorial Hall, 1 Park St Mona
Vale and Cromer Community Centre, 150 Fisher Rd North, Cromer.

The concern was  extreme the high tide that was happening at 10.45 pm.   Fortunately we did have 4 different offers from family and friends to spend the night we them but the logistics of getting out of the area were quite tricky with 2 of the 3 exit roads cut with flood waters and the last exit road had trees and power lines down in certain areas that we would have needed to pass through.    So after grabbing our "box" of papers, wallets, phones, medications etc we headed off to the local RSL club which is 4 minutes away where we made ourselves very comfortable in the lounge chairs and watched our favourite tv shows on the VERY  big overhead screen and continued to watch the rain and wind lash around.

Around 1 am we thought it would be safe to venture out as it was over 2 hours past high tide and hopefully the roads would be safe to get through.     We arrived home to find that all was good with no water in the house or garden for which we were both very thankful.  

I know that we needed rain badly but perhaps not quite so much on one go.  The upside is that the dam received 9 months supply in those 3 days and some of the fires that have been burning for over 74 days are also out.

Time was spent in the garden this morning picking up quite a few branches that came down with the wind and sweeping up.   To look out the window now and see the sun shining and the garden cleaned up no one could image what the last 3 days were like.

 Back soon and in the meantime

 

Happy sewing all

My (experiment) version of

A collage quilt.   I have mentioned  in a couple of previous posts over the last 18 months or so that doing a collage quilt was on my "to do list" one day.   I have investigated the possibility of enrolling in a two  day workshop but those being organised were out of my area and would require finding accommodation etc so that was not an option.   It was also discussed at my quilt group last year that we would look at  engaging a tutor to hold a workshop but at our meeting last month this was proving to be harder than first thought.

It was then suggested by one member that we could all bumble along and try to work it out ourselves over a weekend workshop...most members went a bit quiet on that suggestion however not to be deterred I came home  thought more about it then sat down in front of the computer and did what one does - "google" collage quilts and tried to piece together bits and pieces from various websites as to supplies and how to execute this.     Off  to the sewing room armed with my little bit of knowledge and told hubby not to ask how it was going as it could all end up a horrible mess and best forgotten about.

If you were to ask any of my family members or friends they will all agree that I have a passion for shoes so the obvious choice for me was to start with making a shoe.  Every girls dream - a pair of Cinderella's glass slippers which by the way I found in one of Sydney's major department stores but sadly I did leave them behind.

There is a pattern/kit to purchase for a shoe but looking at the finished dimensions it was too big for my purpose.   The outline of a shoe was printed off from the computer and then traced around the various sections of the shoe ie the outside of the shoe, the heel, the sole and the side and from there applifix was applied to the back of the various chosen fabrics.  And so began the process of  building my shoe.  Time was spent going through piles of scraps auditioning them for various parts of my collage.  

At this point I do need to tell you that I did not buy a pattern or kit or any special equipment that was mentioned on a few of the websites - I just used what I normally use in applique to attach the shapes to the base fabric nor did I glue anything down.    My background was also pieced using 4 1/2" squares  - 4" finished - rather than sticking pieces of fabric randomly down - even though this is what collage is all about.      

After much fiddling and arranging this is the end result.

It was quilted across and down the collage with an 1" between each row.

The back shows the corners that I did in order to slip the dowel in so that it will hang in a straight line without any sag in the middle.  The quilt ended up 16" x 16"  when trimmed and bound.

I  really enjoyed the process  and am very pleased with the result but will say that it is very time consuming and definitely not something to be rushed or a timeframe to be placed on it for a finish.  

My mind is now thinking about doing an old fashioned sewing machine.    There will be a lot more fussy cutting involved with that one.

Thanks Cheryll for organising another fun FNwF.   You can see more lovely creativeness here.

This was my nominated OMG for February.

This is another item to be crossed off the WOOFA list.

Linking with Put your foot down
                      Mid Week Makers
                      Finished or Not Finished Friday
                      TGIFF
                      Peacock Party
                      From Bolt to Beauty
                      OMG

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

And the rains came

I woke this morning to the sound of rain.    Yes rain not showers or a storm  but heavy steady much needed rain.

As we are all well aware Australia has been in deep drought for many many years and finally the  monsoonal rains have arrived which will hopefully  put out all the fires that have been burning out of control for many months and start to fill up our much depleted dams.

My garden will be so thankful for the long deep drink that it is receiving as we are on quite strict water restrictions and a bucket of water can only go so far besides the fact that buckets of water are quite heavy to cart around the garden so it was a job that I only did once a week.

I will need to dust off my umbrella when venturing out.

Needless to say that I will be heading to my sewing room later this afternoon to make a start on FNwF and finish off my experiment.    Well that is the plan.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

 

No power = no sewing

Many houses in our area including us were without power for most of the day yesterday due to a planned outage for some upgrade work.  We were advised that we could be without power from 7 am to 5 pm so it was a case of being up just after 6 am to get the car out of the garage and eating an early breakfast as we are an all electric house.  It was also a good excuse to go out for lunch.  On returning home still no power so the scissors had a good workout.     I got stuck into cutting out some bibs for Network Heaven.   I was asked if I could make another 20 for this year's shipment.

I managed to cut 10 out and did notice that the template that I am using - which I will add was used  to make Miss M's bibs over 6 years ago - is looking quite fragile and needs to be replaced.     It has been used countless times since then so it does deserve to be updated.  

It was nice to hear the fridge spring back into life late in the afternoon just in time to get a cup of coffee and check out the emails etc.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

Show me Something with Triangles

Is this month's theme over at Sarah Goer Quilts.  It can be a WIP or a finished item and I have to admit that I had to scroll back to May 2018 before there was  anything with triangles to show.    Shame on me as I do love the versatility of HST blocks and obviously need to  make a note to self to do more projects containing them.

This was a mystery quilt that I took part in and love the outcome.   It was great scrap busting project and went together beautifully.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

OMG for February

Work did come to a standstill on my experiment piece but I am happy to report that time was found to pick it up again.

Getting this piece finished is going to be my OMG for February.   

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all