Winter is..........

Lorrikeets feeding in our neighbour's back garden - a morning ritual that I like to watch from my kitchen window as I am preparing our breakfast each day.   I was lucky enough to be able to grab the camera and put on the zoom  without frightening them off.

A garden full of fallen coloured leaves

Warm fireplaces

Misty mountain walks and finding unexpected things along the way

Like giant mushrooms and

Bare trees with  raindrops.

I would love to hear what winter is for you.

 

It has only been 12 months since......

I was at a quilting retreat and managed to get my head around foundation piecing.    Whilst I was at the retreat I did start a bedrunner using up scraps I had left over from another quilt that I had finished several years ago.   As previously  reported back in March I had spent many nights removing the papers from  my crossed canoes and I can now proudly say that it is completed and sits at the end of our bed keeping our toes nice and warm on these rather chilly nights that we have been having lately.

The only fabric that I had to buy for this project was the offwhite and the blue border fabric which depicts water.  

The first picture is a close up of the canoes and in the second one it is pegged across several garden chairs showing the length of the bedrunner.

I am also just about at completion stage of a mystery quilt that I am working on for a challenge issued by my quilting group.    I hope to be back very soon with piccies of that.

In the meantime happy sewing.  

On a moonlight morning

Hubby and I woke up last Saturday morning to find the moon still up and seeing as it was going to be a clear day we thought we would head off on our annual trek to Mt Wilson to see the autumn leaves and this year is the most spectacular we have seen the colours in the trees.

We parked the car and walked down shaded  lanes

   And along grassy walk ways

To be amazed at the colours in the trees - particularly the reds

After a few hours of wandering around and admiring the scenery it was time to head home.  What a shock we got when we started heading back down the mountain - there before us was Sydney - no wonder they call it "the big smoke".     The pollution hanging over the city nearly made us turn the car around and head back up the mountain to the peace and freshness of Mt Wilson.

I look forward to returning to Mt Wilson in the spring to enjoy the springtime blossoms.

I have been doing quite a bit of sewing lately and hope to come back soon with some piccies of what I have been finishing off.

In the meantime happy sewing.

My first and probably my last.....

Piped cushion cover that is.   One of the ladies in my quilting group is a sewing teacher and when she offered to run a workshop on how to get that professional piped edge on a cushion I was the first to put my hand up.     That edging is something that I have admired  for sometime and I can now see why they are just so much more expensive than just a plain edge.    They are very fiddly and time consuming  but I am pleased with the result which is below.

The second cushion that I have recently made is another one of the pleated cushions.  It was a gift for our DIL's mothers on her 60th birthday.      I chose the colours for this one based on the outfit she wore to our son and DIL's wedding.

  
And last but not least is another tabletopper that I made recently as a "hostess" gift for a friend who was hosting a reunion dinner for a group of us who have known each other for over 40 years and in some cases a lot longer than that.   We all went over separate ways due to getting married, moving away from the area, having families and work.     We met up again around 5 years ago and now make it a twice a year reunion to catch up with each other.      She loves butterflies so when I saw this fabric I knew that it would be going to a good home.  

I have also been doing some secret sewing - more on that later.

I hope to be back soon with some lovely autumn photos.   In the meantime happy sewing.

St Patricks Day

Is fast approaching and I saw this cute shamrock fabric which was just begging to be made into a tabletopper.

I will give this to mum tomorrow.    I think that I have made a tabletopper for her table for all seasonal celebrations now.     I hope she likes this pattern!

Talking tables I finished off the runner and placemats below for my daughter-in-law for her birthday last month.  I made 6 placemats but the table that was used in the "shoot" is smaller than her table so I only could only 4 fit on it.  

For sometime now I have been working on learning and perfecting foundation piecing which has been a very slow and time consuming process for me but I have been slogging along with a bedrunner which is going to be needed very soon as the nights begin to chill down around this time of the year.    What I did forget about was how tedious and even more time consuming is the removal of the papers.   A good thing to do in front of tv of a night.    I have spent 3 nights so far and estimate that I should finish if off tonight so that I can make a start on the borders.   One way to fill up the recycling bin.

Next time I blog I hope to have the finished item up.

In the meantime happy sewing.





      

Long weekend sewing

Happy Australia Day everyone.     Officially Australia Day was celebrated on Saturday but today has been declared a public holiday.    As Friday was my day off work I was lucky enough to have an extra long weekend so I took advantage of the  time to do some sewing.    Sometime ago I bought the fabric below just because  I thought it was novel.   Having little things on sticks, umbrellas in drinks, plates of cheese and biscuits and olives reminded me of a celebration  and so Saturday being a day of celebration I thought it in order to make some new coasters and an tray mat on which to stand a bottle of wine.

Now as you have gathered by now I am someone who does everything by machine and  yes I admit even my bindings (I hope that the quilt police are on holiday)  but I have always sewn the binding on the back first and then brought it around and machined it down.    I saw a tutorial when I was  blog hopping the other day on  CluckCluckSew at http://www.cluckclucksew.com/search?updated-max=2013-01-10T04:29:00-08:00&max-results=4  that she did the reverse to me so I gave it a go on the tray mat and now this is the way that I will  do all my bindings from now on.    I am very pleased with the result.  

In Australia we have been experiencing one of our hottest summers on record so a rummage through the stash revealed some fabric that I had sitting around for sometime to make myself something long, cool, loose and pretty to float around the house  in on these hot nights.  

It seems to blend right in with the cover that is on the bed for summer.  

All is calm here at present but in Sydney we have been warned about the tail end of a cyclone which is moving down from the north.     Strong winds and driving rain are heading here and expected to hit sometime late this afternoon/evening.    Hubby has been around the yard and moved anything that is likely to be washed/ blown away.     I think that there will be a sleepness night ahead for many of us.

Happy sewing until next time.    

Big girls and their dollies

Clare from clare's craftroom is having a giveaway on her blog which can be found at http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com.au/.   Now I often pop over to Clare's lovely blog to see what she is up to from time to time and I am never disappointed.     When I saw her latest post during the week I knew that us "big girls" love our very old dollies even more now than when they were given to us.   So why don't you pop on over and join in the fun.    I am off to check out  the other blogs that  have well loved dollies on them.  
Back soon.