A Star is Born

Over the last few months I have been doing a bit of "square dancing" in the form of a mystery table topper and I have Bowed to your Partner,  Bow to your corner, Come down the middle, Allemande left and last week was the big reveal.     After each step was completed I did have a bit of a play with the blocks in the hope of maybe guessing how they would all fit together but try as I may I would have never guessed the outcome.

Now you too can see "a star is born" in the middle of the blocks.   I decided to go with a plain white border and all that remains to be done now is to sandwich, pin, quilt and do the binding.    At this stage I think that I will use the left over fabrics to make a  patchwork binding.  

I keep looking at it to decide how to quilt this one.  Something to think about when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep.

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Happy sewing all

3 More ........

Fold up shopping bags have been added to the giftie box.   Before folding up

And after folding up

Once  these were finished off it was time to bring out my square dance table topper and  work on the final clue.     Before sewing the blocks together sometime was spent on re-arranging them - as one does - to get an even distribution of colour throughout the topper.   Tomorrow's job will be sewing it altogether and working out how I want the border.  

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Happy sewing all

Big Day Out

Today was the first day of the Annual Craft and Quilt Fair held at Darling Harbour. This year it is celebrating 25 years and from memory I think it was said that there were over 350 quilts on display  to wander amongst and admire.   The biggest number of quilts on display ever at the Show.      It is always inspirational and motivating to see what other quilters make.

 

As well as the quilts to see there are also plenty of demonstrations and workshops as well as  retail therapy to keep one happy for hours.   I had been looking to purchase a new sewing light but did not want it magnified and found just what I was looking for as well as a few other bits and pieces.

One piece of fabric that is missing from my stash is a white background with black writing and whilst I had seen some they mostly had very large writing and pictures on them - not what I had in mind so when I saw a bolt of what I was looking for today a metre was purchased for a future project.    I also stocked up on some more bobbin huggers and the black object behind the fabric is 50 metres of macramé cord.  That will be used for another purpose which I will show later.

My plan is to head to my sewing room tomorrow to set up my new light, wind more bobbins and put the huggers around them and with all that inspiration gained today work out my next project.

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Happy sewing all

Winter garden colour

A walk around my garden over the weekend proved to be colourful experience even though we are nearly at the end of the first month of winter.

First up is a bromeliad which gives a lovely splash of red in amongst some ferns.

This azalea which is near my sewing room flowers for the majority of the year

These colourful succulents have self seeded from where I do not know and provide a pretty cover in front of the garden fence.

My bambino bougainvillea obviously loves the spot that it has up against the front wall where it gets sun for most of the day

And lastly my Chinese tallow tree which by now should be just bare branches still has many green leaves as well as a mixture of yellow and deep red.

I hope that you enjoyed your stroll around my winter garden.   I am glad  these photos were taken on Saturday as it has not stopped raining since and even though the colour is still there it is looking very wet and dull.

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Happy sewing all

Purse size

Or shopping size

Now that plastic shopping bags will no longer be available at the end of the month it will be necessary to have reusable bags available at all times and while I do have a good supply of fabric shopping bags none of them can be folded up and tucked into a pocket on the front keeping them neat and tidy in my handbag.   This problem was solved today when I made the above bag and of course I could not stop at one.      I have had this aqua fabric in my stash for quite sometime and I thought it would make a pretty bag and even better  as it is the colour for this month's Rainbow Scrap challenge. 

And after making these two another 3 were cut out.  As you can see they are all pinned where necessary and the plan is to sew these up tomorrow.

Thanks Wendy for hosting another fun FNSI.

Linking with Finished or Not Friday, So Scrappy and Oh Scrap.

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Happy sewing all

Third time lucky

My walking companions and I have been washed out  twice over the last couple weeks when we tried to do the walk from Mosman to Balmoral but today was the ideal walking day....not hot, no strong cold wind or rain.   On with the walking shoes and packed in our bags were water bottles, an apple, some nuts and  a camera of course to capture our adventure.    The sign shows the beginning of the walk.  Normally I am travelling on the Manly ferry but today I was able to see it as it crossed the harbour and the third photo shows one of the many secluded bays along the harbour front.

Time to get out the book of directions and have a rest before we climbed the next lot of stairs.   One of the many lovely sandstone rock formations that we passed along the way.    I was able to make it to the top of the stairway and took advantage of the seat facing straight out through the Sydney Heads to have a sit down and a quick snack before the descent  which will take us down to our destination.  

The descent took us 15 mins of walking down stairs which can be seen in the photo below.    We are about one quarter of the way down at this point.     Our destination - Balmoral Beach and our reward of fish and chips for lunch.   We all felt we earned it after walking for 2 and a half hours.    I have never walked up and down sooooo many steps in one day.

Fortunately there was a bus stop just across the road  which took us to the top of the hill and then it was out of that bus and into another one for the ride home.  

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Happy sewing all

A wet long weekend

We have been without rain for such a long, long time and once it started it has not stopped.    With all that dampness and lack of sunshine we have little clumps of toadstools popping up all over the garden.

Seeing that it has been far too wet and cold to do any outdoor activities like gardening so what better way to spend a long wet weekend than warm and dry in my sewing room.   Each year my quilting group does a  charity project and this year we are making library bags for students in underprivileged countries.   The group was divided into cutters, side seam sergers and I ended up in the group that was forming the casings for the drawstrings to be threaded through.   Each of us were given around 20 bags to work on.

My pile is now ready to be handed over to the  drawstring threaders.   I have also been given fabric to become one of the cutters so we vary the tasks between us.  

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Happy sewing all