Recapping February

First up I was lucky on two counts...  I was the lucky winner for January's OPAM organised by Kris at Tag Along Teddies and received one of Kris'  gorgeous patterns for a shopping spree bag in two sizes.      And Mr RNG picked me as the lucky winner for FNSI over at Sugarlane Designs .    I shall look forward to my lovely prize arriving in  the letterbox.  

Looking back over the month many finishes were achieved including my shoe collage which has been on the "to do list" for about 18 months.     This was my nominated OMG for the month as a well as being on my WOOFA list.   I also took part in Colour it Red blog hop and added two more celebration mini quilts to my collection.    The shamrock is for St Patricks Day and is the flipside of the Valentines Day heart.   

Aprons and bibs were also sewn for Network heaven.   And a purpose  was found for all those novelty leftovers from previous projects - they made their way into 5 small quilts for the Paediatric Intensive Care unit at a large regional hospital.

I would like to thank those who keep us motivated by organising virtual sewing nights and blog hops.    It is a great way to keep moving to a finish, finding fresh ideas, learning new techniques as well as sharing tips and tricks.

A new month starts on Sunday which means that a new colour will be announced for the Rainbow Scrap challenge and it will also be  time to nominate my OMG for March.     

For anyone who is a Miss Fisher fan - and who isn't - I recommend that you see the new movie just released.    It has all the elements that make Miss Fisher a must see - the glamourous clothes, the gorgeous shoes, all the impossible feats that Miss Fisher performs without putting a hair out of place or working up a sweat and of course the love/hate relationship between herself and Jack.  

Back soon and in the  meantime

Happy sewing all

5 Fun finishes

There was plenty of time spent in the sewing room over the past few days which resulted in finishing off 5 small quilts.   These were fun to make and a great way to put all those left over novelty fabrics from previous projects to good use.  These quilts were all done as "boy themes" and I will do the next lot as "girl themes".    Now of course I have a whole lot of fabrics which need to be cut into 2 1/2" squares.  Us quilters are never short of fabrics or projects.

A soft flannel  was used as backing fabric on each of them as can be seen below.   I like to use only 100% cotton fabrics for babies quilts.   

They will be passed onto Cheryll when she returns from her current tripping around.  

I must away and organise some dinner as there has been a storm warning issued for tonight.   I do not want to be eating vegemite sandwiches by candlelight should the power go out again.  

UPDATE

For those asking - no we did not lose power last night.  

Linking with Midweek Makers   

                      Put Your Foot Down 

                      TGIFF

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

This week in the sewing room

Sewing was severely restricted due to lack of power yet again.    We lost power 3 days in a row with the longest period being over 25 hours due to a severe storm which knocked out power to a large area of Sydney.   I did manage to cut some fun fabrics for quilts which will be used in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit of a large regional hospital.   One of the sizes requested was 24" x 30" with a boy theme.    Easy 4 blocks across and 5 blocks down x 6" = 20 blocks.  

I could have cut more but the fabrics needed to be pre washed and ironed so time to make a start on my latest library book and as always Kate Morton never fails to engage her readers.

I did get through 150 pages before putting it down and heading to the kitchen to clean out some cupboards.   It never ceases to amaze me how all those plastic containers manage to loose their lids. 

Once power was restored mid afternoon yesterday and after enjoying a much needed coffee and catching up on emails I headed to the sewing room and made a start on sewing the blocks together.

An early start was made  on FNSI today to console myself for having been evacuated last week due to flood waters and no power for such a long time this week.  Hopefully the storm season will be over soon and we can look forward to a constant power supply.   It is nice to be able to walk around the house  during the night without a torch,  open the fridge when you want to, get more than a vegemite sandwich by candlelight for dinner and look outside to see the street lights on.   It would have been scary and dangerous driving in the storm through blacked out streets.  

These quilts are fun to make and go together very quickly.   They just need to be quilted and bound. When finished they will be sent to Cheryll for distribution.

There were grand plans to join in the Rainbow Scrap challenge again this year but once I gave more thought to my original idea it was ditched but some orange (this month's colour) and green which was last month's colour fabrics were used in the making of the quilts so I am guessing that qualifies as joining in the Rainbow Scrap challenge again.  The blocks  below have been sewn together now the rows needs to be sewn.  

Thanks Wendy for organising another fun night of sewing.  Time to head on over here and see what the others who took part in FNSI  achieved.

Linking with Put Your Foot Down

                      Friday Finished or Not Finished
                      Oh Scrap

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

Colour it Red Blog Hop

Today is the nominated day for me to show what I have been working on.    For sometime now I have been thinking that I would add a few more mini quilts to my collection, with it being February when Valentine's Day is celebrated and the theme "Colour it Red" it was the perfect chance to combine all three ideas into one.

Here is my first mini quilt

While the  fabrics were out I decided to make the flip side which as you can see will represent St Patricks Day for March.  

Now I just need to make two more that will be sewn onto the back of them, turned inside out and ladder stitched closed at the bottom.   I have yet to decide on what they will represent.  

Thanks Carol for organising such a fun blog hop and you can see more lovely red projects at the blogs listed below.

February 17^th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Websterquilt

Vroomans Quilts

Hill Valley Quilter

Selina Quilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Samelia's Mum

February 18^th

Ms P Designs USA

Podunk Pretties

DayBrook Designs

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Bumbleberry Stitches

Sew Many Yarns

Karen's Korner

Stitchin At Home

February 19^th

MooseStash Quilting

Quilted Delights

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Storied Quilts

Just Sew Quilter

Kathy’s Quilts

Just Because Quilts

Words & Stitches

Scrapdash

February 20^th

Life in the Scrapatch

Songbird Designs

High Road Quilter

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Patchwork Breeze

Lynn's Blog

DesertSky Quilting

Seams To Be Sew

February 21^st

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Fabrication

Beaquilter

All Thingz Sewn

Karrin’s Crazy World

Den syende himmel

Daughters of Dorinda

Quilt to the Edge

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Linking with TGIFF

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

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