Washed out plans

I cannot complain as it has been 76 days since any significant rain has fallen in our area and the garden and lawn are certainly enjoying their  long overdue drink.   Having said that I had made plans today to visit the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition which stretches from Bondi Beach to Tamarama so I had to console myself by heading to the sewing room and make any early start on FNSI by doing some more work on my hexies. 

As I said in my previous post progress is good but very slow.....it is taking around 1 and 1/2 hours to get each rosette sewn on.     Firstly I start by sewing around the inside of the middle flower then move out to the outer edge.    Once the threads have been pulled through and tied off it is time to  then move onto the centre of each of the outer flowers.  Once all those threads have been pulled and tied off I am then giving it a good press and then doing a zig zag stitch around the entire outside edge of the rosette. 

The ones below have now been completed which leaves 7 to go.   I can see why I kept putting this UFO to the back of the pile as it is very time consuming and quite tiring on the eyes.  I can feel another small deviation project being finished before this is.....just to keep my sanity. 

Thanks Wendy for organising FNSI again this month.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

Who knew....

That you can make such cute little Christmas trees from circles of fabric?   Not me until the other day when someone from my quilting group showed us how.

Start with an 8" circle, fold in half, stitch, leave an opening to turn right side out, stitch all around the outside and by folding this way and that, give it a good press and sew some ribbon on to the top  you end up with this.    Very cute.

After that lesson we were shown how to take 5  5" squares of fabric, fold 4 of them in half, leave the 5th one unfolded as it is the base upon which to layer up the other ones on and turn them into coasters.  This would the perfect project if you had some pretty charm squares lying around.

After my little deviation it is back to hexies.    Good but slow progress is being made with over half left to stitch onto the background fabric then I can begin joining the blocks using QAYG method.

Linking with Hibiscus Stitches and Oh Scrap.

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Happy sewing all

Watch this space......

Now I have said a couple of times no more new projects to be started until my hexie bedtopper is finished but good intentions do have a habit of getting off course however in my defence these small projects will be worked on at my quilt group tomorrow.   Seeing that one of our group members is going to show us some "magic" which fabric that would be rude to not participate...don't you agree?

In my next post I hope to have some photos of what these end up being.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

Oh to be 4 again

Yesterday Miss M celebrated her 4 birthday.    Delving into a birthday bag of goodies

Each year her godmother makes a requested birthday cake.   This year Miss M asked for a ladybug cake and she was lucky enough to get 3.

A great day was had by all especially the birthday girl who scored some lovely gifts from family and friends. 

During the week hubs and I had an enjoyable day out when we  visited the Ku-ring-gai wildflower garden.   It was a perfect day weatherwise and as we were there early not many people were around so we virtually had the place to ourselves as we wandered around the shaded boardwalks.

We saw our state's floral emblem - the waratah

One of the world's oldest trees - the wollemi pine

Below is a selection of wildflowers that can be seen as you walk through the area.

And an unusual way to use fallen seed pods

It was a lovely way to spend the day especially during the beautiful spring weather that we are having at present. 

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

FNwF.....

Is always the first Friday night of the month and of course you guessed right I spend part of the day and last night working on my hexies.   Slow progress is being made but it is progress.   All the papers have now been removed, the backing fabrics ironed, all of the rosettes have  now been pinned onto the white background fabric and sandwiched ready for quilting.  All piled up ready for the next step. 

I will start quilting in the middle and work my way out around each rosette and end up by appliquing around the outside edge.     It will all be done by machine and I have made a promise to myself to pull through and tie off each of the threads as I go otherwise it will be a huge task at the end. 

24 others joined in last night and due to the time difference between the southern and northern hemisphere some are most probably beavering away now.    Thanks Cheryll for organising another fun night. 

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Happy sewing all

Oh What fun.....Not

I forgot the small matter of removing all those papers in the hexagons.   Three down and 9 to go.

For some diversional therapy I stopped off and had a play with a new thread rack that I bought during the week.   Don't they look pretty all lined up.   There are spaces for 60 spools and looking at what is still left in  my thread box I need to buy another one.    It is so much easier to match the thread to the fabric while they are stored  like this rather than rummaging through a box trying to find the right shade. 

Time to have some morning tea before heading back to those papers.   I had a plain packet cake mix in the cupboard and to that I added blueberries, banana and plain yogurt.   What a great way to jazz up an otherwise ordinary cake.   

Heading back  to the sewing room and on my way past the clothesline I will grab the backing fabric that was pre-washed earlier on.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all

No more procrastinating

This  was the year to  bring out  all those UFO's that have been gathering in my sewing room and finish them off.    All of the UFO's have been finished off  with the exception of  my hexies that were started back in 2010!!!!! and looked like this

They now look like this. 

But they have remained like that for quite a few years so no more projects are going to be started until this one is finished.    My original plan was to applique them onto white background blocks, QAYG and make them into a bed topper and after having a play around with them yesterday I will stick with that plan.     This is going to be my October OMG and if I am honest it will be November's OMG also as there is quite a lot of work to still go before I can declare a finish.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all