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.

On the 20th January......

40 years ago today hubby and I tied the knot.   In the photo below we can be seen signing our marriage certificate

 And I am very pleased to say that it is still firmly tied and no sign of fraying around the edges after all these years.    We decided to stay local to celebrate our anniversary and due to the record high temperatures and fires burning all around our State we now realise that this was certainly the right  decision.    On Friday we started the day off with a lovely breakfast at a restaurant just opposite the beach - and this being the hottest day on record for Sydney it was definitely a good move.   A very appropriate design on the top on my breakfast coffee

Yesterday we had lunch at our favourite restaurant right on Narrabeen Lakes which can be seen behind us.  The food, service and ambience are second to none.

  Today we had a celebration lunch with our family.

 
I think that we have held up pretty well over the years.   A couple of extra kilos here and there and a few stray grey hairs have made an appearance but all in all not too bad.  

The picture below shows the lovely floral arrangements, gifts, cards and bottle of champagne that we received.

 Thanks hubby for the last forty years and heres hoping that there are many more to come.     Cheers.  

Gorgeous flowering gum trees

I am not a fan of gum trees especially when they are in my yard as can be seen below.    We have a very old gum tree which attracts many major mitchell cockatoos.    Now if you live in Australia you will understand what I am saying.     Whilst they are an attractive bird to look at they are very destructive.   Some days we can have as many as 20 or so feeding in the tree.    I only caught one in the act yesterday

 And this is the mess that is made at ground level - we clean up around the same amount  like this most days.

Now comes the gorgeous flowering gum trees that my post is about.   On my way to work of a morning I walk pass these two trees and they are now in full flower.   I just had to take my camera with me yesterday and take a photo.   My favourite is the first one.

But then again the red in the one below is gorgeous also

I hope those pesky cockatoos do not find these lovely trees and end up stripping them.

I had to have one

I saw this cover for a cushion here http://www.quiltingboard.com/pictures-f5/folded-fabric-cushion-pillow-t153832.html  and I knew that I had to make one.   Having spent the last two weeks off work I found an afternoon to go to the website, work out what I needed to do, gather the fabrics and start cutting and sewing and this is my version.

I just love the look of the pleats and I know that I will be making a couple more to go into my "giftie box".  I have already picked out the fabrics for the next one.

Next time I blog I hope to have one or two more to show you.

In the meantime happy sewing.