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Angus our Jack Russell Terrier is not the flavour of the month today. I had thought I would finish my Wendy Williams project but discovered this….. Say no more, I went to pony club to watch my granddaughter instead of sewing today…

Who me? would I do that?

I bought the pattern for these bags Sew Together Bags  by ‘Sew Demented’ several months and it is only recently that I started making them. I completed the second one yesterday and I am fairly pleased with the result.

There are several little pockets on the inside for keeping sewing knick-knacks. This will be a very useful bag and make a lovely gift.

I had hoped to do some quilting last weekend but managed to bend my sewing machine needle. This knocked the machine out of alignment resulting in skipped stitches as well as the needle threader not working. A service and repairs is going to be $115. As you can see I did a good job of the needle which is titanium!

I had wanted to play with the fancy stitches on the sewing machine as they have a lot of potential for quilting and could be useful for quilters who are not confident with free motion quilting. I recently used some of these stitches on journal covers I have been making and was really pleased with the results.

Instead I have had to content myself with drooling over the 820 stitch manual which I made last year (Can you believe I stitched all the stitches out). Nevertheless this did give me time to me select a few stitches that would be suitable for use instead of using a straight stitching or cross hatching when quilting.

 

It is quite some time since I last updated my blog and my a lot has happened in that time. Towards the end of July my DH was critically ill and needed emergency surgery. He is now home from hospital and making a slow and steady recovery. As you can imagine I’ve not had much time for sewing during this time. It is only during the last week or so that I been able to pick up my needle and thread.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a retreat a couple of weeks ago while my daughters looked after DH. While at the retreat I picked up some gorgeous fabrics as you can see below from the shop in attendance.

I love both packs but the red is my favourite. I’m not sure what I will do with yet, I don’t want to open as I just enjoy drooling over them!

I have been able to start work on the QuiltWest Raffle Quilt, here is the top border, I am now working on the side border. The design is by Robyn Falloon of BonBon Designs

With DH being  sick I have to reschedule all my workshops. I will give you updates on the workshops page about my new workshops in the near future. In the meantime I can tell you that I will be doing a one day workshop at Ocean Keys Sewing Centre  on October 11th that will cover using the wedge ruler and free motion quilting. Please contact Faye Peskett for more details.

Finally I have been able to put the blocks together for the Jelly Roll quilt I started last week. Babysitting during the school holiday has kept me busier than I thought it would and I only managed to get around stitching the blocks together on Wednesday.  When finished this quilt will be donated as a community quilt. This was a really quick quilt to make.

I still have 4 more Jelly Rolls left, my next project will be to use these pink and aqua rolls. The Jelly Rolls are very pink dominant so I will see if I have any aqua in my stash to tone the pink down a bit!

On Saturday I went to Parkerville Friendship day. I had a really enjoyable day and it was topped off by winning a $30 voucher to spend at Bali Girl. I wasted no time selecting fabrics which I am really looking forward to using!

I couldn’t resist sharing an image of Abby, I’m a keen photographer and have just upgraded my camera so the little dog has been used as a model.

During the last week I have been busy doing housework…..and also tidying out a few cupboards where I found several Jellyrolls I’ve been squirreling away. Infact I had forgotten I had them. Two of them were bought at the AQC 4years ago so I felt it was time to put them to good use. I opened them up and spread them out over the table which would you believe had been tidied!

I decided that I did not want to purchase any more fabrics when using the Jellyrolls and had to use only the Jellyrolls I had with any fabrics I had in my stash. I thought that firstly I would try and use only the 2½” strips in the Jellyrolls. I drew a simple block in EQ7 which would suit my needs. How simple is this. I joined 3, 6½” x 2½” strips together as shown below. There are 2 sets of strips as I  made 2 blocks.

I then stitched a 6½” x 2½” to the top and bottom of the strips I had just sewn together so that the 2 blocks I made now look like the photo below. Each block now measures 6½”w x 10½” high.

I then stitched a 10½” x 2½” strip to each side of the blocks to give me 2 blocks that each measured 10½” x 10 ½” as shown below.

I finally stitched a 10½” x 2½” strip to the top and bottom of each block to give me the finished blocks as shown below with a size of 10½w” x 14½h”

I have made 26 blocks so far and look forward to putting them together as a quilt.

Even though I have been busy cleaning during the last week I did find time to socialise and went to my sewing group the Sandypatchers who met last Tuesday. I just have to share the beautiful quilt Sue a member of Sandypatchers has put together. Sue’s embroidery is spectacular. The quilt is from a book called A Gardener’s Journal by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched.

I’ve been busy playing catch up these last few days and have started designing my next quilt in EQ7. The theme for next years’ exhibition is 2 colours and I’m thinking of working in purple and hot pink!

I’ve also finished downloading and resizing the photos I took of the Esperance girls work last weekend.

I think they did some amazing work, they all learned and completed 4 techniques in 2 days.

Chris used a fabric featuring tigers to make her fancy  wheel.

Corina used a rose fabric to get 2 different semi circular designs.

Deb used a Jinny Beyer board Fabric for her wheel.

Lauren used the same Jinny Beyer border Fabric as Deb but in a different colour way.

Margaret used a beautiful striped fabric.

Rhonda used a fabric featuring small zoo animals, She did each of her quarter wheels with a different design. Here are 2 of them.

  Pixie made a beautiful fluted wheel in hot pink with sparkle and lime seen here as well as a quarter of her Fancy Wheel.

Yesterday I returned home after spending a fabulous weekend teaching and sightseeing around Esperance. The students were all enthusiastic and keen and produced some stunning work. I taught at the Bandy Creek Angling club which had a beautiful outlook over the harbour.

The weekends’ workshop covered several techniques that can be used with the Dresden plate rulers to give different designs. Ten ladies attended the workshop and they can all be seen below with some of the work they created during the weekend.

On Saturday the girls worked on Spinning Wheels and Daisy Wheels. Hillary is seen here stitching her strata together. This is the first stage of making the Spinning Wheel after cutting is completed.

Here is the end result.

Below are some samples of the work Lauren produced over the weekend.

Jane is seen working on one of her wheels!

Below is the Fancy Wheel Jane made on Sunday – Wedgewood Blue seems an apt name for this wheel!

Here is another amazing Fancy Wheel made by Elizabeth. All the girls did some truly stunning working so I will post more for you to see later this week.

Today has been a largely wet, windy and dreary day here in Perth.  A perfect day to stay at home and sew. I didn’t get around to sewing until after lunch as I had to finish writing and printing my workbooks for the workshop on the weekend. Then I had to take them to the printers to be bound.

Once I got around to sewing I had some super fun playing with the wedges yet again. I just love these rulers, they lend themselves to so much. How do you like the dogs below? aren’t they just a hoot! I can see the potential for a scrap quilt using this design. I can also see a good use for the novelty prints in my stash.

As I’m using the Dresden Plate ruler , I thought I should make a Dresden Plate, so here it is. I really like it, it could possibly be the beginning of a table-cloth or maybe a two colour quilt for next years’ exhibition. We’ll see.