Merry Christmas!

Look what Santa sent to me - some gorgeous reproduction purples, a couple of cute buttons and a "gucci" fold up small shopping bag. Those gorgeous Aussie girls - Lorraine, Sandra and Rosie got together and a little salvation package arrived in time for Christmas Day.

Then I got to thinking about the lovely "Golden Memories" by Lori Smith quilt sampler pattern which I have... And wandered if my reproduction blues and browns would match the purples....

And I think that the mix is not too bad. A couple of colour changes are required, but I now have a basic palette to start the quilt with. Very satisfied!

Aracnophobic Einkauftasche

Today I decided to put the final bindings on einkauftasche, which has been sitting around for about a month, on the floor next to my machine. I had been procrastinating somewhat as this is not a simple task.

First, my sewing lamp fell and hit me on the head after I turned it on, so I had to tighten the loose screw.

Started sewing. The needle on the machine broke. Changed it.

While changing the broken needle, I felt something crawl on my ear. I brushed away what I thought was hair. I felt crawling on my face. Brushed again, still thinking it was stray hair, only to realise it was a 2cm long spider. AAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. I'm still getting shivers up my spine while typing this blog entry a couple of hours later. There were about 5 mini spiders crawling out of the bag too. I am thinking that they wanted it for their new home because I removed all cobwebs from the ceilings and heating vents this past weekend.

Here is the offending bag, which still needs the binding finished on one side, almost ready to hold my scrapbook items.

A positive note about this bag, apart from the fact I have an immediate use for it, is that it been a great 'stashbuster' because I only needed to buy the zip and wadding. All of the fabrics and thread came from my stash - and I think it's really pretty.

The rest of the binding will be finished tomorrow because it is very hard to sew on and I need a break from sitting at the machine.

Santa Claus and Baubles

OK - well you can't see Santa and the Baubles yet. All the wonders of modern technology don't work if you forget to charge the batteries! The camera is as flat as a tack. I will upload photos later when the camera is happier.

This week, I made 2 more baubles and a Santa Claus costume. DS1 was Santa in the school Christmas play and there were no boy costumes available anywhere, only the hats. One hat does not make a costume, so we went to the "cheap" clothes shop to buy a red long sleeve t-shirt and pants. I then sewed quilt wadding onto the clothes for the trim, cut a beard from wadding, a piece of black fabric for the belt and the middle of a cushion for the belly. He was seriously cute!

I have two goals for this coming week: 1 - complete the binding on einkauftasche (bag) and 2 - complete quilting, then bind and label a baby quilt. When these 2 projects are done, I can start 2 other baby quilts (from 1 jelly roll and a co-ordinating fabric), which will both be Irish Chain, ready for babies who are due to arrive in the first few months of next year.

Now it's off to pack my bag with some show and tell for the quilt meeting this afternoon which will be my last one here in Germany.