Five Star Dining....

is what my lovely cleaning lady - Kathy - received for Christmas. I'm hoping that she liked it...

If you think you've seen it before on this blog - you'd be correct, as I made this pattern a couple of years ago and gave it to my Mum.

The design is by Corliss from Threadbear and has been around for a few years now. It is one of my favourites for something effective and easy that everyone likes. Perfect. And yes, I have more fabric to make another Five Star Dining runner in the future. A great standby for that last minute gift idea. One weekend or a few weeknights sees this little baby made in very little time.

Blossom Bag

I have the new Amy Butler's Style Stitches bag pattern book. It's gorgeous. I have recently (right before Christmas) made the "Blossom Bag" pattern, and here it is...I love it. Quite time consuming to make, but oh so worth the effort. I am hoping that my girlfriend Suzie likes the bag because it is her very belated '0' birthday present. Searching for the appropriate fabric to make the bag with took longer than I thought and then I found it on the day of her birthday. This bag has fancy little details around the straps, zippered pockets on the inside and lots of space for all those things a girl needs to have. The Style Stitches book is sensational with all steps clearly written and fantastic diagrams to boot. I have to say, Amy Butler and her team can sure write patterns well. Anyone with a bag fetish, such as I have, must own a copy of this book. I know I will be making more bags from the book, with the fabric for another 3 bags waiting in my sewing room to be made up.... stay tuned!

A Fun Bag

to take along sewing projects, made with shot purple cotton, a large floral print and some purple pom pom trim all topped off with a bright striped lining - LOVE IT!
I made this bag for my Kris Kringle recipient at the SS&Q Christmas dinner which was held early in Dec.

What's even better, the recipient loved it! She came up to me later very happy - what more can you want when you make something for some one in the group who you don't know very well? It certainly made my night even better. - aw shucks.......

To Do Lists.......

It's always around October/November that things seem to get busier and busier and not much happens in the way of quilting! :)

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever I compiled a list of what I want to achieve in the way of gifts to be made and other quilty things that I want to finish by a certain time. A bit like a 'to do list', but longer. So far, so good. My list seems to be working by not letting me get distracted by other things.

The list I mention won't get many UFOs completed, but it will clear space in my sewing room - mostly the sewing table and it will empty a few ziplock bags that seem to breed more projects when I am not in the sewing room.

I feel very calm since I have made this decision to follow the list. I will have to pay an UFO penalty to Stashbusters and will probably become their UFO Queen again before the end of the year, but that's OK because I am achieving projects which will make me happy, make others around me happy and I'll be having a few good catch-up sessions with friends when I see them to hand over the gifts - That is the important thing.

And.... the count of remaining UFOs and sewing room clean up will happen the week before Christmas when I have to get some projects out of the loungeroom and back to the sewing room so as to leave space for Santa to visit.....

Hopscotch Bag...

I made a fantastic bag for my sister for her '0' Birthday this week using the pattern Hopscotch by Melly and Me. Guess what - I foolishly didn't take any photos of the bag before giving it to her, so I have no show and tell today. I'll try to remember to photograph the bag when I see her next....

Oh well, next time........

Pretty Flower

Pretty in the City was the original name of the pattern I used for this quilt. Taken from a 2006 issue of Quilters Companion Magazine, I found the perfect fabric in the range called Fandango by Kate Spain for Moda. Appliqued with a very pale fossil fern fabric, this particular quilt is soft, pretty and actually quite flowery once you look at the patterns of the individual fabrics.

Here is a close up of the applique. I sandwiched the quilt with pin basting and then used the machine blanket stitch to applique the petals and stamens on through all the layers so it was partially quilted by the time I finished the appliqueThe rest of the quilting was clamshells around the outside of the flower and for the 'petals' I followed the patterns in the individual squares of fabric. As you can see, I still need to hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt and attach a label - but I might wait until I am sure of who the quilt is going to before doing that.

By the way - don't you just love the backing fabric?

Funky Granny?

Hmm - here is a quilt top which was made with a couple of years ago with a Sturbridge Collection from the Curator Aimee Newell. A rather odd range of 13 fabrics to go together, with an awful red and white one as the feature for the centre of the back. The pattern was a stack 'n' slash, which used 12 fabrics and was from the book Patchwork by Julie Wallace. The purpose of making this quilt was purely and simply to practice my Domestic Machine Quilting with 'sampler' blocks of quilting all over it.

Guess what? - the inspiration ran out when I had the top pieced together, so it became a PIG.


Then I purchased a new book - see photo below - and it's FANTASTIC. Now, on the photo above is a selection of fabric and thread to create something a little, I mean a lot, more interesting with this quilt top

Because I saw oversized tulips in the book and wondered how they would look on my quilt top, set to the bottom left hand side and then some floating 'in the air' above the main bunch on the ground.....

Off to the fabric and thread stash cupboards I go... here is the resulting sample in the photo below and... I think that the fabrics and threads will work really well for the applique.

Now the name of Funky Granny has come about because I always thought that this quilt looked like the fabrics from the cupboard of a very old Granny, but now with the appliqued tulips to go on the top, it's become a little bit funky looking now - hence Funky Granny!

And - yes,my applique shapes are all traced onto the fusible web and I am looking forward to machine appliqueing the shapes on with the rayon threads in the next week as my "relaxing" sewing - large pieces with no sharp corners -hmmm... nice...

Guess I'll just have to keep you all posted now!

Busy, busy, busy...

.... yes I'm still here - but with no finishes for a while, I have nothing to post. However, it is worth watching this space as I'll hopefully have some wow factor photos in the next few days........

xxx Andrea

Hanging Stars for Christmas

... these stars are just the ticket for hanging in the windows at Christmas time. Completely, 100% my own design and technique.

My inspiration has come from our cold Christmases when in Germany and the gorgeous stars which were hung in the windows of the houses and shops. In Germany the stars had lights in them in the windows, but here in Australia with our long Summer daylight hours, the small lights are not necessary. So, without further ado - here are my Hanging Stars for Christmas, to hang in my Aussie windows...

Above is side one and below is side two. Completely reversible, it doesn't matter which way they face, the look good from inside and out. Love 'em!

And, here is a close up shot of the fussy cutting I did for each star. This sample is the smallest star.I can't wait for Christmas to hang these stars up.

Bag Lady?

Hopefully a tasteful lady with gorgeous bags! - vbg... I have been very productive the last week or so catching up on making bags.

The first one here is a pattern which I have made once before. Called The Original Scrap Bag it is a pattern from ScrapBags . Normally 4 x Fat Quarters are needed, but in this case, I used 2 x 50cm pieces as I had some gorgeous Japanese fabric in my sewing room. I have padded this particular bag with some very heavy duty stabilizer, so that when I put it down, it will stay standing up and not fall over. Big enough to hold A4 size books, but not so big to be bulky - make sense? I hope so.
The second bag to be presented to you in this post is called The X Bag from FourCornersDesigns . I made this one in a single afternoon. It was very, very easy to construct and required 1m of each fabric. Once again, I had some gorgeous Japanese fabric which was perfect. What you can't see in the photo is how the two panels of the bag cross over each other, so that there are 3 internal pockets. The middle one is the widest 'cos that's where you put the covered cardboard base and the outer two pockets are narrower, perfect for diary on one side and my hand-sewing in the other, making the centre pockect perfect for all of my everyday paraphenalia.

I am feeling quite chuffed - 2 finished projects that I can use immediately and a small amount of floor space in the sewing room is now cleared! :)