broderie

cool house and quilting

this is part of a delightful quilt using the oh so beautiful liberty fabric, it belongs to a friend who is not so well at the moment and i know she reads my blog so surprise ! surprise !

today i have been keeping cool and putting the layers together and sandwiching this quilt top with wool batting and a liberty back, it feels so soft and comforting, so now it is already to hand quilt

it has many gorgeous areas in it and all together it looks very beautiful as well as the luxurious feel

the look on the bird is comical, this liberty designer must have been feeling in a mischievous mood when they drew this design

then i did some of this, some of you have been wondering what i am doing with the cascade cottons i showed you a couple of posts ago, well this is it. i like double crochet and am making large log cabin type blocks in all the colours, joining and picking up the stitches as i go and then i will sew them together. a friend had made one and i loved it and so i am doing my version !

they will all be different and i just pick up the next colour, whichever suits me at the time !

then my blooms quilt has been lying on the top of my many projects, waiting to also be sandwiched, so i found some fine cotton floral backing in the cupboard and some wool batting and have also put this together this afternoon, ready for me to hand quilt, next i will choose some perle 8 cotton to do the stitching with

i use the bent safety pins to keep it secure, so now it is all pinned up and ready to start !

a hot day, but a productive one too ! i did have the aircon on !

 

 

home at my place

this week has been spent home here at my place and the weather has been cooler and i have been waiting to 'make' my vegie garden !

this has been a neighbour friendly effort including both my closeby neighbours, a joint effort, and now we have rocket, lettuce, silverbeet and kale planted, so we will being having our greens

i have two back courtyards, one is more decorative than the other, so as you can see there is a concrete area and so instead of putting the frame given to me by j & f straight onto that surface, i asked the other neighbour, builder p, if he could get me a couple of pallets. i bought the black plastic down at phillip island at the hardware shop and then a trip to bunnings during the week, loaded the boot with potting mix and seedlings, closed the boot and then realised that i had left my bag in there as well and of course the car was locked ! i then remembered that i had left my mobile phone at home, that did not matter, because it would have been in my bag too ! i had not left j at home though and she had her phone, so we rang home to f and he gave us the racv number and about 20 minutes later i was back with bag strapped over the body and then we went shopping for

other bits we needed. then a friends husband came to help on thursday, lovely 'denis' drove my car back to my place while i sat at sewing with my friends and got the 6 bags of potting mix out of the boot and to the courtyard! spoilt again !

another version of the octagon quilt, this belongs to one of my friends, lavina, and it is beautiful, the top is nearly finished !

and deidre is stitching this, a whimsical drawing from one of my french colouring books will become the top of a new baby's quilt top, lots of fun and really gorgeous !

and today i took some more photos, a new pattern !

show you soon !

oops i just realised i used 'houses' in the categories, maybe a clue !

 

falling leaves & bright bindings

this little tree in my own front garden has just been a blaze of colour, as have all the trees in the neighbourhood. my friend deb, in hobart sent some photos of autumn in her garden

and the garden also at hobart cottage

as you can see love grows on trees down there, and also on my little 'tree' that i have inside all the year round

 
lots of reminders of 'bits' friends have given me over time

and this new pup in the family, belongs to my cousin in hobart, found a good place to keep warm, 'hot dog' chloe, was as close to the wood fire as a dog could get

normally reserved for big logs of wood !

i have been doing some hand piecing, more on this later

finishing and starting more socks 

 
and helping a friend prepare this quilt for hand quilting and putting on bright bindings on these two quilts just back from being machine quilted

back to some hand stitching on the bindings !

i have a friend that has just started up a new blog the quilted tortoise, so go and see what she has been doing

i will return soon, there are other things to report !

 

 

playing with new things

since christmas day many hours have been spent playing with new things received, i am doing this post on my new little notebook computer, great for travelling, a lot lighter than my laptop!

there are new books, new dvd's, new patterns, new stitching and more mundane things like a steam mop that paula is testing! no photos of it, but much easier than the conventional way.

 
if life is just a bowl of cherries, as they say, then life should be very good! we have been eating delicious cherries and youngberries and raspberries from my cousins garden, they are oh so sweet and the flavour compared to the shop ones, there is no comparison.

 
we went and spent a few days down at the 'shack' at orford on the east coast of tasmania. the term 'shack' is the tasmanian way of saying holiday house, it is most comfortable and very peaceful usually, however the new next door neighbour was laying floor boards and even the dog, lucy, was not liking it much!

 

 
decorated with a seaside theme, there is lots of good spaces for inside and outside stitching, hmmmmm a good spot for a sewing weekend or week?????!!!!! there is even a picture of some old bathing beauties!

 
i did say there was a seaside theme!

 
and there was a lot of stitching done, now i am warning you ............ look away if you don't want to see, but lucy decided she wanted to learn a bit of patchwork!!!

 
i did warn you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

then we have celebrated a birthday, deb made a beautiful sponge with fresh raspberries and cream for paula! it is home and on a lettuce diet for me!

 
and now to some of the stitching i have been doing down here in hobart in the last three weeks, apart from the christmas, new year and birthday celebrations and all the eating that has been done.

 
more pineapples and putting them together

 
and a start on another project for the year, spools in blue and white, they are 5 1/2 inch finished blocks and i was doing them all in square and half square triangles, but have now cut a template for the sides and tops to make it quicker!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

i will be back, going home tomorrow to my place, always happy to be there, but sad too because am leaving you all down here in hobart town!

building houses and peeling pineapples

two or three weeks ago and a gathering of a few friends, after much chatter and 'sew and tell', this is what i have been doing!

building houses with spots and stripes, a traditional 14inch schoolhouse pattern drawn up by my friend trish. there is a place in the cupboard bulging with spots that i have collected over the years and so i decided a few spotty and stripey houses could be fun.

  

 

 
and as i am handpiecing, as usual, i thought the sky fabric was neutral and an appropiate design to use

give me a reason to draw round some templates, add the seam allowance and then get the scissors and cut, i am a happy girl, so when trish showed me her version of the old pineapple block quilt, i was off and running. i have put two together of the 8 blocks i have cut. these are mine

 

 

 

and this is trish's version that inspired me, it is a great way to play with fabric and both patterns allow you to get into the cupboard stash

 

i am looking forward to doing a red version !

this is a quilt my friend deb, in hobart, has done for one of her sons. flying geese in lovely blues and linens on crisp white

 
machine quilted by desley regan with a large meander

 

and these are some other things from the garden and in it that i have enjoyed recenly

 
this little old wild rose that pops through the hedge at this time of the year

 
all the agapanthus heads ready to burst into flower in the green part of my garden, blue and white, for christmas 

and these white roses, brought to me by a friend from her garden, went into one of my favourite vases

 

and many know how i love an unusual neck piece or brooch, i was lucky to receive this from my friend lyn from her her recent trip, with margaret to italy, hungary and france, i like it !

 
i am enjoying a saturday at home, love being at home playing with my stuff, watching and listening to the cricket and now i am going to do some preparations for christmas

enjoy your saturday !   

 

 

all in the basket

a friend of mine and member of our sewing circle has a basket, just a big shopping basket the she puts all the projects she is working on, in it and rotates what she works on. it is a system, she makes the rules and so she can break the rules also! yesterday she got the basket out, there is only supposed to be 10 things at a time, well they kept coming yesterday!

 

 
the beginning of the civil war bride quilt

 
a quilt for a grandson

 
this is a promise for a neighbour's grand daughter

 
a little influence from me here, but two identical tops being made here and we are hand piecing all of this work also

 
and two of these, yes identical, for another grand son

 

 
shopping with another friend, they saw king david's crown , by michelle yeo and bought the pattern and all the fabrics

 

 
these circles made from the 'camelot' pattern by trish harper are now getting their background fabric put on them

remember this is all out of the basket

 
and this lies along the back of the couch, a snowball with an embroidered central panel

 

 
just a bit of cross stitch too, don't know where the knitting and crochet were?

 
and some canvas work for her daughter, there must be more than 10 things! we were over the basket, yawn!!!!!!! not really, we are all good friends, but i am working on getting her back. at least my friend will be able to look her to see what is in the basket!!!!!!!!!!!

i will be back with some other work over the weekend, some other friends and some of mine! there were lots of lovely bits that had been made up while i was away.

coming home

 
this is someones home in battery point ! 
 
'be not long away from home' read the little sampler at hobart cottage and just as we all went away, some of us like me are now home, however my friends are still on their way today. little children always want to go home, my friends are also looking forward to being home, it is so nice to go travelling, but your own bed and comfort zone are a very strong part of our lives. i was in two minds, very comfortable where i was and loving what i was doing and enjoying the company of family and friends, but am also happy to be home! 

daylight saving has also started in the last week here in this part of the world and it was a perfect sunday in hobart to start the next six months, here are a few captured pictures of that sunday!

 

 

 

 

 

 
from battery point to salamanca and down to the river, people and even the dogs were out enjoying this beautiful sunday. walking, sailing, swimming and paddling !

 
 

 

and i took so much sewing down with me to do while i had sooooo muuuuuch time to do just what i wanted ! well i did get quite a bit done, but the prize for me was finishing a project that i have enjoyed doing ! now it is in the pile to be quilted by hand ! here it is just spread out over my guest bed. i will always remember that i started it 01/10 and finished in hobart in 10/10.

 

 

talking of 10/10 go and look over at linen and raspberry , my friend jean had a birthday yesterday on 10/10/10, see what she has been up to, gorgeous things !

i am happy with my very scrappy quilt top, i have enjoyed all the drawing out by hand, cutting out by hand, and stitching by hand and using lots of bits that probably would still be in the cupboard ! happy enjoyable hours !  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lining up the liberty

i did bring lots of my projects from home with me anticipating i would get them all finished and it is more like being at home if you have some of your 'stuff' around you ! well i have been doing a bit of this

and a bit of that

and lining up the liberty's

from little piles to this

i am handpiecing these together and then will put the rows together, 17 elongated hexagons in one row and 16 in the alternate row. i think it will be a pretty finish and it will certainly make use of all the liberty bits i have been collecting for years.

then yesterday i, along with my cousins barb and paula who live down here, all started one of these, a desk top organiser ! paula almost finished hers, she works quickly, so here it is and no matter how you look at it, it looks just fine.

i am off now to join the girls to do some more crafting and chatting etc., show you what we come up with next !  
  

crowning glory

today was a fairly cold and miserable melbourne day, but i spent it finishing the top of my king david's crown quilt! whoo hoo!!!!! it was too dull to get a photo in natural light and the forecast did not suggest that it would be any better for some days, so i did the best i could with the photos.

and

it is four crowns down and five across with a 25cm border, now for quilting and binding ! i am happy with the finish, though you always see things that you could have done better, oh well. it looks very cozy generally and was a good finish for a day like today.  

camelot by trish harper

this is a photo of the original circles quilt 'camelot' made by trish harper and was my inspiration for the one i did. as you can see i did my own thing with it as i usually do. for those of you who have the pattern now, we thought it would be interesting for you to see the difference colour and background make.

trish has quilted hers alot more than i have and it looks gorgeous, but then i would sooner be making another top than doing the quilting bit !

and oh, by the way, i would much rather be handpiecing than machine piecing! today i started sewing up the new pattern and i am now trying to decide if i will continue with the machine ! perhaps i should sit on the couch and have a brandy to soothe my jangled machine nerves first !!!!!!

we are still adding to it and building it, but go and take a look at my other blog  that my cousins barb and paula from hobart, tasmania and i are playing with at the moment. it is called 'give these girls ago'. if you leave a comment on that blog before the end of the month, june 30th, we will have a give away. so go on over and take a look and leave us a comment about the things you like to make and do.

you know alot of the things i like to make, but other things i love are................

rainbows, avenues of trees, water views, the emotion of music, paper and writing, the comfort of being with friends and family, and i am thankful that i have always been content at home, i have enjoyed travel, walking along beaches, good conversation, laughter, i would love to be able to sing!