Some Current Projects

Still waiting on my sewing machine (one more week I believe!!).  In the meantime I've been working on some new projects.

The paper pieced hexagon cushions I mentioned last month weren't working for me... so I picked out just the brownish fabrics and decided to start making a table set - trivets and placemats.  I've hand pieced together two trivets and have them basted up ready for quilting.

The neutral colours blend in nicely with the timber and the seat fabric.  My plan is to piece together vertical strips for the placemats in varying widths.

After running across this cushion the other day, I instantly knew what I wanted to put on the dust cover for my sewing machine.  I just love the Cherish Nature charm pack I bought a couple of weeks ago... here is the start of "Cherish Nature Project No 2 - Sewing Machine Cover"!

I need to applique the pieces and stitch some beaks, eyes and legs.  Still trying to decide whether to use sewing cotton or something heavier like cross stitch thread.

The last two weeks I've been going to a quilt group.  It's great to meet some more people living locally and its also very inspirational to see their projects and flick through the different pattern books that they're using.  They are a very talented group of quilters and I'm definitely looking forward to learning more and asking their advice on my own projects as I slowly work through them :)

New Fabrics :)

I think my sewing machine is still sitting on the docks in Melbourne... so in the meantime I've been amusing myself by buying fabrics!  I reckon I spent nearly a whole day browsing the online shops... and certainly found some beautiful fabrics to order.  They only took a few days to get here from Texas :)

I was so pleased with the fabrics... I ordered some fabric for more baby quilts which I'll post photos of later once I start making them (hurry up sewing machine!!), and I also bought a couple of charm packs.  One is Cherish Nature by Moda...

I fell in love with the colours... and decided I'll use them to make a dust cover for my sewing machine and a couple of other sewing accessories. First up I was inspired by Heather Bailey's pattern for her Square Deal Pincushion.

Can you believe I hand stitched this!!!  I thought I hated hand sewing... but I managed to get this done in one night.  It was actually quite relaxing and extremely rewarding.

The other charm pack is Tweet Tweet by Moda... I'm playing with the idea of doing a baby quilt with 4 large disappearing nine patches on the front.  I spread them out on the floor and played around with the order of the fabrics for quite a while until I was happy with them.  Then... disaster... I saw her coming... I grabbed the camera to try and capture the pattern before it was lost forever...

I managed it just in time!  Kitty is such a girl... she loves shoes, bracelets, and fabrics!!!

Singapore!

It seemed to take forever to get packed in Australia, and now it seems like we've been here in Singapore for ages!  Arrived about 10 days ago and have been busy getting settled in, buying furniture, and finding our local hangouts.

Kitty arrived safely last week and has settled in well :)

One of the furniture shops up here was having a huge clearout sale so we managed to buy our couch (and everything else) off the floor at a heavily discounted price... we only ended up going about 3 days without furniture in the end.

And of course... new furniture needs accessorising!!!

I'm working on some paper pieced hexes for cushion fronts.  Not sure if I'll use all of the fabrics yet.  Its been difficult finding a good supply of fabrics here, so I may need to start searching for an online shop.

Hmmm... and online shopping will be much easier once the baby's born too :)

Procrastinating again...

Packing just seems to be taking forever... and its no fun.  I've been packing my craft things today and have finally made the decision that its time to pack the sewing machine away in preparation for the move.  It's something I'd been thinking about for a couple of days but didn't want to do!!!  It now means I won't be able to work on the quilts for a couple of months (??) until it all turns up again in Singapore.

So I was thinking about what I could do once I get to Singapore and have to wait...

Luckily, I found another bag of goodies in my stash :) 
How cute are these little guys!!  And here are the wools I'm using to make them.

I knitted up one of the toys a couple of months ago.  The pattern uses 3.00mm needles and the toy turned out really really small... way too small for a newborn to safely play with unfortunately.  So, I tried again using 4.50mm needles.  Here are the results...

Maxamillian the tadpole!  The button eyes on the cover of the book are sooo cute, but again - not safe for a newborn. 

I'm still not loving the end result... the knitting on the little toy is really tight and you can't see through it.  On the bigger one, I can see the stuffing through the knitting... the stitch is a lot looser.

Not sure what to do next (maybe double the wool up), but I will keep persevering until I'm happy.  And then I can make a whole family of cute little knitted toys!

1 quilt top down, 1 to go

I've finished off the 1st baby quilt top...

I was inspired by this quilt, although made mine a little larger.

See that cute little cartoony fabric?  I bought more of that to do the backing, and will use the dark blue fabric for the binding.

Still a long way to go on the other blue quilt top... only 7 days until my sewing machine goes into transit :(

My very first quilt..

I was going through some boxes the other day getting things sorted before our move to Singapore and I came across a quilt I made at school in Year 7!! 

I'd like to think my skills have progressed a little since then!

Monsters

I've just finished stitching the first 2 blocks for the blue baby quilt.  It's going to have 9 blocks in total and will be about 1m x 1m.  These blocks are 25cm square.  The background fabric is white (bad photo!).

The theme is monsters and circles... its based on a wonderful quilt I saw on the cover of Australian Homespun magazine (Jan 10 edition).  Each circle has its very own piece of batting behind it... so the small blue gingham circle in the picture above now has 3 layers of batting behind it, with another final layer to come after the quilt top is finished.

I really don't like hand sewing, so am loving the machine stitching around the circles! 

My new blog!

Wheee, this is my very first blog post.

I haven't done any craft work for quite a while, but have recently picked it up again and am loving it.  My current motivation comes from being 25 weeks pregnant, hence all my projects are baby based at the moment :)

Currently, I'm making 2 baby quilts.  One in greens and browns, and the other in blues (yes, its a boy).  Also doing some knitting, but that's taken a back seat while I madly try to finish off the quilt tops.

Aargh... so the reason for needing to finish off the quilt tops... we're moving from Australia to Singapore in less than 2 weeks and my sewing machine will be in transit for about 6 weeks.  I really should be busily packing up everything in the house, but it's much easier to start a new blog and do some quilting!!