I have gradually been tidying up my half square triangle units using a rotating cutting board and a bloc loc ruler. Now I'm ready to sew the pinwheel blocks together and will use the Featherweight 221 again for this piecing process. I am hoping this will be a good sized Quilt, but still have some extra fabric if more blocks are needed.
An Irish Chain Quilt has been on my "want to make" list for quite a time and I have been working with some pink 1930s reproduction fabric combined with white homespun. This little Quilt is a learning process and I will send it to Cheryl for her Blankets of Love project when it is finished. The pink squares are one inch and the little quilt will be about 19" square. I pieced it with the Featherweight 221, which is sewing beautifully.
This was one of my favourite books when I was in early primary school. It is the story of a young witch left behind on Halloween. She spends the year with the family that finds her in their tree and learns to be a happy little girl. Happy Halloween!
I am just home today after a week with our Daughter and her two young children. She had a three day conference and needed a little help so I was very happy to oblige. The littlies and I visited the Toy Departments of the larger stores in Melbourne and the Queen Victoria Market. We counted trams and watched the cranes working. There were plenty of buttons to be pushed for the lift and the traffic lights. Many thanks to those people who helped me with the pram and wake up those people who congregate on the footpath in their cloud of poisonous smoke!
I bought myself a new "Camera Bag" at the Queen Victoria Market.
I have about 180 half square triangle units ready for trimming and then piecing into Pinwheel Blocks. The trimming will be very easy using a Bloc Loc ruler and a rotating cutting board and I have a new blade in the Rotary Cutter.
After reading this post on the Organised Housewife Blog I decided to make some wipes for myself and put them in a wide mouthed vintage jar from the OpShop. I already use Lavender Oil and Water in a spray bottle for cleaning surfaces and thought Katrina's recipe for natural antibacterial solution would be quite effective as well as encouraging me to do a bit more housework. I made some more with pretty striped cloths as a gift for someone else that would rather not use chemicals.
In the Garden today I did a little weeding and there is still plenty more to do.
The Jasmine on the Garden Shed is covered in flowers and the fragrance is lovely, quite soporific.
Some time ago I purchased four metres of this fabric in four different colours and I have finally cut into it to make a Quilt for myself. Daisies are my favourite flowers and I have a large collection of daisy fabrics. It will be made up in pinwheels and should be quite large, so I will probably have it professionally quilted.
This is my third tea cosy using tea time themed fabrics and I think this is my favourite.
This half yard of Jennifer Paganelli fabric went for $255 last night. I have seen other auctions of this fabric go for large sums before, a yard of the fuschia pink was $356 and a half yard of the peach went for $135. If I paid that much for a piece of fabric I could never cut it up. The Jennifer Paganelli range is beautiful and the prices are usually what you would expect to pay for good quality fabric.
I know I put it somewhere but I just can't find it. Everything has been turned upside down and I have looked in all the odd places I put things, but it is still missing. I am sure I had it yesterday or perhaps it was last week. Maybe I left it somewhere or it was stolen when I wasn't looking, the thief only taking that one thing from me. I will just have to manage, because it was unique and can't be replaced.
Because I had run out of Paper Pieces, this project was at a standstill. My order from Koopips arrived very promptly and I have finished 7 blocks and lots more are ready to sew together . I am calling this block "Tussie Mussie" because it is all little flower prints. There will be apple green hexagons between each Tussie Mussie and I won't know what size it will be until it is finished. I may have years of work ahead of me on this one!
I used a tutorial from "A Spoonful of Sugar" to make these tea cosies, but altered the pattern to fit my teapots.
My old Australian Made woollen blanket has long lost its satin binding so I have sewn a new one on using some sheeting off cuts. I have a few rolls of these and they have been very useful for borders and bindings. One of the quilts I sent to New Guinea was made entirely from some of these sheeting strips.
I have bought myself a Singer Featherweight 221 and had it serviced and safety checked. Now I am sewing with it and learning about it as I go. There is lots of information about these machines on the internet and I have discovered mine was made in 1954, which makes it older than me. It only has straight stitch and can sew in reverse if you pull the stitch lever up. The early Singer Sewing Machines were very attractive and this one is shiny black with gold decorations. It is surprisingly quiet and occasionally a little puff of smoke appears out of the motor (but sadly, no Genie!) Our Eldest Son told me I should be using the old wooden spools because the plastic reel and the barcode just didn't look right.
I had a sewing companion this morning and we had some welcome sunshine coming the window.
Finished! And there is still plenty of winter left for our Grandson to use this Quilt. Roar is a Robert Kaufman fabric. I had a lot of trouble with the quilting on this one, firstly choosing the thread colour and then the actual quilting. Lots of unpicking going on, but I suspect I should have had the machine serviced before I quilted it.
We have had a few nice snatches of lovely weather lately and I have been going for a walk in the mornings. I actually went back to get my camera to take a picture of a couple of calves snuggled up together but of course when we went back, the moment was lost.
However, I was very glad we had gone back, because this Wedge Tail Eagle was perched on the end of the tree guard and I got a couple of pics before it took off. They are magnificent creatures and we see them quite often, so high above and circling so effortlessly.
The two woolly calves were still together, but the closest one was no longer resting his head on his friend.
I had made a lot of hexagon flowers using tiny prints, but had come to a standstill with putting them together. That has happened to me on other quilts, so time for a rethink. I unpicked what I had already done and put the units together in a different block that I am much happier with. Progress!
I don't know if this block has a name, but I wonder if "Hello Little Birdie" can guess what I'm going to call it?
I finished this quilt in good time for a new arrival thinking it was a neutral pattern and colour scheme. It is a Disappearing Nine Patch B...
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