So cute

The last couple of weeks I have been working on a quite large quilt.  I could have pushed myself and finished it except for hand sewing, by today, but I needed to take a break and do something a bit different.

A friend of mine who does the most beautiful (make that perfect) work, taught a group of us to do painting on fabric, using folk art paints or watercolour pencils and fabric medium.  This is the picture she prepared for us, and I then painted the girls using paints. It is dated 2004.

I have mostly boy Grandies (love all those young boys), but I now have a girl Grandie who I can make things for, so I decided to make her a cushion using the painted picture.

 Some pretty trim which is a bit like lots of little tassels for her to touch, as she loves to do, and some striped piping to finish it off.  Some lovely "affirmative words" fabric worked perfectly.

I will see Vicki in about 3 weeks time so can give it to her then.

Our latest bloggers meet up

What a wonderful group of bloggy friends this is.  Unfortunately Maree didnt get into the photo - there didnt seem to be anyone "floating around" who looked willing to take a whole group photo for us.  Then we got too involved with enjoying the day and forgot to try again.

 We had our Brissy meet up yesterday at Cafe on the Park at Shorncliffe.

  It was a lovely day, with lots of laughter, chatting, catching up, show and tell,  just a bit of eating, (just kidding !!!) and an even smaller bit of stitching.
Photos were a bit difficult to take as there was so much light coming in those huge windows.  That was great for doing the few stitches I put into my stitchery though.

Show and Tell is always inspiring.

Susan and Maria brought along their portrait quilts to show us.  They were much admired.

De's lovely pinwheel quilt.  I love this, and now I will keep adding to my little collection of pinwheels.

Sandi's Lynette Anderson quilt is beautiful and the doll is simply gorgeous.

Helen's quilt looked beautiful on her blog but in real life it is absolutely awesome. We saw some of the blocks at one of our earlier bloggers meet ups and they were beautiful, but to see it all together and quilted is amazing.

February Christmas item

The month has slipped past so quickly - already it is the 25th , and time for

Last Christmas Day one of my daughters asked if I would make her boys a new Santa sack for this year as they were using the one she had when she was young.  This month I have made the first one.

The fabrics are Penguins Happy Holidays by RJR Fabrics.  I didnt think before buying it but it had the words Happy Holidays written on the white penguin fabric.  We have Happy Christmas so I cut the wording off and used just the picture part.  I will do that with all of that fabric.  The penguins are so cute.

So that is one Santa sack down, how many more to go?

You can check what other people have made this month by visiting here. http://pinsandwhiskers.blogspot.com.au/p/1-xmas-item-2013.html

Late FNSI - my projects

Although I was late linking for FNSI I have been busy with sewing the last 2 nights - our Friday night and the Northern hemisphere Friday night.

 Last night I did some more work on my hexies.  It is growing.  I didnt expect to get hooked on hexies, but they are fun to do.

Tonight it was some secret stitching - the bottom fabric, and I also traced off a letter to stitch at our bloggers meet tomorrow.  This is from Michelle of Rag Tag Stitching's new Stitcher's Alphabet.

This is a beautiful set of alphabets that can be used on your own project - for monograms, tags, on journal covers, or whatever you would like to add a letter to.  I am so pleased I bought this set, and can see I will be using it so much.

We had beautiful colour in the sky at Sunset tonight.  The top photo is looking east, and the bottom is looking west.  We dont usually see such colour here.  Most of the sky was coloured, but it faded very quickly.

Oh dear, Oh dear !!!!

How terrible is it when both Hubby and I "forgot" it was our wedding anniversary today.  I guess after 41 years we have become - what??? comfortable? complacent?  Forgetful? Or we didnt write it in our diaries,on the calendar, on our phones, which is the normal way to be reminded.

 Hubby had thought about us going to see a movie tonight, just because, but with it being so wet he decided to wait till another night.  Then I just looked at the date for the first time today, and realised  - so we should have braved the rain and gone after all.  Oh well, we definitely are taking a "rain check" on that one.

So instead, he has been having his nightly Pa nap in front of the tv, while I have been working on a project using a small pink charm pack I was given for Christmas.

There is some embroidery, some piecing, hexie flowers, and the zips are yet to be added.  Hopefully it will all come together to make a useful item.  (Making hexie flowers was a lovely way to spend the evening anyway.)

Today, I have also been working on this quilt for Caring with Quilts.  The sashings are now on, and the blocks are sewn together, now comes the quilting. That will take me a few days to do.

Oh, and we are having some chocolate to celebrate,  (too late for some wine! - after all it is only 1 hour till "tomorrow".)

Sammy rang me today to say he had received his art folder birthday gift.
This one:

     

 He said he liked it.  He has written on (well, my son said scribbled) quite a few pages already - but that is what you would expect a 4 year old to do isnt it.

My two young apprentices

The time has finally arrived.  The first two of my Grandies asked to do some sewing.

I had planned to work on this quilt for Chookyblue's Caring with Quilts collection.

However, when Kai (7 year old) asked if he could sew something, and then found some stray UFO 4 patch squares in my sewing room, how could I refuse.

 First off, he joined 2 squares, which we turned through to make a very small quilt.

 Then he moved on to making a bigger one with borders and backing, for his favourite Teddy Bear, Pikelet.

 He even insisted on ironing it. (that is the backing fabric).  I hovered very closely - I am sure Mum would not be impressed if I returned him with iron burns.

When he had finished that he found some "rainbow"  hand embroidering thread (variegated) so wanted to do some hand sewing as well.  So not only was it his first time at the machine, and ironing, but also hand embroidery as well.

Of course Charlie (5 years old) wasn't going to be left out.

He also made a small 4 patch quilt,

 Followed by his quilt for his Teddy Bear, Charlie Bear.  Charlie, being younger, lost concentration much quicker - he was much more interested in pressing buttons, lifting flaps and anything else he could fiddle with on the machine.  But he did finish his quilt.  His bear is much bigger, so we had to design a bigger quilt.

This is a typical Charlie pose.   Enough of this concentration stuff.

I am very impressed by their work.

It was such a hard day's work that Kai collapsed on the day bed with his Ipod.

A good day's sewing.

Today I finished off an Aussie Hero Quilt, ready to be sent to a person serving on one of our Navy ships.  I did this as a disappearing 9 patch, a block I hadnt tried before, and I enjoyed doing it.  Think I will do another one very soon.

 I added some embroidery to give it a touch of Aussie - the stylised map of Australia

 and the Southern Cross.

I also made a laundry bag to accompany it on its sea journey.

This panel worked out very well for a laundry bag.  I put one seam in the centre back instead of the usual 2 side seams.

I also finished off this month's project from Sewing Club at Sew This and That.  I had almost finished it at the class, so just needed to do the final assembly.

 The folder is to keep our Sewing Club notes in.  Just what I need to help tame the papers in my sewing room.  The words were to be appliqued, but  I chose to  embroider them.  Otherwise I think it would have ended up being a next year's UFO.  (so fiddly).

 The sewing machine  is pieced, lots of small odd shaped pieces sewn together to make it.  It went together into the right shape, surprisingly.  It then has 2 layers of pellon under the machine part to give it a puffed trapunto look.

These 3 fabrics are ones I bought at NikkiTervo's shop when Joy, Wendy and I visited her last week.  I thought the background button piece would suit the folder perfectly, then found the other pieces to coordinate with it.

Happy birthday, Sammy, and more finishes.

Our Grandie, Sammy had his 4th birthday recently.  These photos were taken by his parents - he lives too far away for us to be with him on his birthday.  But it was nice to see his young  friends celebrating with him.

We gave him the art folder I made on FNWF, which is now finished and filled, I made it using a very good tutorial by Thimbelina.  I hope he will have lots of fun using it.

A couple of other finishes this week - I started making a mesh food cover some years ago.  I had made the frame using the Double Mitre Ruler by the Sewing Revolution.  I then needed to sew some mesh into the frame.  I thought it was going to be difficult to keep it straight and the corners "square", so kept putting it off. But it proved to not be so difficult after all.  It took about 45 minutes to complete. 

 Now when we go on our picnics we will be able to keep the uninvited visitors (flies) off the food.

I have also finished my True Friends Tote Bag for the Stitch-a-long (from the book "Red Home" by Natalie Bird). This was a really good project to make.  

 Gorgeous stitchery, and love the Life is Beautiful fabrics.

 I added the button....

 and lots of pockets to my bag.  I have a zippered one as well as the ones that can be seen here.

There was still room to hang it on the hat and bag stand.