Pin Book

What is a Pin Book?? Well, I guess if you make a needlebook specifically for pins - it's a Pin Book.

Presents for the Loose Threads members this year is a gift or gifts in a colour selected by the recipient.

Inca had a birthday in late March - but of course, we were in lockdown and have only just met up.

Inca had chosen red - I gave Inca a scissor doo dad - made with beads and charms and I forgot to photograph that - but I also made her some number pins.  They are very basic - a long flower head pin, a bit of glue and some number beads.
But I thought I'd best make something to keep them in - hence the Pin Book.

That was the red present back here.
I also forgot to photograph the purple present, 

so it will have to wait for another day.

Not really sewing / crafty . . .but related

This a sort of work thing -
I work for a very large company - but there is a small group of us who have worked together for 30 or so years (from when we were a small privately run company), so we know each other fairly well.
One of those people sent me a link to these two cartoons.

I don't think I need to say any more.

FNWF - July

Happy New Financial Year!!

Maybe not as big a celebration as the end of the calendar year - but a milestone nevertheless.

Thanks to our ever gracious hostess Cheryll - grateful to have a cyber party to escape to after a long workday.  (say no more...it's only going to get worse.)

My usual regime:
Easy take away dinner - one night of the week when DH organises the food.
Crocheting along with BH&G.

Followed by my escape - this time I worked on two taggies for some new parents.

I almost finished them - just the edge stitching to do.

Tomorrow is a Loose Threads meeting - a sewing day - it will be a celebration on a few fronts - our first meeting for ages....- one of our gang turned 90 in March - so we have presents & cake and we have another late birthday to celebrate - more presents - same cake!
We have a colour theme for each person this year:

Tomorrow night DH is off to the AFL with DD & friends - the AFL puts up a ballot to allocate tickets - each winner gets two tickets - but for some odd reason they separate the two seats - not by a few seats or a row or two - but "miles" apart.... Footballers!
Anyway both DH & DD scored the option to purchase two tickets each - so they have invited some friends to go.
Guess I will just have to amuse myself in:

Charity Quilt

A shop I occasionally frequent - Echidna Sewing run a charity project each month.
Each month I say to myself - "you can do that"...but I run out of time.

The project for June was to make a quilt for Little Stars Kids.
Little Stars Kids provide Cuddle Cases filled with new essential items like quilts, pillows, hygiene kits, drink bottles, crayons and much more when they are taken into Foster Care.
The brief was to cut 16 strips of varying widths from 8 fabrics and sew them into a quilt.  Ditch quilting was suggested but I stitched a big 1/4" either side of each seam.
It ended up about 40" wide and 60" long.   I made a "boy" one as I know there will be plenty of girl ones.  We were asked to limit the use of overly patterned fabrics.

It was fairly quick to make and some of it came from my stash - not all as most of my stash is fat quarters with bits cut from it!
Perhaps one day I will make some more.

Blog Row Quilt

Quite a while ago - in the Blog group that met on Sundays back then, we were encouraged to do a row quilt.  Those of us participating made a row for our own quilt, packed a bag with some fabrics that we wanted to be included or used as a guide to other fabrics that could be used.

Our first row had to be flowers. (it ended up as the bottom row)

Each row needed to be added to the quilt and finished by the next monthly meeting and was passed to the next person (hidden in the paper bag so there was no peeping...!!!).

We had rows for: Stars, Hearts, Circles, Pin wheels, Baskets & Hexagons.(I no longer remember the order of the rows - I have since re organised them.)  It got a bit challenging as our rows were 5" finished ...tricky if you are trying to use standard blocks . . .LOL
Once we collected out quilt tops - in the paper bag....we had to add an embroidery/stitchery row.
For my final embroidery row - I added a "header" - with the wording 'Sunday Stitching with Friends'  and I added the name of each person in the challenge and a symbol to represent the row they made - I'm very grateful . . now . . .that I did that as I would never have remembered.

By December 2014 we had finished our rows....One person had theirs quilted...There's always one high achiever!!!!.

I posted it here:

I know 2 people who have since finished.

I added it to my Sunday Stitchers UFO Challenge List for 2020 - so it's all done now.
When it was discovered that the project for June (#11) was the Row Quilt  - one other participant in the original row quilt challenge decided she would work on hers too.  She did do some work but didn't get to finishing it.

it's done!

That Challenge List is so good.  Without it - it would still be sitting in the UFO box - now after its initial showing - it will probably sit in the "Done" pile!!!

Notes:
Cosmo Seasons 8006 / CGT #400 -Heliotrope

FNSI - June

Another work week is done & dusted!

Sewing friends are gathered and we are all putting needle to thread, or something!

My usual Friday night - some crocheting whilst watching  BH&G

Then I did the hand sewing of the binding on this:

I cant show you yet...

Thanks to Wendy our gracious hostess and lovely to catch up with 19 or so bloggy friends from all over.  Catch the others here.

Happy Weekend all & happy sewing if you can get the time.

QAYG Blocks - Oz Comfort Quilts

Earlier this year when Australia was being destroyed by bush fires, I came across Oz Comfort Quilts - here.

(Think I can blame/thank Maria W for this.)

Jan Mac makes quilts, or finishes quilts and gifts them as needed - when I saw it - it was all for the bush fire victims.  So I figured I could assist.

Her request is for any sort of quilt - but she is more than happy to take string blocks and as I have 4 shoeboxes full of strips I figured this was a useful exercise.

 and this is the stack.

I ended up making 40 blocks - Jan Mac usually puts 35 in one quilt, so one quilt and a few spares.    I managed to use up a bit of the stash of strips....but there were still oodles left and after offering them around to my sewing friends - I kept some on hand but sent her the rest of the strips as well.

I'm sure my collection will grow - I often cut a strip when I'm cutting something else.


I mailed them off a while ago but forgot to post it....Not looking for a pat on the back - just want a record of what I did...and a big tally for OPAM   (I'll say I posted them in June - OK??)

FNWF #2 - June

As restrictions are slowly being lifted - well in NSW anyway - Cheryll is going back to just one FNWF per month - but it has been great to have an extra night to focus on something sewing/ craft related.

Thanks heaps Cheryll!!!!!!!

My usual for a Friday Night - crocheting - and watching BH&G.

I decided to mix up the colours a bit to use up the left over blue
and what was left of the brown

I only saw part of BH&G as - the AFL is back on !!!!!!!!
I suppose I can't complain - it's been a very delayed season. . 
DH is happy...but BH&G had to be cut short...well we do have 2 TVs - but at the moment no chairs in the second room - but I took that as a great opportunity to hide in SSS and sew.

I worked on the current baby quilt.  I decided to re arrange the strips from the original setting last week ...so didn't manage to finish off the top - but a sewing day on Sunday - the first REAL get together since March - will get that top done if I don't get to it before.

(probably should have straightened it a bit)

Happy weekend all - hope it is a good one and if you can get out - take care!

Bumper Weekend

FMWF

Friday Night was FNWF.
You know the drill - a quick & easy dinner (fish & chips this time)  - easy stuff whilst watching BH&G . . . crochet this time
Then into SSS and I put these pieces together for the start of a baby quilt.

Chookshed Party

Every year Chooky has a Chookshed party.  Originally to celebrate the first year of having her own "sewing space"  - she invites girls to come for a sleepover and a big sewing gig.

Sadly this year there cannot be a real physical party - BUT good news for everyone else - it was a Cyber Party via Zoom.

I had a few things to sort in the morning - and then mid-afternoon I joined in...we chatted...we sewed - I saw faces I haven't seen for quite a while, .  . .I saw faces of people whose blogs I read and then I email with - (Hi again Bethan)
At one stage we had 11 or 12 . . . over a period of time, some left and some returned.
By 10.30 Chooky had given up . . I stayed until 11.30 by which time there were just three of us.
Not to be daunted Chooky started again about 7:00 am on Sunday.

I joined in for a while and again saw people I haven't seen for a while - (Hi Holly, Raewyn).

I worked on a variety of hand sewing things...here are a few bits:

 Love & Hugs Australia - Anni Downs block

Some backstitching on the current cross stitch

 Some sashiko

and some more crochet....always interesting how the variations make a pattern and then stops.

As a lot of people are saying - although this Covod-190 pandemic is a disastrous event for the world - so many good things have come out of it.
In this case, the opportunity for sewers all over the world to connect visually and sew together.  Whilst Chooky missed out on her very special weekend (as well as the Baradine gig), so many of us were able to come together which would not have been possible without the push.

A huge thanks to Chooky for instigating & organising and especially making sure that the OS people had an opportunity to be involved.
It was a lot of fun - we learnt a lot - not all sewing related - and we certainly got an insight into life in other parts of the world. 

French Collection

This has taken quite some time . . .
I started the stitcheries in 2008 - a few of us from Loose Threads decided to do it - tempted by all the lovely buttons I think - or maybe it was just "peer pressure"  . . . .

I found a post from June 2014 - I know that was one of the later ones.

Finally it was a flimsy at retreat in August 2016

Then it took 3 years to get it quilted...and in the meantime I had done several re-orgs of my sewing stuff. .  .where or where are those buttons???
I finally found them over Easter, so was pleased about that.  Being so old it was unlikely that I'd be able to replace them

So it went onto my Sunday Stitchers' UFO Challenge List as #9 - and it needed to be finished by May 17.

Finally!