Colour Swap Sent

Where are these off to???

Colour Swap Received

I got a lovely surprise in the mail today - My husband handed me a squishy parcel he had collected from the Post Office -"From Fish Creek" - he says "Where? I am thinking - never heard of it!!"
It was my Colour Swap goodies..... Oh how exciting - This is my first swap - so it hadn't hit me until today how much fun it is to get something unexpected.
Each parcel was wrapped with a little tag - Illene explained that as she lives in  small town - she couldn't get all purple paper...but she did use a fat quarter for one of the presents - so who am I to think badly of lack of purple paper??
Here they are:

and all this loveliness was revealed:

Edible:  A variety of purple chocolates (some are missing already...) and a little handmade 'do-dad' to keep them in - maybe I will have to keep refilling it??
Smelly:  Some lovely body lotion and a lavender sachet.
Room in House:  2 handmade towels - one embroidered
Personal:  - wow, a notebook with handmade cover and bookmark, a pen - with a decorated box, and the fat quarter.

Thanks so much Illene!!

This has been a lot of fun - thanks to Cheryll for organising this swap and I promise mine WILL be sent before the deadline...nearly done.

Weekend Sewing - Stitcher's Garden

I signed up for a series of classes to make "Stitcher's Garden" at my LQS at the beginning of 2011.  I had been wanting to do this course for a while - it uses  the decorative stitches on a sewing machine but also includes a lot of techniques.  This is the pattern:

I had done another set of classes earlier with the same concept ..and I learnt a lot...(and spent a lot of money on special feet!! like a circular sewer)...but I didn't really like the patterns we used and I had gone off the fabrics I had chosen.
(It's in a box...somewhere...I think.)

So, when Stitcher's Garden was offered again and in black & balis - I just had to give in.  The course is about to finish, so we have done all the "technique" classes and are up to finishing off....Well for those who are up to that - I am not.

The original quilt finishes at 85" x 93" - too big for my needs, so I have re designed it.

This weekend I have spent my time planning the new arrangement and adding borders to blocks.  I am still using all the original blocks and I am still working on a couple of them.  Here are 9 of them - just with top & bottom borders. After the coloured border I will add a black border.  So this is a progress shot. 

The "white" isn't - it is a pale colour..mmm might have another look at that...amazing what a camera shows you...

I could have been working on my "Colour Swap" project ...but I have time up my sleeve for that.

Hall Stand Runner

I started these stitcheries in mid 2011 - and have taken a loooong time to find a fabric to go with them - it's not what I originally had in mind but I like it anyway.

This runner is for the hall stand in our entrance - a favourite sleeping place for the cat - both on the top and on the pile of quilts below.

Some closeup:

Stitchers Inc - aka Brisbane Blog Meet - 14th April

A huge thanks to Maree who  has found a great convenient location (especially convenient for me) for our blog meets.  She has created a new name for us - Stitchers Inc - and that is what most of us did - some of the time anyway!  There was also a lot of talking laughing, cofee-ing, and of course some show and tell!.

The pincushions had a little party:

 and a showing of our April SAL project:

(Marilyn, De, Jeanette and me)
(Thanks Teresa for the picture!!)

Thanks Maree for organising the place and the morning tea and the lucky door prize.

We had some "newbies" and some "M I As"  and we are all looking forward to the next one.

Have a look here and here and here for better posts & pictures.

Catching Up

I have finished my April project for SAL - I had made a good start on finishing it when I was doing SNSBM - and then I did SSBM (although I found out it was really a SSWF (...With Friends as the lovely Fiona was also sewing with me...).
OK enough acronyms - they are doing MY head in.
 It is "Bon Noel" wallhanging by Natalie Bird from the book Tis the Season.  I made it in blues to complement my Tis the Season quilt.

I thought at the time - this "Bon Noel" isn't real French and I was right - but it's done and we all know we are just trying to be smart saying "Merry Christmas" in another language.

.Another project I want to show is this one.

This used to be on my UFO list - and I knew I should finish it - all I had to do was put it together - all the bits were prepped.  But  I had started it to go with all my black & white sewing gidgets - then I found a big bag in the same fabric so I bought that - a lot easier and in the end a lot cheaper than the fabrics and classes that I went to, to make the bag.  So, I deleted it from the UFO list a while back but still had it hanging around...
When my SIL asked me if I had any spare black & white fabrics for a quilt she was making - I asked her if she'd like to have the bag as well.  She hesitatingly said "Yes?" and has now finished it. 

Each side has external pockets in varying patchwork techniques.

And now I realise I have made prairie points before!!

I think she has done a great job and I'm really pleased it went to a good home and moved out of my space.

No FNWF for April

I couldn't join in this month's FNWF, I was doing FNPF instead.  Then I had SSWF and SNSBM and this is what I did:

And in case this is too many acronyms:
FNPF - Friday Night Preparing for Friends (my sewing group were coming Saturday)
SSWF - Saturday Sewing with Friends and I cant show you what I did then... Secret Stuff
SNSBM - Saturday Night Sewing By Myself

and I hope to get some SSBM too (Sunday Sewing by Myself) - adding those prairie points and making it up - whoopee - no binding on this one!

March Finishes

I only managed 2 Projects for OPAM and one of them is for Thirteen in '13.
Firstly, my pincushion for SAL  - I had previously posted about that..

Secondly, my Sew Laugh Love - a design by Leanne Beasley...just love her designs.. . is now finished.

The original pattern calls for small pieces of fabric to be appliquéd in the areas that are not stitched.  My bestie bought me a jar of buttons when I missed catching up with her at the Stitches & Craft show - some of them were perfect colours for this project - and there were some square buttons - the perfect size fir this wall hanging - and the only colour missing was yellow - I really wanted a yellow one so I painted one yellow, then re painted some of the pink ones to tone them down a bit.
(See, that's why I hang onto all my old craft stuff - it does come in handy at times.)

I've had to spend a bit of time lately getting hand stitching ready - I have almost run out for now!  Still got plenty of machine work to do.

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter break.