2020 Wk 14 - Finishes!

Some projects have moved from the UFO pile to the Finished pile - yippee!

This jelly roll race was bound, finished, gained a label, and went in the post to Australia

 This lush Kaffe Fassett creation had been bound and finished

And this has made it to flimsy stage, and fleece has been ordered for the backing

 In other news - the garden table has had another coat of varnish and is looking amazing

 And I *LOVE* getting pics of little people using the quilts that I made for them!!!!

2020 Wk 12 - Jelly Roll Race

I finally braved the state in the sewing room, unearthed the started jelly roll race, and finished piecing and quilting it.

I love the total randomness of the blocks!

My lovely niece, Indi, and I recently had an Instagram chat during which she said yes please she would like a quilt for her bed

Music to my ears of course!  What to make?  - Mum brought an Australian Jelly Roll home from Australia for me, from her recent visit to my brother and his family.  It was displayed in the shop made up to  Jelly Roll Race, and that's what caught mum's eye. So that was a good idea, but could I add more to it?. . .Indi has lived all her life in Oz, her mum is quarter Spanish, and her dad is half English and half Norwegian.

They used to have an Akita dog, she did a tandem parachute jump for her 12th (!) birthday and she is a great little driver, accompanying my brother to race tracks when he races.

So a quick shopping trip to Spoonflower added some other relevant (but eclectic)  fabrics:  Hopefully she will see it as a grown up version of an i-spy quilt

Trimming and binding still to be done, then get it sent off to Oz!

Indi's Art

My favourite favourite niece lives in Australia and is 7 years old.  She drew me a lovely picture and her dad emailed it to me:

and with the magic that is PEDesign and my Brother embroidery machine ... I have converted it to a machine embroidery!

 Hope you like it Indi!

Other catch ups - Harry and Niki as Ash and Misty (with Mario!!)

And I had a great afternoon at Chertsey Museum yesterday: the ladies made Infinity Scarves:

As usual, individual pictures, and Show and Tell pictures are on the Fun With Fabric blog

A little bit of random

I'm not getting much sewing done, but thought I'd share this photo of my favourite niece wearing her new ski jacket (such a shame she lives in Australia!) - At least it's patchwork so it sort of belongs here

And this doesn't belong at all, but I warned you this was a random post!

This a photo I took when I popped in to see Niki at work - not often you get to see round the back of a bowling alley - this is where the pins end up either after you've knocked them down, (or in my case failed to knock them down) and they are getting ready to drop into place for the next go: it's much more fun watching the process from this side than being rubbish from the other side!

a stitch in time . . .

 . . .  saves me from getting bored!


I've done a fair bit of sewing while I've been in Oz, and have just realised that I haven't shown you any:

Jackie sent me a half-made Christmas tree last year - and  I hadn't got around to finishing it.  Still not actually finished, but  lot closer ...

It may be difficult to see what it is, and what I've done, so: imagine 4 tree shapes cut out of Christmassy fabric - stitch the sides (not the base) together in pairs, RST, red to green, and turn right sides out.  Place the two units one on top of the other, and stitch from top to bottom in the centre.  You now have a tree 'book' of 4 pages.  Add decorative buttons to each page (we have scissors, gingerbread baking, skiing and baubles and snowflake themed, thank you Indi).  When I get home I can stuff each section, and sew up the base.

I have also finished the I-Spy blocks that I bought in the Blue Mountains (thanks Indi and Marley for helping arrange the blocks)

 

India did some sewing with the left over blocks 

look at these neat little stitches - not bad for a 5 year old eh?

And finally I finished the quilting on Marley's Road Map Mat - I just need to trim the threads - the *&^%$# at Bangkok confiscated my snips.  Yes they were less than 3cm blades, yes I didn't go to Bangkok as such, yes I didn't leave airside, yet I got back onto the *same* BA plane, but yes they searched my bags, and told me "No sharps" as they took them from me - grrrrrrrrrr

For Indi

India, (my niece) starts pre-school next month, and the parents are asked to provide bedding and a towel that the child can recognise as their own.  Indi asked for a rainbow, or Disney's Belle.  Belle raises all sorts of copyright implications, so I thought I'd suggest Lisa gets her a Disney towel, or I can send one, and I would stick to the rainbows.  It has taken my longer than it should as I needed to wait for the new machine, then I had too much choice of cot size bedding (cotton, terry, flannelet, yellow, pink, blue, cream, white, not all fabrics available in all colours...) and then finally I decided I would stick to Brother threads for this machine rather than the cheap and cr@ppy threads which I usually use ...

So finally, now that all the excuses are resolved,

Ta-daaaaaa!!!

India has a set of rainbow themed, recognisable stuff, about to go in the post ready for going to school!

India's towel

S-I-L Lisa, is Australia has emailed me with a request: India starts kindergarten in Feb, and each child needs their own sheet (for nap time) and hand towel - it needs to be named, and the child needs to be able to identify it. Definitely an Auntie Benta job!!!

Indi asked for a princess for the towel, and I'm going to work on that after Christmas as it will take a bit of work, but she asked for a rainbow and her name for her sheets, and I worked on that last night.

This is just a first stitch out: some of the lines need to move so they meet the previous colour, but I hope she likes this! (Yellow is always disappointing in designs like this, but you cant have a rainbow without it, so I think the red outline ties it all together, and next time the violet/indigo/blue need to be more different
















I also finished the Christmas Ornament for the swap that I'm doing - they were doing well until I realised I had to have a way for them to be attached to a tree ... so now the Santas have a bullet hole in the hat - not so good :-( But time has run out, so they are going in the post on Monday, bullet hole or not!