A quick baby gift...

My daughter's teacher left on maternity leave two weeks ago and the children are looking forward to meeting the new arrival after June. I made a little present for my daughter to give her teacher - a little zipper bag. I put some disposable change mats and nappy wipes inside.

(front)

We didn't know whether the baby was a boy or girl so we had to find some fabric which was gender neutral. I had plenty of pink and blue fabric but had to dig a bit deeper to find something in my stash. But Peter Rabbit came to the rescue and I found just what I wanted.

(back)

I just used a variety of strips. Check out the cute Peter Rabbit ribbon I found to use as zipper tabs.

Basically this pattern is from a Lazy Girl Designs pattern, below is the first zipper bag I made using this pattern. They are quick to whip up - I think I will make some more Peter Rabbit ones as there are a few births coming up in the later part of the year.

A day in Ipswich.

Yesterday a group of us from the Friday Craft Group went to Ipswich to see a display of historical Australian patchwork quilts. What a fabulous visual event! Because I am also interested in history and old things I especially enjoyed it. These quilts tie in with an amazing book called The Fabric of Society by Annette Gero, who is probably Australia's best known quilt historian. If anyone has the chance to see this display before the 25th of July then it is certainly worth the effort.

Another place I really wanted to visit was Handmade Heaven. I've been reading about this shop on a blog I have been following for a while, Selena's Vintage. I just love her bunnies and teddies made from chenille and wanted to see them in person. ( Check out her blog header - who could resist these bunnies?) But even better - I didn't just get to meet the bunnies but I got to meet Selina as well. She came into the shop while we were there with a new beautiful quilt and I worked out who she was. I also got to meet Bubba Chenille as well. One day I am going to get one of those rabbits or maybe a bear - or even both - I just have to decide which colour I want.

Keep up the wonderful work Selina.

And after that we popped into The Country Quilt Co for a quick visit where I came away with a Joypatch pattern I wanted.

So it was a lovely day and worth sharing.

P.S. I'll put in a plug too for The Handmade Expo - which is another Ipswich event to check out some time.

For those who don't know Ipswich is a city just to the west of Brisbane.

Just what was needed....

Back in March, one of our favourite girls in the family turned two. We couldn't be with her on the day, as she lives a little distance away but we sent a cute 'baby' for her. She has always loved carrying a 'baby' with her and I found a perfect one for her. We heard later that the first thing she did was 'borrow' a tea towel to wrap her baby in.


So what should a good grandmother do? Yes, make D's 'baby' a quilt. I had some cute scraps and quickly made a dolly quilt. Doctor Puppy ( my son's) had to check it out before we wrapped it up.
We received word that the first thing she did when she opened the package was wrap her baby up without even being told what to do.

Front

Back

And here is D with the little quilt - I am not sure why her baby didn't make it into the shot. Still it is nice to see that she likes it.

Success!

ANZAC Day.

Today, in Australia and New Zealand it is ANZAC Day - a day to remember our service men and women.

Our school held a service earlier in the week and it is always good to see that our future generations are learning about the sacrifices made in times of war.

This is my grandfather, Gilbert Willis. He wasn't at Gallipoli as he was too young to enlist at the time but joined the army in 1916. He was in the 14 LHR [Light Horse Regiment], and later in the 41st Battalion.


These photos were taken in England, the one below is with his cousins. The story I grew up with was that my grandmother was a friend of these girls and he met her while visiting. He returned to Australia after the war and continued to stay in touch with her. He even proposed to her by mail and they were married the day after she arrived in Australia in 1922. They were married 59 years, until the death of my grandfather.

I suppose you could say that I am one of the lucky ones, my grandfather came home. Unfortunately others didn't, including his cousin and uncle. He always proudly marched in Anzac Day parades for as long as he was able, although I never heard him talk about the war.

Lest We Forget.

Another weekend away....

You would think that after a wonderful weekend away hand stitching I would be content but circumstances occured which meant the next weekend I was up at The Patchwork Angel on the Sunshine Coast doing a two day machine quilting and raw edge applique workshop with Kellie Wolfsohn of Don't Look Now! You can see all her beautiful work on her blog. We started on Saturday doing the raw edge applique on our practice piece and on Sunday we started to quilt it. Here's Kellie showing us how to keep our quilting lines flowing.


And some demonstrations of how to follow her tecnique on a machine.

And at the end of the day here we all are with our practice pieces finished - taken inside the front of The Patchwork Angel. Thanks to Kellie and Penny of The Patchwork Angel for a wonderful time ( and Penny's husband for the yummy lunches.)

And for once I didn't come home and put my work in the UFO pile - I jumped straight in and made a cushion the way Kellie does. (My poor little bird doesn't have an eye yet though)

And here's the back complete with the zip I put in, which is explained in Kellie's patterns. It works well - you can hardly see it.

So now I have lots of new things to try and techniques to experiment with - I had a great time away but now I have to knuckle down and finish a few things.

The Patchwork Angel website - www.patchworkangel.com.au

The Patchwork Angel Blog. - www.patchworkangel.typepad.com/blog/

Girls Day in the Country - Nundle

There's gold in them there hills. Nundle used to be a gold mining town. I think I'd have better luck finding gold at the end of this rainbow ( faint though it is) than anywere else.

Here's the pub (hotel) where we stayed. (my partner in crime Cheryl did the driving)

Then it was time to settle down to work ( well, fun really) ..... Our tutor for the day was Anni Downs.

Anni and the hard working Kerry had wonderful things waiting for us.

But we had to stop for morning tea...

These were the projects - a little fabric box

and the inside - sorry about the sideways photo

A pincushion made out of beautiful wools

And a fabulous needlecase, which I can't wait to start making. (Oops, another sideways photo)

And of course there are all the blogger girls.

A great time was had by all. Thanks Kerry and the gang. Yep, I'm already planning next year.

Jelly Roll Quilt Along....

There has been quite a lot of talk on blogs about the wonderful time we had in Nundle at the Girl's Day in the Country. I will post about it next time because I want to get this out of the way first.

I decided to join in on the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along and this is my first block. It had been ironed but I packed it away in the box with all the other fabric and it got a bit squashed. But I needed to photograph it to get it into the Flicker pool before the next one was released so it looks creased. I'll be a little bit more careful next time. The fabric is Fig and Plum and I got the jelly roll in a Moda scrap bag back when they were bigger than they are now. It isn't my favourite but I am sure that it will turn out very pretty when it is done. The other thing was that I had some yardage in my stash so I am shopping from my stash as well for the borders and backing. Perfect!

Lots of people have been joining in and it is fantastic to see the variety of blocks due to different fabrics. I am enjoying this one a lot.

Someone had a birthday...

There was a birthday in the house and all these parcels kept arriving........ On the big day the envelopes were opened to find much prettier parcels inside.

But best of all was the contents - lots of lovely fat quarters all demanding to be made into something wonderful.

The wrapping looked a little sad afterwards but I got over that thought very quickly.

So thank you to all the wonderful girls in the Nundle Birthday FQ swap - I very much doubt that I will have anything made by the time we meet up again in a few weeks, but I am looking forward to seeing what people have done.

P.S. I have been working on getting through the piles of things - I have found my cottons but I am still looking for my sewing machine feet. And I have made a few small things - I'll show them off soon. I keep telling myself that when it is done I will have a nice organised sewing area, but I'll believe that when I see it.

A change of thinking for 2010...

Two days before Christmas the family decided they wanted our billiard (pool) room back. Why should that seem like a problem? - well, that room had my sewing and ironing area in it. Pool tables are great for folding washing on, and hiding stash underneath. We won't talk about the ironing. So basically I was evicted........

My 'stuff ' was moved to another area but now I can't find anything at all. I had nothing to do with the move so I didn't have time to grab things which I use all the time. Now I am missing all my sewing machine feet except for the walking foot which just happened to be on the machine at the time, all but two reels of cotton and most of my recent stash. It's all there, the family knows better than to throw anything out but who knows which box,bag or crate everything is in. Yes, I know I could go through it all but at this stage I don't really have anywhere to put it and I still want to sew.

This is a little pincushion I made to add to my advent swap for Marina.

So this is where my change of thinking had to happen. Most of my current works in progress are misplaced so I am forced to go back even further and plan to finish some even older ones. Not really a bad thing. And I have a number of small kits which I have purchased over time and hidden in my wardrobe so I can still start something new.

And this is the final gift Marina got to open at Christmas. A table runner using the pattern from here ( I can recommend this one)

So after the initial shock and being annoyed ( that's an understatement) I decided that it was a waste of emotion to fuss about it. So I decided to be positive. 2010 is now a year to finish off things I can find (with no particular schedule) and making up things I had forgotten I had. I will of course be working on the tower of mysterious items - a bit like a lucky dip.

These are two of the mats I made for the children's teachers. I have been having so much fun working with this design.

So who knows what I will be posting about next - it might just be a surprise for me too. Now that I have come to terms with it all I am quite looking forward to the adventure of discovery.

And this is another one using the fabric I had previously used here, which was for another teacher. It is fun to see how using the stripes in different places makes a unique look.

It's school holiday time here still so progress will be slow but I have my own personal challenge to work on. I don't know where it will lead but I do plan to try to use what I have here. I didn't plan it this way but it is always good to try to turn things to a positive.

My Secret Santa is not a secret any more...

That secret present I had here is now open and I can tell everyone who my secret santa was. It was May Britt from Abyquilt . She made a lovely bag with a Christmas stichery of snowmen on it and included a Tilda stitchery design which I love and will probably start working on very soon. Here's the snowmen who have come from Norway to cool me down - don't you love their noses? I do!

And here's a better view of the decorations May Britt sent - they are on the tree and looking very festive.

Thank you so much May Britt - I love everything.

And thank you to Chookyblue who organized everything so beautifully again.

More Advent swap...

Well, all my advent presents are opened and I have to say that I had a lot of fun and surprises. There was lots of pretty things like fabrics, ribbons and lace. And special things for me like tea bags, bath items and a beautiful needlecase.( That's the heart shaped item at the bottom left. ) There were some waffle weave hand towels too. The final present was these lovely cushion covers. I had just the right sized cushions to put them on and so they decorated my couch for Christmas.

And see this little angel from one of the days - her smile matches the one I had from this swap. Thank you Marina - it was a wonderful package and so much fun to open.

Ornaments....

In the Secret Santa Christmas Swap run by Chookyblue we had to include an ornament, which was to be opened when the parcel arrived. The good news is that my parcel for Shiree finally arrived and this is the ornament I chose to make for her. I thought this little koala was just too cute and couldn't resist making him. And here's the back.......

I used to do lots of cross stitch and counted embroidery but somehow in the last few years I got more involved with fabric. So it was nice to go back to one of my early crafty loves.

And this is the ornament I made for Maria over in Western Australia in the ornament swap run by Robyn. This is the first time I have combined stitchery and felt and I really enjoyed making it up. Maria made the lovely angel I showed in a previous post for this swap.

And some good news is that Marina has received her advent parcel and hopefully is enjoying all the goodies. My next post will show you some more of the lovely things I have been opening every day. Thank you Marina.

So now it is just the countdown to Christmas. Have I finished shopping for everyone ? - no, but I've still got two days, haven't I? That should be plenty of time....... I hope.

Secret Santa Christmas Swap.

My Secret Santa Christmas Swap has arrived safely here too. This secret Santa wants to stay a secret until Christmas Day when I open my gift. The only clue is that this Santa is from Norway. You can see the special Norwegian ornaments which were included. We haven't quite finished decorating our tree yet but there will be a place for these sweeties there.

Thank you Secret Santa from Norway - this is to let you know that everything has arrived here safely.

And thank you to Chookyblue for running this swap.

Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap.

My partner for this swap was Maria in Western Australia. Look at this cute little angel she sent me with a beautiful Christmas card.

She is so tiny - I don't know how you turn seams so small. Isn't she sweet?

I won't show a photo of the ornament I sent Maria until she lets me know that it has arrived. I hope that she likes it as much as I like my little angel.

Advent swap!

I signed up for an advent swap with Fiona of Mothers Cupboard and my partner is Marina in Italy. My parcel arrived in a huge red Christmas bag. Lots of smaller parcels were inside...

and here are the first weeks gifts - lots of smelly girly things and fabrics and lace. Thank you Marina.

Here is a photo of some of the packages I sent Marina. The sad part of this story though is that she has written to me to say that they haven't arrived yet. This is really dissapointing as she hasn't had anything to open. I am hoping that they will still turn up. I have asked at the post office and they say that I probably should have registered the parcel - but they didn't tell me that at the time I posted it.

I am in the process of putting together another parcel becuase I don't want Marina to miss out but I doubt I can get it there before Christmas. And you can be sure that I will register it as well.

I am so sorry Marina - let's hope that it still arrives.