My Next Hand Sewing Project

I splurged on a lovely Linladan cushion kit from Amitie Textiles in Australia last week. Google couldn't find them in NZ.

It comes with no instructions just 24 stitch diagrams. Eeek! I plan to just follow the picture and see how it goes.

Well and Truly Done

Get it? Truly Scrumptious ... well and truly done.

This quilt took me a year to complete the stitchery blocks and sew them together into the quilt top. It then sat around folded up with the backing for 10 years. It took about 10 days to actually quilt. Crikey! Should have done it years ago.

Truly Scrumptious Quilt

Once upon a time I was quite into stitchery. I learnt to stitch in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The year I lived in Colorado. 10 years after learning, I made the Truly Scrumptious quilt by Cinderberry Stitches. 10 more years later I have decided to quilt it to get it off the in progress list!

I am using the baptist fan quilting pattern. I am not going to quilt over the stitcheries. I may have made a mistake using DMC threads - it looks like string in the quilt and doesn't pull through the fabric very smoothly. However, it is not a big quilt, so won't take too long to finish. 

While my tastes have changed a bit, I am quite impressed by my stitchery skills from 10 years ago.

Hexagons and Navy Work

It's not good photography weather at the moment. It's either dark, raining or foggy. Not good for pin quilt to tree and take photo. But anyway, I had some time in the weekend to put into the hexie quilt. I am now at the stage of making more hexagons. I need to make some halves to square it up before I go too far with whole new hexies. I am about half way through the fabric, so it may grow by about one third which will suit me fine.

And I have done a few more letters on the Sublime Stitchery Sampler. Not in love with the J. It reminds me of writing with Mrs Nutt, my Standard 4 teacher. Clearly, I didn't excel at hand writing because I turned out a printer.

I am in no hurry to complete either project.

Sublime Stitchery Sampler

It seems black is the new red in stitching circles. That is, black work is the new red work. I am not quite ready for black work, so have taken the Hawkes Bay option and gone with navy.

It's a pretty funky sampler. I bought the pattern from Sublime Stiching. They have some cool designs. I am not sure what I will do with mine when it's complete. Maybe hang it on the wall in the lounge.

The Apple of My Eye

Yes, I feel quite clever.

This one came together so well, and relatively quickly outside of the stitchery, I briefly contemplated becoming a professional i-pad cover maker.


I have documented the steps below if you want to make your own. It struck me when I was re-organising my blog recently, how little showing of the process I do. I am trying to remedy that.

This project was homework for a new Modern Quilt group I have joined. Our next homework project is polaroid blocks just like here.

Hunting and Gathering

I have always liked this line from Anna Gavalda's novel Hunting and Gathering. I wrote it on a piece a paper that has been floating around for a couple of years. Now it lives on in what I am calling hoop art.

Notebooks & Cards

This afternoon I made the two stiticheries into notebooks.

It was a bit of trial and error in terms of size and seam allowances ... I winged it and they turned out ok. I lined each one with fabric I had left over from previous projects. And sewed in place markers.

Here they are ...

This morning I wrote 'congratulations on your Merit/Excellence endorsement of your NCEA' cards to the 18 students in my Whanau who achieved an endorsement. I ordered these cool cards from Katydid Paper Goods yesterday and they arrived at 7.30am today.

Girl on a Swing Stitchery

Pattern: Aneela Hoey of Comfort Stitching

Fabric: Patchwork Passion in Onehunga

DMC Threads: Red 321, Grey535, Blue931 and Black 310

Little Patchwork Village - First Border Added

I went back to The Crafty Needle in Manukau (I have given up trying to find a website for them) yesterday morning to find fabric for the first border of the LPV. I found a mushroom brown by Stof in Denmark. This afternoon I have sewn the 41/4" border on.

I think the brown 'frames' it well. The quilt top now measures 51 x 51".

I then set out to make a smaller version of the basic block I have used to contain the stitcheries to use as a second border. That is where I got stuck. Each block needs to be 7 5/8" finished and I cannot work out the maths. So I have folded the quilt up, put it in a box and will take it to 'sewing school' when that resumes in mid-Jan to get help from Ngaire, the teacher.

I will now get back to a hand sewing project. It's a cute little stitchery called Cherry on the Tree Swing by Aneela Hoey that I bought on etsy. I am going to turn it into a journal cover. I have spent (possibly that should say 'wasted' but it is the hols) a lot of time these holidays on etsy.

Holiday Houses

I am using DMC 3790, a kind of mushroom brown, for these stitcheries. I cut the stitchery blocks 10 x 10". There are 9 all together. They make up Rosalie Quinlan's Little Patchwork Village when complete.

I plan to use Martinique by Three Sisters to complete the quilt so it will be red, brown and cream. I plan to make it a bit bigger than the 48 x 48" so it is of more use.

Rain for 8 hours straight

It was summer last week. It might come back later in the week just in time for Christmas.

The upside of all the rain is that I am forced to stay inside and sew - bugger.

The stitchery comes from Sarah Jane Studios - here's a more accurate link to them. (I have updated the link in the earlier post). There is a cute Autumn stitchery there too.

I discovered that the sashiko thread was too thick and when I tried to 'strip' it back to two or three strands it just fell apart. I went back to the old DMC thread.

The one impediment to sewing today was Lucy the Cat. Who tried sleeping on the ironing board on top of the half square triangles in process (notice the angry ears). Then she remembered the well-placed cushion on the sewing table.

Too wet to mow the lawns

Any excuse really ...

Whipped up these little Russian nesting dolls yesterday avo. The pattern is designed by Rachel Measham-Pywell and can be downloaded here.

They will live in front of the blue books. I need a bit more practise at sewing curves so next time it doesn't look like they have ears!

Then this morning I went in search of some nice linen to make a diary cover. Patchwork Passion in Onehunga has a great range of Japanese fabrics. At the moment, they also have a huge range of kits ... very tempting espec the big wool owl. I found some nice linen and red sashiko thread and I will stitch the girl onto the front of the diary cover. The free stitchery pattern comes from Sarah Jane Studios. Her drawings are very, very cute. Wish I could draw.

Been Meaning to Sort this for Ages

A productive use of Labour Weekend - a new keyring for my car key. The old one keeps detaching itself from the key. If I could draw anything other than houses, I would have drawn a car.

What’s Next?

Another baby quilt. This one for my first niece or nephew due mid November.

Fabric: Tweet Tweet by Keiki for Moda from Pink Chalk Fabrics

Heidi's Quilt

Fabric: The key floral came from Spotlight a few years ago. The rest came from

Cushla's Village Fabrics, Devonport.

Pattern: Adapted from Days in Provence by House on the Hill.

Stitcheries: Pattern by Revidevi bought from etsy.com

Finished: 15 August 2010

Stitchery Quilt

Pattern: Truly Scrumptious by Cinderberry Stitches

Fabric: Supplied by The Stitchery, Dunedin as part of their Block of the Month programme.