WIP Wednesday

This week I have managed to decorate my house for Christmas. I've got the trees up (a big one, a small one and a number of miniature ones) They are all plastic trees. In the summer heat in Australia real trees don't last too long. 

 We used to get a real one  when I was still living at home but we could only cut it on Christmas Eve and it was dropping all its leaves on Boxing Day. My inlaws were still cutting a real tree when we were first married and I loved it but after a few years they got a plastic one too so it would last longer. I admit to being a tad disappointed but...

Anyway - decorating the house has been a work in progress all week as I have gradually unpacked the boxes of decorations. The only things still to go up are my quilted wall hangings. I can't find any of the rods. I suspect I have taken them up to church over the year to hang quilts up there. I've tried to buy some from Big W but they didn't have any but will check out the hardware shop. 

Besides decorating the house.... I have done some sewing. (surprised you there didn't I!!)

I finished off the 5 Darlek potholders I started to make last Wednesday. I finally got the labels stitched on at Handmade With Love yesterday and posted them off to Allison, who commissioned them from me today. (I didn't get a photo of the finished 5 so here is a cropped photo from last week )

Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Mystery quilt, clue number 2 came out Saturday morning Aussie time and I got the 100 units made that day. They are a long way from perfect but done is done. I still need to trim off the tag end bits from the triangles. 

I have also worked on the 4 patches from last week. We had to make a pinwheel at the joins of the 4 blocks on the back which reduces the bulk at the seams (Check out Bonnie's blog for the explanation of how and why) I hadn't read that instruction when making the blocks.... and also that the blocks needed to spin in the one direction. I sewed some wrong and so whilst they are all now pinwheeled, some are clockwise and some anti clockwise but meh you get that.

I am working on a Christmas present for a friend. I wanted to test the pattern before I used the special fabric I had ordered in for the project (ok asked my daughter to buy and post) so I made it out of some cat fabric. I really love the way it turned out

One of my goals for this month is to finish off my 2012 Amy Gibson BOM. To do that I need to make a backing. I have some fabric that I thought would be good but there wasn't quite enough so I decided to piece a row of orphan blocks down the centre to join the two pieces and make it big enough. Yeah ... well I dived into that basket of left over blocks and before long I was having lots of fun making them into a backing. 

There were too many for just a strip so instead it ended up that I pieced almost the entire back with just wide borders of the fabric that was going to be the backing to make it large enough. 

That of course took way longer than just piecing a back but... it was fun. And I used up heaps of orphan blocks and left over bits. I decided that this was appropriate to have a sort of sampler on the back given it was a sampler on the front. I think it looks great!

How have you gone with your WIPs this week/Month?

WIP Wednesday - Lots of Progress on POD Quilt

This week I have made good progress on my POD quilt.

I made 2 of the photo frame blocks using photos of Fangirl and myself taken when we were at the Harry Potter Studios in London in 2013.

  

I have also made Percy's Fez. This was also a nod to Fangirl's obsession with Doctor Who (one of the Doctors wore a fez at one stage)

 I've also made ones of the flying keys and the Cornish Pixie. The latter was a bit tricky and its just as well I was on my own in the sewing room. 

 I also managed to complete my Dobby block. I was  pleased with how it has turned out although I have noticed a stuff up since I've looked at the photo... I obviously sewed a piece in back the front. (Bottom of the ear) I think I am going to have to unpick it and try to fit it in better. Grrrrr

I've now started work on the Nimbus 2000. I've made 2 of the 5 sections so far.

I have made a few more hexies this week. I made 18 in church on Sunday. I have also prepped some more fabric to be made into hexies - but have to cut more to have enough to finish the quilt. I've got over 100 to take with me on Saturday. I have a meeting that will go from 9 till 2. I hope I will have enough. Stitching whilst I listen helps me to concentrate.

At Patchwork today I worked on the wall hangings I was doing last week. When I started I had 4 of them together, just needing a border and had 2 to put together. When I came home from our gathering I had all 6 of the tops finished off and the backing cut for all of them (one has to be sewn together) and the batting cut for 4 of them. I didn't have enough to do all of them. 

 

I was very pleased with the progress I made. I am using some fabric left over from our loungeroom curtains. One side has a floral pink on a gold background but the other side is the gold and I am thinking I might use that as the "Right" side. Its really nice. (Its a richer colour than the photo shows)

These wall hangings are destined to be Christmas gifts.

Its been a very productive week. Its amazing what you can accomplish when you are avoiding working on something else. My talk for the Emmaus Forth Day event on Saturday is now completed although its a bit rough and ready... not as polished as I would like. I still have to do the powerpoint.

How has your week been? Have you accomplished what you have set out to do? Or anything at all?

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Thursday Thoughts of Friday

I love Christmas. I used to go all out with the decorations. I think it was when the children were younger and we weren't going to be going to join up with either sets of family, decorating the house was my way of covering up a hole in my heart due to our not being part of the bigger family celebrations going on in either Sydney with my family or in North Queensland with Fixit Guy's family.

I used to have the aim to have something Christmassy in every room of the house. This was before I quilted. I had festive toilet roll covers - a snowman and a Christmas girl for the toilets, Christmas hand towels for the bathroom itself. I had special Christmas crockery, plates, coffee mugs, glasses as well as  hand towels, tea towels, oven mitts, placemats and table runners. There were Christmas candles, wall decorations, ornaments, a nativity scene or two. When the kids were little I had Christmas toys that they could play with - soft toys and plastic nativity set. Then there are the trees. I used to have two trees, one down near the front door which I decorated with hand mad ornaments and the things the kids made at school, sunday school, guides etc. And the big one in the loungeroom laden down with the decorations collected over the years. Oh and the lights as well.

I still like to decorate and cook but not as much as I used to. Then my children told me that to them Christmas was our family in our home and that when we were at either sets of grandparents it wasn't quite the same. That made me relax a bit and enjoy us in our home. I was also over having to pack it all up again.

One of the first things to go was tinsel. Its hot at Christmas time in Australia. When we are decorating it always seems to be hot and sweaty... or maybe this is especially when we are taking things down. Tinsel would stick and shred and it is incredibly itchy stuff. I hate it. It looks good but I am not dealing with it anymore. So we are almost a totally tinsel free house.

I rationalised lots of decorations over the last few years getting rid of things I don't really like, things which had seen better days. The softies all got the toss a few years ago when it was only the cat interested in them anymore. I weeded out lots of the handmade stuff that had seen much better days. I got rid of one of the trees. I still seem to have a heap of stuff. 

This year I have gone through the linen. Lots of the hand towels are so thin... one wipe of the hands and they were wringing wet. They had also got very discoloured (why are so many tea towels white or cream back ground) Some of the pot mitts were greasy and discoloured too. So they have gone out. Time for some new stuff. Caught the post Christmas sale - got 2 thick towelling tea towels ( full price $6.50 each) and 2 embroidered waffle towels (full price $5) for $4.50!!! I was stunned.

Came home and looked up some Youtube videos and found this one put up by the Fat Quarter Shop

I made two this afternoon from the towelling tea towels. I didn't cut them in half as the bigger one will be more absorbent. I also used velcro instead of a button. Yes I was avoiding doing a button hole. I have done very few in  my life and none at all on my new machine... not sure if it does them. Probably but yes I am a chicken. The velcro works well.


   

I put the picture on Facebook when I finished and immediately had a few friends say I should make them to sell and they would buy them. So that was flattering (but I'm not going into making towels as a sideline) I did go back to the shop where I'd got my towels and bought some more and have made them up as gifts. Again I left the toweling ones long but the ones made from cotton I doubled over and pleated them along the fold and sewed them like that. I also stuck to just one fabric for the front and back of the top piece rather than having 2 different fabrics. I liked the uniform look better.

Friday Fitness

Friday again .This week has zoomed around so fast. Less than a week till Christmas. Must get those Christmas presents wrapped and finally pin down whether or not I have covered all my bases.

Fixit Guy and I have been walking regularly this past week and I have made my steps each day, for which I am pleased. Some of my friends though have been making huge steps so I haven't made as much progress on my Fitbit friends ladder but not too bad

Friday No walks on this busy day. Not sure why we didn't go in the morning but we  had our Walk Through Bethlehem on at night. We had to go up and set that up... and then when the rain was obviously coming we had to move everything into the hall. We set up our church yard to look like a street in Bethlehem. We have market stalls with a carpenter, leather worker, weaver and spinner, baker, pottery, and grocery stall. I was on the bakers stall. I had to learn to make Narn bread from our friend Charlotte who being Fijian Indian makes it all the time. She won't be there tonight for the second walk so I had to learn to do it so I can do it on my own tonight. I hope I remember how its done... might go practice again this morning. Fixit Guy is the carpenter. Fangirl was in the angelic choir who sang some carols and Boyo was a Roman Soldier. I did a fair bit of jogging on the spot before bed to get me over my target 10 314

I was the baker with my offsider Ben

Saturday 11 017 I think there was one walk in there and some jogging on the spot to get me over at the end. We had to clean the church so tidying that and mopping and dusting added some steps. Fixit Guy does the vacuuming

Sunday Very busy day and I don't think we managed any walks. We had church in the morning. In the afternoon Fixit Guy and I were on serving at the aged care  home's cafe. At night our friend Bek came to dinner along with Fangirl. Together we put together a gingerbread house and then the girls made Minion baubles. There was a fair bit of running around at the cafe but I still did a bit of on the spot jogging to get me over the line. Some of that was done out side late at night watching the comet shower that Australia was experiencing 10 630 steps

Monday Big day. Two walks and shopping does it to you. We also cleaned the house.16 378
Tuesday morning walk (at least I think there was) We got one walk in anyway. I think there was a bit of jogging on the spot to get me over the line though. 11 005 steps

Wednesday Big Day. Got a morning and evening walk in so the fact that for most of the day I was at our patchwork group for our final pre Christmas gathering and then our present exchange and lunch. Lovely day. . Not going to think about the kgs just yet. 14 625



Thursday  We got in a morning walk but in the afternoon we had visitors coming for tea so that makes walking a bit hard. I did do some shopping though and that can put on the steps. Fangirl came over in the afternoon to finish off making the gingerbread Tardis she had started making here earlier in the week. Made the dough one day. Rolled and baked it another and Finished it on the 3rd day
10 818

Boo was the closest we could come to an alien. The Dorothy the Dinosaur figure was in reference to a meme we had seen re if you gingerbread house falls down, add a dinosaur. Not sure that this inoffensive little dinosaur was quite what anyone had in mind.

WIP Wednesday

I've been working on a diverse number of projects this week. I made several  table runners which I managed to complete and so they appeared on my stash report. I also made 2 little angel quilts - quilts for babies born too early who don't make it. They made it to the stash report as well.
 
Apart from them I have done a little bit of sewing on the Vanishing Hours. I have managed to sew a few more rows together but still have another few to go before the centre is together and then I will put a plain green sashing on before the piano key  and the hour glass borders. I was going to work on it today at Patchwork but forgot to get my little machine out of my car before Boyo borrowed it for work. So... did some handwork instead.

I have done a little bit of stitching on my redwork embroideries. This is my hand project and is small enough to go into a tiny bag that I can carry in my handbag. It is so good to have something so little and portable to work on. I was glad to have it today at patchwork group.

Not that there was much time for stitching at Patchwork today as it was our Christmas breakup. We had morning tea and then did some stitching before we came back together to exchange gifts. We played the Left Right game. A story was read out and every time the word Left was heard, we passed the gift we had to our left and when the word Right was heard the parcel went to the right. When the story finished you got the present that we were holding. Last year I wrote a story to use in this game but someone told me recently that there are heaps on the net so I just googled Left Right Game and had a heap to choose from. The one I used this year was based on Clement Moore's "Twas The Night Before Christmas" that I found with a heap of others here

The other project that I have worked on this week were Christmas ones that were joint projects with my daughter Fangirl. On Sunday night together with another friend Bek we put together a ginger bread house. We didn't make our own ginger bread. The whole thing was a kit and it went together really well and has stayed together as well. It looks so good. I get a thrill out of looking at it each time I walk through the kitchen.

Here's Bek hard at work with the icing bag.

Its currently in the centre of the kitchen table. Just in case it collapsed we had a dinosaur ready to goAre you confused by my dinosaur reference. This might explain it for you

A friend posted this on Facebook. I couldn't find where she got it from to reference it but it really tickled our sense of humour

Then they made Minion Baubles. Aren't they amazing. They were simply gold baubles, googly eyes and some denim duct tape (duck tape for you Americans) which they were really pleased to find. And craft glue. They made a heap of different ones including some that they put red felt tongues on. They drew the goggles on some two eyed ones as well.



Yesterday a friend sent us a link to a Doctor Who Gingerbread Tardis. I kid you not. Fangirl took one look and immediately decided we had to make it. She mixed up the dough and has left it in the fridge overnight as per instructions. She came back this afternoon to work on it some more The recipe and instructions are on Crafty Tardis . She and Kombi Boy got the dough rolled, cut into the appropriate shapes and iced together. This is what it is supposed to look like in the end

Fangirl objects to snow/winter pictures/snowmen because we are Australian and that is not our Christmas. She is not adding the white icing she says.

This poem is pretty good for explaining about Australian Christmas. Let me know if you need any of the terminology explained to you. There are a few unique terms in it.

 

Friday Fitness

We've been home for 9 days now and I think that I have only made my step count on a few of those days and two of those were because I jogged around the kitchen for half an hour before bed. I have LOTS of excuses

Busy. We have had late afternoon/ evening activities so many days since we got home - farewells for our minister, visiting people, setting up for activities at church. It has also been stinking hot and we have also had rain (which has relieved the stinking hot for a bit... then it just becomes stinking muggy) Rain in the morning or overnight has put us off walking in the morning as well. And then our dog Jack got sick - we had to take him to the vet and he ended up with an overnight stay and a small operation to clean out a puncture wound. He now has stitches and apart from being a bit wobbly on the first day he has been moving pretty well. The Vet said to keep him a bit quieter so that can be our excuse for not walking very much!! (Mind you keep a Fox Terrier quiet would mean sedation! When they are that small they can run around in anything except a shoe box!!)

Ok so the bad news.... my weeks worth of stats
Friday 9 993 - . We went out at night to a Quiz night so no evening walk but we managed a morning walk. My phone was flat so couldn't check my steps when we got home. If I had known how close I was to my goal I could have jogged for 10 secs and got over the line.

Our Quiz team. We didn't win... but we had lots of fun.

Saturday 4 829 - lots of sitting around chatting and some sewing... not so much walking. Farewell for our minister at night... lots more sitting around and talking

Sunday 5 901 -  church followed by church luncheon followed by decorating the Christmas tree and house and then Carols by Candlelight at night... not much time for walking





Monday 10 127 The dogs got a walk and did some jogging. There has been a fire through where we walk whilst we have been away and the bit of rain we have had has really greened it up along the river. Some old farm machinery that has been there forever now stands out more



Tuesday 10 069 There was a LOT of jogging on the spot for this result.... I was about 4000 at bedtime and I was determined to get over the line. We were going to go for an afternoon walk but visited our daughter instead

Wednesday 10 127 Patchwork all day  meant not so many steps but we did get in a dog walk at some point and again... lots of jogging on the spot. Our planned dog walk was thwarted by clipping one of them instead

Thursday 11 213 We managed a morning walk but the afternoon we were setting up for Walk Through Bethlehem. That involved lots of walking so for once no jogging to get me over the line

Actually looking at them... the stats aren't so bad. The few days after we got home were disastrous but obviously improved. But they were the week before so I don't have to go into those. So... not so bad afterall. Just 2 disaster days. Today is not shaping up too good though as I have a phone meeting shortly and then tonight we have "Walk Through Bethlehem" at our church... we set up market stalls etc to mimic the scene in Bethlehem. I am going to be on the baker's stall learning how to make narn bread from our lovely Indian friend... so I can do it on my own next week when she can't make it (we do the Walk 2 weeks running)


This delightful video came up on my Facebook feed recently. It is so great and should help lots of my lovely readers from the USA understand some of my Australianisms. Enjoy

I found a second one by the same couple. They are so lovely I thought that you can't get too much of a good thing!

WIP Wednesday. Vanishing Hours gets some attention again

I started to write a WIP Wednesday report last week after I got home from our big trip away but I didn't get it finished as I didn't have photos... still don't of some of the projects so will just do a recap of the last 2 weeks

Our last week of our holidays we were mostly in the Flinders Ranges, which is in South Australia, about 5 hours from Adelaide. For the first 7 weeks or so of our trip temperatures were on the whole cooler than usual. Of course as soon as we headed inland the temperatures rose somewhat! We were blessed that we could do our exploring and walking in the morning and relax more in the afternoon and then go for a sleep in the resort pool.

I managed to get some sewing done too. Our patchwork group has started a Block of the Month. The lady running it had chosen several months in advance and I had been able to take the patterns with me (she chose them off the internet) Whilst we were camping at Flinders Ranges I made up several blocks but I had misunderstood and thought that all the blocks were going to be in blue and white and so had taken a pile of blue and white scraps with me to make them. However once I had made them I found out via an email that the next block was supposed to be in pink and white... oops. I took the blocks I had done (2 of the first month and one for the second month) to patchwork today and found that I wasn't the only one to have made the second block in blue and white as well. They can go into the back.

I worked on my Christmas embroideries on the long journey home. We did the trip in just 2 days - which was pretty huge. Stitching the redwork patterns passed the time for me. I got 3 completed and started the 4th. I have worked on the 4th one during a meeting or two since we got home and whilst waiting for appointments so that has made good progress.

a finished embroidery block

Pam from Hip to Be a Square podcast and blog shared a great pattern she had got from Craftsy... a free download. It was called Easy Christmas Table Runner by Sew Today Clean Tomorrow I went to Craftsy and downloaded it as well and have made two of these gorgeous table runners. I can only share one of them here as the 2nd one is a gift for someone who may read this blog. The 2nd one I made for my daughter Fangirl. She recently moved into her first home of her very own... she bought a townhouse just before we went away on our camping holiday. She has a lovely big table that it will look beautiful on. I gave it to her today and she was very happy with it. I forgot to take a photo of it but she kindly took one and messaged it through to me so I could put it on my blog. 

  

I made it sort of reversible ... only I stuffed up the alignment on the back so it didn't end up straight but still... I was pretty happy with it and Fangirl is happy so that was great.

At Patchwork today after I had quilted the table runner I got back to work on Vanishing Hours. I used the big design wall we have there to work on the layout of the quilt





We tweaked a it a few times and to be honest... I don't think this was the final layout but pretty close. Once I had decided I labelled each block... A-F across the top and 1-7 down the side. Before I left to come home I had sewn all the blocks into rows and tonight I got some of the rows stitched together so I am making a bit of progress


I forgot to say... when I sat down at my Janome Horizon, to sew the when I first got home... it seemed so HUGE having only had my little Gem to work on whilst away. I am slowly getting used to it again although at Patchwork today I was back on the Gem

Now that I am no longer driving around the countryside I don't have the gorgeous photos of my wonderful country to give you as eye candy. I will salt this blog with some of the photos I haven't shown you occassionally

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Throwback Thursday - Log Cabin Christmas Tree and Doctor Who cross stitches

My friend Dawn has the most magnificent Christmas Quilt. It features a huge christmas tree made out of log cabin blocks and decorated with appliqued toys, all needle turned, and a beautiful bow. There are also elves dancing around the tree. Its superb... and I don't have a picture of it. It fascinated me, not so much for the gorgeous embellishments but for the tree itself, and the way it was shaped by the log cabin blocks, a combination of green, cream background, red pot and brown for the trunk. Some were all one colour and others were a mix of the two. I loved it. Dawn no longer had the pattern nor could she remember the name of it. She had made it many years ago in a workshop/class situation in another town. So while it was hanging in our club rooms for Christmas decorations, I took careful note of it and recorded the arrangement of the blocks. I didn't want to make mine as big as hers. Mine was to be a wall hanging. Hers was big enough to be a bed quilt. I was also not interested in the embellishments... just the tree itself.

With Dawn's tree details as a guide I worked out my own pattern for a tree. I decided on my scale  (1 inch cut squares coming down to half inch finished) and worked out how many of each sized piece I would need for my blocks in each colour. I cut my pieces and stored them in individual zip lock bags till I got to sewing them up. I got the tree finished in the lead up to Christmas 2012.

 At the same time I also finished an advent calendar Christmas wall hanging with pockets for you to put whatever you liked in. I decided that I would put Christmas decorations in the pockets and "hang" them on my log cabin tree. (using little gold safety pins) I  started to look for suitable small decorations for me to use.

Our daughter, known on the blog as Fangirl had been living in the UK for 13 months and flew home for Christmas. She is an brilliant cross stitcher and designs her own patterns around her geeky interests of Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Diskworld etc Her dad, Fixit Guy, also loves Doctor Who and she had made for him a set of Doctor Who character Christmas Decoration. She had made them on plastic canvas and we realised that they were perfect to go into the pockets of the Advent calendar and hang on the log cabin Christmas tree. Fangirl has her own blog here and an Etsy shop where she sells her patterns by PDF download. She has some great patterns available for the Geek in you life. There is a selection of her patterns on this page in the side bar

She hadn't made enough different characters. Over her time in Australia before she returned to her job in the UK we brain stormed what other Doctor Who characters she could include. Her knowledge and love of Doctor Who was mainly centred around the new series ie from the 9th Doctor. Her dad and I have a more extensive background in it so were able to come up with a few that she didn't know about.

For Christmas the next year there were more figures to fill all the pockets. Such fun. My photographs aren't the best but hopefully you will get the idea. I tried to put them in orcder but when I then went to label them they all jumped out of order again and not sure how to

The 1st Doctor

the 2nd Doctor

The 3rd Doctor

The 4th Doctor

    

The 6th Doctor

The 7th Doctor

The 8th Doctor

The 9th Doctor

The 11th Doctor

                            

Donna

Ros

River

The TARDIS

 

Martha