Tuesday Tidbits (and tails)

Design Seeds

I found this site after my usual net surfing instead of doing anything like housework or crafty stuff. It's a great colour tool. Design Seeds, have a look at the lovely colour combinations that appear each day, they are great if you need some colour inspration.

I was planning to sew on the weekend but it was very hot, too hot to sit and sew even with the aircon on.
Saturday morning I went to a rotary cutting class at Patchwork Angel hoping to learn something extra as sometimes my rotary cutting is a bit hit and miss. It was quite a good class and there were some lovely ladies there. I learnt a couple of things and it reinforced that a lot of what I already do is correct. I'm really glad that I'm on the right track and by just adjusting a couple of things I should be able to cut more accurately on a consistent basis.
I was supposed to go to a FMQ class Monday morning, but I woke up feeling quite unwell and missed out on the class. I was disappointed not to go but I think I accomplished quite a bit of FMQing at home, I practiced on a fat quarter that I made into a quilt sandwich just getting used to the whole free motion thing, then I tried the pieces that I had prepared for the class.
I was very pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable it was and I'm going to have a go at quilting the raw edge circle quilt.

My first attempt on Monday - I just outlined around some bold flowers on a fat quarter, once I felt a little more confident I tried picking out details in the flowers and the leaves.

 The first photo I had just started trying to outline.

 Second photo, outline and detailing.

 Third photo, trying to stay on the line, hmm.

Trying to sew inside the line, hmmmm again.

This was a great exercise which I really enjoyed. I think I could spend hours outlining fabrics to practice. After I had filled in most of the details, I practiced stippling the background which I found not too stressful.

Later in the day I tried FMQ on some more traditional patterns that I had traced on to calico, I didn't find that as interesting and it was more stressful as every teensy tiny mistake showed up. I'm not showing photos of that as frankly it was rubbish! Great experience though and now I know to never use a plain fabric with contrasting thread if I'm going to quilt it, at least until I am a superstar quilter!

I think I'm really going to enjoy thread drawing, I'm still not sure whether I'm going to love stippling an entire quilt. I might have to try a few more mug rugs and doll quilts first.

My Keeper of the Quilts has been hard at work again, he takes special care of my rolls of binding.

A Wedge Tailed Eagle that visited on the weekend, the two birds at the top of the photo are crows that were harassing him/her as it was in their territory, one even landed on it's wing whilst in flight.

 The view on Sunday, just look at that beautiful blue summer sky.