Friday Night Sew In

Fridat night I stayed home instead of going out partying/clubbing, lol.  Pj's were on, ready for my second ever Friday Night Sew In.

I had been sewing all day to finish this quilt top, so even though I got myself organised (pj's on),  by the evening I had run out of steam.

I had grand plans to attach the binding on this quilt,

but I hadn't trimmed the quilt to size and I wasn't in the mood to get it out and move everything off my large cutting mat.

Instead I pieced a block for the Monochromatic Challenge.

That didn't take long and I was going to join in on the great carrot sew along party, but by then I'd had enough of sewing so I made this instead.

The cat seems to like it.

Then I cut a few of these for the Lily's Quilts Quilt Along.

Not quite as productive an evening as I had planned, but at least I've pieced the block ready to embroider, and I started on cutting out the Dresden blades, so not so many to do today. I caught up with google reader and flickr.  Oh and I started on developing a prototype for a crochet carrot. Hopefully I'll be able to post a crochet carrot tutorial soon.

Friday Night Sew In is over at Handmade By Heidi, so check out all the other (and probably far more productive) posts from everyone else.

Tuesday tidbits

Some things I've missed showing over the last few weeks, due to floods, cyclones and a short trip to the Gold Coast a couple of weeks ago.

Firstly, I spend quite a bit of my time on Flickr and have made friends with some wonderful people, who produce fabulous work.
Linda makes the most amazing and stunning quilt tops and sells them. I had my eye on one particular top since last year when she posted it on Flickr. I ummed and ahhed whether I should buy it and eventually I decided I couldn't pass up on owning one of Linda's beautiful quilt tops. So here it is, in all it's tropical glory with a tropical garden backdrop.

It's called "Yikes".

I absolutely love everything about this, the bright colours, the Kaffe design, it's stunning and it's even better than I thought it would be.  Now I just have to make a backing for it.

I also won this fabulous kit from  Kate from Kates-In-Stitches in a Queensland Flood Relief raffle. She runs Bella's Patchwork an online fabric store.

This week I've been working on:

 The Raw Edge Circle quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew, sewing 48 circles on to squares, then cutting them into quarters.

I'm really pleased with the way this has turned out, it's so spring/summery.

Here's the rough layout of half of it. it looks very pale in this photo,  it is much brighter and more like the colours in the photo above. 

My sewing machine is going in for a check up and service this week. It soldiered on through 42 of the circle blocks, I tried coaxing it for the final 6, but with only 4 to go, it pretty much died. Fortunately I have a trusty little back up which finished the last 4 blocks for me. 

Yay for Janome, boo for Pfaff. 

It's less than one year old, not happy!

A sneak peek of something else I've been trying this week.

I finally used some of my lovely Kaffe fabrics.

I was hoping to be able to give it as a gift but I'm not so sure now. I'll let you be the judge when I've finished it.

Sorry the colours are a bit dull in this, I took the photo this evening. 

A Dresden plate

I finally cut up some fabric after buying one of these babies.

It is absolutely fabulous, and makes cutting different size Dresden blades a dream. So with a little help from my quilting guru, Shay, and this guy, I made one this afternoon.

My very first Dresden plate.

 I didn't even use any of the fabrics from this bundle that I had pulled together to make Dresden plates.

Fortunately Unfortunately I made a little trip to Patchwork Angel today and kind of bought some more fabric. OK I admit it my name is Margaret and not only am I an Ikeaholic I'm a fabricaholic, or, I just plain don't have any will power!

While I was there I also bought these

To go with these that I haven't bought yet but will very soon. I fell in love with this line, it's so cute.

Karma needs a quilt. If I say that often enough it will be true. 

I apologise for more fabric pics, I am officially making up for everyone else who has gone on a fabric diet, and I'm single handedly keeping fabric manufacturers afloat, so that you can all benefit when you stop your self imposed fabric moratorium. It's a hard job but someone has to do it.