Best laid plans

Lots of sewing happening at Chez Sunshine until Tuesday when my machine started having issues with the tension.  After playing around, trying to fix it, with no positive results, it's now gone in to sewing machine hospital. It was well overdue for a service and it's going to take two weeks, sigh. So after finally having my mojo back after misplacing it for most of last year, I now have to put my sewing plans on the back burner. Fortunately I have a few hand stitching projects to work on in the meantime.

I've finished 10 of the 38 orange peel/petal blocks. Lucky, I really love making these and I can concentrate on making a few more over the next few weeks. I'm doing the needle turn appliqué method so they are not fast but it's satisfying making these.

9 of the 10 I've finished

The Starflowers top is finally finished, full photos to come later. I really need to think of a new name for it.   I've also made the backing, lucky me, that was the last thing I sewed before the sewing machine called in sick. I still have to get down on the floor and baste this baby, my favourite job, NOT.  I was thinking about sending it out to be quilted but I would really like to hand quilt it. I could get a start on it while my machine is in hospital, although I'm not sure how easy or pleasant hand quilting is going to be with temps in the 30's and high humidity, yuck.

I've also been working on the hexies, slowly, very slowly, I sewed two today!

 Up until the last couple of days, the weather has been really lovely and I've been walking a lot and taking Karma for a walk each day too.

 There's always something to see on our daily walks.

Stand up paddle boarders.

Life this week

I'm not sure what's happened to me but, in a very small voice so I don't scare it away , I'm still sewing and enjoying it. My mojo has not disappeared ..................................yet.
The flying geese have been made and are all attached.

Hanging geese

Flying geese border finished

I used the Bloc Loc ruler, it's brilliant. My geese were perfect.

Lots of trimmings and teeny tiny HST's left over, to be used at a later date.

I'm merrily appliqueing orange peels to blocks for the next border, and at this stage, aiming to make one a day. So far I've finished 5.  It's going to take awhile but I'm really enjoying it.

This was the first one, I'm getting better at centring them.

Last weekend, BP asked me if she could go through my stash to find some fabric so that I could make her a couple of cushions.  I let her touch my fabric, secretly hoping she didn't pick any of my favourites. I have a lot of favourites.  She's another one in my family that's not so keen on patchwork, so all that was required was a single piece of fabric that was big enough to make into two cushions. I even managed to find zips that matched. What is it with my family,  most of them don't like patchwork?  Is my work that bad?

Here they are, playing with my cushions.

This morning I asked BP to vacuum but instead of doing it herself, she put the robot vacuum cleaner on and didn't shut the door into my sewing room. She has been doing a jigsaw puzzle on the floor in there, yes, amazing, there was actually enough clear floor space for her to spread out and make a start on it.  Unfortunately I have spent the last half hour picking bits of jigsaw puzzle out of the vacuum cleaner and searching around the house for any other pieces I can find. She is out at the moment but when she comes home, it's not going to be pretty! Fortunately the jigsaw wasn't anywhere near finished, but I have a feeling, it's now going to go back in the box.

Finally, I've been trying to walk more often, I don't have any excuses when it comes to the views around here.

Pyjama Party Sunday

It's a long weekend here, so I have three days of being able to stay in my pj's. I think if I do that though you may have to call someone as I'll be turning into one of those hoarding cat ladies that never go out of their house.
I did actually shower and get dressed and went out unto the wide world yesterday. Not for very long as it was cold and wet and yucky (technical weather term).

Friday night and yesterday I cut the pieces for my Floral Bouquet quilt. I did a sample block ages ago, and decided to start on the rest of the blocks.



I should have been doing one of these:

1. The pinwheel quilt - I need to finish the applique, embroider the stems, and sew it together.
2. The French Roses quilt.
3. The raw edge applique that I made a month ago needs to be quilted.
4. Spice Boxes- I need to finish the quilting.
There are more UFO's WIP's that I should be working on too.

All week those projects have been sitting there taunting me.  It's driving me crazy that I have all these things still sitting there without a finish, but I couldn't find even an ounce of motivation to pick up and work on any of them. That's why I started the Floral Bouquet blocks, now I have another WIP.

After spending a couple of a few hours today sewing the blocks and then cutting more of the 40 white jelly roll strips into tiny pieces, yuck, I had had enough and wandered around looking for something else to do.

I travelled from the 21st century back to the 19th century and found this


I had added an extra round of hexies a couple of weeks ago,

and turned it into this

Sorry the lighting is terrible on this photo. I only took it a few minutes ago.
It should look like the one above. Oh and I just noticed it's upside down too.  I was going to make it into a pillow, but as usual I think I'm going to change my mind and make it into a wall hanging. The rest of my evening will be spent hand sewing the hexies to the background.

As it's Sunday, it's time to join in Pyjama Party Sunday. Whether you're in your pj's or not, join in the fun and link up to share in the love of lazy pj weekends.
I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, especially everyone in Australia, with Queen's Birthday holiday tomorrow.  Yay for a long weekend.

Tuesday

Not really tidbits today as not an awful lot of interesting stuff has been happening at Chez Sunshine, but as I posted Pyjama Party Sunday so early, I wasn't able to show you what I actually did on Sunday.

Thanks to everyone who has been linking to Pyjama Party Sunday.

I stayed in my pj's all day, yay.

It was so nice not to have to go out. I made myself a really yummy haloumi salad for lunch (sorry no pics) and sat out on the verandah in the sun enjoying the sunshine. It really was Sunshine Paradise.

So Sunday and yesterday I did a bit of this and a bit of that.  I have too many things on the go at once, I'm pretty sure I have crafting ADD and have the attention span of a gnat.

I finished trimming all the pinwheels, there are 30 all together, it's just going to be a small quilt.

I then applied Steam A Seam 2 and cut out all the pieces for the appliques (plural) that are a part of the pinwheel quilt.  I took ages attaching each piece with a tiny bit of glue as a temporary measure.  I didn't want to lose them before I was ready to attach them permanently to the backing as I still needed to press the bias binding properly and attach that before the final pressing. 

One teeny tiny problem, 

I forgot

and as soon as I finished glueing them

I pressed the whole thing BEFORE placing the bias binding which was going to be the flower stalks.  

Plan B:  Thanks to a very clever suggestion from one of the girls at Patchwork Angel today. I'm now going to embroider the stalks. It was way too hard to try and peel off the applique pieces, this time I did a really good job of making sure they were attached after my misadventures with applique attachment in Adelaide.

A very crappy pic of some of the pinwheels.

Do you think I'm ever going to get through a project from beginning to end without making a reasonably big mistake?

At least it makes life interesting and proves that I am quite good at adapting and open to alternate ideas.

On Sunday I also went with Plan D (or was it E?) on the Spice Boxes quilt and started machine quilting. Not exactly what I was hoping for originally, but I think it will look good when it's all finished. I used Gutermann Top Stitch thread and it worked really well in the machine, just a little bit of playing around with the tension to get it right. My stitching still has a couple of wobbles here and there, but then the above photo is an extreme close up!

I'm finding at the moment that sometimes my skill level isn't as good as it needs to be to produce what is in my head.  I did think about putting the quilt away until I had practiced enough to be able to hand quilt the design I was planning, but I don't absolutely love the quilt and I was afraid that if I put it aside I might never get back to it, and I like it enough that I want to finish it.

Last night I sat down and spent a lovely evening sewing these together.

My very first hexie flower. 

I LOVE IT.

I think I'm hooked. For someone who really doesn't like hand sewing, I find these very easy, relaxing  and therapeutic. I can understand why English paper piecing is becoming so popular again.

You may also notice that my blog has changed again. I spent way too long playing around with it. 

See how long the current style lasts. 

I also made myself a little Award Free Blog button, it's up there on the right hand side, just above the Pyjama Party Sunday button and the clock which tells you what time it is here at Chez Sunshine. It's lovely to receive awards, and I don't mind telling you 101 things that you don't know about me, but I really don't enjoy having to "pick" x number of people to send them on to.  It makes me uncomfortable, who do I choose, who don't I choose who would like it, who would be really annoyed that they have been given one.  To make my life easier and less anxiety filled, I have decided to make my blog an Award Free blog. I love comments and they mean so much more to me than an award, as that means that you are reading my blog and interacting with me and enjoying what I write and the pics I show, and occasionally you may just think, and comment that I'm stark raving bonkers. Either way, a comment letting me know that you read and (hopefully) enjoy my blog or the things I create, means the world to me.

My First Quilt

Sheila at  Blue Patch Quilter has written a post about her fist quilt and is hosting a linky party where you can link to your first quilt. I think it's a fabulous idea, so here is my first ever quilt.

This is a pattern by Lynette Anderson, I think, I can't find the pattern.  I made it about 10 yrs ago, for my 7yr old daughter, she loved mermaids way back then. It's a little creased as it has been tucked away in the cupboard for quite some time. I loved this pattern when I saw it and was so happy that the quilt shop carried lovely bright fabrics, I remember the joy of playing with the fabric and working out what I would need.

This quilt includes a lot of firsts for me, rotary cutting, piecing, applique, fabric drawing and quilting.
The mermaids are appliquéd with blanket stitch edging, and the faces are hand drawn. I had never quilted before and was too scared to machine quilt much, so I stitched in the ditch along the border and then hand stitched undersea motifs and hand sewn beads across the quilt top.

The mermaid tails have an extra layer of thin batting in them to make them a little more three dimensional and the starfish were made separately, stuffed and then hand stitched to the quilt.

I still love this quilt, and I'm amazed that I attempted it.
I only finished one more quilt after that and then gave quilting away until I started again last year.

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. 

Tuesday tidbits (and tails)

Another couple of the blocks from the long lost BOM.  I'm really starting to love these again. It just shows that if you put aside something that you no longer love, and eventually come back to it, you just might fall in love with it all over again.


I've been tagged by the one and only, wonderful Mrs P, aka Shay at Quilting In My Pyjamas. Thank you Shay.

Now part of receiving this award,  I need to reveal three things I like.

1. Is too easy -  Chocolate. 

2.  Bitchypoo, not necessarily in second place. She can be so lovely and sweet, then she can be such an annoying, teenage Bitchypoo. I love this photo, she hates it.

3. At the moment it's my verandah. Finally finished, I didn't realise how much I used it and took it for granted until I was without it. (Still waiting for the oil to dry, but that's ok.)

Now to pass it on to three lovely bloggers who I think are (in the words of Mrs P) an uber-cool read. It's difficult to pick only three, I really don't like this part of being tagged. How do I pick only three out of all the wonderful blogs I read. 

So here goes,

Rachael at Blue Mountain Daisy, a lovely blog, she is very talented, the quilt that Rachael entered into Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival is gorgeous. She lives in the Blue Mountains and always has lots of lovely photos.

Cam at Curlypops, one very talented lady. Cam has just started designing her own fabulous fabric range and she is a wizz at whipping up gorgeous items.

Jenni at Baa-me Knits is so clever with a crochet hook, she can do wonders with a piece of yarn, fibre, or just about anything that can be crocheted. Jenni always produces wonderful pieces.

Please don't feel obligated to play along, I just really want everyone to know how much I enjoy reading these blogs.

Now for something completely different.

Lots of lush tropical plants in my backyard.

Scary!  Look at those fangs.  I was trying to take a photo of the verandah outside my bedroom, when I caught this moment. It's very tiring being a fur baby.

A not very productive day

No photos today.

Today, didn't start off as well as it should.  I was going to take photos of the granny squares that I joined last night.  I am very very pleased with them, and it was the first time I had tried joining them "on the go" as opposed to sewing them all together at the end. I forgot about the photos until late this afternoon, when it was dark, cloudy, gloomy and about to rain!

I want to applique some shapes on to my "Japanese" quilt. I haven't machine appliqued for a very very very long time. I thought that this would be quicker than needle turning..... Well, it wasn't.  First, it took me a good 15 mins to remember how to attach the sewing foot, and that was only after I finally found the instructions in the manual.  I started off on a sample piece to get the hang of it.  I was a bit nervous and didn't exactly flow back into it, but I began to get the hang of it.  Finished up, cut the ends, turned it over and OMG the loops of thread on the back, I could make a pile rug with it. So knowing a teensy weensy bit next to nothing about sewing machines, figured I had the tension wrong, so adjusted it and tried again, bent the needle and jammed a whole lot of thread in the bobbin casing and housing. I gave up on free machine embroidery at this time. Tried straight stitching ( with a new needle) to check tension, all ok. I had a change of heart and thought I would try one last time, and yep, more loopy thread underneath.  So now, what do I do???  Send my trusty Pfaff off to intensive care, or hand applique and just use the machine for piecing, hemming etc.  I am sure hoping there is an easy fix, so if anyone out there has any suggestions, please help, pretty please.

PS I changed the bobbin and used a different colour thread, it is definitely the top thread looping underneath.

PPS I almost finished the back of the ripply/wavy cushion and if I would just leave the computer alone I could probably finish the last few rows tonight, ready to sew together and have it finished by the end of the weekend.

PPPS I hope your day was better.

Mermaid Quilt

A few years ago I took up quilting.  My daughter went to school near a quilting shop.  After I had dropped her off or before pick up in the afternoon, I would go over there and drool over the beautiful fabrics and wonderful quilts on display.  Many many years ago I used to sew. When I lived in New Zealand I couldn't afford to buy a lot of my clothes, but I could buy the fabric and make my own clothes, not all the time, but I was capable of making some quite nice pieces.  When my daughter was born I made a lot of her baby clothes, I also knitted and crocheted many items for her.  Roll on a few years and we moved to Queensland, where it is way too hot to wear anything knitted or crocheted, even most of winter is too warm to wear handknitted items, maybe the odd cotton cardigan, but that is about it.  Also the cost of wool or cotton became prohibitive and it was much cheaper to buy something that was only going to be worn a couple of times a year than it was to make something.

Then I saw this quilt, I thought it would be perfect for my daughters room.  It was a pattern from Patchwork Angel, at Forest Glen on the Sunshine Coast.

The detail of the starfish in the corners. They were made individually, stuffed with wadding and embellished with french knots before being sewn onto the quilt.

A close up of the mermaid, this was the first time I had attempted painting or drawing onto fabric, and I was very pleased with the result at the time.

Another close up of the blanket stitch used to attach some of the applique, the tails are padded and then sewn on with invisible stitches, I also used a pearl to add interest.

I was too afraid to machine quilt it, so I hand quilted. I quilted underwater shapes such as starfish, fish etc and finished off by adding beads to try and stabilize the quilt as much as possible. It looked alright at the time but now a few years later, it shows the need for quilting properly to make sure your quilt lasts. As you can see by the above photo, the material has moved a bit and it looks a bit wrinkled.  Anyway I am still very happy with it and I think it is very good for a first attempt.