No title, because I can't think of one.

I've had a pretty productive week.

I can't believe that I am finding time to sew, enjoying it, and even finishing a WIP, hmm, let's face it, it's really a UFO.  Fingers crossed that this is the start of some crafty goodness at the all new Chez Sunshine.

I started this after doing the Kelly Wolfsohn workshop in Adelaide with Shay.

I really enjoy raw edge applique and think I'll have another try at it this year as this has turned out so well. Maybe next time I'll try some background quilting!

It could do with a good press. I suppose it wouldn't look like that if I had quilted it. It doesn't look so bad in real life.

Looking back through my Flickr photos, I see I started this at the end of April 2011. Almost 2 years ago. Why do I procrastinate so much? it didn't take me long to find a fat quarter for the backing and another for the binding, put it all together, make a hanging sleeve for it and hand sew the binding down.

I started a new quilt about a week ago as I desperately wanted something to hang on the walls. This is where I used the Lucy's Crab Shack charm pack.

When I'm piecing, I lay out the pieces on an old cutting mat covered with flannel. It's great for keeping the pieces in order and for carrying to and from the iron and my "design bed".

The pattern is from this book.

I spent part of the day basting and quilting it, in between having a swim in the pool as it's hot here today.

Evidence - me quilting in my swimsuit. The heart is to keep my modesty and to ensure this image is not burnt into your brain.  Hmm, swimming pool hair and a tan. Even though I slather on the sunscreen, don't go out in the middle of the day and try hard not to tan, it doesn't seem to be working.

I'm really really happy with how this has turned out. I think I might attempt another triangle quilt this year.  Now to finish the binding so I can tell you all about this quilt in another post.

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Help!!!!! WIP Wednesday

Another completely different week this week, and quite a bit of progress.  Firstly my math is not very good and last week I completely forgot about McFlurry when doing my stats. So I'm going to have to adjust the figures. Who am I kidding, I'm just going to ignore it and try and remember to put it in this week.

I have a question to ask. I bit the bullet this week and went back to working on Tiggly Winks.  I was NOT looking forward to doing the raw edge applique on my Pfaff, and my reservations were well founded.  I have two different feet for FMQ and both of them are, frankly, crap.  The one that would be the best because I can see where I'm going just played up from the second I started. The other foot is the original foot and is thick plastic that makes it very difficult to see what you are doing. Consequently I have to turn the fabric all the time so that I can see where I'm going. Something that you are not supposed to do when FMQing. It doesn't matter whether I'm doing raw edge applique or free motion quilting it still has the same problems.

Does anybody have any experience with FMQing on a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0?

If so, do you have any tips to make FMQ easier?

I hope you can help, I really like the Pfaff for everything else, I don't have any other problems with it, but it is rather ironic that a specifically designed quilting machine is crap at FMQ straight out of the box.  I've been looking at Leah Day's blog and think I might try a couple of things that she does when quilting.
Firstly change the needle plate.  Second, try and cut the original foot so it is U shaped instead of square so I can see where I'm going. I'm also going to try a super slider and leave the feed dogs up and not change the settings to FMQ. Has anybody tried any of these ideas, if so, were they any better?

Now on to my progress for the week.

I finally pulled Tiggly Winks out of the bag it was hiding in, and put it up on the design wall.
The raw edge applique is finished. I forgot to do the binding strips for the stems so I  have to embroider these instead. I was going to start on the embroidery last night, but I decided to trapunto the applique. Is that a sentence in English?  - Trapunto the applique. -  Anyway, it took me ages to cut away all the batting. I was constantly freaking out that I was going to cut the background fabric by mistake. Amazingly I finished it without cutting the fabric at all, miracles do happen!!!!
I also started the sashing and finished the first column on the left.
I'm not feeling the love for this. I wanted to use up a couple of charm packs I had, Martinique and Oasis. I'm going to finish it and if my parents don't like it (I was thinking of giving it to them as I previously made two quilts in Martinique for them) I'll give it away. I probably should just stuff it in a box and forget about it, I might still do that!


Another couple of starflowers have been paper pieced and I've started joining them together. Unlike Tiggly Winks, I love this, it's a pleasure to sew in the evenings and I love how each fabric looks so different cut up and pieced back together. The starflowers  are just over 9 inches across.

I broke down and started a new quilt this week, you can see the design and the process here. In a nutshell, I won a Baby Go Cutter and used it to cut the HST's, a dream!!

Fabrics pulled for this project, more have been added.

I wanted a really scrappy look and didn't want the stars to stand out too much while using a limited palette, so I'm not worrying about the value of the HST's, I'm more concerned with the overall effect of the colours and prints. The only constants are the four light HST's in the centre of the star and the off white points of each star. I started with Hometown by Sweetwater and went through my stash to find some co-ordinating prints, most of which I have no idea of what they are as I don't have the selvage and  some I've had for ages or they came in scrap packs. The blocks are 16 inches, for some strange reason I kept on thinking they were 12 inches. Math is obviously not my strong point at the moment.

Three blocks so far.

In the mail this week, another BOM. I'm crazy but, what the heck, I love love love this and I just couldn't say no to joining in. You can never have enough circles to piece, lol.  I told you I was crazy.

Beautiful, gorgeous, luscious fabric to use for the first block. Love the colours. I haven't started this yet so I'm not adding it to my stats, yet, I'm just drooling over the fabric instead.

The statistics this week:

Worked On This Week
English Paper Piecing -  two more starflowers and sewed some together
Tiggly Winks - finished the applique and started the sashing
New HST Project - (It doesn't have a name yet) cut the HST's and pieced three blocks

Sitting On The Sidelines
McFlurry backing needs to be made
Floral Bouquet need to finish top
Plume Quilt - at the long arm quilters
Circle Game BOM hmmmmm
Mystery Quilt - trying to decide which star to use on the next 7 blocks - I AM NOT GOING TO PAPER PIECE THEM!!!!

Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Some Interest
Jacobean Flower - quilting
Don't Look Now cushion - quilting

Weeks Statistics
New Projects - 1
Completed - 0
Worked On - 3
Put To The Side This Week - 5
Hyperventilating Over - 1 (Circle Game BOM)
Ignoring - 2

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for another WIP Wednesday.

Pyjama Party Sunday

Another fun weekend almost over.

Yesterday I had to go out during the day so didn't get very crafty, and in the evening I had a fabulous time out with friends. We went out for pre-dinner drinks and dinner. The temperature was milder than last week, so we sat at an outdoor bar and listened to a very talented singer/musician and then had a fabulous meal. No photos as it was really dark, we even had to use the table candles to try and read the menu!

I spent almost all day in my pyjamas today, I love sewing when I'm in my pj's, they are so comfortable.

On Friday night I started some raw edge applique and the machine went really well, but when I went back to it Fanny Pfaff had a phit, and made it abundantly clear she didn't want to sew free motion any more.

This is a sneak peek at what I was doing before Fanny stopped playing nice. The button hole stitching is  one of the programmed stitches in the machine.

I've finished 21 of these blocks now, so put them up on my design wall to see how they look. I love them, but I'm not jumping at the chance to finish the last 18.  I might try doing them later in the week.

Anther pieced flower that I made one evening.

Block 3 in the Mystery Quilt I chickened out of doing the paper pieced one, I might try it during the week.
I haven't been struck by lightning yet for mixing Kaffe and batiks. I'm not normally a fan of batiks but I really love the way these combine.




Join in on Pyjama Party Sunday and show what you have been doing this weekend,  you can link your post below.

Pyjama Party Sunday

It's Mothers Day today and it's also Sunday so it's time for the weekly Pyjama Party.

Happy Mothers Day to all mums.

We are not doing anything exciting this year, just a nice quiet day. It's Bitchypoo's 18th birthday soon so that has been taking priority.  We'll catch up with my parents later this afternoon.

Feel free to have your own arty pyjama party and link up to this post. As usual, you don't really need to have been, or be in, your pj's to be arty or crafty, I'm definitely not coming over to check up on you. Thank you to everyone for joining in last week.

This week.




I've sewn together and added the binding to all the French Rose blocks, now I have to make the borders.  The pattern calls for a pieced border and then a solid border. I will get around to it eventually, but in the meantime this morning I've been playing with a jelly roll or two and made this block.


It's out of the Jelly Roll Quilts book that the lovely Shay gave me for my birthday last year.  The pattern is Floral Bouquet. It's really cute and after completing this one I'll be cutting up the rest of the fabric I auditioned to complete the quilt top.  It will definitely be easier to chain piece all the same block parts together. I will also have to remember which way to sew the diagonal lines, after sewing the first one and cutting and pressing before realising it was on the wrong way!!!!!!!

I finished this yesterday morning whilst in my pj's. I had  lots of people asking me what I'm going to do with it. I was thinking about making it into a cushion, but a) I have so many cushions already, and b) I am very lazy and it seems like a lot more work and effort to make it into a cushion than into a wall hanging.  So I think it's going to be a mini quilt wall hanging, even though I'll have to bind it.  For now it's been put to one side as I don't have matching thread for the quilting. I'm also scared witless to quilt it and ruin it.

I have so many projects in my head, that I want to try and I just don't seem to have enough hours in the day and more importantly I'm seriously lacking in time management skills. So even when I do have the time, I waste it. I'm also a champion at procrastination.
Enough of me, lets see what arty parties have been happening since last Sunday's party. Join in to the pyjama party fun by linking below.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.

Jacobean Flower

I've always really liked the look of raw edge applique but have been way too scared to do it. Doing the class in Adelaide showed me how easy it is to do something if you just have a bit of a practice at it first.

I wanted to do something completely different so I found a very old embroidery pattern which I adapted to make this applique.

Starting out

Trying to get the hang of it, working with a crappy closed toe plastic foot, and not being able to see very much and hoping that I was following the edge.


It would be nice to show you the finished applique, but.............
it's being tested.





I'm not going to point out the bits that went awry, let's just say I'm very pleased with this attempt, and I can only hope I can improve, especially if I get a new foot so that I can see what I'm doing.


Trying to get a photo that shows the true colours, I think the second one is more true to life.

My Creative Space

A little something I am working on in between, the Monochromatic Challenge and the French Roses.

If you'd like to see other creative spaces pop over to Kootoyoo to see lots more creativity.