Christmas Sewing

 

I find this time of year so busy doing sewing - for gifts rather than for myself.

 

I've just finished making  two little reversible aprons and DIY polar fleece scarf kits for  nieces/nephews overseas in the UK..its nice to get the kids doing sewing type projects when they are young don't you think?

 

This weekend I had a huge clean out of my sewing room, got rid of a big table so I could put my Horn sewing Cabinet up properly to sew quilts. I've been using the dining room table as my big craft table  seemed to be FULL of stuff on top all of the time.

 

So a beautiful place to go and disappear from the children and have some mummy time..............until Maya decided it looked like the coolest place to play. The Horn cabinet has all sorts of opening out flaps....making the perfect castle rocket ship come fort. And a perfect place right under mum's feet to have a picnic and to pull out mum's scrap bags and share those with the toys too!

 ...............might ask Santa for some locks for the doors!
So  once retidied and de-kidded and de-toyed....it was back to some sewing.....

 Spent a bit of my winnings (free fabric at Wrights Fabric) on a few purchases. A whole lot of batting for a couple of quilts on the go, some backing fabric and some batiks and prints.

I  found a few low volume fabrics which are all cut up waiting to be added into one of my 3 plus low volume quilts.

 The blue raindrop batik is earmarked for an art quilt. The orange and blue hatch ones are also suggestive of some grass/reeds art quilt and the dots for our farewell quilts at Playcentre (more about them in another entry).

 I loved the graphic nature of the dark black and white fabric.....a bit like zentangle fabric doodles?

And a bunch of pink and green batiks ( tho they do not look very green in this image)

 Some funny prints for Maya's farewell quilt for Playcentre when she turns 5 later next year.

 I was cleaning out my stash as you do...and remembered buying this from spotlight

 and picking this up at Quilt group sales table

 I had thought about doing a welcome to the neighbour hood quilt ( with little houses) and with little people in windows and doors for a wee baby that may appear in the neighbourhood.....yet another project.

However my low volume plus quilt is coming on...

Its a rustic quilt ( I'm saying that as it is for Mum and it feature horses in every block or grass/chickens etc and somehow some block points don't match up)..but being a low volume quilt it's hard to see that - a saving grace....but finding two fabrics next to each  bugged me( bottom right of image below and two newspaper ones top left!) but it is on the edge which will be hanging over the edge of a bed so it can stay...I wondered if the kids moved a few blocks around or if I got a few rows mixed up when distracted by them?

I don't think I should cut at night- I used a 1/4 inch foot and I seem to have a smaller sized block that I should. Did I cut a few wrong pieces at night? With only 3-4 hours sleep a night its highly possible!!! so they were trimmed smaller and fit nicely on the back!

So now it's just about creeping back unnoticed into  my sewing room and keeping kids distracted and starting to quilt this beast.


I wanted a leaf/nature pattern after considering some sort of horse shoe thing that turned out to be too complicated.....found this... on this website
http://afewscraps.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/leafy-lines-quilting-design.html

..seems to be a simple variation on a wavy line.....think I can do wavy without even trying! only 30 days to get it done!

 The binding can be attached and then hand sewn down on holiday. There is a saying quilts are made with love and this one definitely is - it would not win any awards!



Perfect stocking filler for a quilter...(besides fabric)
What about this pen- Warehouse stationary sell them as well as quilting stores..erasable pens.
I think they'll be brilliant for me as I do art quilts..can draw and hitting them with a steam iron makes the marks go...and I paint over and stitch over so any ghost image is fine. Robyn from my quilt group mentioned them!

Found a blog entry on them-- they react to cold and reappear and do leave a ghost mark on some fabrics- so test before you mark up a quilt!

http://mythreesonsknit.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/pilot-frixion-pen-sewers-warning.html

happy sewing!