old treasures

About a month ago hubby's uncle passed away at 99, a grand old age. Hubby was offered to come to the house and take some old tools that belonged to his uncle. Along with those he also got a bunch of old tins that were filled with nails and screws, I have cleaned up a few and they now house string, bits & pieces and other bits & pieces.


There were also a few old wooden rulers and a retractable tape measure in inches which is now in my sewing desk.


and these old cases that have bits & pieces in them, including some great old locks, I was thinking they could be set into some wooden furniture.....

binding is on

The binding is on, it's from the Rounneries by French General range - lots of lovely fabric in the range. Still a bit of quilting to go, once it's all finished I'll take a pic of the whole quilt. I wanted to use the same binding as I used on the previous scrappy quilt but I wasn't able to obtain anymore from either of my locals (no surprise really, that was a while ago). I have a little left in my stash, I'll save it for another special project.

time for an update

I know it's been a very long time since my last post. So what's been happening...? I started another scrappy quilt, I was hoping to have it finished for a market I did a couple of weeks ago for my Dad's goods but that wasn't to be. I really wanted to have it finished, sitting to the side and if anyone was interested I would have sold it. Some other time perhaps. Only a couple of new fabrics were purchased for this one, the rest were already in the stash. There's still quite a bit of hand quilting to go and I've almost finished sewing on the binding.

A few weekends ago I went away with my good friend Kylie for a little time away sewing, relaxing and shopping. We did some sewing, we did some shopping but not a whole lot of relaxing due to the mice situation at the house we were staying at. We set off on a saturday morning, stopped off at T'Gallant for a woodfired pizza which was delicious, bought a few bottles of Grace Pino Grigio 2008 which I would highly recommend - beautiful beautiful wine. (I'm no wine aficianado but I know what tastes nice). We covered all shops in Sorrento, some lovely homey shops with lovely things unfortunately the price tags weren't so lovely, they were rather steep. Nice to look anyway and get some great ideas. Goats cheese, olives, dip, lavosh, avocado, tomatoes, brie, bread & a vanilla slice was purchased for our dinner - what else do you need...

While we were sewing, eating & sipping the mice activity commenced, I don't know how many there were, but I'm guessing there were quite a few. One would come out of a kitchen cupboard, run behind the fridge then run into the laundry, then run back into the cupboard, then 2 mice would come out together and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. There were a few bottles of wine enjoyed between us, we were hoping the alcohol would numb the worry of the mice. It was just after midnight when the mice started to run from the kitchen, past us, to the lounge room that we thought it's time to go to bed - cheeky little ...............'s. The good news was that there weren't any signs of mice downstairs where the bedrooms were so we were able to sleep. We packed up in the morning rather speedily and had a really nice big breakfast in Blairgowrie. On the drive home we went along the coast (bay side) which was a nice change, I hadn't been that way in ages, it's usually the freeway. It was so nice to have a little break.

I've hardly bought any fabric lately, I guess I look at what I have and think 'I should use what I have first', feeling a little guilty. Below however, is some fabric that I couldn't resist, it's Nani Iro Fuwari Linen 2010 in natural from Matatabi. I just love it, I don't know if I'll be able to cut it.

Hopefully not too much time will pass before my next post.

easter sunday for us today

Ages ago I bought some japanese masking tape and I've used some to decorate a gift tag for my beautiful nephew's easter basket (tin). He's only 16 months old, so just a couple of little easter eggs at this stage and did I say he's beautiful. I also had a thing for stamp sets a while back, I have 2 alphabet sets - the one I used here are quite small and a little fiddly to use, but they came in a little wodden box which is so cute, so I had to have it. I like to make my own cards, I can't justify spending $5 - $6 on a card when with a little thought and creativity you can make them yourself.

Our family can't all meet up next Sunday so we are doing Easter Sunday today at Mum & Dad's, should be lovely.

a new doll for bells

This pattern was given to me as a gift, it's the poppy doll from hop skip jump. Rather than wool flannel which the pattern suggests I have used a cotton/linen blend in a neutral color. The reason for that is I didn't have wool flannel on hand - I had the cotton/linen blend. Wool felt is suggested for the hair, I have used wool of some sort - I had pink and green in my stash and the choice was rather simple for bells. The doll and dress took around 3 hours yesterday, the pattern was very easy to follow and I was happy with the result and so was someone else....


The head/neck section is set into the body and hand stitched in last, I've never made a doll in that way before - it gives a nice result I think. The material for the dress was chosen - it was to be a dress not a top as instructed by madam bells and no pants!

Late last night I wanted to make the pants, I found a little denim and there you have it - jeans for the new doll. I put them on her last night and when bells woke this morning she said "take them off, I don't like pants, she is wearing a dress!". Who am I to argue, maybe one day she'll get cold and she'll feel the need to wear jeans....

Tinkerbell, as she has been named has received lots of cuddles and has been part of group gatherings along with other select softies.

pink skirt

Perhaps there has been a slight break in the drought, I've had this material sitting around for quite some time, felt like sewing something so thought I'd do a simple little skirt for bells. Nothing too difficult, just some elastic in the top of some pretty japanese fabric. It took a little convincing for bells to put it on but once she did it didn't come off for days.

(*excuse the hole in the leggings, I could have cropped that out but didn't notice until the photo was uploaded and then it was too late.....)

hand quilting job no.2 complete

Here is the 2nd hand quilting job complete for my friend Kylie, I've quite enjoyed the hand quilting, mostly due to the fact (as explained previously) - I'm just not feeling it lately. The creative juices are not flowing. I even went to a 20% - 50% off sale recently at Amitie and only purchased 1 fabric, some beautiful japanese printed linen which I'll share at some other point in time. I thought this would be nice for a library bag for Bells when she starts school next year. Usually this type of sale results in big dollars going down, lots of ideas and lots of excitement. Oh well - I guess I saved money.

I'm pretty sure that my stumbling block is a quilt I'm trying to finish off for Mum, I don't seem to be able to find fabrics to go with it. I suppose I'm finding it very, very difficult as they aren't my colours.