July sails away with SOHRH and August shines in

Hello friends,

It is currently a sunny winters day outside my window.  I’ve composted last week’s flowers and preserved those that may become a dried floral arrangement later.  Spring is in the air, despite a further 4 weeks of winter…  the daffodils in my driveway are magnificent, so I’ve cut a bunch and am now looking at them on my desk…   They are sitting in a pink depression glass jug – the pattern is Pink Mayfair.  As it was Mum’s birthday last week, she is sharing the joy of the daffodils with me.

I have not yet decided what patchwork project to work on in daylight hours of this weekend, will possibly do a bit more sorting and scrap tidying.  I’ve managed to find a good supply of boxes which will store 2.5” strips, just a few more boxes than I currently have strips.  Next weekend sees the delivery of the last component of my sewing nook and I’m faintly excited to work with it – a Hi-Low desk with plenty of space to incorporate a pressing station.  I’ve invested in a wool pressing mat and a new ergonomic chair and my sewing nook will be complete.  It is a good feeling.  So yes, I think while the sun is shining, I will do a bit more sorting of old patterns and charts/kits.  My mind is more in that space right at the moment, than in a crafting space.  Of course, I will be in much danger of finding projects I want to do ‘right now’, but there is only so many hours in the day!  I am sure to have quite a few items to fill my givaway box – Shall we have a giveaway?  I’ll see what is in the box at the end of next week and let you know.

I am not making any more face-masks – have made enough for ourselves and friends and family who have asked for them.  I am not interested in selling them, as there are so many people who have lost their income and are now dependent on their cottage industry to bring in extra finances.

I have only realised I have not shared much of my progress on Shores of Hawk Run Hollow (SOHRH) and July was the first month it returned to my rotation for a week, rather than an anything goes weekend lucky dip.  I was gifted this chart and fabric too many months ago to remember and it pops out from time to time, but now, this year seems to be ripe to complete long-standing WIP’s.  This week I completed the wording, the dolphin and the hull of the ship for parts 6-7 – this gives me a solid placement guide for all the sails and gee-gaws that adorn this section.  This design has a LOT of sectional stitching of large blocks of colour – such a difference to band samplers and small motif designs.

Am eager to stitch next week’s rotation – a return to the temperature SAL, to see what colours and the range in July.  I’m guessing it will be a small range of about 4-6 colours through the whole month…daytime temperatures stayed about 14-15 degrees celcius all month.

I’ll leave you all right now – and get some work done while the sun shines and keeps me motivated..Leave a comment and a link to your blog…

Happy Stitching!

As July 2020 comes to a close - a roundup of Stitching events...

Hello Stitching friends… 

Not much progress in July

I do not appear to have much stitching news to share this past week or so. I, like so many Australian stitchers have been putting my time into sewing cloth masks for family and friends. I am fortunate in that I do not need to run a cottage industry to gather spare coins to pay my bills. My household is still employed and the Covid crisis has not impacted us greatly. For this I am thankful and I know there are a lot of people out there who are doing it tough.

 

I recently celebrated 15 year work anniversary. I have been a contractor at the same site since 2005. I was gifted some (amazing) chocolates and two bunches of flowers, one from my employers and one from the business I have worked with for such a long time. Work practices have changed substantially since I first started as a junior with an accountancy firm in 1981. Few people seem to want to hold onto a job for more than 5 years, leaving to acquire more experience with multiple companies. I just have a talent at longevity and am good at the role I currently hold. Along with the flowers was a very lovely bonus gift card. I have put the $$ to good use and have ordered the final components for my sewing nook

 

I love my little vintage laminex dining table – it seats 4, but has extending panels to seat 6 comfortably, and was perfect for my little flat when I moved in 8 years ago. It moved with me to this house, and as I did not intend to need a dining table, designated my little table to my sewing area as a cutting table. Now most of you quilters will know that a dining table is not the best surface to stand at for any length of time cutting fabric. This little table has made-do for the past 3 years, however when I decided at the beginning of this year to organise my life – I put a lot of thought into replacing this table. I looked at work benches at both IKEA and Bunnings, as they were the right height – but golly they were industrial in finish and just not quite right. Lo and behold, in OfficeWorks I discovered a manual high-low or sit-stand desk. It is the right length and perfect depth to hold my cutting mat. I can still store my fabric tubs underneath it. The hole cut into the edge for computers is perfect for the ironing power cord to feed through neatly. I can fit a small pressing station to the side of it, leaving plenty of cutting surface – best of all, I will be able to set the height correctly so a tired back will be a thing of the past. To round out the purchase, I have ordered a new ergonomic chair to replace my current chair which will sink down at the most inconvenient times.

 

I have also ordered a pressing mat – to make the pressing station, so my ancient concave ironing board can hide back in the cupboard waiting for me to iron clothes… I’ve been making do with an old towel folded and covered with a linen tea-towel as a mini pressing mat, but am looking forward to trying out something a bit more professional. I’ll give an honest review, once I’ve used it for a short while.

 

I have been able to make a few more ¾” hexies and am loving my little project box. There is no plan yet just what to do with these, but I’ll keep making them. Not sure if I’ll use these as the centre of grandmother’s garden flowers or as the outside petals, keeping one central colour. It all depends on how many I make and just what colours I have when I’m ready to stitch them together. Or they might become something else….. I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not sure…

 

I am proud of myself this weekend, for putting some serious time in and working on my online Scout Training. I’d been putting it off for months, but set myself this weekend to work on it in earnest. I still have some hours left to work on this, but have broken the back of the training.  Once completed - I should have earned my Wood Beads as a Leader of Adults

ready to sail!

Checking my stitching rotation – this week I will bring out Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. I’m up to stitching blocks 6 and 7 – the sailing ship in the middle. This has been a long time WIP – as most of the projects I’ve been working on this year.

 

As a result of my recent fit of tidy – sorting through my specialty floss I do have another alternate WIP – this scrap of fabric fits three of these hearts nicely. I am using Colour Streams silks and am enjoying the process. I’ll adjust the patterns to suit myself as I go along. I do know I have a wide range of beads in my stash to choose from This will most probably end up this life as a pillow.

 

I hope you have enjoyed your visit with me today. Whether you have dropped in though Bloglovin’ or through your reading pane on Blogger – or even followed one of my unashamed links on various forums – please leave a comment – introduce yourself. Please leave a link to your own blog – are you a quilter, a stitcher, an organising guru? What is your passion? Let us get this blogging community a little tighter and get to know one another…  I leave you today with a closeup of my lovely flowers - a bottlebrush and a sea holly in particular

Mid Month roundup and progress.

Hexies.

OMG - I've finally succumbed

I bought 1/2" and 3/4" laser cut hexie papers and templates to start. Now remember, these are measured by the SIDES of the hexagons, not the width. How people can work with 1/4" hexies is beyond me - let alone complete full on quilts

Anyway... have been having fun using up my 2-1/2" squares that I've been cutting up out of my scrap buckets to make my beginning stash of 3/4" hexies. I have no discernible project for this yet. I am pleased to discover a new use for my 1-1/2" square scraps - they fit the 1/2" hexie papers nicely.

Hexies - not exactly a NEW craft, just a sidestep from Patchwork and a method of handstitching that does not need the intense concentration of cross-stitch.

On a facebook forum, the question was raised about left handed rotary cutters.  I shared a pic of my cutters and thought to show it here too.

The green one a Clover brand is my favourite, swapping the blade also swaps the seating, from R to L, meaning the action to open comes out on the better angle. The purple one was my first, and the blade comes out the top. The blade is reserved for non fabric cutting and the handle is marked as such. This and the red cutter are Birch cutters. The blue one is an ergonomic Fiskar won in a competition. It has a thumb button on the other side of the handle when set up as right handed, to retract the blade.  I don’t use it much, have to get used to handling it – more like a bike handlebar than a pencil grip.

 

I have stitched up one version of the July SAL, and will show that on the 20^th, so have freed up this weekend to continue tidying up my sewing area

 

I have embroidered 6 bees on my Honey-B quilt.  I may or may not get around to working on the back for this quilt this weekend.  The car is on order, so there is no rush.  I want to really time the finish of this quilt to match when the car arrives…..  Each bee is slightly different.  I might go back and add antennae – or may not..

July and progress report on June Stitching

I've caught up to date with my 2020 Temperature SAL.  As of last night, June is completed.  I have yet to add the motifs on the side of the months, but will add those when the year is done, I'm not quite sure what to stitch there yet..  I'm happy to stitch this with these colours, as this will give me an indication how to set out my 2021 Weather Sheep  (Aha!  a title - Wethers of 2021 !)   This colour scheme was selected with one colour for 2 degrees of temperature...l  and there is so much of five colours.. so that's 8 degree variance..  so next year, I might look at one colour floss per degree.  While deep red and dark orange might represent the higher degrees, I feel the aqua and teal shades should be around the 20-25 degree, rather than the 14-21 degrees predominant from April-June. 

The May and June minimum and maximum temperatures have a variance of 6 colours and we are now moving into the colder months, so June should show a predominance of the purple/lilac.

I know the colours on the guide above are not accurate - DMC3835 is more a purple than a dull rose for 4-5degrees, but it helps when I'm making an excel chart.

I've also sorted out a few more of my scraps into predetermined sized squares and strips - a plan to spend 30 min to one hour per week to then have the ability to run a stash-busting quilt weekend. 

So using fabric boxes from Ikea (don't you just love repurposing items) and my bargain strip boxes from the Reject Shop - (Painters Tape makes GREAT temporary labels!) my huge tub of scraps are being organised by size instead of colour (until I have all my scraps cut to size, then you just know my OCD will kick in and I'll have to organise them into colours...  sigh!)  I hope also to make up bags of scraps to trade with other patchwork friends down the track...

My next patchwork project is to finish this lap quilt.  I will back it with one of the two (or both) the black/white fabrics and plan to bind it with a bright yellow.  I want to embroider a few buzzy bees around the stars, turning them into sunflowers. I am feeling the urge to hand-quilt this quilt too.. This quilt will then become a car quilt for my NEW CAR!!   Oh excitement, I have ordered a new Toyota Hybrid C-HR which will arrive in 10-12 weeks.  Of course, I have picked the vibrant Hornet Yellow as a colour and her name will be Honey.  So this quilt top, made about 2 years ago, will be perfect for her.

ohh  almost forgot... picked up a box of vintage items from the local facebook marketplace - mostly for the wooden cotton reels, but weeding out the other random items, these were the best.  The pink papers are all rusted through, and I would never use the pins inside the packets, but are an interesting look into how pins were supplied to dressmakers - I would hesitate to guess these are from mid-60s.  A few random buttons and elastic on card/foil and zippers for my collection - best of all was the round blue pin tin - metal and in mint condition because there were no pins left in it to rust it from the inside out....so quite a few nice things to add to my sewing room decor.  The box is a lid (only) for children's socks.  Just a nice peek into manchester items of times past.

Time for me now to get into my weekend projects - to stitch or sew while inspiration hits me...

Please leave a comment - particularly the new visitors - Where are you visiting from? 

Sauntering into the Winter Solstice - Sewing, Stitching and stuff....

Hello again friends,

It's been another couple of weeks to  catch up with.

First of all, if you are looking for the next pattern for the 2020 SAL, I'll be uploading it to its own page again..  Navigate your way through the tabs above to find the June pattern and photos

Last weekend i spent hand sewing some patchwork after watching a sequence of YouTube videos.  I made a cute little owl purse and decorated the back with vintage lace.  I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process and the recipient loved that I spent the time making something for her. 

I also finished the binding on the 1985 quilt, which I've called Procrastination.

I have handpieced the front, and for some insane reason, decided to machine piece a sampler back.  Finally got my act together and quilted and bound the quilt and now it is ready to cover me on the couch or add extra warmth on the bed.  The patch with the cat was planned to be in that position on the quilt, as that was where the ginger cat from my childhood would lie on my bed. 

 The front was hand pieced in 1985 and the back was machine pieced in April this year...  so 35 years in progress.  I'm happy with the binding on the quilt and the decision to round the corners.  Now that it is finished so I can move onto to the next WIP.

As for cross stitching, I've found a unique SAL on a french site.  After accidentally buying some sheepie charts (for 2021 I swear!) I found a facebook fan site where there is a Temperature SAL, using little houses in a range of colours to represent the high and low of each day in a year.  Each house is under 24 stiches and each roof is 9 stitches, so a month will stitch up really quickly.  Most of those I've seen are from France or Italy, a couple are from the USA, but being from Australia, my colours are different.  I'm using this as a test and hope to stitch the same idea in 2021, but using sheep!

A lot of fun stitching to catch up with and a new quilt WIP to get on with...

OH ...nearly forgot...  My TUSAL jar has filled up and although it is a pain to try and capture a good shot with the reflection in the glass,

you can see a lot of floss from the temperature SAL has now been captured.

A few finishes for the weekend

I had a couple of finishes this week.  Bent Creek's Redbird sampler I finished in 2009 and it was on the same fabric as 2/3 finished Bluebird Sampler

As I am intent on stitching and finishing WIP from my stash, it seemed a shame not to pick this one up to finish.

Another finish today, having had to wait for my sewing machine to return from service.  I finished the sheepie cushion in 2011 and decided it was perfect to make up into a cuddle cushion for my 2yo Grand-daughter who can now count up to five!