New project

Now this is going to be my version of Michelle Ridgeway's latest project featured in Country Threads Vol 13 No 10.  Its all drawn up and stitched to the point of finding some fabric for the butterflies either end.  Not sure what I will use yet.  I must say it sewed up great to this point and I am looking forward to starting the stitching later.  Maybe I should finish my wren first.  Or at least the tree skirt I am still slowly working on lol.

I've even organised the wadding, backing and binding fabric.  I will bind it in the plain green and will do it the old fashioned way stitching it by hand I think.

See I said I would be very productive didn't I.  Haven't heard a thing about Lance yet and it has just gone 1pm.  Last I heard was at 8.30 just before he headed into the hospital so don't know exactly when it was all going to happen.  No doubt someone will ring me later.  Now back to work on something else to keep me busy.  I think I would like a mat to go under my machine and a matching cover for it too.  I have a little box of 2.5" floral squares somewhere.  Might just have to pull that out now.  Fantastic to be making things from my little stash of scraps etc.

Birthday Stash item

Been having fun playing around with some scraps this morning and have just finished running up 2 'Bloom' journal covers.  Don't remember where I seen the link for this tutorial but it is so quick and easy.  Its from one of you lovely ladies in blog land.

I didn't have iron on pellon so just used some very thin polyester wadding scraps I had.  No shops open at 5.30am to get it lol.

The purple one will be for the birthday stash namely Grace.  The fabrics are from her suffolk puff quilt scraps.  The other one made from more scraps from the table mat will be mine I think.  I still have plenty more of this fabric but might put it in the stash box and work on something else.

A finish! OPAM

After lunch I started work on this project which has been sitting around for quite some time since I finished the embroidery and cut the fabrics.  Today it went from this ...

to this ...

and finally this ...

I ditch quilted it and did that back to front machine binding.  It is quicker but my corners could have been a bit better than they are.  A couple are a little wonky but that's ok as there are a few wonky bits in the patchwork too lol.

The embroidery was completed last January and I used 1 strand of Cottage Garden thread to work it.  I also completed a blue version for my Mum's birthday last year.   The pattern is a red work design called Quilter's cottage in an orchard by Willow Valley Store.  I worked my border differently than the one pictured in the pattern.  

Here's a pic of the blue version featuring some William Morris fabrics.  This is just before I stitched down the binding.  Can't find the finished pic.

Now I said I was going to be productive lol.   Off to do something with those gorgeous leftover fabrics for the birthday stash item for February.  

A visitor

Today we had a little visitor and he has only just left ...  wander if he will come back tomorrow to sleep in our ornamental pear tree for the day.

Well not much to show ...

well nothing really.  Worked really hard to get everything done by Wednesday to have 4 full days home sewing on a quilt that my mum passed on to me and also some FW blocks but it just didn't happen that way. Thursday I did a bit of a shop and went to parents house to find a near flat tyre when leaving.  Ok fixed that by putting air in it and taking it straight over to the tyre place to be fixed.  Stupid car kept sending an alarm message every 5 mins all the way over and just put this down to the tire being low on pressure.  Nope the best part of the afternoon was spent at the mechanics after they said it was the electrical/computer system.  Lucky for us  it is under warranty.   Put me right off sewing I must say.  Did get the car back late in the afternoon as it was apparently a loose wire!  Thought it had better not come loose ever again.  Just too frustrated to sew after that.

Friday was a much better day and enjoyable but I still didn't get any sewing done.  I thought a good run in the car would be an idea to make sure everything is ok with it so picked up Mum and took her to Kyabram to that patchwork shop.  I found a few cheap fat quarters, as usual, and Mum had quite a few bargains and some Cottage Garden threads too.  I also had a call from the repair people that had our 6 mth old Kelvinator fridge and they were ready to bring back our fridge so teed that up for 1pm.  Thankfully they had loaned us one while they fixed it under warranty.  By the time we got back home and I got their fridge emptied and shifted the table etc the afternoon was gone.  Must say though I would use these guys from, guess where,  Kyabram again because they turn up exactly on time!  Never had that happen before with tradies.  Shame that Echuca had no one reliable for the warranty on the fridge.  Well they do but they don't stock loan fridges and would have taken 7 days to even come and look at the fridge in the first place.  Not good really considering we would have been without refrigeration for about 4 weeks all up.

So since the fridge came back I picked up 25kg of sauce tomatoes and set to work.  Saturday saw 15 meal lots of gnocchi/pasta sauce, 10 of spag bol, 4 pasta bake, and 6 lasagne.  Sunday saw about 15 bottles of tomato sauce and 4 more lots of a different lasagne.  I have enough tomatoes left to make up some tomato soup today also for the freezer.  Plus while stirring sauce for 4 hours I have a very clean pantry lol.

So after all this I do have a full freezer again and hopefully that is our 3 things gone bad out of the way for the year.   Lance will be having a procedure done in Melbourne this Wednesday and he will be away for 3 days.  Its a trial at St V's that is meant to lower blood pressure by ablation of the renal arteries to the kidney's.  Lance takes a lot of medication since his stroke so hopefully we will be able to stop 4 tablets by the end of the week.  That means I can save nearly $120 a month from the chemist.  Shame about the other 4 tablets that he will have to stay on.  Might actually get some flimsies quilted it that is the case lol.  Anyway I do think that work and sewing will help keep me occupied while he is away so you can expect some pics nearly every day for the next week lol.

More scrapbooking

Here's some shots of what I did on Sunday.  All of the pages and cards made over the weekend have been made using the same range of 4 double sided Kaisercraft papers and some plain ones from my stash that suited them.  It is great use of paper and the scraps have been used to create cards.   I very rarely purchase paper at full price so it is even better value from the clearance section of an online shop I used to buy from.

www.idealpapercraft.com.au/store/  Its been a while since I have ordered anything from Mary but it was always well priced, well packed and quick.

Scrapbooking

Today I thought I would enjoy some scrapbooking.  I spent about an hour organising some photos printed ages ago into date order and then filed into albums before doing these pet pages.  I think what motivated me was Sharon talking about doing it with her daughter.  Here's my take on some cheap and cheerful pages that didn't cost the earth to make lol.

The photos on this page are a little bad but as you can guess I came home one morning to find that Tiger had decided to pull the lace curtains down.  He was one very naughty cat lol but Bindi's best mate.  

Bindi was our previous dog and a real sweetie.

Looking at this one now I think it needs either the photos matted or a horizontal strip to give it a more finished look.

This is Merlin at around 41/2 months.  He is only just starting to get his colour.

Bindi was a little unsure of Merlin as I think she was still missing Tiger but they got on okay.