this week...

bright & bold building blocks all finished! 

a little bundle of new pretty fabric 

up on the design wall
{WiP}  

The Warriors are on... playing Parramatta 

so I thought I'd write a quick post about my week!

• First up, I went dancing! Over the years I've been to jazzercise, then zhumba, and now I go to dance class! It's 'in town' so travelling in & out is a bit of a pain at rush hour, but I love the class. It's for women of a certain age (!!) and we are learning to use our bodies with ease and (re)discover the joy of movement! It's contemporary dance, easy low impact, and alot of fun. Ha-ha, we don't really all look like that in pic #1!
• Book club again this week. My pick of the bunch is "The Extraordinary Journey of The Fakir Who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe." We follow the main character, Ajatashatru Oghash (pronounced "a-jar-of-rat-stew-oh-gosh") on his accidental European journey. He's a likeable rogue exploring the perils of emigration, and meeting unlikely friends in odd places. A good read!
• I finished sewing the binding on my Building Blocks quilt. Finish #2 ticked off my FAL list  yayee! Linking into tgiff over here at quarter inch from the edge
• And I made a few more scrappy daisy blocks. I'm mostly using small to medium scale prints, lots of different fabrics from my stash along with my new bundle of fabric by Jen Kingwell, Gardenvale from the Fat Quarter Shop. These fabrics seem vintage-y with a bit of a modern twist, pretty little pieces, just 56cms x 23cms {22" x 9"}, but perfect for mixing up into the one quilt. Linking into Molli here for Sunday Stash. The block backgrounds are all a mixture of cream, white & grey neutrals. Scrappiness at it's best I reckon! 

sewing pretty- take 2

Olive's first quilt 2011 

oops, petal up the top the wrong way... where's my seam ripper?

A new week, and here's what's happening here in my sewing space

Well, I had planned to spend time machine quilting a couple of WiP's this week but... I've been doing some slowish sewing instead!
Maybe it's these colder evenings?
Maybe it's taking the time to enjoy the process that really appeals just now?
Or maybe I just wanted to open up my new Gardenvale bundle? These fabrics are pretty! Kinda vintage with a modern twist and they mix in well with my other scrappy bits & pieces too.

I'm using see through templates - I originally used these templates 4 yrs ago as the centre for Olive's first quilt {see pic #2}. I sort of made up that quilt as I went along, thankfully all the borders met beautifully! Anyway, I'm machine piecing these little 8" Daisy blocks, and plan to set them on point... and yep, it's all inset seams! I've got the 'needle down' option on my machine so I stop at all the 1/4" intersections! And I'm now also cutting my background squares just a wee bit bigger to allow for tweaking when joining everything up later.
Happy to truck along slowly at present, just doing this at my own pace, one scrappy daisy at a time.Will keep you updated on further daisies!

my tip of the day #2

How do you use up some of your older, not so loved fabric stash?

Some of my fabric stash really is quite dated and I've found it so hard to use lately.
 Many of you probably already do this too, but for any new sewers ...
I've started sorting some of the larger pieces into main colour groups 

 and am now making up scrappy but blending backings for finished quilt tops!

Linking into 'oh scrap' here

and WiP Wednesday here @ freshly pieced

Why not pop on over to see what everyone else has been up to! 

this week...

• This week I got my quilt back from Linda, the Razzle Dazzle quilter. I think she has done a beautiful job of blending in her quilting in with my piecing, can’t stop looking at it! Next up, binding! If you want to see more pics, I'm sure Linda too will be writing a post soon, pop on over & see here
• Some time ago I ordered a new book and it arrived this morning, "The Improv handbook for Modern Quilters" by Sherri Lynn Wood. A very interesting approach to creative quilting, has anyone else read this? 
• Oh and I made a yummy cake, Chocolate & Beetroot - yes beetroot - cake! {recipe here}

Have a lovely weekend! 

sewing pretty

et viola Poppy has a new quilt!
finished size 70cms x 75cms

Well I have to say, making doll quilts has never really appealed to me! But this weekend, my little 4yr old grand daughter, aka partner-in-crime in the sewing room, insisted! "We need a quilt for Poppy, Granny!" {Poppy is the old doll in pic #2} So forget "the FAL list", enjoy the moment, and together we sorted a few fabrics - and yes, you all know how that went don't you! Anyway, I cut out some hexis, got the 'olive' approval, and later on-after she went home-got busy making this little quilt.

I really did enjoy sewing with this pretty mix of fabrics too! And it got me thinking...
There's some lovely inspiration around, I especially enjoy catching up with Meredith's 'show & tell' here. Week by week we get progress pics on some beautiful, pretty projects, and most are of the slow & steady kind.They are "under construction" - a term I came across here at sew mama sew! {which is an interesting read in itself!}
Of course there a lots of lovely books too, like Jen Kingwell's book "quilt lovely" and "Feathering the Nest" with vintage inspired quilts by Brigitte Giblin. Brigitte's book is written in English & French and is full of beautiful images of old quilts, real labour of love type of quilts! And as she says, she doesn't set out to copy them but rather, makes her own in a simpler form that still captures the feeling of the old.

I followed one of Brigitte's patterns for this little quilt, the instructions were for a proper sized quilt of course, not dolly sized! I did the 'pillow case' style of layering & flipping things, hand stitched the opening closed {not too sure how to explain that!}, and then did some straight line machine quilting. It didn't take too long!
But in contrast, it certainly takes time to make all those other pretty heirloom quilts. And right now I'm thinking maybe I should be exploring this 'sewing pretty' a bit further, maybe on something a bit bigger!

                                     Linking into "Sew Cute Tuesday" here for the first time

something for everyone

Glenys and I popped into the Auckland Quiltmakers Show at the Parnell Community Centre in Auckland this weekend. I enjoyed the show, and there was certainly quite a variety... from the bright Kaffe Fassett quilts to the more traditional, and a sprinkling of 'modern' quilts too! Here's some of my favourites. {Apologies, these pics were taken on my phone so they are a little not-quite-true-to-colour, and there's a bit of a reflection-y thing happening from the overhead lights! }

Lotus11 -Juliet Taylor

Patchwork of the Crosses - Robyn Burgess

see here for better pics

Peony - Penny Jameison

this was a lovely big really bright quilt, using Kaffe prints 225cms x 206cms

Tula's Modern Sampler {folded} - Robyn Burgess

Petula {hanging} - Gail Moore

Floating Fans - Pam Carter

{made from ties}

My favourite pick of the show...mainly all low volumes 

Tripping Lightly - Robyn Croft

Endurance - Lesley Rawlings

Pikelets & Jam - Gail Moore

 A good day out, plus the outdoor market was a happening thing too! 

modern buzz saw {a finished quilt top}

'fabulously fast quilts' by Amy Smart

I have a finished quilt top to share today! A few hiccoughs putting this together, all my fault not the pattern! My centre block ended up ever-so-slightly bigger than the rest! Don't ask me how, but I unpicked carefully, checked my sizes, trimmed a teeny tiny bit, sewed again, and thankfully it was all good! But then, it was touch & go with the final cream border fabric, there are a few joins but I can live with that! These blocks are big, finished 17" square! The pattern calls for 12 blocks but I only made the nine and, as you can see, it fits the top of a queen sized bed! Linking into tgiff here ... does a finished quilt top count?!?

my tip of the day#1  

I have learnt when using mainly all creams for the background 

adding a little bit of white seems to achieve that extra sparkle!  

they say patience is a virtue

finish #5

This week I had a lovely bit of exciting news - I was one of the winners in the 2015 Finish-Along Q1 hosted by Adrianne from On the Windy Side, see here for details. It's a surprise prize... waiting patiently for the post now!

I've also been plugging away making a few more blocks for my Modern Buzz Saw quilt. I have almost finished all the blocks, can't wait to get it all together! 

I made this peachy donation quilt a while back, a little exercise in using many different variations of the one colour. It's scrappy, with lots of peachy themed fabrics from my stash, shouldn't be too hard to pick the binding, yes? Well, it's taken me simply ages to decide on the right fabric for the binding ... and when I finally decided on this particular one, would you believe it, I didn't have enough! So it's ordered and I'm waiting patiently, again! Linking into 'oh scrap' here. 

Oh and Linda aka the Razzle Dazzle quilter has just let me know my Moda Building Blocks quilt is all quilted and being couriered back to me!  Waiting, waiting waiting...but lots to show you ... soon!

EDIT: ha,ha but you know the other thing they say... 'good things come to those that wait'! My long awaited bundle of Gardenvale fat quarters arrived late this afternoon, can't wait to have a closer look!

Have a great weekend!