Snapshot Sunday- just a bit of light reading... ummm listening

I just discovered these neat little "playaway audiobooks" at my local library. Its a MP3 player already loaded with an audiobook and all you have to do is add your own earphones and a battery. This sure beats either (1) the expense of buying audiobooks off itunes and loading onto my ipod or (2) the time wastage involved in borrowing CD audioboks from the library and uploading them to my computerand then to my ipod. In case you're wondering why I dont just play the CD's in a CD player... well I've tried and I just cant hear the dialogue over the top of my sewing machines. Music is fine, but not spoken word.

Anyway, if you dont alreay do this I highly recomend listening to a good book while you sew! Usually I completely lose track of time and get heaps of sewing done while also enjoying my other great love... books.

PS... Bram Stokers Dracula in Audiobook form takes 18.5 hours to listen to- thats a lot of sewing!

Hedgehog and friends quilt

Recently there was a call out in one of my online crafty groups to send fabric scraps to a lady who wanted to make quilts and donate them back to a hospital that had cared for her newborn daughter. I create lots of scraps and quickly put together a bundle to send off to her, but also felt inspired to make and send a completed quilt too. Looking through my stash I came up with 3 idea's, and not knowing which one too choose I just got cracking and made all three. From a crafting/quilting perspective it was a really creative couple of weeks, getting to try out some design idea's that had been floating around in my head. But it was also a somber and meditative process... thinking about the dangerously ill babies that would be using the quilts and wishing love and luck into each quilt as it was made.

Here is the first of the three quilts. Its made using Fabrics from Michael Millers "hedgehog group" fabrics. I have a fat quarter pack of this range, and cut off a bit from each fat quarter to make this quilt, but also added in a few bits and pieces from my scrap box. If I remember correctly the fabric was cut into 3" squares and then joined in a completely random way, just making sure no like pieces ended up next to each other.

For the quilting I used a blue thread and did a diagonal grid pattern.

I wanted to keep the quilt very unisex and so I picked from my stash a blue basketweave fabric for the backing and used a green stripe for the binding.

The completed quilt was 30"x35".

I have blogged the two other quilts in their own posts.

Another Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt

I pulled out any remaining bits of "Very hungry Caterpiller" or "The Very" series of fabrics I had, adding in a couple of other bright fabrics, and put together this simple strip quilt that is visually very effective (too bad I spent months on my first one... could have made life a lot easier just by doing strips!). I tried to roughly gradient the colours from "sky" (blue and purple) at the top through to the caterpillar panel, then some dirt (yellow and red) down to the green grass
Quilted it with an all over meander using white thread.

Even though I had several better options fo the backing and binding they were too girly and I very much wanted this to be a unisex quilt. So I picked this blue basketweave for the backing fabric and a grey stripe for the binding.

Once again the quilt was created entirely from my stash- including piecing together smaller bits of wadding to make one the right size. The completed quilt ended up about 35" wide and about 40" long.

Children of the world quilt

This is the third of the quilts I made recently to be donated to a very worthy cause :) I used Alexander Henry "You and me" fabric for the centre of each block and bordered them with scrappy bits from my stash.
These are my favourite blocks. You can also see in these pics that I used a yellow thread for the quilting and did an all over meander.

Backing and binding is from Sandi Hendersons Market garden range. The intention was for this to be a unisex quilt, but I think the backing and binding turned it a little girlie.

Once again, the quilt was made entirely from my stash. Final measurement was approx 30" square.

Snap shot sunday- Lego obsessed and a bit of knitting

Late last week I pulled out the big box of lego asand built a couple of silly imaginative cars to keep George occupied for an hour or two. When the girls came home from school they completely took over digging out all the instruction manuals for the houses etc and decided to rebuild them all.

They may even have convinced both their mother and their grandmother to take them to a toy store and buy new *cough* expensive lego kits.

Craftywise.... well there is still lots of things happening in the sewing room, but I have had an urge to knit the last weekor so. Knowing the urge wont last long I thought I'd indulge in something quick and simple... a beanie. I skim read the pattern book at spotlight and memorised the pattern. Hopefully it will work out!

Snapshot Sunday- children of the world...

Tiger shorts

George picked out this fabric to be made into a pair of shorts.
I added some bellows capri pockets to each leg

Snapshot Sunday- Hedgehog and friends quilt and another hungry caterpillar

I have had a lovely morning in the sewing room making some little baby quilts that will be donated to a worthy cause. Elizabeth also joined me to make some MORE library bags. Here is George checking out the fabric for quilt #1... made using mostly Michael Miller Hedgeghog Group
I cut the fabric up into 3" squares and sewed them together in an almost compeltely random way- just making sure no like fabrics touched each other. This quilt top is 30"x38".

And then as a little diversion I strip pieced some leftover bits of Very hungry caterpillar fabrics into a quilt. This one measures is 36" square.

Now I need to vacuum and mop the floors so I have enough clean floor space to sandwich and pin the quilts!

tin whistle june/july

Size 1 Dungarees

Size 1 Dungarees

Size 4 Scoop tunic

Size 4 Scoop tunic

Size 6 Scoop tunic

Size 4 Pinny

Size 5 Pinny

Size 4 Pinny

Size 7 Pinny

Elizabeth sewing up a storm

Elizabeth decided to make her friend Beth a library bag. I helped her with the design and how to do the applique etc but all the sewing was her own.

It seems that the kids at school were so impressed that she started getting orders from all her other friends too. She had a busy couple of days...

And the bonus for me?... I got some of my stash busted and now I get to go shopping for more fabric!

Tin whistle liners for BabyJogger City Select

This is a new pram that has just hit australian shores. Its a clever design that allows for 1 or 2 seats or bassinets in various configurations. I have spent the last few weeks creating a pram liner specifically for this pram. Here are some pics of the liner in situ as well as some other completed BJ City Select liners.