Sunday, October 31, 2010

Snap shot sunday- How Embarrassment...

For the third sunday in a row my snap shot picture is of those bloody boys shorts! I think I bit off WAY more than I could chew sewing up 22 pairs in one go (I initially cut out 20 pairs but then added in another 2 pairs for George). Here is a pic of the last 7 pairs, they only need elastic waistbands, but it will have to wait until my next sewing day on Tuesday.

Here are the finished ones.
This why I havent had as much sewing time. We are in the final stages of relandscaping our backyard and I have been busy digging, planting, watering and mulching.



You can see more pics of the transformation right here

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Bloggers quilt festival- Hexxy scrap quilt



Amy's Creative Side - Blogger's Quilt Festival


If you have come in for the bloogers quilt festival WELCOME to my little Aussie corner of blogland. Thanks for stopping by. I LOVE Bloggers quilt festival. I love visiting new blogs and checking out the quilty eye candy. I always end up with heaps of new blogs on my blog reader! Thanks Amy for hosting such a wonderful festival.
Now about my quilt. I tend to be drawn to strong gemoetrical quilt designs and love scrappy or ecclectic, sometimes even clashing fabric combinations. So its no surprise that I was drawn to a hexagon quilt I saw in a magazine that used up scraps of fabric (not long gone or I would reference it). When stumbled upon the article I had been quilting for 12 months, and I also realised this would be my 12th quilt, constructed using scraps from my previous 11 quilts. I just couldnt get past the 'completeness' of that little scenario and started work immediately.
All my fabrics (plus extra purchased fabric... I'd only been quilting a while and hadnt become overwhelmed by scraps at that point. I still laugh at the thought of having to purchase scraps for a scrap quilt!) were cut into 1.5" strips and 9 strips were randomly stiched together. The strips were then cut into equalateral triangles (8.5" from memory).
Once I had a couple of hundred of those I randomly stitched them into rows like this.
And then I stitched the rows together to create the quilt top. I started in Dec 07 and the quilt top was finished in Jan 08. The quilt was then put away until May 08 as other projects took priority.



I picked a valori Wells floral fabric for the backing as it felt like a more fluid version of the front and teamed it with a matching Valori Wells stripe for the binding. Quilting it proved to be quite a problem. There were so many seams, and to be honest, being such a novice, I didnt really press the seams properly and the result was a bubbly quilt top with lots of bulk. I decided to "knot" the quilt as there was just no way I could machine quilt it without creating puckers. Hand quilting was out of the question as, at that point, I was just too eage to get it done!



Here is the quilt just after I finished it in May 2008.
Since then we have moved house and it has a new spot on a different couch. I snapped this photo this morning for this blog entry. This is my 7 year old daughter, Matilda, enjoying some TV while snuggled under the quilt. I didnt think the knot quilting would be very robust, but 2.5 years later this quilt is still in fabulous condition. I machine wash it regularly, and sometimes even tumble dry it.


Sunday, October 24, 2010

Snap shot Sunday- more on the shorts


Hmmm well this weeks pic looks very similar to last weeks one doesnt it? I have had a busy week with not much sewing time!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Shapshot sunday- Shorts glorious shorts


This week I went a little crazy and cut out 20 pairs of boys shorts. Normally I hate production line sewing, but I really need to get some stock built up for the christmas/summer rush. Plus I was starting to get a little too top heavy in 'boy fabric'- it really needed to get out of my stash and onto to little bodies! These 20 pairs of shorts range from size 2 to size 8 and will be taken to a bricks and mortar store here in Perth.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Well Hello, long time no post

I've been away, I spent a lovely 15 days with my family in Broome, WA. :)
See those cow pat looking things in the rock? they are dinosaur footprints!
One of the beaches in beaches in Broome.
I'll put up some more pics as soon as I get them off Davids computer.
The think I love about enforced breaks from your sewing room is that you come home feeling really inspired...

The first sewing day I had on my return I knocked off the top of this quilt.


It has now been put aside while I start on one of the many orders I have on the cards. Todays job is this set of City Select pram liners.

This pram must be super popular because I have been receiving lots of emails about custom liners for this pram. At the moment I am not taking any new orders, and probably wont be until the new year.