12 WIPS in 2012

I've decided to join a year long challenge called '12 WIP's in 2012' being organised by AJ at AJ's Antics. The challenge is to complete one WIP per month, blogging about each as I go. Each month, if I complete a WIP, I get one entry to a great give-away being offered at the end of the year. At least half of the WIPs must actually be partially completed projects, but the rest may be fabric stacks or a pattern I've bought with a future quilt in mind.

Here is my list of WIPs. This is not necessarily the order I will complete the projects, and as you can see I have listed 14 projects, just in case I bail on one or two of them I have another couple up my sleeve. I have listed my partially completed projects first, then fabric stacks/patterns.

1.

Aqua pop quilt + matching bunting. This is my current quilt project anyway and I have banned all other sewing projects until this one is done. I'm halfway through the quilting. The flags for the bunting are all done, they just need to be sewn to some fabric binding. I want the binding on the quilt and the bunting to match, but havent picked the quilt binding yet...

2.

 Flowerburst- This started out as a fun little diversion.  It's only a very small quilt so far and I dont really have the inclination to build it into something bigger. I think I will finish it up as it is and donate to a NICU.

3.

 Raggy Circle quilt- need to choose backing/quilt and bind it. Possibly also a donation quilt.

4.

Christmas Table runner. I had so much fabric for the one I made here that I got a second one sandwiched and partially quilted. The quilting needs to be ripped out and redone, the binding finished,  and then I'll use it for my own christmas decor or perhaps donate to the end of year 12Win12M prize????

5.

Rainbow Bargello quilt. Remember this one??? This must be my oldest WIP! I have no idea what to do with this really. Would love suggestions! I only have a small amount of the hand died rainbow fabrics- so it would either have to be a doll/art quilt or a small baby quilt . Should I keep building the bargello? Or perhaps some wonky/improv letters on plain homespun and then pull apart the bargello and use it to create a tiled border???? That would combine a few things on my wish list of quilt idea's.

6.

 Hexagon quilt I've been working on this slowly and steadily but would like to ramp it up and complete it in 2012. I need to make 7 more paper-pieced hexagon blocks, and then these will get cut down into a square and sashed with a solid grey fabric. Then the top needs to be sandwiched/quilted/bound. I will challenge myself with completing one handstiched hexagon block per month over the first 7 months of the year (that is in addition to the the other quilt WIP going on at the same time). Then I will use the 8th month to finish the top/quilt/bind and that will be the official month the Hexie WIP counts towards the 12Win12M challenge.

7.

 Matching Quilted Japanese bolster/cushions for Jills Giant Japanese quilt.

8.

Houndstooth quilt. I have the pattern, I have the love. I even did a test run. I need to start it from scratch in black and white fabric.

9.

Vintage Sheet Charm quilt. I bought a pack of vintage sheet charms on impluse. It should be a quick and easy quilt project.

10.

Denise Schmidt 'Picnic and fairgrounds' fabric I dont love this fabric for myself, but its bright and fresh and will be fun to work with.I have a stack of insteresting quilt tutorials bookmarked for 'one day' so this month might be time to sieze that day. For example D9Px2 tutorial and this D4P tutorial might work for a couple of small quilts I could donate to a hospital NICU. 

11.

 ISpy quilt for George. I've been collecting fabrics for an Ispy quilt for him for years. It  might be time to sew them into a quilt before he gets too old! However, I really want to come up with a design that is a little bit more attractive that sewing a bunch of ugly Ispy charms together. Perhaps a series of log cabins with the charm as the centre square, and using a mixture of bright solids (or scraps?) as the log cabins.

12.

Denim charm quilt. Elizabeth made one with my last stack of 5" denim charms and I REALLY, REALLY love the look of this quilt (wonky sewing and raggy quilting and all). I started collecting more charms (ie slicing up old jeans), this time making the charms bigger, and trying to fussy cut interesting parts of the jeans; zips, pockets, stitching details etc. I plan to make these into a simple patch quilt and back with flannel, no wadding.

13.

Wonky ships or houses quilt. I've put this on in the bakers dozen position because it's really wishful thinking with all the other sewing that's got to get done. I'd love to get through the first 12 quilts and give either a wonky house quilt or a wonky pirate ship quilt a shot.

14.

Chenille quilt using olfa chenille cutter. This should be quick and simple and I can use up some of my ugly fabrics. I think I'll make it lap size and use it on the couch or give it away.

Fabric + Starch + wall = fun

 This is something fun I did at my sisters place over christmas. I have grand idea's for my house with fabric and starch, and decided to do a test run with my sisters kids. Sis picked out some car fabric from Spotlight and I cut out each of the cars and sprayed the back of each one with some 'Crisp' starch spray ($4.50 from the Laundry aisle at Woolworths). Once wet with starch it was a simple matter of placing the pieces on the wall in the desired spot and smoothing out the air bubbles. We decided to run the cars in a row along the top of a window in the kids playroom.

 This was so simple to do that soon the kids took over the spraying and sticking part of the process.

 Of course being kids they had to have the cars craching didnt they?! They made the cars topple off the edge of the window...

 And down the wall

 It looks really fantastic for something so simple doesnt it?

We also had some fish fabric and the kids decorated another small section of wall with fish and fabric waves. They didnt have any adult imput with design or placement with this one. I was a bit strict about making sure all those cars lined up in a neat row, so I thought I'd let them do their own thing with the fish.  

Stayed tuned for the fabric starch projects we have planned for our house!

Best thing about starched fabric decorating is that when you want to remove the fabric you just peel it right off and there is absolutely no damage to the walls. You might need to wipe down with a wet cloth to remove some dried on starch, but thats it. Perfect for rentals or for people who like to redecorate all the time!

The down side to this type of decal is that it is very easily pulled off, dont put it low if you think toddlers might play with it.

Token christmas post

Well the Christmas period seems to have slipped by unnoticed on this blog hasn't it? I didn't do much Christmas craft and bought most of my presents this year. To top it off I was away from home over Christmas and didn't really get near a computer. ummm or take many photo's for that matter.

So I will just cover the last week with these 3 I found on my camera.  I'm spewing I didn't get a pic of the 4 metre long dining table with my table runner on it.

This is what a pile of wrapped gifts look like when there are 28 people attending your house on Christmas day. They are up on a table because a toddler lives in this house and he wouldn't leave the presents alone.

.

The kids at the tree desperate to start handing out gifts.

Look Mum no carpet! I know it looks ridiculously consumeristic, but most people unwrapped only a few gifts :)

Baking marathon

I know I don't normally do food posts... but today Big Sister and I had a mega marathon 5 hour baking session. Little Sister is hosting Christmas this year and has 28 people sitting down to Christmas lunch!!!! Little sister also lives on a farm... so all the guests will staying several days over the Christmas period as it is too far to travel to the farm for just one meal. Being nice sisters we offered to take care of all the morning and afternoon tea's for the 28 diners for the few days around Christmas day.

One of the guests has coeliac disease, so all but one of our baked goodies is gluten free.

1. Mini Christmas puds. We adapted these from an Australian Good Taste recipe (pg 18 December 2011). We used Arnotts Rice biscuits instead of Scotch fingers.

2. Fudge... My sister must make this a lot because she had the recipe in her head.

3. Christmas chequerboard coconut ice. My daughter brought this recipe home from school once day. She hand wrote it out so I cant source if for you. However it's such a classic google will help you find a version.

4. Gluten Free Fruit mince pies. This is a recipe I ripped from a magazine last year- I cant recall the magazine.

5. Chocolate Oatmeal bars. My sister sourced this recipe here. This was the only non-Gluten free recipe we made.

6. Amaretti biscuits. I used a recipe from a book called Biscuit and Slice Bible.

7. Almond clusters. Sister made this up using the melted white chocolate left over from the mini-puddings and some roasted almonds.

8. Rara's cherry bites. A thermomix recipe I sourced from the excellent Forum Thermomix. 

9. Cherry ripe slice. I made a double batch of the cherry bite mixture and turned it into a slice. I made a (gluten free) shortbread base using a recipe from the Biscuit and Slice Bible, then added a layer of the cherry mixture and topped it off with a thin layer of dark chocolate.

Quilting the Aqua Pop quilt

 Remember this quilt? I finished the quilt top back in September so I wouldn't be at all surprised if you has forgotten all about it.

 I pieced the backing together last weekend (sorry... I meant to show y'all with my last "snapshot Sunday post", except I forgot to do a snapshot Sunday post! The plan was to make the backing out of the a single fabric... the aqua one to the right in the picture above, but Matilda spotted the pick Chinese one and begged to have that one instead. So I combined a bit of both with a strip of green down the middle for good measure.

 It took me a long time to decide how to quilt it. I wanted to do some sort of free-motion design but felt the need to broaden my horizons from a simple meander or stipple. I practiced with a 'pebble' effect on some scraps but it was a disaster. Some googling later and I came across this design. I was pretty happy with my free hand wonky version on a scrap sandwich and Matilda also loved it.   

Here is it on the quilt...I am about half way done. I am now quilting through the middle section of the quilt its getting really hard to fit the extra quilt under the free arm of the sewing machine.

Tin Whistle December 2011

I finished off the year with a rush of custom pram liners. All but the bottom two photographs are examples of Baby Jogger City Select pram liners.

Tin Whistle is now on holidays until February 2012. The store is still open, with a limited amount of stock available, but no custom orders are available until the new year.