Early Bird Christmas Crafting

Back in June I signed up to take part in the Early Bird Christmas Crafting challenge.  Well June was a bit of a failure, a few things half finished but not quite there.  But this month I have managed to make something for the challenge which was to use only 2 colors plus a background.  Well I used red and black with a white background, and I made these heart shaped potholders from a kit I bought a while back.

1st goal finished!!

Well I have finished my first Charming Girls goal for July/August, my French Kiss quilt top is done - yay!!  I really hate sewing diamonds together, you have to offset the seam intersections which take so much more work that just butting up seams on straight seams!

I think I am going to quilt feathers in each diamond once it gets it's turn on Gertie!

Christmas BOM

I am really loving The Fat Quarter Shops Designer Mystery BOM!  My second block arrived last week and I made it up almost straight away!

I wanted my hat to stand out a bit more than it seemed to in the picture so I found I had enough of the red swirl fabric from the first block to make the hat so I used that instead of the supplied fabric.

I don't think I showed my first block so here it is too (it looks crooked in the picture but it's not really!)

Finished my Uni assignment yesterday, am pretty much up to date with everything I need to do for our Fire Brigade dinner and upcoming inspections, so today is going to be a sewing day - yay!!  I'll be back at the end of the day with an update :)

Just your average Monday night...

Yes that's me in the lovely yellow outfit :) 

It's been a while...

Wow where have the last few weeks gone?  Well our school holidays have just finished and the kids were back to school yesterday, I love my kids to bits but it was such a relief to have some time just to myself again! 

Normally we send both kids to my parents house for the school holidays, but this time around we sent just my daughter, she has been having some problems and I wanted her to be spoilt rotten and be the most important preson in the world for a couple of weeks. 

Meantime our son stayed here, and he takes a bit of entertaining let me tell you LOL!  In the 2 weeks we went ice skating 4 times, visited the museum, Scienceworks, the old Treasury Building (including the gold vaults underground), Federation Square, Burke Street Mall, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Shrine of Remembrance, and a heap of other activities.

So now I need a holiday LOL!

Anyway I have signed up to join the Charming Girl's Quilt Club.

So my goals for July and August are:

• quilt and bind my daughters Sweet Menagerie quilt
• finish the top of my French Kiss quilt
• finish the top of the pink and green quilt (as yet unnamed)
• finish the top of my red, white and blue quilt (as yet unnamed)
• make my Dolcetto bag
• make my Girl Friday bag
• make my Beach House bag

OK I think that will do :)

Another bag!

Gee anyone would think I enjoyed making bags or something!! :)

This came from the Australian Homespun magazine (issue 84) and was designed by Jodie Carlton of Ric Rac.  My selvedges came from 3 fabric lines.  I started with a Moda Scrap Bag - Looking Back by Brannock and Patek.  I then went through my stash for similar colored fabrics, and found some half yard pieces of Harmony by Jan Patek that I had bought to go with a layer cake.  Then I came across a kit I had had for about 3 years and had not started yet that seemed to match in OK so I started cutting selvedges, only to discover it was Wild Rose by - you guessed it! - Brannock and Patek.  Do you see a trend happening here?

I matched it with some Moda Bella Chocolate/Hershey, and used some beige with butterflies for the lining (from my stash).

On another note we visited a shop we have here in Melbourne called USA Foods, wow did I have some fun in there!  Once we got home I had my first ever Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich - YUM!!  Other highlights included Hershey Kisses (not so impressed, Australian chocolate is much nicer!), Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (yum!!), Reeses Pieces (oh my, we are going back for more of these!), and some Bounce dryer sheets (we don't have dryer sheets here in Australia at all!  Now my clothes smell so yummy!).

We got to the counter to pay and the lady in front of me had an American accent and was buying up REAL big on Kraft Jet-Puffed, so I figured it had to be good stuff so I got a jar.  Now I had no idea what to do with it, it had recipes on the back but I figured surely it had a use other than in cooking?  So first I tried it on a spoon straight out of the jar - not bad!  Then I had it on toast with peanut butter - YUM!!  It went so-so on a crumpet.  I tried a blob in some hot chocolate and that was pretty good too!  So before I go back for some more, how is it supposed to be eaten?

Toffee Apple

Another bag finished, and a new favorite!  This is another Melly and Me pattern, this one is called Toffee Apple. It was also another kit from Patterns Only/Oz Material Girls with the exception of the red floral fabric I used in the handles, base and lining which was from my stash.

It is supposed to have twill tape around the top to hide the raw edges but I didn't have any and didn't want to pop out to the shops so I used some cotton drill I had and made a standard double fold binding which I machined to the outside and hand-stitched to the inside and it works really well, it is sturdy enough to give the top a real frilly look when it is closed.

This bag was really fun to make, a lot of things were done differently to how I would have done it, but I followed the pattern step by step and it really was easier doing it their way rather than my way, even if it did seem a bit scary at the time!  An example is the base of the bag, it is actually made separately and then top-stitched in place rather than inserted in with a seam - very clever!

2 must-have tools when making both this and the Raspberry Ripple bag are Fasturn tubes for turning handles, casings, etc, and Roxannes Glue Bast- it!  I am so in love with Glue Baste-It, I have had my little bottle for years but only used it last week for the first time, and have used it in both bags as well as to hold my sons scouts badges while I sewed them on, and it is FANTASTIC!!  Just not having pins to get in the way is great, but it also doesn't distort the fabric like pins can!