My parents are avid SKIers. Spending the Kids' Inheritance. Good on 'em, I say. Live while you can. Especially when they leave me the keys and let me invade their house near the beach with the girls for a sewing weekend. This is the view from the balcony. See the Indian Ocean there? 5 minute walk down the road.
And the back garden. Plenty of birds for Scarlett to bark at, and not just the metal ones you see here.
The dogs came too, of course. What is better than hanging out on the couch with fabric and people who can be inveigled into cuddles? Melody spent most of the weekend on the arm of the sofa, waiting for victims. (Not my NY Beauty blocks. Wish they were!).
Mid-winter calls for soup, so I whipped up a vat of sweet potato soup.
It basically calls for 'enough' sweet potatoes (I use about 6 big ones). Cover with vegetable stock and water. Add a small chilli or 1/4 tsp chilli powder and about 1tsp coriander powder. Boil until potatoes are soft and use a stick blender to blend. Add juice of 1/4 lemon. Serve with chopped coriander. YUM.
We drank, ate and were merry. Of course I got SOME sewing done but I might leave that for another post!
I'm not sure when exactly I ran into JessUnderQuilts but it's been a while... I first became aware of her beautiful diamond quilt and her excellent "How to Paper Piece with a small ginger child on your lap" video. So when I dreamed up the Travelling Pic Stitch Bloghop last year, it seemed natural to ask Jess to take a starring role. She's a busy lady but she leapt in and wrote a few posts. One of the reasons Jess was so busy was, besides producing another small (ginger) child, Jess has also been busy writing a book on paper piecing.
I was tres thrilled when she asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing it. Unfortunately, we have underestimated the postage time to Australia, so you're going to have to wait on a proper review. That and I am off to the site of the picture below shortly to catch up with a friend of 18 years who's now living in Vietnam:
Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.
Which means it's the perfect opportunity for me to revisit the travelling pic-stitch palette idea, dig out my paper piecing and try out one of Jess's projects.
Now I don't know about you, but I struggle to know what to do with my finished paper pieced blocks. Apparently, so do others because Jess has come up with a number of non-quilt projects for paper piecing. First of all, she suggested I try this photo frame.
HA. Now anyone who knows me in Quilt-Life knows what I think of Hexagons. The DEVIL'S shape. 6 sides. 666. Coincidence? I think not! Jess explained to me that there are numerous options in the back of the book for making the projects in different shapes.
I decided to have a bash at her pincushion, in Ha Long Bay colours. Kind of. With some of my Tula Pink Salt Water fabric. So naturally, it needed an appropriate photoshoot - the edge of my parents' swimming pool was convenient. I went with greens on the back.
Anchors on the side
And a seagull on the front. Sigh. Once again, I have made myself a pincushion which will involve sticking pins and needles into animals. I'm sure a psychoanalyst would have a field day with my head.
I'm really pleased with it, even if I am reluctant to stick pins in the seagull... And I can't WAIT to see the rest of the book! There are some links below to win or buy a copy, and Jess has also organised a paperpieces.com coupon - 20% off with the code UNDER20. What are you waiting for?!
It seems to be my week for bloghopping. And other types of hopping. But Jess from Life Under Quilts has published a BOOK and asked me to review it, so that's coming up on Sunday. But you can check out the other stops on the bloghop already at Jess's blog.
On other types of hopping, my neighbour was hopping up and down in great excitement on the weekend. She called across the road for me to "COME AND TAKE A LOOK" in the back of her visitor's car. I peered in and saw the edge of a baby blanket.
"Oh god," I thought, "I have to coo and be pleasant about a total stranger's new baby. What a drag!"
I made the appropriate noises, moved a bit further in and... well. There were two babies.
THESE two babies.
AMAZING, right? I mean, getting red kangaroo babies this far south!!!! Obviously, two Western Greys in a laundry basket in the back of a Commodore in the suburbs on a weekend is run of the mill, but these guys?
In other furry news, the dogs left me a dead mouse on the sun-lounger, and we found a baby snake - a DEADLY baby snake - on the back patio. Melody went after it but was hauled out of harm's way just in time. <Shudder>. I'm moving to Ireland.
And I taught my first patchworking class on the weekend. Meet the (Deliberately) Wonky Star Crew. Isn't that a good name for a hiphop group?
Emme, Janine, Me, Pokua, Melanie
Phew. It feels like this week has been a thousand day's long. And it's only Tuesday! What does the week hold for you?
It's my day for the Kate Spain Bloghop! AND it's my turn for Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday. Having them coincide meant that I worked my not-so-little tail off trying to get my Terrain quilt finished in time. Failing that, I was hoping to master Photoshop by now in order to edit the pins out of the photo below and make you think I'd finished my Terrain Stepping Stones quilt top. Sadly, that wasn't possible. It's coming along nicely but it's really not there yet.
I was also vaguely hoping I might get a chance to do something with THIS before my turn came, but sadly, it was not to be. Robust good health meant I have been unable to throw a sicky (Aussie slang for cutting work) all week since this arrived.
But I can't wait to get into it. I'd love to hear in the comments what layer cake pattern you'd use with Sunnyside!
I felt honoured when Alyce asked me to join the Kate Spain bloghop. Anyone who has been reading this blog for any amount of time knows that we are BIG Kate Spain fans around here.
Not only do Kate's designs look lovely, I have it on good authority that they taste delicious too! (Endorsed by three out of four Cavalier King Charles Spaniels).
At the risk of sounding a wee bit stalkerish, one of the GREAT excitements of my life since re-starting sewing and blogging was receiving a bundle of Good Fortune Scraps from Kate herself.
As a thank you to Kate for her kindness in sending me this bag, I made her a bag and sent it over.
On Sunday, I am teaching a beginner's patchwork and quilting class. The project we are going to make is an iPad cover. I decided to kill several birds with one stone and make my sample up with some of the Good Fortune Scraps Kate sent me, which also gives me a TGIFF finish into the deal.
I used a double layer of batting - White 'n' warm and a wool batting - to give extra ipad protection. It means it's a bit puffier than I'd like but the ipad will be snuggly safe.
You can see how well the wonky star puffs out!
Apologies for the indoor photos, but it's mid-winter here and we're ONLY getting about 11 hours of sunlight a day. :P :P :P
Here are a few of my other KS projects...
Now, if you'd like to join the linky party for TGIFF, feel free to add your link below. It doesn't have to be a Kate Spain Project but do go and visit Blossom Heart Quilts and see all the amazing posts so far, including an interview with Kate and a giveaway here and there! The honour roll runs thus: Monday June 3rd - Interview with Kate Spain Tuesday June 4th - Interview Part 2 and Jane at QuiltJane Wednesday June 5th - Christa at Christa Quilts Thursday June 6th - Kimberly at Fat Quarter Shop Friday June 7th - Laura at Quokka Quilts
Monday June 10th - Chrissy at Sew Lux Tuesday June 11th - Lynne at Lily's Quilts Wednesday June 12th - Julie at The Intrepid Thread Thursday June 13th - Kristy at Quiet Play Friday June 14th - Link up your favourite Kate Spain project!
PHOTOS! That's all people! Where are your minds going?!!!
Since getting a DSLR camera when I went to the US last year, I haven't progressed an awful lot. I haven't had a chance to learn much more than what Katy showed me while we were travelling. She will undoubtedly groan of the quality of these indoor night shots (and I couldn't even work out how to get rid of the light reflection on the first one). But I think we can all agree to blame Katy for the quality of my photos and not teaching me better ;) [Brace for some very rude words in the comments those of you who know Katy].
The little camera bag I bought with my camera annoyed me to bits, although it is sturdy, so I leapt at the chance to try another of Sara's SewSweetness patterns. This one is the Paparazzi Bag. Sara gave me the fabric at Sewing Summit last year - I brought her a yard of fabric from Down Under and said 'surprise me' in return. She gave me a yard of this lovely home dec weight fabric. (Sorry about the flash reflection. Remember - Katy's fault).
This is a VERY padded bag and I cursed A LOT while making it. Those front pockets are a nightmare. But great and functional and worth the effort. It has hidden magnetic snaps - mine are sadly not strong enough to 'snap' together through layers of fabric so are fairly useless. I think I'd use velcro or normal snaps if I did it again.
The padded strap is fabulous and the padded dividers you can add are very nifty. And there's PLENTY of room for a camera, a spare lens or two, and a purse.
And this is the second zip I've inserted like this - getting better!
Once again, the Soft 'n' Stable gives me a very professional finish. Happy with the finished product and once again, getting a lot of ideas from Sara's patterns!
Linking up with Lucy at CharmAboutYou for TGIFF.
At the Perth Modern Quilt Guild, we have been working our way through the Modern Blocks book. Last month, Gina asked us to make the Quatrefoil block and Danielle chased down some of the tape measure fabric for us...
Gina made a pink block, someone made a blue block, so I had to go with something else.
Yellow is not my natural colour - I have the least yellow in my stash of anything and had real trouble finding fabrics that WORKED. (I'm also extremely fussy with my colour shades matching!). I was wrestling with decisions when a naughty puppy STOLE a piece of fabric out of my scraps box and... it was the yellow that worked. Bari J Ackerman's 'mountains of Arizona' (it's not called that but that's what I think of it as - mine came from Marmalade Fabrics) worked beautifully.
The next block was Fussy Cut, and Emme asked for critters or creatures. I stretched the remit a little to include a deer and a little girl with JayCyn's Storyboek line. I LOVE this line of organic fabric. Mine is from Fabricworm.
Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts has organised a bloghop based on the work of my favourite designer ever, and knowing my passion for anything Kate Spain, asked me to join in. Of course, I said yes! Alyce has scheduled me for the first Friday of the hop which is also my TGIFF day.
I've been madly quilting away my Terrain Stepping Stones quilt but I'm not sure I'll get it finished in time... It still needs a LOT of quilting... Will I get there? Or will I have to throw together a bag or something smaller? Or will I pull out one of my OLD projects and hope you don't notice????!
Anyway, here's the schedule, so make sure you're following Alyce via Facebook or subscribed via her sidebar options to keep in the loop of where to go each day!
Monday June 10th - Chrissy at Sew Lux Tuesday June 11th - Lynne at Lily's Quilts Wednesday June 12th - Julie at The Intrepid Thread Thursday June 13th - Kristy at Quiet Play Friday June 14th - Link up your favourite Kate Spain project!
