Merry Christmas!

Are thoughts of Sugar Plums dancing in your head? My head is full of Christmas's past, the children when they were little, and my own Christmas's as a child.

My Christmas Tree represents all those things, I have decorations from when I was child, from when I first got married and spent a year in the UK....

My mother in law no longer puts up a big Christmas tree, so several years ago she gave me some of her most precious decorations...

Beautiful Angel...

Cute Pixie, and Robins...

Funny little Christmas elf?

A more recent acquisition...a glass Santa...I like to buy a special decoration every year, as a memento.

But of course being Christmas Eve, we have to think about tomorrow, I have done my food shopping, so today will be focussed on arranging the house for my extended family to visit, some food preparation and of course the final gift wrapping...then off to an early family Christmas Eve mass for some reflection on the true meaning of Christmas.

I would like wish everyone has a happy and safe Christmas and lots of sewing after that :)

Bits and Pieces

Gosh...I am a bit over being busy all the time! I have had only had bits and pieces of time to do sewing this month....but the good news is I start 5 weeks of holidays next Thursday...whoop whoop whoop...break out the bubbly :)

So this month...my 15 Minutes Play swap quilt  was finished and mailed to Terry...

...who also happened to be my swap partner to make me something. She made me this lovely little mini quilt with retro fabrics from when she first moved to Oz in the 70's, plus she had researched me and saw I liked text fabrics and sent me a lovely little collection, plus some thread and invisible ink pen! I felt very spoilt when I opened my parcel! Check out her blog @ Terry's New Thread

I did some air travel with hubby this month, when you live in Darwin every other capital city is Australia is a minimum 4 hours away, so I was able to finish these fun little hearts which are part of the Lynette Anderson Scandinavian Christmas I started earlier this year...this project is going to a real slow boiler...but not everything has to be finished a weekend...right? Who does that anyway??

And I also did my pink scrap baskets...

Not sure how the pink scrap quilt will end up, I think it is good to let a quilt evolve sometimes, and let the creative genie out of the bottle!

Seven sleeps to go 'til the big day, we are having a nice family Christmas at my place...there will be 14 for lunch. We will be missing my younger brother and his family, as they live in Brisbane, but we were all together last year, so we can't be greedy and be together every year!

Off to write more lists...can you drink champagne and plan at the same time...might be a bit early for champers, perhaps I will eat chocolate santas and write lists!

Farmers Wife Blocks 17-24

Hanging in there with the Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-Long! Albeit very slowly....it has been so hot here in Darwin I haven't been doing much sewing, the room my machine is in does not have aircon :( But my lounge room does :) So I have been spending my evenings fiddling around with choosing fabrics, tracing templates, and cutting little pieces...in the air conditioning...it's quite therapeutic!

I have eight blocks for show and tell today (whoop whoop!)

(17) Cats and Mice

(18) Century of Progress....didn't like this one...I had to do it twice!!

(19) Checkerboard

(20) Churn dash

(21) Contrary Wife

(22) Corn & Beans

(23) Country Farm....my favourite

(24) Country Path...2nd favourite

Here's all the blocks together....

I am pretty happy with how this is looking...but I really need use more blue and green....

And I love this stack o'blocks photo...not as great as this stack though!

Note: gleaming brand new iron in background....it's black and gold...so classy!

I think I might stop at 30 blocks....what do you think?

More fun with Scraps...

On a roll with my scraps...I have swapped back to my pink scraps to progress my blocks from this quilt a long at 15 Minutes Play.

I really love this Hybrid Tea Rose block....

The background is a Kaffe shot cotton Storm...

...and looking gorgeous in Kaffe's "Grape" shot cotton...a whole quilt in these roses would be fab...but it's not on the agenda right now though...

And here are the roses with the star block, I am feeling like I am going to be happy with this quilt! Off to make a basket block with my pink scraps now!

Have fun sewing this weekend!

Scrappy Weekend

It all started when My Polka Dot Tree came home this weekend after being in a suitcase exhibition....

and I remembered I had a bag of selvages stuffed away some where in the scrap box....my job for weekend was to make up a 12x12 mini quilt for a swap over at Bumble Beans, to send to my secret partner by 26th November...(yikes now only 4 days away!)

But it's all good, I am almost ready...so I pulled out all those silly little scraps...you know the ones you agonise over whether you keep or throw! Kept the green ones out...and stuffed the rest back into the bag....then I pulled out my selvages...sob...hard to part with...and had some fun...

I built the background with the selvages layering, and stitching them on over the wadding and backing...kind of like quilt as you go! Then I sewed up all the silly little scraps, and made a christmas tree template.....and ta dah...mini quilt...

The tree was fused on with fusible webbing, and zig zagged on...I had so much fun...I made two!

Just the binding to go!

Tropical Run up to Christmas!

Yes, it's getting very tropical here in Darwin, Australia....loads of humidity and high temperatures...my new lounge room aircon is getting a good work out!

I have been having some success with getting projects done...my christmas checkerboard is quilted and looking nice and flat!

My garden is putting on a show, getting ready for the festive season!

Poinciana Tree

Double Hibiscus

Elephant Ear

Purdy Frangipani

Now don't go thinking I am some sort of gardener...I am too busy sewing...but luckily these plants grow like weeds here, and I enjoy them all the more for having put no effort into them...aren't they the best sort of plants!!

One Christmas project done....off to organise the Angels....Tammis Angels!

4x5 Modern Bee Swap - blocks received

Warning -  Small Whine: Did you know mail from the U.S to Australia is soooo slow...it used to take about 7 working days, now it seems to take 14+ working days, very frustrating...does anyone know why it has changed in the last twelve months?

The reason why I am whining about this is because I have participating in this fun swap on Flickr, and most of my partners are in the U.S...they would all be on Flickr saying how beautiful the blocks were that they had received and I would be waiting waiting waiting for mine to show up, but just when I was starting to worry that they were lost, they would appear in the mail box!

And I can say it was worth wait....I had said my favourite colours where red, orange and pink...and my partners have responded with blocks using red, orange and pink!

1. From Amber - www.wambers-whimsies.com, 2. From Kelly - www.kellylautenbach.typepad.com, 3. From Kathy, 4. From Tiffany - thiscraftyfox.blogspot.com/, 5. Fom Lindsay - www.lindsaysews.com, 6. 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee block

I have enrolled for another round of this swap....well... who makes a quilt with six blocks? One with 12 will be much better!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival!

What a thing! Being in my first year of blogging, I hadn't really heard of such a festival before...but check it out Amy's Creative Side, there are over 560 entries!

Because I hadn't prepared a specific quilt for this festival, I thought I would enter my very favourest quilt I have made...my Georgia Tulips...which I blogged about back in March.

At the time when I made this, I had been reading Georgia Quilts edited by Anita Zaleski Weinraub, and if you have ever seen this book there is the most fabulous red tulip quilt on the front cover, it really inspired me to make the quilt!

I busted out my Flea Market Fancy fabric and string pieced loads of panels, and then cut out the tulip "blades" from a template I had made up..it was loads of fun to make. 

The plains I used were all Kaffe shot cottons, which I think lend it an olde worlde look...I struggled with how to quilt it, but I decided it should be fairly unstructured and carefree...so I did butterflies, flowers, and an original scrolling vine design. I was pleased with the result, but all the threads that I had to pull through was a big pain in the ....

My beautiful quilt sits in a cupboard now, and I bring it out and touch it from time to time...but early next year I am getting a new lounge which I think this quilt should take pride of place on! 

Christmas Checkerboard

Since my last post I have had 101 ideas for Christmas projects, but this week I have focused in on just one! I have made this fun checkerboard, using lots of lovely reds and greens that I showed last blog...

Cut up into little squares...

Not sure whether to leave it as is or try and incorporate the Tammis Angels!

Decisions...decisions!!

All in a Flurry!

What fun it was to bust out the Christmas fabrics this weekend, I have touched all the lovely reds and greens, and come up with some nice ideas.

For a little while now, I have been playing around with Dresden plates, you may have read previously here that five were made for a swap I was participating in....well whilst I was on a roll with the dresden template I also made up 4 dresden plates for myself, using Kate Spain's Flurry charm pack, and the Flowers in the Park Dresden table topper pattern from the Moda Bake Shop.

So this weekend I machine appliqued them onto the background, and pieced the blocks together with the sashing, from Kate Spain's previous range 12 Days of Christmas (thanks Mum!)...and ta daaa...one small quilt top done ready for me to quilt!

What's next I hear you ask...apart from quilting....well here are the lovely reds and greens I mentioned earlier......

....and I just can't wait to do some thing with this lovely Tamis Keefe panel!