'Always be yourself, unless you can be a unicorn...' - Ipad mini case for E

The first of my babies has left home.  Oh such mixed emotions!  Pride that she is undertaking a big adventure (a gap year in the UK) on her own, excitement for all she will get to see, do and learn, and mourning that she is gone.  Our wee family just doesn't feel the same without her. 

We gave her an ipad mini for her birthday just before departure.  There was a strong selfish element, in that I felt it might make it easier for her to keep in touch regularly.

So an ipad mini case was called for.  I had hoped to make this in time to be part of her Christmas present, but instead it was whipped up in a couple of hours between Christmas and New Year.

It has a thin layer of batting to help protect her ipad, and is lightly quilted just following the pattern of the fabric.

I included a zipped pocket on one side that will take a charger cord and her earplugs, handy to have it all together for long flights.

She has always been highly imaginative and creative, (as you can see from her personal journal in the background of these photos.  Years ago, when she was about 7, I bribed her to take some medicine by telling her it would allow her to grow a unicorn horn - never thinking she would believe me, (not my finest mothering moment!).  She told me some years later that she rushed to the mirror every morning for two weeks waiting to see if the horn had appeared - and has never forgiven me for tricking her!

So there is also an inside pocket...

...because in the end my greatest wish for her is 'to always be herself, unless she can be a unicorn, then always be a unicorn'!

While this was finished late 2014, I'm still linking it up with Thank God Its Finished Friday at Devoted Quilter

A whimsy - paper piecing a pincushion

Last week I joined the Perth Modern Quilting Guild.  I attended my first meeting and what a lovely group of ladies.  I was made to feel very welcome and loved having a bunch of like minded people to discuss everything quilty with.  (My lovely bloke and kids try hard...but about 5 minutes is all they can take!)

One of the things of offer was a lesson in paper piecing by the very talented Serena of Sew Giving. I've wanted to try paper piecing ever since I bought 'Patchwork Please' by Ayumi Takahashi inspired by Lindy's work here, but I couldn't understand the instructions so this lesson was exactly what I needed.

In the class, Serena showed us how to make a simple butterfly

Over the long weekend we have this weekend, to celebrate Australia Day, I wanted to practise my new skills before they fell out of my brain!

So, perhaps a little ambitiously, I decided on the pincushion.  It was too good an opportunity to use some wee pieces of some of my favorite fabrics!

All went well until in my enthusiasm I overlooked that when trimming up the blocks I needed to add a 1/4 inch seam allowance!  Oops!

Just as well I had more of both fabrics I had featured!  The blue rose is from a dress my mother made me for my 10th birthday.  It was full length and I felt like a Princess!  Although I only wore it once that I can recall I couldn't bear to part with it, so it is slowly being recycled into a number of quilting projects!

After I'd repaired my mistake the rest of the project went together smoothly, although I was very grateful for the lesson I'd had.

I love this small strip of Liberty on one side, and I used a selvedge I have been hoarding for ages on one of the other sides from designer Anna Griffin......it took a bit of nifty work to catch just the edge of the selvedge in the seam!

All in all I am very pleased with my efforts - looks just like the one in the picture!  Finished off with a beautiful vintage button.

I'm torn between trying the envelopes of the books covers next!

Linking up with Sew the Library at Fabric Mutt.

Batik Wall Hanging for D - oh the joy of finishing a long put aside project!

A finish!  This batik wall hanging/table runner was started in 2010 and finished yesterday!

I had the great good fortune to work with a wonderful team of people in the 18 months I lived and worked in Singapore.  One of these was D.  He was one of my key team members and a huge support to me both professionally and personally.  D had a special birthday, one with a "0" on the end while we were in Singapore, and I started making a gift for him.

Unfortunately for both of us, not long after I had begun it, we unexpectedly returned to New Zealand, and in all the pressure and organisation the project was put aside.  Embarrassingly that was 4+years ago!

D loved Indonesain batiks, so before we left Singapore I spent a few wonderful hours in the rabbit warren of treasures that is the Mustafa Centre, Little India in Singapore.  The Mustafa Centre is a big old department store that stocks almost anything you can think of in its crowded aisles.  In the basement are fabrics (I seldom bought straight fabric as it tended to be synthetic) and stack after stack of cotton saris, each containing about 1.5 to 3 m of fabric for $14 to $20 Singapore dollars.  I found one that particular reminded me of D in cream, gold and rust.

Around the same time I picked up a pattern from Quilts and Calicos in Tanglin Mall called Kasuri, which had a strong masculine feel, so it seemed like a plan to utilise the 5 inch 'square in a square' block from this pattern in a project for D.  About half the blocks had been made before the project was put aside in 2010.

So once I had my new Perth workroom set up, I got this project out, and now, some three weeks later it is finally finished!

I used the beautiful patterned section of the batik on the back (seen above and below).  As it wasn't quite long enough, I split it through the middle with some fabric left from the front.

Measuring 25 inches by 45 inchs, the piece is free motion quilted around the flower in the centre so it stands out, and ditch stitched around the blocks, so if used as a table runner it should stand plenty of washing.

So good to be able to finally send this off to D and cross off one more unfinished project.

Happy New Year - Back to blogging

It's been awhile between posts.  Life has got in the way of creating for a couple of months.

Since I last posted in October, work has been pretty crazy and on the family front we have rented a home in Perth, our household contents have arrived from NZ (surprising amount of damage compared to some of our other international moves including my sewing table - thankfully now repaired by my very capable hubby), and I have largely unpacked into my own sewing room!  Yes! At last!  A room of my own to create in.  My family have all arrived safely in Perth, although our eldest daughter has just departed for a gap year tutoring in the UK.  (We are saving hard for our first trip to England to visit her in August/September.  Liberty is on the list).  We are slowly establishing our new life in Perth.

So what with unpacking, supporting my kids to settle and the heat of summer in Perth there has been little time to create or blog.  But I am now finding my way back to it.

I have unpacked a long untouched WIP from 2010, which I'll share photos of shortly.

In the spirit of the new year, some very modest goals for 2015...(giving myself full permission to add to these as the year goes on)

- Work out how to 'link up' (I am so technologically challenged I can't work out how to do this and no amount of google searching seems to help - any suggestions?) and link up to at least one linky party.

- Finish 2-3 WIP's

- Start and complete niece E's quilt

- Make 2-3 projects of my own design

- Take a photography course, so when we travel I can take better photos of all the many things that inspire me

Happy New Year!