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!

S's 'Into each life some rain will fall' quilt top finished

I think this is probably my fastest quilt top finish ever!

I cut it out Saturday 20 September and completed sewing the top together on Sunday 21 September!

I had a weekend in Melbourne three weeks ago with dear friends.  So dear, that my girlfriend, who isn't even slightly into quilty stuff drove me halfway across Melbourne to Amitie (one of my top five favourite quilt shops) to pick out fabric for the back.

One half rainy days - since we all have some sad and dreary rainy days in our lives - and one half coming up flowers...although in this case they are more a kind of Asian inspired chrysanthemum!

So now, with quilt top finished, since I and my sewing machine are in Perth, and Niece S is in Wellington, we will go through some complicated logistics, planned to go like this:
- I send top and back to Wellington with my hubby (who was with me in Perth, with kids, for the school holidays)
- meanwhile back in Perth I make up a quilt label from bits on leftover fabric
- Hubby takes quilt to Sue Burnett, professional quilter extraordinare, in Wellington, for a simple all over rose pattern
- then I keep my fingers crossed that Sue might be able to quilt it for me before I have a week back in NZ in mid November
- if so, I buy something to bind it with, and borrow my sister-in-laws machine to finish it off - then...
- my favourite step...I get to hand it over in person to Niece S as her late birthday and early Christmas present.

It's a grand plan...no room for anything to go wrong there....

Do you like the duck wondering what on earth these mad people are doing?

Cross Currents for Kate - Finished!

Oh my it is so good to have a finish!

This quilt has taken me almost 18 months, six months of hunting out fabrics and a year in the making.  I'm inordinatly proud that it is entirely my own design...created on the design wall...and redone several times over because of:
- taking it down to create other quilts in the interim
- putting it away because I'd lost my mojo and could not think how to proceed any more
- picking it up and replace it after the wind had blown it off - twice!

So I'm delighted that it has turned out pretty close to my original rough sketch.

 

(Taking this photo we were given a hilarious running commentary from an older lady who was convinced either the quilt, or my hubby or me was going to end up in the water...and she wasn't diving into rescue us!)

 

I had the top custom quilted by Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilting and as ever she has done a fabulous job.  Her quilting is best seen on the back.

 

There are clouds in the sky, shells on the beach and a variety of different waves including turbulence where the currents meet in the middle of the quilt.

 

She has also included an orca.....you can just make it out in this photo....

And a seagull, that mirrors those on the front of the quilt....I love how the seagull is flying up the path of the waves.

I was keen to include a single yacht, off doing its own thing.  The two brigh blue fabrics in this photo are both silk, so it will be interesting to see how well they wear.

 

 

Not the best photo of the label - its a little hard to read, but I managed to sneak in a little of this wonderful whale and fish linen (released to late for me to include in the top).

 

 

 

 

Now the quilt will travel back to Wellington, New Zealand with my husband, and then up to Auckland as a late birthday/Christmas present.

 

Far far away....starting another project

I have lots of fabulous neices.  Two of them have had a particularly rough year.  While I am yet to start a planned quilt for the Niece E, I decided to leap frog over hers and start something for Niece S first.

I bought the Lewis and Irene, Threaded with Love Town and Country fabric below, the one with the great houses and trees some months ago.  I loved it so much I went back for an extra 2m...so this has inspired my colour choices.  The rain clouds will go in....into every life some rain will fall...but rain also brings new life

Then I saw this and decided it would be the perfect design.  I can't wait for my copy of the book to arrive so have guesstimated measurements and will work on each picture square at 5inches finished.

Finally I have gathered up a variety of choices out of my stash, that I thought might appeal to Niece S ..how many frogs must we kiss till we find a prince....and in the meantime some of us might hope to run far far away....away from domestic chores....but sooner or later the sweet fruits of summer will return.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can get this one completed faster than some of the others I a working on!

Churn dash perhaps?

About a fortnight ago on one of my 'discover my new city' drives I visited Calico and Ivy, a lovely quilting and knitting shop in Mosman Park that has some beautiful fabrics including Liberty.  I told myself I was visiting to try to find just a little fabric for more of my hand pieced hexagons.  But despite my best efforts, (actually let's be honest no resistance was shown at all) a bundle of gorgeous brown, pink and cream found its way home with me.

While back in NZ I remembered I had a fat quarter bundle of English Garden Grey Abbey fabrics, so put this altogether with some natural linen from my stash and this is what you get....

One of the things I have been challenging myself to do for awhile is make more use of the pile of quilting books I have.  I am a big Denyse Schmidt fan and have spent much time pouring over 'Modern quilts: Traditional inspiration'.  I have adapted one pattern from this book already, the rail fence quilt I made for my Dad and blogged about previously.  And I have been thinking about making a churn dash quilt for some time....so I am thinking....

The final critical ingredient is my beloved sewing machine.  It is finally in Perth.  I bought it back with me this last week.  With the help of a very accommodating work mate, it was transferred on and off three separate flights.  Today I face up to checking whether it has come through undamaged.  Wish me luck.......

Liberty smocked childs dress 1968

My mother and my grandmother made every effort to dress us beautifully.

This blue and white liberty smocked dress was made in 1968 for my sister, for her second birthday party.  It is size 18mths - 2years and very tight fitting through the bodice.

I think this is where my personal love affair with Liberty began.  The fabric is so pretty with its blue flowers (I think they might be violets?) and so soft, yet extremly hard wearing as this dress has been worn a number of times, first by my sister, and later by other young cousins.

This is my sister at our combined birthday party, looking beautiful but slightly disconcerted, with her matching blue dolly cake...(check out the wonderful Mum's with their great 1960's dresses behind).

 

And here we are together.  I love the short hemlines that were standard for small girls in the 1960's.

My grandmother worked the embroidery on white organza across the front of the dress.  I adore this embroidery. It is worked in a single strand of DMC cotton so is very fine.  Five colours have been used; a soft green, mid blue, soft pink, bright pink and a soft yellow.

The pattern was her own and while it is repeated, the repetition is not exact so I suspect she repeated the second side by eye rather than working over a traced pattern.

My mother worked the beautiful smocking, which is repeated front and back in five different shades of blue.  The smocking is worked in three strands of DMC cotton and includes stem and cable stitch in various combinations.  There are 25 rows of smocking, with the back identical to the front.

 

 

 

The dress is front bottoning, although the buttons are simply for show.  It does up with a series of tiny hooks and handworked eyes.

The neckline and sleeve cuffs are trimmed with a purchased organza trim, edged in blue.

 

 

The back is reasonably simple, just the repeated smocking - no embroidery. 

 

 

 

 

 

The dress was made with a deep hem that has been let down in the intervening years, so it now appears much longer than in the photos above.

 

It comes with matching knickers, in the same blue Liberty, in case your wee poppet is active and wishes to spin around in her pretty dress.

 

WIP Latest set of hand pieced hexagons

It has been very quiet on the stitching front as I commute between Perth and Wellington, get settled into my new role and try to spend a little time with my family.  Oh and pack up my fabrics and sewing machine!

But I have managed a few more hand pieced hexagons...

My favourite in this group is the wee hedgehogs wandering in a circle round the brown gingham. 

Hedgehogs are one (of the many) things I am overly enthusiastic about!  They were introduced to New Zealand by the British in the 1800's.  However they were either not introduced to Australia, or did not survive, so they are one of the things I'll miss as we make our home in Perth.

 

 

I'm pretty happy with the blue daises too, I was very careul to try and get the pattern perfectly lined up and I think it has been worth the effort!

 

 





 

 

It will be great to have my sewing machine with me in Perth, from now on, but with the ability to machine sew restored to me, this quilt might remain in the 'go slow' pile for awhile longer.