christmas finish for July

Yippee! I have a finish for July..
I did finish it a few weeks ago but have kept it to the side for this months reveal.
It is a little smaller than the first one I made but will make a lovely gift.

This is a sneak peak of a Christmas item that I started with the lovely fabrics I bought at the Patchwork teahouse with a few bits from my stash too. I won't give away the size of the hexagons, that's a little surprise.

I only have a few items left for my Christmas angel swap. I look forward to sending it off. I need to get my purse ready for posting too as this week is the mailing date...which means ..... I should be receiving a lovely purse too!

Happy days
Marina

It's the 25th,

and you know what that means.....
Time to reveal a completed Christmas item for the month!
I thought I was going to have to make excuses as to why I didn't have a finish.. but last night, due to the amount of rubbish on tv, I managed to finish doing the hand quilting on my 'tis the season top. I decided to machine quilt the borders. I retired to the kitchen, set up the machine and went for it.
I had a ball getting it done and I was so glad to finish it by the 25th as it was a small deadline I had imagined for it, I only managed it by fluke.
so here it is...
My 'tis the season completed hanging...drum roll please..

Now it can join the other christmas items finished so far.

Almost finished another stitchery at craft group today and I stopped off at Spotlight on the way home to spend my birthday voucher from them so I bought some off white homespun to use as a backing for my sweet nostalgia quilt. I will use some scraps from the top as well then it can go for either quilting or basting at the quilters. I still can't decide whether to quilt by hand or not. I know how I want it quilted but I am worried that they won't do it exactly as I want or that it will cost a packet. Decisions, Decisions.

Have a great weekend!

Marina

that time of the week...

I am hoping to have a lazy day at home today after the housework and washing are done, of course.
Firstly I'd like to thank the new followers to my blog, and thankyou to the other followers as well. It's nice to know people like to share my crafting with me.

I decided this week to trace off some more of the 'Tis the season stitcheries to make either another top or some table runners. Will decide once there are a few done. I think I am enjoying them even more a second time. Just taking it slowly, no rush-maybe that is why I wasn't as happy with my stitching the first time, I was so eager to finish them. I have done two so far- then I will just have to decide how I will put them together. I would like to assemble them a little differently but we will see how we go!

The postie brought two lovely Flowers this week from Narelle. I have withdrawn from the Hexie flower swap as I am going to finish my top off once I get my June flower from the swap. Narelle and I did a little swap between ourselves as we hadn't been paired as yet in the swap. She sent me these two gorgeous flowers and some hot chocolate. They will go into the last row of my garden top. I have sewn all the green fillers around the top except where the last row will go and I am very happy with the result. I am hoping this months swap flower will arrive soon as I am keen to complete it! Then I can start on my Park Avenue flower garden. I have worked out the numbers so I am ready to go.

This week while planting some cyclamen babies I thought I would check on my orchids. I am not a great plant grower but luckily these seem to realise they have to make it on their own. I was surprised to find spikes waiting to pop and even some open flowers on others. I gave them some fertiliser as a reward. My sil grows the most amazing orchids and she looks after them diligently. It isn't uncommon for her to have over twenty spikes from one plant. I am so jealous. I get excited over two!

Craft group tomorrow and I am looking forward to it as I haven't been for a few months. Just too much going on sometimes to fit everything in.
Hope you get some crafty time on your weekend.
cheers

Marina
ps notice I used my rug mug.

after consultation....

.....with my creative advisor... aka mum, We have worked out how to finish my flower garden. Fortunately the apple didn't fall far from the tree, in regards to how mum and I like to do things. I had decided to take the  perceived 'easy' road and just applique the shaped edge onto a border but I haven't been totally happy with that. I am not a tidy or organised person most of the time but when it comes to crafting I like to be very exact and as near perfect as I can. Mum had suggested putting in half hexies to even the really uneven edge but I didn't want to think about more basting and stitching, I was a bit impetuous and just wanted to see the end in sight- quickly. A bloggy visitor had suggested the same. I gave into the idea as I know it is the only way I will be satisfied with the end result and am happy I did! It has taken nearly a year to get to this much progress a little more won't hurt.  Last night while re watching Harry Potter- the prisoner of Azkaban,( I am watching the movies again in anticipation of the new movie) I basted all the half hexies I will need to finish my top and some more green hexies to fill in the other gaps in the edges..

Feels good....
This is the progress so far with evening up the edges..

this lower edge will have basting removed and then I will add the border to form a straight edge.

I have also worked a bit on my 'Tis the season quilting. I was missing some brown pearle thread but found some in my stash so I was able to do the brown blocks. I have quilted around 8 blocks.

Am debating as to whether to make another one of these. They will be handy to stitch at night......
The sun has been shining in Melbourne this weekend so lots of washing and drying getting done.
No 3 son played his tennis finals Friday night and his team won! Talk about nail biting finish, they were drawn on points so had to count back to sets won. Glen got highest stats for the night so he was over the moon.
Today DH and Glen are playing father/son game at the club. It's good to have boys!
Hope you are having a great weekend!
marina

borders done and dusted!

After some telephoning yesterday Lyn's needlework no longer had the glace fabric I needed, they had forgotten to take it off their website. Bummer!
I thought I would try where I had bought the previous glace dessert roll, Jemimas. I thought I had bought the last one but they had another one! Lucky me. I zipped round after work and picked it up. I couldn't wait till after tea to cut and sew the borders on. Now it just needs to be quilted. I have backing and wadding to do this so that is the next job on my list.
I also started the binding for my Tisket Tasket quilt that I finished quilting on the weekend. That should be done this week. Woo Hoo!

I also had to finish some hexie flowers for my swap partner this month. She likes modern fabrics, which I must admit are not fabrics I use or would know to buy so I hope these will look modern enough. I couldn't resist fussy cutting the hexagons in the pattern. I think I need to make myself some for my scrappy garden.

Have a lovely week.
Marina

Oops! Oh no....

This week I had a ball putting together the top for the 'Tis the season hanging. Yesterday I went to Jemima's to buy border fabric so I could finish the top altogether. I bought a Glace pre cut (honey bun I think) that had just the tonal fabrics from the range. I would be able to get the borders out but I would have to be very precise and careful. Well that should have told me that I was doomed to fail, but being a half full type of girl, no worries!

Yeah, right...

I did the first border fine and then the second border... You betcha I stuffed it up. I was frantic now- my side border would have three pieces sewn together to make a border. I googled till I was googled out and replacement fabric is out of the question as it is an old range and the chances of finding it are 'Buckley's or none'.

So what to do... Do I sew them the way they are, get a different red fabric or keep trying to get the red tonal fabric that I really want to use, or finally add some embellishment to cover the errors (thanks for the idea mum)? 

I am going to take it all to Mum's to get her opinion but I know I need to be happy with the result, especially after all that work..

Any suggestions would be welcome or if you know of anyone who has perhaps 7inches of the red tonal Glace fabric?

Here is the top so far.....

see how perfect the red fabric looks, 

this has to be my favourite stitchery block

On a less disastrous note... I made this little door hanger for a friend at work who is leaving us. It just needs a little stuffing.  It's from the Quilt a gift book that Carine sent me in exchange for a Boys story quilt book. It has some lovely designs in it. I used some of my vintage shell buttons for the corners.

For the past two weeks I have been also trying to hand quilt my Tisket Tasket Top and I am down to the last block and then I will just machine quilt around the border. It will be a relief to cross this off the list .

This arrived in the mail yesterday and I have put my thinking cap to decide what my addition to Janet's garden themed pincushion will be. I think I have just the thing!

Boy talk about lots of pics.. 

Just one last sneak peak at something I am making. Not too many clues at the moment. Someone may be peaking! I have been having issues with my stitching at the moment, the stitches seem to be huge and I had big issues with the curves on this stitchery. I had to unpick them all and redo them. Much better second time around. Some of my 'tis the season stitcheries had stitches that seemed to be doing their own thing. Luckily they don't look too bad.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend...

I am off to make some hexies for my May swap partner.

Second finals of Eurovision tonight and the Finals tomorrow. Am I the only sad person watching?

My children seem to think so!

Cheers

Marina

ps I have reinstated any lost comments for the Betty boop fabric. I will draw it tomorrow as there are a few people who would like to give it a new home. If you are interested leave a comment on the previous post and I will draw a new home tomorrow.

some more blocks and a pincushion

On Monday Sue's wool base arrived from Janet in Canada. She stitched a fantastic mountain goat looking over a cliff down on a trout jumping. It looked fantastic but how was I going to add to it. I scoured Sue's blog looking for hints on things she liked, when I suddenly looked at her blog name 'Charlotte's cottage'-that's it I thought!

I would add a little cottage to the base and then there was just a little gap that needed filling so what better than a little ray of sunshine on her cottage!

I am quite happy with the result, I hope Sue likes it too. Now it will be off to America to Jacqueline then it will make it's final trip home to Sue in Western Australia.

On Sunday I thought I would work on the borders for the next three Tis the season blocks. Now I make no secret that I don't like cutting and sewing up blocks, my favourite part is the stitcheries and hand sewing. I thought while I was cutting strips for three blocks I may as well cut strips for all the blocks. I now have them all ready for when I finish the next lots of stitcheries. Happy days!

so here are the next three...

It's half way through the week already....... Roll on the weekend.

Cheers

Marina

new fabric and new project

Here are some fabric goodies that came home with me from New Zealand.

This lovely fabric has gorgeous fat bumblebees.

This fabric has lovely wood carvings on it. The cream on cream fabric has 'tribal swirls' and the buttons are cut from Paua shell. As I understand it, it is a type of abalone and has the most beautiful greens and blues.
They will make a lovely souvenir project.

Now I did say that there were some books waiting for me when we got home. This book has been appearing quite frequently in blogland and when I saw all the different versions of it on the net I was very inspired to want to make it as well.

I have made up three blocks and stitched three more.... they just need their borders. I am going to try to finish three blocks at a time so that I don't just stitch and don't finish them off. For the borders I am using Glace by three sisters. It will make a nice christmas wall hanging.

I am hoping to get some more stitching done this weekend!
This morning I had to forfeit craft group to go to our Curly club fun day. Two very tired curlies are recovering from a fun day of swimming, running and socialising.  Their owner is a little fatigued too!
Hope you have an enjoyable weekend!
cheers
Marina