Cuteness!

Hello lovelies!  I've had quite a productive week!  A few good things are on the horizon and I am dying to share them with you.  Firstly, this week I bravely ventured off to meet my local quilters guild.  I realised I needed to be surrounded by people who share this crazy love for quilt making and I wasn't disappointed.  I discovered a whole group of lovely ladies who are just as passionate about this craft as I am.  Our meetings are once a month but there is a sub group that meets weekly.  It was also a surprise to discover that two of the members I already knew as their children go to the same school as mine!  Small world.  If your looking to connect with others who share your passion, make new friends and go to quilt related events, I highly recommend making your acquaintance with your local guild.

My other news is that next term I will be teaching sewing at my daughters primary school... I'm very excited about this!  My daughter and I have been coming up with some small but cute little things for the kids to make.  I made this little bucket pin cushion and this adorable little needle book.  The pincushion bucket I will soon be putting on the blog as a tutorial.

 They are super easy and quick to make so stay tuned.

Front

Back

Inside

The needle book pattern can be found over at nanaCompany.  I love how it uses mostly little scraps you have laying about from other projects.

In other news, I have put the tumbler quilt away for now, but started sewing these little I-spy jars.  I have built up quite a collection of these novelty fabrics.  I look forward to using them in some of my kids quilts for BlanketLovez but this quilt will be for our family.  I'm going to turn some of the blocks on their side to make it look like the jar has fallen over and some of the creatures have escaped.  I've just made the pattern up as I go, so when its finally together I might even draft it as a pattern for my new shop.

Anyway, a quick post today, but hope to be back later in the week with a recipe or two.

Yours in Stitches


Leanne x

Two finishes!

Hello lovelies, just a quick post today to show you that I have been rather busy in amongst studying.   My daughters I spy quilt is finished, quilted and bound and ready to be sent to my nephew.  I love the way it turned out.

And I finally finished the borders on my star quilt... oh what a relief that is!  The outer red is the binding I will be using.  I had been putting it off but its finally done and ready to be long arm quilted.

Now I can start on my tumbler quilt... Yay!  The winter weather has really set in here with gale force winds and flash flooding in some suburbs of Melbourne.  The days are gloomy and getting outside for a walk is becoming a battle.  Hope the sunshine reappears soon.  Today I took myself to the Craft and Quilt Show... oh what fun!  Fabric, fabric and more fabric... I was in heaven.  But I will post more about that soon, as I'm really tired and need to put my winter pjs on and hop into bed.

Until next time

Yours in Stitches


Leanne x

Cute Little Houses!

Hello lovelies, life has been a little trying over in this neck of the woods.  The weather is getting colder and we are preparing ourselves for the onslaught of winter.  And you know what that means, don't you? Colds and virus's blah!  Yes my partner and kids have all come down with nasty colds this past week and had time at home to recover.  This has meant that I have got very little done in terms of sewing or studying.  Fortunately, the germs are yet to invade my body so (touch wood) lets hope it has bypassed me... could I be so lucky??? ;)

Also, during the week my daughter decided that she would really like to begin sewing on her Kimmi Doll quilt (the fabric had been cut and ready to go for some time now) but felt that her sewing wasn't good enough.

Hmmmm how many times have we all felt like this? We want to do something, but our lack of confidence in our abilities holds us back.

So we came up with the idea of making an I-Spy quilt for her little cousin as a practice quilt.  Of course, ironically, as is usually the case when we lack confidence, she sewed most of the squares perfectly and the quilt-top has come together really well.

She's a lot like me in this respect, I mull over bookkeeping subjects, not sure if I fully understand them, not confident I will remember the concepts but then amaze myself when I get an assignment back with a score of 93%.  Woah! How did that happen?  Or I agonise for days over a design in my head, instead of just stepping out and doing it.  After all, quilting is my 'art', its my form of expression with fabric, is there really a right or wrong?  Perhaps we should all 'just do it' and as long as we are happy with it, isn't that all that matters?

We then stumbled upon this gorgeous little free pattern by RetroMama and just had to try it!

Made by me

Made by Taylah

The results speak for themselves I think.  They are so cute, fun to make and will make wonderful little presents for family, friends and even teachers at Christmas time :)

I am in awe of some peoples ability to come up with things like this.  But I think the more we 'play', the more we experiment, the closer we get to that 'Eureka' moment and the more future inspiration will strike.

Speaking of 'Eureka!' I was cleaning out the craft cupboard and found some fabrics I had forgotten I had!  Whoohoo!  I have so much fabric at this point its really quite embarrassing... so I think a fabric diet may be in order lol.

I am very glad the weekend is here.  We are experiencing a few days of sunshine at the moment, even though its cold, so hopefully this will stay with us over the next few days.  Meanwhile, I have a little secret to share with all of you in the coming weeks - some new things I'm working on to open my online shop and a new logo, very exciting!

Anyway, I am off to put the borders on my Star Quilt... can't wait to see it finished!

Yours In Stitches

Leanne x