SSCS 2009 OPENED!

These are the lovely parcels I received from Brigitte in chookyblue's Secret Santa Christmas Swap 2009. I have been a good girl and have waited patiently to open them. They have been sitting under my pretty Christmas Tree all this time.

But all waiting eventually comes to an end. Here is the cutest wall hanging. I simply adore it. When I am done with this post I am going to go and touch it again and look at all the lovely little details.

A little closer look for you...
This very charming and very tiny coffee pot from Poland. A lovely memory of Brigitte's time there while her husband was stationed there. Brigitte has just informed us that she is moving back to Bavaria in Germany. The lid of the coffee pot lifts up... just too cute...

A little pair of Stork scissors - I have never had a pair and have always wanted one - thank you so much Brigitte!

Delicious marzipan covered in bitter dark chocolate - so yummy! I can attest that they travelled just fine... and oh the joy of finding another layer underneath! Six very special chocolate hearts... which I will really enjoy with a cup of tea while looking at...

this amazing German patchwork magazine! What a great thing to send! And I am not going to let a little language difference slow me down one bit!

Just look at what is in here. I've just put the kettle on... won't be long now! A little break between family chaos...

Thank you again, Brigitte, for these very lovely gifts. I so appreciate the time and thought you have put in to this Christmas swap.

Well, that's Christmas for another year! A little sad and a little relieved! Now on to the hot, dry summer...

Once again we are off to Albany for a little break. I'll be out of the blogging world until the middle of January.

I sincerely hope your Christmases were bright and the New Year celebrations grand...

Cheers!

Shari

Christmas

Thank you so much, Jane, for my yummy Christmas treats. I've been ever so carefully rationing them this year.


I don't always get a lot of my decorations up each year - but these are essential. A nativity to always remind us that Jesus is the focus of Christmas.
An advent tree to which a little ornament is added each day. The ornaments are kept in little drawers with a number on them. The gorgeous little angel was made by my number 2 daughter in primary school. So not long now. Menus are being set and produce is being procured. Guest lists and presents and who's bringing someone new... hope your week goes well and all your plans go smoothly.

Happy Christmas to all!

Hugs - Shari

I made this...

I made this over-sized pot-holder/trivet for the little present swap we did yesterday. I used two layers of cotton wadding. The applique pattern is from the Annie Downs book I got recently. Dear girlfriend Teena (no blog) received it. Hope you like it Teena!

Merry Christmas!

PS - Did I show you this? It's the ornament I made and sent to Theresa as part of the SSCS 2009. It does not open - it's for show only... that's why they call it an ornament... lol Can't show you what else I made her because it's a secret! Have to wait till Christmas!

Little Angel Quilts

When my youngest daughter played netball I assisted with the team, the club, the association etc. For three years I made little quilts for the girls on her team as they were called the "Helena Valley Angels" - and generally they were little angels... while the pattern was the same I changed the dress fabric and the hair so each girl received a unique angel... these are my daughter's - I don't have photos of the rest...

I practised the lettering on my machine on this one - and learned how to put on double-fold binding...

This is my favourite -

The little angel friends...

Cheers!

Fall Quilt Festival

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Amy at Park City Girl is hosting a Fall Quilt Festival. Here is my entry.

This is the first quilt I ever made. The year is 1996. I drafted it out on graph paper then cut template plastic for each shape - even the teeny tiny triangles. I used a clear quilter's quarter to add the seam allowances and cut each piece out with scissors. It is all hand pieced and hand-quilted using the stab-stitch method. I totally didn't know anything about quilting and had not even seen a quilting magazine before. But this was logical to me. Can't remember what type of wadding was used, but definitely not a natural fibre! In fact the fabrics are probably poly-cotton.

This was made for my #2 daughter as a Barbie quilt. She loves it and still keeps it on top of her dresser. She has kindly lent it to me for a photo shoot.


Please visit the Fall Quilt Festival to enter your quilt... there are some fabulous prizes to be won. Better still, there are so many blogs to visit!

Cheers

Shari

Halloween Blocks Swap

I participated in Jane's Halloween Spooktacular Block Swap and these are the blocks I've received. A big thank you to all the ladies who participated and especially to Jane for all her hard work. I'm looking forward to playing around with these blocks - although they won't be together in time for this Halloween, but maybe the next...

Quilt As You Go Class

It's not all work and bushwalking. Yesterday (Saturday) I went to a quilt-as-you-go class with the lovely and talented Glenda Olesen (no blog that I know of) who is an accredited teacher, judge and quilt valuer with the Western Australian Quilters' Association (WAQA). She showed us several different ways to join quilt blocks or quilt sections.

I chose to try a method using overlaid sashing strips both front and back.

Of course I didn't have anything prepared, so during the week I quickly whipped up some hourglass blocks from a pack of 7inch charm squares and did some simple quilting. It will be a 4x4 table topper. This is as far as I got in the class time. This will not be a UFO! It is rough as anything but will work overall.

After determining the size of my sashing, I trimmed back the blocks, butted the batting together and zig-zagged them together. My blocks are about 6 1/4 unfinished so I chose a one inch sashing.

The back of the quilt is sashed as well, but with a smaller sashing than the front so those seam lines won't show on the front. I put these on by eye and then they didn't match up exactly, but I'm not going to worry about that as it blends in well and won't be 'in your face' unless you look really close.

These fabrics are just yummy. With spring in the air it's all about purple - when the iris's bloom you know it's a good time of year. The light coloured fabric has a hint of shine that I just can't capture in a photo. Pity only one little square of it...

Not much sewing for today. After church I have four pair of pants to hem for my husband and of course all the household chores I didn't do yesterday (sigh). No housework fairy here....

Hope your weekend is full of sunshine and laughter and a little sewing for good luck!

Cheers

Shari

Bush Walk

While I'm working like a mad woman lately, it's not all about work. Sunday we had the opportunity to go on a lovely community bush walk called "Trek the Trail". While it did rain we did have 'lengthy fine periods' and managed to have a lovely morning. So here are some shots of our beautiful Australian bush. The old young guy at the end is my Mr Fixit. This is only 10 minutes from me! The interesting grass trees used to be called blackboys - but not anymore. Read about them here.

Hope you've had time to enjoy and appreciate the natural environment in your neighbourhood!

Cheers

Shari

Spring Flowers

We were at the in-laws on Sunday for Father's Day and I snatched literally a minute to snap these photos... the light was fading so not much time... their garden is a wonderful mix of natives with a few other flowers thrown in...

Today is windy and rainy - not much sunshine about...

Spiders

Do you think these rare Australian spiders

will make it through customs?

Edit: These are off to Jane for the Spooktacular Halloween Block Swap!

At the Retreat recently I was able to continue work on a project I started at the last retreat held in April. I blogged about it here. Working with so many different fibres and weights was difficult and I finally decided to stabilise the fabrics with lightweight interfacing. Overall I am happy with the results, although as I had already cut all my pieces, I had to cut the interfacing the same and then iron it to the back of each piece, except the four patches were already sewn together so they have just one piece. It was like cutting the quilt out all over again.

The blocks are laid out to continue the piecing...

The interfacing...

This is coming together nicely, but taking too long... no more swaps! (sigh) I need to be independently wealthy so I can totally indulge myself in my sewing... maybe one day...

Cheers

Shari

The retreat seems so long ago now as it was all work and taking kids to the doctors and all that sort of thing this week! Whew!

So I did manage to finish a quilt this week. The bulk of the work was done at the retreat with the hand sewing of the binding done at home. This is a 48 inch by 60 inch child's quilt that is going to Italy and hopefully won't have missed the deadline.

I did something interesting with this quilt. I sewed the squares in to rows. I pin-basted the wadding to the backing. I then sewed/quilted in one step to add the rows to the wadding/backing using a stitch and flip method. I've done this with smaller projects and it occurred to me to try it with a larger project. In theory it should work. One thing I didn't do was put a guideline on the wadding which I will do if I do this again, although overall the drift was hardly noticeable and only because I went looking for it.

Wadding and backing...

Lots of pinning...

Lots of pinning at corners...

Like rows of soldiers...

That's a lot of pins! Thank goodness for a Kwik Klip!

Cheers

Shari