Design Seeds

Have you discovered Design Seeds yet?

Lots of colour palettes to inspire.

I'm really enjoying this website ...

A charming time...

For the past few days I've been chopping up my novelty fabrics in to charm squares (5 inch). Anything fat quarter size and smaller got the chop.

These fabrics have been sitting around for a long, long, long time.

Here's my progress so far. I may just chuck the other scraps back in the box and call it done for now. Or not. We'll see.
It feels good to have these under control. And prepared to share or throw into a quick baby quilt.

Another Retreat Project

This little table runner is another one of my retreat projects. I used the fabric squares I won in a giveaway and I blogged about it here. I added two fabrics of my own. I'm pleased with it overall and will show it again once it's finished. I love these fabrics. It is Finally Free by Caroline Simas. It's not quite available yet (sigh) but the Fat Quarter Shop will email you when it's available if you ask them.

Fabric Box

At my recent retreat, I made this fabric box from orphan blocks in the scrapheap. (The scrapheap is a bunch of scraps from quilters attending the retreat - it goes in a pile for people to rummage through as needed.) I used this as a warm-up project before I made the Dr Seuss bag.

The free pattern is from Val Laird and can be found here. I'm surprised at how sturdy it is and how well it stands up by itself. A very useful project and I will probably make one again sometime.

Isn't it amazing how life pushes forward so fast? And it feels like forever since you've been away but it's only been a few days? And now it's September and before you know it it will be Christmas...

Love Dr Seuss!

I've just spent four lovely days at my WAQA retreat in the lovely Swan Valley. My main project was to make this bag in the lovely Dr Seuss fabrics I showed you in an earlier post. Here are some of the pieces getting prepped.

Of course I spent more time sewing than taking photos, so I did manage to finish the bag.

Ta Da!

Here it is in all it's Dr Seuss loveliness. This bag is for a friend of my daughter's who's having a baby at the end of the year.

I did work on one or two other things - but will have to post about them later. Back at work this week and working extra shifts. Will pop in to say hi when I can.

A little sewing...

Aside from hemming pants, I have managed to do a few little bits of sewing. I made these little padded sleeves for the weights for the pull cords for our vertical blinds. Now that the surfaces are painted so beautifully, we did not want these weights to chip the walls. I've pulled the sleeve down a little for this photo so you can see the plastic case for the weight. I've made the sleeve snug enough to just slide on without being tied on.
I've also got three of my pieced borders for this quilt done. This looks good enough to be it's own beginnings of a quilt, but I will resist starting anything new for now.

I've also washed and ironed these lovely Dr Seuss fabrics. One project for this fabric is a nappy (diaper) bag for a friend of my daughter's whose baby is due in January. I will make the bag at the retreat I am going to next weekend. I will also make a small quilt with the panel. Should be fun.

So my camera is at the ready and I will catch up with you all after the retreat.

Not another shirt!

I'm trying to clean and tidy a little each week (outside the normal housework). This week I decided to sort through old clothing destined for the op shop. After making this quilt, which included a lot of synthetic fabrics, I thought I would never make another quilt out of shirts. However, when feeling these soft, 100% cotton shirts, I decided to salvage them ala Bonnie Hunter. I also get a lot of inspiration from Julie.

So I snipped off buttons and de-constructed the shirts eliminating all the seams. Each shirt easily yields more than a half metre of useable fabric. 25 shirts in all. I will probably work with them next year (a starting year). Unless of course my resolve weakens...

Have you ever made a quilt out of shirts?