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I am using freezer paper as a template to make the arcs for my Free-Wheeling Single Girl quilt, a technique that I find really quick and easy. I have had a couple of questions about this on Instagram, so here is a tutorial on my method.
I was tempted to sign up as soon as Wendy @ The Next Stitch announced the Free-Wheeling Single Girl Sewalong! I need a corporate project to get myself sewing again. I purchased the PDF pattern from Denyse Schmidt and have been agonising over fabric choices ever since!
This week, she is preoccupied with last minute costume changes, a lot of red and white, American accents and false eyelashes! She is excited and nervous and loving it!
I had an unexpected opportunity to go to the Sydney Quilt Show last weekend. So many stunning quilts to see! The intricate workmanship and time invested in these quilts was mind blowing. Here are just a few that took my eye!
I’ve been unwell for a few months now, with numbness in my hands and feet. I am booked to see a neurologist, but not until August. In the meantime, my instinct has been to keep my hands moving as much as possible. To that end, I’ve been crocheting!
As a little celebration and a gift to you, kind readers, I have put together a new tutorial for some cute felt accessories for every kind of maker.
We have been living at our new place for about 15 months now. It feels like progress on the new garden has been tediously slow. But then I look back through the photos!
I'm drawn to Victoria's gardens, of which we visited many. I will share some of them in the next few posts. The most special of them belonged to Annie Flowergarden!
The weather is blissfully rainy today, my favourite sort of day for sewing ... actually, my favourite sort of day full stop.
I suggested at this time 12 months ago that I had all sorts of grand plans for 2016. Little did I know what the year had in store; that my 'grand plans' would go out the window, replaced by other events.
They don't call these blooms 'Winter Roses' for nothing! When the rest of the garden is in its drab, winter dormancy, these angelic lovelies pop their heads up and put on a show.
On my good days, I philosophise with myself about how we arrive in this world with nothing, and will leave with nothing; that houses and gardens are just the 'stuff' we accumulate in between. I lecture myself about materialism, and force myself to refocus on what I have, rather than what I've lost.
'Melba' is manufactured by Ella Blue, a fabric house developed by Australian designers. Ella Blue is such a breath of fresh air in the Australian quilting fabric market.
It was an obvious choice to make her a snuggle quilt to remind her of how much she will be missed.
I am popping my head up from my summer hibernation just long enough to share this lovely thing with you. I spotted it in someone's garden next to Short St Cafe in Dubbo the other day.
I get my best gardening done when I'm stressed! Our wheat crop is due to be harvested any day, and it is my job to deal with contractors, organise trucks and generally make it happen. One of the things I do to calm myself is to pop outside into the garden and pull a few weeds.
We have had a very wet winter, and our garden is so sloshy underfoot that the roses are still to be pruned! So my 'gardening' has taken a new turn: I have been planting in miniature and indoors!
This is my tried and true method for a lined, drawstring bag, with an optional personalised nameplate.
I have finished my scrap quilt top! Now to find some time to quilt it. I have a cunning plan to use this Lotta Jansdotter 'Echo' print for the backing.
We had a brief trip to Sydney in the school holidays, and I finally got to visit Quiltsmith in Annandale. Another one to tick off my 'quilt shop bucket list'! I snapped these impressive hand pieced quilts while I was there
I'm channelling my inner 1930s with some half inch hexies in pretty little prints. I am loving paper piecing - it is precise and methodical, which suits me just fine right now.
A favourite plant in the garden right now is this beauty: Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii', which I purchased from a plant stall at Ballarat Botanic Gardens a few years ago.
It has always been a mystery to me as to why 'Good Friday' is good. For such a sombre day in the Christian calendar, there doesn't seem to be too much good about it. Thankfully, we know that Easter Sunday is coming, and with the news of Jesus' astonishing resurrection, that there is wonderful hope.
Liberty of London has been producing its exquisite, fine quality lawn fabric for as long as I've been alive. I have been a fan for almost as long!
Given the awful suffering of many across the world right now, I am very grateful to be in good health, to be living where I do and to have a garden to escape to. We have been gardening at our current block for 3 years now. Let me show you a little of what we’ve been up to!