School FUNdraising...

 It's almost open day time at school. CCB and I have decided that we can do more for the school with an independent stall and as such have launched something a bit new for the school and we are selling seeds through Living Fundraisers. Their colours are green and purple. Going with the whole 'earthy' theme I bought some hessian in 4 colours and whipped up some bunting...

NEVER use your cutting board for cutting hessian... If you do use a chopping board (which I recommend) use one you can throw away!

Oh and it does not matter what you wear, using an overlocker with hessian, you WILL look like a lamington when you are done! But you gotta admit, it looks pretty good!

I made some table covers with the left overs which will look better when they are a bit flatter...

I hope it goes well for us!

Quilt Challenge

I have been doing sewing classes at Hobbysew at Top Ryde once a fortnight since Dec 2011. I made some things for a friends daughter and she paid me by purchasing 10 lessons for me (so nice and not necessary) and I just kept it going. It is the highlight of my week when I go and I am going to miss them! With Stef being made redundant we have to economise and sadly these lessons are put on hold until we are gainfully employed once more.

I have sewn many a garmet, bag, cushion cover and goodness knows what else! The knowlege my teacher has is incredible and there is always an easier way that she will show you how to do things.

But I will return to them and if I need help I will time it for one of Chris's classes...

In February Hobbysew launched a quilt challenge across their stores. Each store had their own kits but the rules seemed to be the same. We had 3 kits to choose from, a flowery number (ick), one with cream/bright orange/green or a blue/green/earthy tone kit. I chose the last one. All that we had to do was make sure it was no bigger than X and no smaller than Y (I forgot to measure mine!) and use some of the fabrics in the kits. There was a $50 voucher for buying a kit and there is a $200 prize for the winner. These are store prizes so one per store (as I understand it).

I had NO idea what I was going to do and rocked up to quilt class with the fabrics and some other plain fat quarters I couldn't sell. That happened to tie in with a lady visiting from a fabric store and when I remember I will link her because she had a great range... She had some packs of precut leaves in autumn colours... they toned well with the backing fabrics and I happened ot have a brown fat quarter with me and in no time I had drawn a tree in chalk on the brown, cut it out, cut it in half and viola...

 Autumn leaves...  I wish I had take some close up pics before I handed it in but time was not on my side! I used a varigated thread (a King Tut brand) with yellows, purples, pinks in it, it looked autumny! Imachine blanket stitched each piece

One of the ladies at quilting pointed out that I had broken the cardinal rule of art with a 50/50 background so I added the botton strip and some stepping stones and it sort of works! I like the stepping stones, it's left over fabric from a monocrome swap and it's actually stones!

So the 3 challenge fabrics are there on the front and I added some plain to the (wonky) back and had a go and FMQ, not my finest work but I did enjoy it and can see me getting into it more as I get better with quilts.

I even sewed my name on the back too!

I don't expect to win but I enjoyed doing it and for $12, some thread and a headache with 4 attempts with the binding (and I am not 100% happy with it!) it was a whole lot of fun.

Class Quilt

One of the other things we have been busy working on is the class quilt... we have had some sewing bees here at home on consecutive Friday and I have been spoilt with people giving up some of their Fridays to hang with me, I am very fortunate to have such wonderful friends.

Where we are up to...

We have all the dresses and boys uniforms blanket stitched to their backing and the kids have their names to hand sew on homespun in their house colours. They are due back in about 3 weeks time then we can start the assembly process...

 Here we are hard at work... lots of cutting and bits, pinning and counting...

 Emma had some issues with her machine but once I had threaded it properly (arghum Miss Emma!!! No wonder you were having problems, glad I could fix them for you!). Deciding her blanket stitch was not right for the project she was in charge of straight stitching ties! She was a machine!!

 I did faces...

 And Helen worked tirelessly pinning the components of the blocks!

 We put packs together for the kids to sew their names in a back stitch linking them to this You Tube video

Each kit had a letter to the child, their name on paper, a wide eye needle (Clover #22) and a strip of white homespun with their name written on it in pencil

Here are some of Amelia's classmates discovering their letters in their pigeon holes! Priceless really!! The girls were all giggly and smiles, the boys... well, they are boys!

(more) Dresden progress...

Wow, 2 months + since my last post and there has been plenty of stitchin' happening!

Dresden progress... I am not bored with this quilt and really want to get a wriggle on and get it done but there are all these loooooooooooooooong seams teasing me to be sewn! I will admit the small seams and the blanket stitch are something I have to be in the right mood to do. I have been using my Tuesday quilting group on this quilt mostly because it doesn't require a whole lot of concentration and it can be quite busy with conversations and people wandering about, cups of tea, breaking for lunch... you get the picture!

There is also a debate over how big the end quilt will be. He wants 6x5 I want 6x6...

Here it is 2 x 4

 and again at 6 x 4...

So in theory I have one row to add to it and then we can debate the 6th row... I hope to get it added over the school hols or the first week back at quilting group.