Fun

Lunch with the ladies

Today I had the pleasure of catching up with some lovely ladies for lunch at a local cafe. Excellent food, with the company (as always) memorable and entertaining. We get together as old customers from one of our favourite stores, Patchwork Pumpkin. The shop was owned by Therese Hylton, with the very able assistance of her daughter, Tasha, both of whom were able to make it today.  Therese has been quilting for over 30 years, and continues to stitch and create patterns – thank goodness. Tasha is also a dedicated patchworker, and the two have many lively discussions regarding colour and style. You can find a lot of Thereses’ patterns in the patterns section of my store.

I’m very slowly stitching up one of her patterns – Because I said so,  using the lovely variegated Cottage Garden Threads for the stitcheries. The fabrics I’ve chosen are similar to the original pinks, blues, greens – but in soft batiks. Unfortunately I’m so slow that I’ve had to re-write the the quotations onto the backgrounds to follow for my embroidery! Do you find hand-stitching relaxing? I do, but it’s interesting that there’s a wide divide between those that ‘do’  and those that avoid hand sewing like the plague. There just doesn’t seem to be any in-between, you either love it or you hate it. My biggest issue when I’m hand sewing is that I have to take off my glasses to get really close to my work  (such as embroidery) – but then I can’t see the tv…. so if there is an interesting programme on, I prefer to do some binding which doesn’t require quite the same amount of attention.

Time runs away from me these days, I’m sure you’re in the same boat. It’s hard work trying to keep up with everything! It was really lovely taking a time-out today for the catch-up.  Whilst I’m  working hard to finish uploading all my products – if you are looking for something in particular, feel free to drop me a line on my contact page & I’ll be sure to get back to you asap.

Some of my Because I Said So stitching

Family Life

Between the Husband having a Big O Birthday, kids going for job interviews, one kid getting burnt to a crisp (he’d put a cooked lobster in the shade), jobs around the house, cooking, website issues, right now I don’t know if I’m coming or going.

No happy place sewing for me today, not even this week….. I haven’t even been able to put the Juki back on the table since the weekend.

But I did think I could show you what I was doing up till now, keeping busy practising and at least doing something worthwhile.

At a recent meeting of Scquilters (Southern Cross Quilters), Marie Lee came to talk to us. She has led an amazing life, and at the moment is the President of Vic Quilters. She also runs the Very Snuggly Quilt Program, which donates quilts to the Royal Childrens Hospital here in Melbourne. Many, Many Quilts!

So – to feel useful, I have been quilting some baby quilts. Here are a couple. It was FUN!

 

Happy Place

Quilting is my happy place.

Especially now I have my Juki! I’ve never known it to be so easy to quilt.

It’s all so much easier – piecing accurately is a breeze, although I’m still working out how to get the Clearly Perfect Angles to attach in such a way that I don’t have to peel it off every time I change the bobbin, or remove the table to pack up for the night.  The Juki facebook page is awesome, so many lovely people with suggestions to help me out. I haven’t had time to implement them yet, but that’s definitely on the agenda. Not having to mark a diagonal line on every square when I’m making HST’s just makes life so much easier. I know most of the time eyeballing is enough, but once they get bigger than about 3 inches square, I need something – especially if I’ve got loads to do.

Can’t speak highly enough of this machine. It’s a gem. Here is a bit of playing I’ve done ….. I know, the i  in my name looks like an ‘e’.  I’ll keep trying.

free motion quilting example
Free Motion quilting play

 

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