Yippee!

Finally, we have a carpeted living room, yippee. We ordered a new carpet & sofa just before New Year. The carpet was fitted today, the sofa?...10 - 12 weeks, oops, not good forward planning. Ah well.

So - whilst the carpet fitters did their thing, I was sort of imprisoned in my sewing room (lol) and managed to finish the two cushion covers. I always opt for the easy envelope back for cushions but was worried that using fleece would result in a strethy, gaping back. So, I decided to bind the edges with cotton before adding the backing pieces. I did the same on both cushion backs, and for Evan's, I bound the pocket edge also. Maybe they will last a bit longer this way.

kijy6y6 (message from the cat, she just walked over the keyboard!!)

Anyway, let me know what you think..........

Thought you might like the close-up of the reading dragon (hoping Evan will think it's a dinosaur!) - was stitching this out the other day on my embroidery machine and the final part was the dragon's body. That was when I discoverd the bright green thread I had bought was in fact variegated. I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a go, result - a stripey dragon, quite funky??

As alway, if you click on an image you should get a bigger view.

A flurry of activity

I had quite a busy weekend in my sewing room.........I quilted Evan's cushion top,

and stopped myself going further until I had made a start on another project, a cushion cover for a floor cushion which I plan to give to my niece, Hope, who will be 13 at the end of this month. (before Evan's birthday) Now first of all let me show you what arrived in the post last month from my big sis in Oz..........

.........two packs of yummy Australian fabric, actually made in Australia. Now tempting as it was to leave it packaged and safely in a drawer, I made the brave decision to cut into it for Hope's cushion. You see, she was born in Australia and suddenly  the fabric / project / birthday all made perfect sense. I added a couple of plains and one non-Oz fabric.........

and then I embroidered a couple of plains............

then I joined the 6" patches, layered them up and did a bit of very quick quilting! I plan to use cerise pink fleece for the backing. Feeling quite pleased with my efforts, somtimes the simple stuff is very effective isn't it?

Meanwhile, have you noticed the extra features on the blog, like the instant link to YouTube? Have a go if you haven't tried it before, not just for kids, try typing in, e.g. Eleanor Burns and you will be rewarded with quilting demos.......such fun.

I can see from my counter that the blog gets quite regular traffic, but I would just love it if you joined me as a follower.................

leftovers...................

...................I expect you are all fed up with leftovers by now but thought I'd share my current "recipe" with you.

First of all, do you remember this wee guy?

 

"Scraps", birthday pressie for nephew Evan, last year.............

....so a few weeks ago, on somebody's blog, I read of a great boy project - a cushion with a couple of pockets, one for a book, and one for a torch. (Evan's mum, Lynn, is a great reader so I am sure will heartily approve of encouraging reading under the covers)

Have tried, in vain, to find that blog so am making it up as I go........

so far, the patchwork - I decided on 2" squares to use up as much leftover fabric as I could - thought I'd aim for an 18" cushion, wow, that meant 64 squares, just for a wee cushion - eek! Didn't really take all that long.
Next job, to quilt it and then add the pockets, think I will make a fleece back, maybe even fleece pockets.......watch this space.

and HNY

Merry Christmas

Taking a wee blog break..............hope Santa is good to you all, see you in 2011!!

At Last

It's been a few days since my last post, been waiting to thaw out, hee hee...............had another burst pipe since blogging about the last but everything under control now....
This is the last week of classes before the big Christmas break and I have lots of new photos to add to flickr so be sure to click on my flickr buttons to check out the works in progress.
There are too many to show in this post but I would like to highlight one or two.....................

First of all, my beginners - another great bunch of ladies who all get on so well together, so much so we all went out for lunch after class last week, except poor Denise who was snowbound - we thought of you Denise, as we tucked in.................

 Unlike previous years, most of my beginners have now had a wee dabble with patchwork, eg, by doing the shop class. for those ladies I added a bit of a challenge in adding extra blocks or more difficult blocks and they all rose to that challenge. Jean, however, who made the above quilt hadn't tried it before at all and stuck with the original brief - it has turned out beautifully and her choice of applique was inspired by Marjorie who had also opted for a Celtic motif.........these are all works in progress and have yet to be transformed by wadding etc....can't wait!!

 This is Helen's interpretation of the Cabin in the Woods project - she has personalised it with a Scottish meets Mexican flavour, colours are just fantastic aren't they?

I wanted to highlight the cactus - do you see how she has stitched the buttonhole stitch the opposite way from usual? - it has made the cactus prickly and realistic - brilliant.

 

Lastly, this is Joyce's Cabin in the Woods and is a representation of her own house, near Oban (yes, they come from far and wide...) The detail on this wee quilt is superb and shows great embroidery skills....................................bet you can hardly wait for the Open Night!!

a bit of a thaw

I will post some more pix of lovely quilts soon but no time today...........we had a lovely day out in Glasgow yesterday, family lunch out at Amore in Ingram Street, yummy. Then Allan and I branched off to the Glasgow Film Theatre to see the third in the Millennium trilogy of films. I think we will be happy to watch all of them again when the DVDs come out..........
..........now you may recall an earlier blog this week bemoaning the fact that the pipes in the garage were frozen - well, whilst we were guzzling and enjoying the cinema, one of the pipes had burst - deep joy! As we pulled on to the drive at about 6.15 the water was pouring down towards the road and apparently had been since midday.-our poor neighbour had been terribly worried and totally unable to make contact with us.
...so, it's been a busy, mucky Sunday.
Hope to return to things of a sewing nature soon...................