SSCS 2016 - Incoming - The Ornament Edition...

Collecting the mail for work yesterday included a box of goodies for me! Yes, it's here...my SSCS 2016 present...all the way from Germany...from Dagmar in fact...priority number one when I got home from work was getting that box open!!!

Of course, the ornament could be unwrapped straight away and I wasted no more time...to reveal...

a lovely folded star ornament...

There is no tree happening indoors so it went outside and had a go on a garden plant for a photo...figured that was more attractive that the corner of the TV it is now hanging from.

Thank you Dagmar I really like my lovely star...

Now the agonising wait of what is in those other parcels...yes parcels...to tease me Dagmar has wrapped up three intriguingly tempting parcels...putting them back in the mailing box and closing the lid...too tempting, out of sight is the only way to go until the big day arrives!...

Happy Stitching...

What A Weekend!...

The stitchy fabulousness the weekend of the mini workshop with the Saturday stitching friends in the last post continued on into the Sunday...a trip to the NGV in Melbourne and fun times with bloggy friends...

That Sunday morning saw me up and at 'em even earlier than leaving the house to go to work...good reason...trekking up to the Big Smoke...right into the very CBD of Melbourne for a special day indeed.  First achievement...driving into the City from West when I have always been a North/North-East girl...a moment of panic with changes to the lanes on the West Gate - seriously VicRoads stop moving the roads on me!...I made it to the chosen car park, whew! thank goodness they haven't moved a building I worked in over 30 years ago!

Very excited I met up with Chooky (yay a Chooky catch-up!) and Carol (nice to met you Carol) at their breakfast spot and off we went to the NGV - not the St Kilda Road location but the Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square, a much shorter walk and straight into the wonderful exhibition.  We collected more bloggy friends in quick time...it was so good to see Elyte again, it had been ages, and to meet Joy and Susan.

We spent about 2 1/2 hours in the exhibition and I am soooo glad I went...a wish fulfilled...I've seen the Rajah Quilt..In. The. Fabric!  Oh my...it is Huge!!!!

 Behind glass of course - can you spot what is missing?

So much to look at...

Imagine stitching in those conditions!

There was so much fabulousness but my photos are not so fabulous....good thing I bought the book!

So glad Chooky came down that weekend, it was the only time I was maybe going to be able to go into the City for the exhibition and it was just the incentive I needed to make it happen...and an opportunity to have a lovely bloggy peeps day out...

Happy Stitching...

 

Folder Workshops...

For something a lot out of my recent comfort zone I've taught a couple of workshops in the last few months of a project from a long time ago - a cutting mat folder thingy.  Originally a workshop at a group I went to a long time ago, put together by a clever member who then allowed me to teach to local quilt group about 10 years ago....a looonnng time since I'd had to remember how to put it together - and even longer since I'd actually made my own one - but we got there in the end.

The first was again for local quilt group ladies, many who weren't members the first time around, - group's pics of the finished projects here.  Liz has a pic of hers in this post. Love all the different looks with the chosen fabrics and even a couple with blocks/stitchery incorporated. Very well done ladies!

The second was a mini workshop with my fortnightly Town of Work Saturday stitching friends. M & J made the basic cutting mat/ironing surface combination while C and I went for the pimped up "let's add in a sandpaper mat" three fold version (that we made up as we went along) and mine is also a mini to fit in my handwork bag.  They all did a fabulous job and end results looked great...M used a great fabric with text on it, J a black background vibrant pinks and yellows etc floral, C three different coloured hand dyes - pink, green and yellow - which she stitched together and each fold had its own colour and I used elephant fabric. I coveted each and every fabric look (in both workshops!).

My new mini version...

Cutting surface...

 

Sandpaper in the centre

(wasn't dried well enough when I folded it to bring home

and bled through a little - lesson learnt!)

 Ironing surface

We added the rubber bobbly stuff for protection from the sandpaper when the folder is closed

Closed ready to travel...

The perfect size to fit in with the hand piecing project that travels to groups with me or for fussy cutting hexies...happy days...

The fun continued that weekend...more on that later...

Happy Stitching...

 

Sleigh Time...

On the sleigh for SSCS 2017...

But where to?....

Happy Stitching...

SQT Mug Rug Swap 2016...

I got the best squishy mail recently but couldn't reveal until now...my swap parcel in Kathleen Tracey's Small Quilt Talk mug quilt (rug) swap...I was paired up with the lovely Lu Ann Leonard from Arizona USA and once again I lucked out with my swap partner...chatting back and forth on the email having a lovely time...today (well today American time yesterday our time) is the day of the big reveal in the group so now the secret is out there...

From Lu Ann...how awesome is this package of goodies...

 Check out the gorgeous 30's fabric flower mug rug...

And not one but two...a selvedge one as well!...

How cute is the backing fabric!...

Lu Ann included a pattern (for a table runner) from a shop near her run by a couple of blokes who not only design their own patterns but have homemade biscuits and a cuppa as part of their customer service, if only it wasn't so far away!...cute safety pin fabric, postcards to pretend I was travelling to the other side of the world on which she wrote tidbits about her area which is fun...Thank you so much Lu Ann I love my mug rugs and my other goodies...love it all...If only Lu Ann wasn't so far away!

So what did I sent to Lu Ann?

Well, she is a Civil War repro girl and I had the Best Time fossicking about in the fabric bits for a tumbler mug rug...

(6 5/8" x 8 3/4")

I handpieced the top and hand quilted in the ditch horizontally and vertically for each row.  I mis-measured my tumber template at 1" and aimed at about 6" with 6 across x 6 rows but it ended up a tad biger because the template was actually around 1 1/4"...I came home from work one night during the making process and thought, I want to make Lu Ann a pincushion as well...so I did... 

(3" x 3" x 1")

Blue on one side and red on the other...

My package to Lu Ann (ignore the hexagon card, while it made the photo shoot it didn't make the actual parcel - oops!)...I included a fat quarter of fabric which had a gumnuts/leaves pattern, some little quilt labels for her small quilts, some postcards and magnet of the area of the work town and a rosella bookmark...I do hope Lu Ann finds all her bits useful...

So that was what my October sewing was all about...now on to finalising my swap present for SSCS 2017 2016 (thanks Jo! - the extra time would have been a bonus though!), the hanging ornament sorted, the main present underway as it needs to be mailed by end of this coming week - eek! where is the time going!!...

Happy Stitching... 

Brim...

Easter Tuesday (yes I know that was six months ago but I came across the photos and thought why not!) I had to go to Stawell first thing to drop something off...it was a lovely day and I didn't have to go to work so I thought...well, I'm already in Stawell, why not keep on and go to Warracknabeal to the patchwork shop [Quilters Harvest].   On the way to Warracknabeal it occurred to me that only a short (20km) further on are the painted silos at Brim...yes, there was a theme of oh I'm here why not go there to the day...so on to Brim it was...

The information board in the paddock across the road...

View from a distance takes in the whole scale...silos aren't small...

With acres of room and plenty of cars parked on that side without blocking the view/effect and a paddock across the road to park in, the tool in the 4WD with caravan stops dead in front of the silos.

Finally, after about 15 minutes, a clear view of the whole effect...
The detail in each portrait is amazing...Four local farmers...three men and one woman...

Then it was back to the patchwork shop which I don't get to go to very often but it is one that I always enjoy visiting...Not the intention when I left the house that morning but a nice unplanned way to spend a day off...

Happy Stitching...

Framed...

It sure is hard to restart once out of the blogging habit...here goes...

Back in June Melissa Grant of One Day in May travelled west to spend a day giving a workshop put on by the Stawell Craft Shop and to start off on the Friday night held a trunk show at the shop.  Not sure what to expect, but thinking it might be interesting, my friend M and I went along...and we weren't sorry...Melissa was lovely, we got to see all her lovely projects, hear her story and she freely offered tips and tricks...definitely made the prospect of the workshop the next day even more enticing.

At the workshop we were to be given the choice of two projects. One a pattern Melissa had already released and one a surprise. I looked at the known pattern, Sew Tidy, on Melissa's website, liked it, so on the Friday morning before work thought I'd put some background fabrics and threads in the bag for the next day and before I knew it...whoosh! fabrics and threads came together and all I needed was the pattern to go with them!  The feature stitchery was started on the day...

Finished the words in class...yes, in class!...happiness indeed...

It became my fortnightly Saturday sit and sew project... the stitchery was finished...

 The whole constructed and put in a frame...

And filled with some bits and bobs as a try out...

An actual finish (maybe a month ago which means only a couple of months since the workshop - almost a miracle!)... 

Happy Stitching...