It’s that time of year again

To everyone else it’s a Bridge Day (as in playing cards), one of two annual fundraisers staged by the Rose Bay Committee for St Luke’s Care.

But to Team Di it’s our opportunity to support St Luke’s Care through the craft stall where every dollar goes to this excellent hospital and aged care facility.

Di B and I usually spend several months stitching, knitting, crocheting and embroidering items we hope will appeal to the ladies who come to play bridge. Many hands make it work, adding to our stock handmade items, lots of home-made marmalades, jams and relishes, and biscuits and petits fours.

Last year we raised $3,500 on the craft stall alone, and although we haven’t been able to give so much time to creating goods this year it looks as if we’ve still raised a very respectable amount.

Padded coathangers are a perennial bestseller, and we has lots of fabric styles, from modern to traditional.

 

Di B made a single Sit Me Up Donut and we placed our ‘model’, Lucy, inside to show how a baby fits in it.

Her Spot the Dog toy bag was eye-catching on the stall.

These cute kitchen memo boards made with blackboard fabric were new this year.

And it just wouldn’t be a craft stall without some of Di B’s segmented baby balls, perfect for little hands to grasp.

My owl backpack buddies are meant to hang from a school backpack and help to easily identify whose it is.

 

A little fine embroidery sells well too, and this was a hankerchief keeper that I bought with the drawn thread word already done, and then I embellished it myself with a shadow embroidered bow.

By the time he hit the craft stall this little fellow I embroidered was also sporting a sweet satin ribbon tied in a bow round his neck.

More of my bears, crocheted this time.

Our non-committee friends were generous with their talents and time too. Isabella made these bright Scandanavian dolls, along with some pretty bird softies. Lyn made some of her trademark crochet brooches, and Gail made several pairs of little girl’s cotton play shorts.

 

 

Here we are, Team Di, awaiting the arrival of our shoppers bridge players.

 Di

Another Joseph’s Coat finish! (not mine)

Only four of us could make it, but after a break of several months it was great to have at least some of the English Quilt girls back stitching together at Gail’s place last week.

The big excitement was the showing of Gail’s finished Joseph’s Coat quilt, all hand pieced and hand quilted as mine was.

She started with a charm pack of reproduction Liberties from the V & A, a gift from Rae who went across to London for the big exhibition of historic quilts in 2011.

Then Robbie gave her a bag of modern Liberty scraps, which played perfectly together with the older designs and gave the quilt a little more pizzazz with their cleaner colours.

The finished quilt has the definite appearance of an antique quilt because of all the extra quilting Gail did – little leaf shapes in the negative spaces, and 1/4 inch quilting inside every “petal”. Hasn’t she done a wonderful job?

Not one to stand still for long, Gail quickly launched herself into a new applique project, destined to become a decorative wallhanging.

She’s copying and adapting a design she saw on a small postcard, and I can’t wait to see this one finished. As Gail’s a fast worker that might be quite soon.

Lyn was multitasking. With this year’s tinsel barely packed away she was already working on some clever little origami Christmas tree shapes as gifts for Christmas 2013.

And Lyn has joined the latest craze, crocheting. The pretty granny squares she was working on, in fuchsia and violet, co-ordinated perfectly with her fuchsia sundress!

Finally, here’s Jill’s progress on her foundation pieced quilt for her daughter. Nice pointy points, Jill!

Me? I moved inexorably towards finishing my Roebuck quilt, hand quilting the final side of the final border. I’m straining towards that finish line and already casting around for ideas for my next handmade quilt project. Machine projects are all well and good, but we need a hand project to take along and work on when we get together.

I’m leaning towards Robyn Falloon’s “The Blessings Quilt”, a pattern in an Australian Patchwork & Quilting issue from several years ago, but I also have several new metal templates I bought from JoNell at Quiltsmith (USA) that I’m itching to use.

It looks like I could be getting up to a little multitasking myself soon .

 Di

Bear with me

It’s that time of year again, and over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing with you some of the goodies I’ve been making for our craft stall at the St Luke’s Care fundraiser.

As usual, the ever-generous Di B has been stitchin’ up a storm too, and if I can twist her arm I might also tantalise you with some of her gorgeous handmade items.

And while I have your attention, I’d like to tell you about the prettiest little giveaway I’ve seen for a long time. Jenny of Elefantz is giving away an original stitched and coloured framed design called “Flowers for Sale”. Pop on over to her blog and enter the draw.

Jenny’s designs are so simple, sweet and inviting, and I enjoyed stitching some of them last year.

Now here’s a chance for you one of us to own a Jenny of Elefantz original!

Di

Just slap me (gently) across the face with a fat quarter*

…if I ever again start whining about not being much of a finisher.

Admittedly my big quilt finishes are so rare it’s been rumored there are small principalities where a national holiday’s declared when Di comes to the end of stitching a binding down. But when I trawled back through this year’s photos I couldn’t suppress a tiny “Hooray” of my own.

Hey, small projects count as finishes too – don’t they?

I’ve made sock monkeys (“Stella” for Toni’s Auction for Queensland Flood Relief, and “Blossom” for the St Luke’s Hospital fundraiser).  Along with my friends Di B and Gail I made origami bags for the Gumtree Designers’ New Beginnings appeal after the QLD floods.

In addition, for the St Luke’s Hospital (Potts Point) fundraising event mid-year I crocheted and knitted baby bootees and beanies, sewed pincushions and pink origami bags embroidered with grub roses, and created a ‘parliament’ of cute little sock owls.

I sent off two cosy knitted cowls to Sarah, shivering with the approach of winter in the USA – they arrived there just a day before she left for tropical Botswana (but that’s another story!). My dear friends Moo and Margaret scored mug mats for their birthdays this year, and there were baby singlets appliqueed with an elephant, a teddy bear and a ladybug for our new grandson, Jack.

And there were just enough quilt finishes to keep those principalities happy . I had great fun making the red, white and navy hippo quilt for Jack, and tried my hand at a quilt-as-you-go scrappy quilt that went, along with others from St Mark’s Quilters, to help victims of the Christchurch (NZ) earthquake.

I managed to complete several Blankets of Love for RPA Newborn Care, and put the finishing touches on my Scrappy Hexagons quilt which hung in the Victorian Quilters’ Fabric of Society Challenge at the Melbourne Craft and Quilt Fair in July.

Then there were the projects Di B and I worked on together, though when I think back to our stitching days throughout the year I’m amazed we were so productive with all the fun and laughter going on.

We delved deep into our scrap bins for the most colourful and girly fabrics we could find and made a large hourglass-patterned bed quilt for our friend Alicia’s 60th birthday. This was extra-sneaky of us since we’d only just completed a bowtie quilt Alicia had asked us to make for her to give her friend Ian, and she certainly wasn’t expecting to be presented with a quilt of her own at her birthday party in January.

Our St Mark’s Quilters made individual blocks with appliqueed teddy bears which Di and I sewed together into a quilt for the arrival of our Assistant Minister’s new baby boy in the middle of the year.

We quilted and bound a large cheater cloth in time to cover the table in the entrance to St Mark’s for the Advent and Christmas season, and Di helped me sew and machine quilt all the “healing hearts” blocks sent to my mother by Southern Cross Quilters when my father passed away last year. This was a real labour of love.

Finally, there were the cupcake potholders we made as Christmas gifts for our lovely St Mark’s Quilters. Let’s just say the question “Whose bright idea was this, anyway?” might have been uttered a few times, as we tried to wrangle several thicknesses of fabric and batting beneath our sewing machine feet and machine needles constantly broke under the pressure of stitching through Insulbrite. We expended quite a bit of blood, sweat and … laughter on that project .

* Non-quilters, be assured this isn’t some kind of masochistic plea. A fat quarter is just a small piece of fabric (18” x 22”) whose uses include small projects, piecing … and silly hyperbole such as this. 

I have a little more to add to this story about baby Morgan:

One of our St Mark’s Quilters, Ruth, has moved out of town but still makes Blankets of Love for us and keeps up with our doings via this blog. 

I was so excited when, after reading about Morgan, she emailed me this - “You’re not going to believe this! The couple featured were in the cabin next to us on that cruise.” Ruth and her DH shared the same dinner table with Paul and Leanne a couple of times, but Ruth had no idea of the drama that eventually unfolded and was very happy to hear the positive outcome.

What a small world it is – and what an uplifting ending to 2011!

Happy New Year, everyone. God bless you and thank you for reading my ramblings.

Di

A warm hug from home

It’s getting mighty cold in Virginia. *

As if my weather apps weren’t enough, the sight of a beanie-clad Sarah on my computer screen, snuggled under more and more layers of clothing each time we Skype, is a dead giveaway.

Though I‘m a little rusty on the knitting front, I’ve rummaged for my knitting needles and yarn and managed to knit up two cowls over the last month which I hope will keep her a little warmer.

This first one was my own design.

I’m new to circular needles, but it didn’t take long to master the technique. Don’t know why I’ve avoided them for so long really.

She’s currently living and working in Hokie territory, so maroon was a natural choice, but nothing could have induced me to include the other VT colour – orange! Sorry guys.

This cowl is quite versatile. It concertinas down to a sit comfortably around her neck, but can be pulled up over her head to keep her ears warm when she’s walking to and from the lab (or at a football game).

I made another one, too, using this easy free pattern from Revelry.

It’s not as wide and hugs the neck a little closer than the Hokie cowl.

That popcorn stitch adds style, and the crochet picot edging gives a nice finish.

I sent them off on their long journey in a “care package” last week, and I hear they’re already serving their purpose well

Di

*It’s getting mighty cold here in Sydney (Australia) too, when we should be basking in summer sun. But that’s another story…

What a lucky duck!

Tonight this precious little man is off on a big jet plane, with his Mummy and Daddy, to enjoy a holiday in a country far away.

Though it’s summer there, it can still be a bit chilly. So Nanna (his great-grandma), Sarah (his aunty) and I (his grandma) each decided to make Jack something comforting and warm for the trip.

Nanna made him a beautiful blue woollen jumper. I know he liked it because he immediately reached out his little hand to stroke the soft texture. Ahh, there’s nothing like a hand-knitted jumper from Nanna.

Sarah decided Jack needed a light but snuggly flannelette quilt, to keep him warm.

She simply sandwiched two pieces of flannelette together – one plain red and the other featuring yellow ducklings – and quilted them with straight diagonal lines.

Then she bound it with a blue starry cotton, perfect for a little boy who needs a comforting snuggle as he travels.

I’m so proud at the way she’s mastered the art of the mitred corner …

Finally, I made Jack a pair of crocheted sneaker-style booties so his little toes won’t get cold.

 

Bye bye, Jack – what a lucky duck!

Di