I haven’t always made quilts

…but I’ve always loved creating with needle and thread.  This is the house we lived in twenty years ago which I commemorated in cross-stitch at the time.

I started by making a sketch of the house on reasonably fine graph paper, but ignoring the grid. 

Then I went over the sketch, translating all the curved lines into squared off outlines.

The fun really started when I took out my trusty Derwent pencils and coloured in all the squares, then made a collection of stranded threads in corresponding colours.

I loved ‘painting’ with the threads, and was quite relaxed about changing the outlines as I went.  The house has been extended since we left, and looks quite different, so I’m very glad I have this memento of our home.

Here we go. This is it. Taaa daaa...The Giveaway!

It's a double celebration - Sarah's SEWN Launch Party and my (almost) 10,000th visit.

I've used some leftover fabric from my Chocolat quilt to create two useful little items to have by your side when handstitching - a hexie pincushion and a handy threadcatcher.

In addition, I've included a whole metre of lovely chocolatey floral fabric from Moda's "Peace on Earth" range.

There might be a little something extra popped in too (the clue is in the name of the quilt these scraps came from:-)

To enter, please leave me a comment below before midnight (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on 7th June 2009. This is the only blog post on which I am accepting entries for the draw which will take place on 8th June 2009.

If you go and tell your friends about my giveaway through your blog I'll give you an extra entry - but you'll have to pop back here and leave an extra comment telling me you've done this because I'm using a numbered comments system to make using the Random Number generator easier.

I'm just a simple soul :-))

UPDATE Monday 8th June:
I've now closed comments for this Giveaway. Thank you to all who've kindly left comments and entered the draw. I will be choosing the winner this afternoon, using the Random Number Generator.

Cheers,

Clang!!! "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage. Operation aborted."

Photo by rcrowley

That's the nasty message that flashed on my screen and jangled my eardrums every time I tried to open my blog this morning. It felt almost as if I'd been locked out of my own home and, like a woman possessed, I trawled the internet in search of a solution. (If you recall this episode you'll already know how much I hate to admit defeat when it comes to computer technology.)

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The answer was a simple one in the end. If this ever happens to you, and you use Blogger, you can forget the advice that tells you to go into Tools and disable your computer Add-ons such as Skype etc: tried that, to no avail. Or to download the latest version of Internet Explorer: even when I had my shiny new Internet Explorer 8 installed and working, the lock-out continued.
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What worked for me was removing the Friends Connect application.

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It sounds a tad harsh, but I found this gem of advice in a user forum where an expert warned that this little widgety thing, nice as it is, can cause the doors to slam in your face. He recommended removing it, then reinstating it. However I haven't been brave enough to give it another try just yet, and I can't answer the big question as to whether you'll lose all your Friends this way.
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Could be a choice of being homeless or friendless. Boo hoo.

[If you're wondering about the asterisks, I've taken a leaf out of Lurline's book - though not as pretty as the hearts she uses for the same purpose. It's just the easiest way to trick Blogger into leaving paragraph breaks. Not a happy Blogger bunny tonight....]

It's about time I had a Giveaway!

[Since I posted earlier today about my Giveaway I've been experiencing terrible problems opening my blog to view the new post - and judging by the lack of response, I know many of you have too. So I've taken down that post and will wait until this issue is resolved before putting up the actual post where I'd like you to comment to enter the Giveaway. Please wait until that post appears - hopefully the technical problems will be resolved soon!]

Goodness, I just looked at my counter and realised my 10,000th visitor (or 10,000th hit to be more precise) is only a few weeks off. I can almost hear the gate opening and footsteps on the path.

So I'm celebrating this 10,000th visit (just a little early) with a giveaway - my very first.

I was going to have one anyway, to coincide with Sarah's SEWN Launch Party on 8th June, but I'm sure she won't mind if I combine the two.

SEWN promises to be a wonderful new website for sewers of all kinds, just brimming with resources! 8th June is the date for the big unveiling and there'll be giveaways galore being drawn that day.

Please watch soon for details of mine!

Tutorial – How to applique a tiny (1 cm) circle/dot

At first glance Snowflake Medallion looks fairly straight forward, if on the repetitive side. 

But, as Linda and I have discovered, it has a couple of challenges - for example, appliqueeing 72 tiny 1 centimetre dots to the flower applique blocks.

For me, tracing the tiny circle onto mylar, cutting out the shape and drawing up the fabric over the shape with a gathering thread was not an option.  Try as I might I simply could not cut the edges of such a minute disk of plastic smoothly enough, and bumpy edges can really show when you’re dealing with pieces this small.  

And the thought of cutting out multiples of these babies?  No way, Jose.

The quest – Find 72 ready-made 1 centimetre circular shapes. 

The solution – Sequins!

(Forget the dimpling – the edge really was smooth.)

I held the sequin on the fabric while I traced around it, then cut out the circle leaving the smallest seam allowance I could get away with. 

Then I ran a running stitch around and gathered up the fabric over the sequin.  I drew it up quite tightly, and just left a small tail of thread (it held OK without securing it, and made life easier a little later). I had quite a bulky little bunch at the back, but this was OK. 

 

 

 

 

 

My sequin was ever-so-slightly convex, so I made sure the convex side was on top as it was much easier to sew to the background this way.  I was able to push any excess fabric under with my needle as I stitched the dot down, so the slight bumpiness in the photo above was easily smoothed in the process.

Once appliqueed, I turned my work over and simply cut a tiny circle out from beneath the shape.  Then I prised the sequin out, quite easy to do because I had left my gathering unsecured in that earlier step.

 

 

 

 

 

At this stage I could have done a tiny bit  more careful trimming of the raspberry fabric from the back, but I prefer to leave a little bulk so that the dots have more dimension on the finished quilt.

Result? A small (but reasonably perfectly formed!) 1 centimetre dot!

[Now bring on all those jokes about going dotty – I can take it!!]

Footnote: Another advantage of this method is that you can have a whole assembly-line of dots going.  My two packets of sequins together cost me $2 so I wasn’t in the least upset when my sequins often emerged bent and un-reusable at the end.

The fabulous Giveaway I won …. or did I?

I’ve been very excitedly awaiting this parcel from Kellie at Don’t Look Now, and when it arrived last week the contents – her “Sugar Candy” cushion and cheeky monkey Amy – didn’t disappoint. Kellie’s workmanship is meticulous, and her machine quilting technique is to-die-for.  If you have the opportunity to take one of her classes you should grab it with both hands. I managed to stop drooling over this exquisite work long enough to take these photos for you to see Kellie’s creation up close. The spots on the ladybug’s back are created by machine.  How clever is that?  And as for the lovely Amy… Let me just say that Kellie sure knows how to stuff a monkey!  Amy has the firmest biceps and tightest abs of any sock monkey I’ve met and makes my own sock monkeys look positively limp-wristed.  You go girl!

Why the question mark over whether or not I won?  Well, my name didn’t actually come out in Kellie’s draw.  But my kind-hearted bloggy friend Lindi’s name did, and she had secretly entered  for me!!

Isn’t that just the loveliest thing you’ve heard today?

Let’s hear it for Lindi – Yaaaayyyy Lindi!!!   (Thank you again, dear friend)

Another Giveaway spotted

The Crafty Librarian is celebrating her 100th blog post with a SURPRISE giveaway! Just thought you might be interested.

Cheers,