All together now: awwww!

Isn't it nice to see your handiwork being appreciated?

I swear, no-one covered Sampson with the quilt. My husband found him like this recently one chilly morning and took a photo to show me when I got home.

Isn't he cute?

who can sew when there's a cat around?

Sampson was a wonderful help on the weekend...

But there's no way I can get angry with him - he's just too sweet!

Bonnie's baby blanket

I recieved some great mail this week, but my husband is currently asleep and I can't get to the camera without waking him (see what happens when you work from home? sleeping in!), so I thought I'd share the blanket I made in 2007 for the birth of my cousin's first child - Bonnie Blossom!

At the time, I was attending classes in Mill Park in Melbourne with my Mum, her friend and her friends daughter and on the walls of our classroom were lots of embroidered woolen blankets. One of the other women in the class and myself asked if we could make one too - and our wonderful teacher Pene agreed.

I used a soft flannel for the back and satin ribbon for the edge

From my photocopy of the pattern pieces, I can see that this was called "The Duckling" and was designed by Libby Vater of South Australia, however, unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the book the pattern came from.

the page for this blanket in my quilting journal

As I was making this blanket, I discovered my cousin was pregnant - phew! I refuse to keep any of the baby or kids quilts, toys or blankets I make so as to not jinx ourselves for the future! One of my favourite things about this blanket is the butterfly wings which I stitched in a sparkly thread and I have been told Bonnie loves to play with them too. Bonnie turns 2 in April - I'd better start thinking about her birthday present!

Thankyou all for you lovely comments on my pincushion/wallhanging. Hopefully I will get it finished this week to show you. And just because I thought it was cute - here's Sampson enjoying some wadding!

Happy Belated Birthday Mum!

This weekend was spent almost entirely struggling with the quilting of the quilt top I put together for my new baby cousin Belle. It seems that it could not be quilted parallel or perpendicular to the edges of the quilt but only diagonally. I tried machine quilting it with 3 different feet on my machine, with different thread tensions and stitch length, I pulled the 3 layers apart, pulled the pieces of the backing apart, re-cut them and then re-stitched it together, then re-basted the 3 layers and tried quilting it again… Nothing I did would help – the back kept bunching up underneath my quilting stitches. Boy was it annoying. There was a lot of swearing and stamping of feet that’s for sure. I have no idea why it wouldn’t quilt in straight lines – perhaps the fabric wasn’t 100% cotton and possibly had some polyester in it? Or maybe the fabric was placed on the bias? I have no idea. All I know is that I was mighty annoyed! It is quilted now, just not in the pattern I wanted. Oh well! Hopefully I will be able to bind it tonight and send it off before Christmas.

It was my Mum’s birthday last week – Happy belated Birthday Mum! I made her a journal cover, based on the patterns by Janelle Wind, but with some changes. The butterfly is placed on the cover with raw edge appliqué – which I think turned out pretty well. I like the way the edges frayed a little.

And of course, I had a little helper while I was taking my photos! It's a little dark, but he's there!
I hope everyone had a less frustrating weekend than I did with a bit more sewing!

first up...

After enjoying reading many different craft and food related blogs over the past 18 or so months, I have finally decided to take the plunge and start my own blog. My husband calls me a 20-something Nanna because of my love of all things homely. OK, maybe not all things, I definitely don't love the vacuuming! But I love to cook and I love to sew.


So for my first post - Sarah from Quilt Fabric Delights has asked members of her Pincushion of the Month club to show her what she would see should she hand deliver the next pincushion kit to our homes. To start with, Sarah would see something lovely like this:



and then when she came into our home she would probably see my kitten Sampson doing something cheeky like this:



Please note - Sampson was not harmed whilst posing for this photo!