I fell in love.....

.....with this gorgeous quilt, from the current issue (107) of Quiltmania.....

It is called 'Brinton Hall', and the minute I saw it, it really was one of those 'I love that so much' breathtaking moments, and I do just adore it - but, sadly, let's be honest here LOL, at the rate I sew it would probably take me about 15 years to make it..... 

It is going to be published in 2 parts, so I am anxiously awaiting the next issue.

Nevertheless, as much as I love it, I decided I absolutely could not start it until I had finished a few other things first, and given my sewing stuff a good sort and tidy.....

.....only to find myself on Friday saying to my lovely friend Gabbie, hey, let's do THIS quilt together..... *insert rolling eyes*.....

Gabbie was at my house on Friday, and while we were looking at some things on pinterest, she saw this Kim Diehl quilt and loved it, and I remembered the pattern had come out in one of the American quilt magazines some time ago, which I just happened to have....  I dug it out to give to her, and of course, as all good friends do, I offered to join her!

As it happens, I have been looking at Kim Diehl quilts a lot just recently and had literally just the day before started a 'Kim Diehl' board on pinterest.  I love her designs, but I really love how she uses colour, and puts colours together.  

So it kind of felt a bit 'meant to be'..... particularly when Gabbie realised she had the same magazine
at home too! 

I think we will break it down into sections and do a bit each month, a bit like a block of the month, so hopefully there is a good chance it will get done.....

In the meantime, I have started playing with the layout of my hexie blocks, and I am having fun.....

xx

fridays.....

Apart from the obvious reason, Friday is my favourite day of the week. It's the day I go to sit n sew at my LQS, a couple of times a month it's either FNWF or FNSI, and I usually meet up with my sister or a friend 

for coffee or lunch.

At sit n sew this week, Gabbie shared her amazing and beautiful quilt she has been working on. I LOVE this, the colours are beautiful - and I have claimed first dibs on it if she ever gives it away!!

This week Gabbie was also working on her small quilt which is in gorgeous colours too.....

I have been working on my pincushion kit which Sue kindly sent me - perfect 'Tania" colours, thanks Sue!

Unfortunately progress is VERY slow going as my hand is still quite painful, but I will get there in the end.....

Hopefully at some point it will look something like this -

Last night of course was FNWF which I spent trimming my hexie blocks so I can start putting them together

...and starting a small secret project involving these,,,,,

~

A little while ago I joined instagram, and while I haven't put much on there, I shared these photos of some things I have loved doing recently -

...a fun visit to Typo after my last oncology visit

I just LOVED this 'fox' calendar so it came home with me - aren't the eyes amazing!  And it goes from Aug 2015, right through to Dec 2016

a fun coffee date with my gorgeous niece...

a freezing, frosty morning spent tucked up in a warm bed with a snuggly puppy and playing on pinterest

... and reading this book which I am really enjoying.

Hope your Friday was fun, and I wish you all a fantastic weekend

xx

it's that time again, yay!

yep... friday night with friends, this friday night... sign up with Cheryll over here...

hope to see you there!

xx

christmas in july ~ the gifts I sent....

These are the gifts I sent to Nanette in the Christmas in July swap -

a Christmas Cushion - I realised afterwards there is no "D" in Christmas for Decorations lol!  Or I guess it could be "H" and "T" for Hanging Things!!

a Star and Holly table mat

 

and an Inspirational words, Star wall hanging

I also sent a vintage style Christmas mug, but forgot to take a picture of that- but Nanette has one on her blog.

I must admit I was happy with what I made, but very relieved all the same that Nanette liked them too!!

Thanks again to Cheryll for the Christmas fun!

xx 

christmas in july ~ completely and thoroughly spoiled.....

.....by Anthea, in Chez's Christmas in July swap.  I just love everything she sent me, and she was/is so generous!

You may know, if you read Anthea's blog, that she and her family are going through a very sad time at the moment, and I wish her much love and lots of hugs. Anthea has sent me some very lovely, kind and thoughtful emails since I was diagnosed with cancer last year, and I have felt very glad to know her online, and felt quite excited my swap gifts were from her.

Here are the gorgeous parcels, wrapped in lovely paper - yes I unwrapped them while still in bed!

 ..... and here are the gorgeous things she sent me -

gorgeous 'Holly the Dolly'.....

a  lovely 'T' ornament.....

and this sweet bag.....

I got a lovely giggle out of the little note Anthea sent with her bag  - if you can't read it, it says 'a fun little goody bag... do wish someone 'piece' or 'peace'? (Take a good look at the words on the fabric!).... 

maybe it's Christmas fabric for quilters lol!

and these are gorgeous - a 'surfing Santa' knife, an angel snowglobe, and a 'Candy Cane Lane' candle 

I just loved them all.  Thank you so much Anthea!

And now I'm off for a cuppa and a lolly or two..... 

back tomorrow with what I sent to Nanette

xx

FNSI, a catch up, and sewing frustrations.....

I still don't seem to have been able to get into the practice of blogging regularly, as I had planned to do.....

Anyway, here is a sort of catch up, as most of the sewing that has been happening here has been 
Secret Sewing.  There has been this.....

my parcels sent off for Chez's Christmas in July swap.....

and this.....started on Friday night during one of my favourite nights of the month, FNSI, hosted by Wendy

...the beginnings of a gift I am making for a friend, from French General fabrics.  I had hoped to finish this and get it off in the mail this week, however......

VERY frustratingly, both my sewing machine and I have sustained Sewing Injuries..... (a half-hearted lol...)

I seem to have wrecked my thumb, possibly caused by too much hand sewing and hand quilting in too short a time, which is making hand sewing and generally just trying to grip things very difficult and painful.... 
and yesterday I managed to damage my sewing machine too.....

I was on the very last block of 16, the previous 15 having worked perfectly, doing some machine applique, and was having some difficulty in getting my bottom thread to come through to the top.  I think I must have been a bit over-zealous in pulling on the top thread to pop the bottom thread through..... I'm not really sure how it happened, but the needle, going down, hit the plate, bent and broke, and now the whole needle mechanism seems to have been thrown out of alignment, as when I now put the needle down it either hits the foot or the plate.  

With a new needle in, some gentle wiggling and nudging took place, and then a bit more forceful pushing and pulling... some swearing may have been involved....  but it seems we are both now pretty much out of action sewing-wise.

I am so frustrated, as I had a list of things I wanted to get finished this month, and was doing well with them.  So I guess I will resort to preparing projects as much as I am able, and a bit of tidying up and reorganising my sewing stuff will not go astray - and thank goodness I don't currently have any urgent deadlines to meet!

I am missing my sewing though.....

fnwf....

It's another favourite night tomorrow night ~ fnwf.....

Hope you can join us.  Sign-ups are on Cheryll's blog here,

and thanks to Cheryll for again hosting this fun night for us.

xx

an inspiring post - the slow stitching movement.....

I just read this post, found via Pam Buda's 'Heartspun Quilts' blog, and found it really inspiring.

Here is the link if you would like to read it too.....

xx

a lovely weekend.....

A lovely weekend was had here with good friends and some sewing just for fun.

On Saturday, Patch and Quilt here in Gisborne held a book launch for Irene Blanck and her new book 'Focus on Applique', published by Quiltmania.

Last year Irene had an exhibition of her quilts here at Mary's shop, and they are truly exquisite.  You can see some photos here.

Irene's new book is beautiful, with many gorgeous projects within its pages.

Tracee, Marg and I meet up with some of our 'City Girl' friends, Elyte, Marina and Anne, and as always, it was a fun day filled with much laughter.

Elyte, Marg, Irene and Tracee

Tracee, Anne and Marg in deep quilty discussion.....

Hmmmm, is this fabric going to work.....

Three lovely ladies... Elyte, Marina and Irene

Irene ready to sign her books, with Mary and Ashleigh working hard behind.....

We ended up making a day of it, meeting at 10.30 for coffee, then

off to the book signing, then out for lunch.  I really had the most enjoyable and fun day, it was wonderful.

Elyte, Anne, Marina and myself have signed up for a 'Clamshells' class in August with Irene, and I am really looking forward to it.

Some sewing just for fun was also done.  I have been wanting to make some small fabric baskets for awhile now to hold the million and one scraps accumulating around the house, with each basket colour matching the scraps it will hold.  During the week I searched out some patterns, and decided to give this one a go, by Rachel Griffiths of PS I Quilt.  This was obviously quite a small basket, but I made it in its original size to practice the construction, and then played with the size to make a bigger basket. 

Two baskets later.....

I was really happy with these, and they are really quick and easy to make - the qulting of the fabric takes the most time.  You can see that the first one is quite small compared with my rotary cutter. I was really happy with the second one, but I think some more pattern tweaking is in order, to end up with a size about half way between the two.

I really enjoyed making these, and the pattern also has an option for handles, so they also make a cute little gift bag.  More of these little baskets are now definitely on the to do list.

Hope your weekend was as much fun as mine! xx

ouch.....

I love to watch my nephew play basketball, and try to go each week.  Yesterday his Mum had something else on and couldn't take him (for the first time!), so I took him down.  15 minutes into the game, my nephew pulled up in a lot of pain, having rolled his ankle.  All the local doctors had closed by that time, so with lots of icing it overnight, my sister took him to the doctor this morning.

Possibly broken, or severely damaged ligaments.....

Ouch.... x-rays tomorrow, and crutches for the next few days at least.....

Hope you're not in too much pain sweetie.....

two small finishes.....

I finished this mini quilt last weekend ~ it was my second attempt at hand quilting something, and I was happy with how it turned out. This pattern is from 'Prairie Children and Their Quilts' by Kathleen Tracy.  Thank you Tracee for the gorgeous hanger!

Back in May, I joined in with Chookyblue for her 3rd birthday Chookshed party - apologies for being a little late in posting about it (I was internet-less and camera-less for a little while there!).  I spent the birthday weekend working on a birthday gift for my lovely friend Marg - this cushion, a Gail Pan pattern, but with a different stitchery, also a Gail Pan design, appliqued on the front.  The front of this cushion is also hand quilted, but with big stitches.  I did forget to take a photo, so have borrowed this one from Sue.....  I must admit, I was very happy with this bit of sewing!

The cushion and the stitchery are from Gail's book, Patchwork loves Embroidery', which I love.  I have stitched a few designs out of it, all waiting to be made into something soon....

Back in March I went with a few lovely friends to a sewing day with Gail Pan and Ramona Hermann, which was a fantastic day out.  Sue has a great post about it on her blog here.

Back soon!

xx

fnsi results....

I had a lovely night, making some progress on my hexie quilt - another three blocks done, with the hexie flowers sewn onto their backgrounds.

Apologies for the not so great photo ~

My little floral dish did have some chocolates in it....... temporarily lol.....

I hope you had a great night too

xx

fnsi....

It's that lovely time again......

FNSI is on again this Friday evening, where you can join in with lots of other likeminded craftaholics for a fun evening of dedicated sewing/crafting, and perhaps something yummy to eat and drink too.

Hosted by Wendy, head on over here to sign up, and to see what lovely projects your fellow FNSIers are working on.

Thank you once again to the lovely Wendy for hosting this fun night.

Hope to see you there!

xx

february fnsi.....

It's FNSI time again......  to sign up for this fun evening, just head on over to Wendy's, here.....

This is always a lovely evening of shared creativity, and lots of thanks to Wendy for hosting again.

Hope to see you there! xx

fnsi..... sewing with bonnie & camille

FNSI saw me working on a new quilt (as you do; even though you only plan to work on UFOs and gifts, and not start anything new!).  I actually started it a couple of weeks ago for FNWF, after I got Camille Roskelley's book 'Simply Retro' from the library and fell in love with this quilt, 'Fresh'.  

Star quilts are a favourite of mine, and I thought this one was gorgeous.  And having a little stash of Bonnie and Camille fabrics, mostly 'Bliss', and along with buying a few extra bits and pieces from some of their current ranges to round out the colours and designs I have, will hopefully make this a beautiful quilt.

Not a lot of sewing so far.... lots of cutting, a little bit of sewing, and laying out a few blocks ahead.

 

There are a lot of pieces in this quilt, so I imagine it's going to take a while to make, but I am enjoying the process.

Hope you had a fun FNSI too.  To see what everyone else got up to, pop on over here; thank you to Wendy for hosting another great night.

Tania xx