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