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.....

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

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

fnsi & another lovely weekend.....

It's been another lovely weekend here, starting with FNSI, and continuing through until tonight.

There has been lots of sewing - FNSI saw me making my 'homework' block for the underground railroad quilt project, a log cabin block - actually it's been a weekend for 'building' log cabins(!) as I worked on some of my small log cabin blocks too.

homework block

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am taking part in the Huckleberry Stitches 'Kathleen Tracy/Prairie Children and Their Quilts' quilt along, and I have now finished the 12 blocks needed for this quilt.  This mini quilt has a total of 156 pieces, so there has been lots of cutting and sewing.  My blocks are now ready to put together.

I did struggle with putting these together.  By the time I started the second 'round', they started to get very wonky, so I actually drew up the log cabins as a foundation piecing pattern and made them that way, and am much happier with them.  I also tried to make them pretty scrappy, so I will see if that worked when I put them all together!

I also made a bag..... I have a bit of a love of foxes, both real and the crafty kind (show me a really cute fox softie and I nearly swoon lol!), so when I found this fabric last week at Lincraft, I could straight away imagine it in a bag -

During the week I looked for a bag pattern I liked and came across the '32 Minute Messenger Bag', a free pattern and tutorial on Amy Smart's 'Diary of a Quilter' blog.    Having not really made a bag before, I decided to make a practice version, before I cut up my cute foxy fabric and quite possibly ended up wrecking it.

Here is the result;  I used these fabrics from my stash

and ended up with this bag.....

I have to say, not being very experienced at bag making, it did take me quite a lot longer than 32 minutes, but I mucked around with the strap a bit.  I'm sure it will take me a lot less time next time..... but I am happy with how it turned out for my first attempt!

There was also my usual Saturday activity, watching my nephew play basketball, they had a good win yesterday which was great, and then this morning I took my nephew out for breakfast to our favourite cafe, 3 Little Pigs.  We had a fantastic time, my nephew is such great company and very funny.

So another lovely weekend has flown by; I hope your FNSI and weekend plans were fantastic too!

xx

fnsi.....

It's time for FNSI again - my favourite night of the month!

Well, along with FNWF, of course!

 

I've signed up with our wonderful organiser Wendy, here.  Are you joining in too?

fnsi - may 2014.....

I hope everybody had a lovely Friday night, both FNSIers and non-FNSIers alike!

Last night I worked on the next block in the Underground Railroad quilt, our 'homework' block for this month, Basket -

and I also started some knitting, a new winter scarf.  I loved this wool when I saw it in the shop, but am not sure I like it knitted up, at least not in this pattern.  I might try just a plain 2x2 rib and see how that looks....

One of my OPAM finishes for March was a pair of fingerless gloves which I made for my niece.  I had not shown them before now as I had not given them to her.... but I still haven't caught up with her to pass them on, so here they are.  She loves the minions from Despicable Me (even though she is 22!), so minions they are!

Today I am off to our Mill Rosie Friends group at Mill Rose Cottage, Ballan, for lots of fun, probably not a lot of sewing, and a delicious lunch.  It is always a lovely day with much hilarity, and as I have missed the last two, am really looking forward to it.  Hopefully, I will remember to take some photos!

Have a lovely weekend

xx

YAY! Photos now included......

No, I didn't find my camera cord..... It did occur to me, when I couldn't find it, to see if my computer had a slot for a memory card, and it doesn't, but in being so focused on and frustrated about the missing cord, I had completely forgotten that my little tablet DOES.  It took a gentle suggestion from Peg - thank you, Peg! - about checking for a memory card slot to prompt me to remember the tablet!  I'm a goose!!

So, firstly, my Easter mini swaps...  I sent this little Easter mini to Simone ~

of course, a bunny needs a little, fluffy tail ~

and this is the cute little mini I received from Maria ~

isn't he a cute little bunny ~

and Maria even hunted out some gorgeously pretty Easter egg fabric for the border ~

I feel so much better now that I have been able to show my Easter minis, sent and received!  Thank you Maria, and thank you to our amazing Swap Mama Cheryll.

  

The evening of Good Friday was FNSI, and I did some sewing on my Underground Railroad quilt blocks.  Since I had changed my colours, I needed to remake the first block.  The second block had come out too small and needed to be fixed, and I finally I needed to make the fourth block.  Results are as under - block 4 is still a work in progress ~

I am really happy with how my blocks are turning out.

Thank you to Wendy for hosting another fun FNSI.

Finallly, I had a couple of lovely gatherings with friends over the last week - but I think I will now save that for a blog post tomorrow!

xx

friday night sew in - march 2014.....

I'm joining in here tonight with lots of other crafty ladies, and kindly hosted by Wendy.  It's a fun night, and you can pop in over the weekend to visit all these ladies to see what crafty fun we all got up to! 

 

Hope to see you there.....

fnsi.....

A lovely evening was had here..... catching up on some favourite tv series' on ABC iview, and continuing to beaver away on this -

handquilting the Halloween wallhanging which will be sent off to our friend Jenny in New Zealand who just l.o.v.e.s Halloween

I hope you all had a lovely evening - joining in with FNSI or not! To see what all the other crafty participants got up to, you can see the list of who joined in on Wendy's blog here.  Thank you Wendy for organising this fun night!

Have a great weekend xx

fnsi september '13.....

Well, I did have a lovely evening, enjoying my first FNSI.....

I started earlier in the evening before dinner, quilting, trimming and machine sewing the binding on this mug rug for Shez ~

After dinner, with FNSI now in full swing, I hand sewed the binding down.  I must admit, I love this; this pink floral is some of my most favourite fabric ever.  I might just have to make one for myself!

Next up was sewing these hexies for Sue ~

Sue was asked to repair this quilt below for an acquaintance, but it has turned out to be a HUGE job, which has now gone on for a very long time.  She is on the last stretch now, but it has become a bit tedious, so I have been helping her out a little with making some of these hexie flowers using 1/2" hexies.  I actually really enjoy them (in fact, I can see a 1/2" hexie flower quilt or two somewhere in my future...), so these were sewn on Friday night.

and lastly, I made these hexies, ready for glue basting and sewing at our Mill Rosie friends get together tomorrow - more on that to follow.

I really enjoyed my first FNSI - it will definitely be in the diary from now on!