Dear Jane day.

Went to my monthly Dear Jane class yesterday.  We're down to 6 ladies now, a very cold, wet dreary day so I'm not surprised that 3 ladies didn't attend.
I finished my 20th block!!!  These little blocks are taking over my world at the moment, so I've decided to take a week off and get back to some other sewing. 

Here is my little purple lovely with some other blocks.
anyway, I need to catch up on some Joseph's Coat blocks for the stitch along with Kellie of Don't Look Now.  Catch up is probably not the word I'm looking for.  I actually need to start the blocks!  I have been making the little peel shapes ready to applique down for ages.  Need to actually sew some down.  We have a class with Kellie in June, at Patchwork House  in Hawthorn.  Anyone who's interested is welcome to call Kylie at Patchwork House for details, you don't need to be anywhere in particular with the quilt.  Just as well really, as I'm no further along since our first get-together earlier this year!

Friday Night Sew-In.

Unfortunately, this months Friday Night Sew-In coincided with me working until 10pm.  However, once home I made the most of it and sewed for a couple of hours-trying to  finish up a couple of Dear Jane blocks that I had prepped and ready to go.
I love sewing these little gems.  Tiny pieces of fabric, tiny seams, tinier applique.  Don't be fooled, however.  These tiny blocks don't take a tiny amount of time to prepare and sew together.  I find it so easy to get caught up in "just a couple more pieces and then I'll go to bed."  Before I know it, it's 2 hours later!
Here are my blocks - 1 completed, one almost.

Look at that lovely sunshine streaming in through the window, shadowing my work.  It's the last week of Autumn here in Australia and the cold has hit.  I'm looking forward to Winter, and hopefully some rain.  This is my favourite time of year.

Where did the day go?

What happened to today?
I got up as usual and said goodbye to everyone as they left.  Had breakfast and my shower.  That's when the time loss began.
I've been having problems with motivation lately, as evidenced by my lack of posts!  Anyway, it wasn't because of lack of projects.  I had fabric and projects coming out my ears.  This morning I decided that this was the problem.  I like to work on a couple of projects at the same time, but I'd been pulling fabrics from my fabric resource library (sounds impressive LOL) for each step of each project and had a big mess everywhere I looked.  No wonder I couldn't sit down to sew and relax.
So, I started to tidy my sewing room this morning.  Oh what a job.  Putting away in the correct container seemed like a perfect solution at the beginning.  Well, 4 hours in, I was so over it all!!  I was also vacuuming, dusting as I went so you do understand how I felt!
After doing this all day I now have carpet back. LOL.  I knew it was there somewhere, just couldn't see it.

Remember my stepladder AKA another perfect horizontal storage surface from a few posts ago?  Well, here it is all clean  and ready for use to climb.

The pile of fabric to the left of the first photo is actually waiting to be put away into tubs in the morning.  As I came across pieces of fabric, I either threw away or made a pile for  storage.  I like to store my fabric by colour for the most part.  But I also have separate a 1930's  tub and a Civil War repro tub. 

So, everything has ended up off the floor and onto the bench.  This lot needs to be sorted too, but I'm awfully glad to have it off the floor and I know where most of it needs to live now.

All the errant projects now live in thesed very nice project boxes from my local $2 shop.  When I'm motivated to sew on something in particular, I can just grab the box and all the fabrics are there.
The gorgeous red box has my Dear Jane things in it.  I've been steadily stitching away on those pesky little blocks.
I'm tired after all that, off to bed! LOL. 

CRISIS Averted!!!

Well, just had a very happy phone call from GF Ms A.  We have been waiting for some fabric from Hancocks of Paducah for 29 DAYS.  A lifetime when you're waiting.  Today it decided to arrive.  I have to admit that I was starting to wonder if it was going to come.  Usually an order, (yes, I've had a few!), takes about 8 days to arrive.  Apparently, the parcel has turned up at Ms A's house in a bag from Suisse Post!!
Talk about around the world.  I think we're most upset because it went to Europe without us.
Although we are very thankful the parcel turned up, now we want to know why it took the very scenic route on its way here.  It also got caught up in the volcano problems.  If only that bag could talk.  LOL

It's always nice when a quilt comes home.  I received a quilt back from my long-arm quilter Wendy of Honeypot Quilting near Bendigo.  I have absolute trust in Wendy- hand over quilt and let her "do whatever you think is needed."
This is Civil War 2 from a pattern by Susan at Patchwork on Stonleigh in Wodonga.

Sorry about the photo.  I couldn't find a big enough piece of floor space to spread the quilt out.  It's about 95" square.  All those flying geese.

This is it's sister quilt- Civil War 1.  Must be slightly smaller  as it fit the space!  LOL.  There are about 1500 1 1/2" squares in the sashing.  Honestly, if I hadn't cut out the squares before I started anything else, I doubt if this quilt would be finished.

I love stripes for binding.  Need to find a good one for CW 2. 
The quilting in these quilts is fantastic.  All free hand too.  I need to take a couple of pics of the quilting to show.

What to do first.

Well, since I returned from the best weekend away ever in stitching history, I haven't been able to sit at one thing.  My kitchen table is covered in 3 projects which are all demanding equal time from me.
I found a pattern and fabric for pincushions just before we left for Adelaide..  I do need extra pincushions- the one I use is never in the right place.

The pattern actually has 5 pincushions in it, so of course I need to make them all.  I'm on to my second one so far.  Suddenly it's become an obsession. 

I really love the little heart button in the centre.
Next on the list is a lovely buttery yellow embroidered little pincushion.

In between times, I'm being drawn to trying to finish the stitching that I started in Adelaide.  It will be the feature panel on a bag one day!  LOL.

She'll look much better once she has a face.
And lastly, I'm still working away at my Dear Jane blocks.  We have our  second get-together tomorrow.  Although our homework was to complete 4 in the month, I'm trying to get nearly a row a month done.  That's 13 little blocks, so that I'm nearly done when our classes finish.  Lets not think about the triangles and kites around the border!
So far, so good.  This month I've completed 9 blocks, almost finished a tenth, and have 3 more prepped and ready to go.
I've been stitching on the little sashing strips as I go to.  I started sewing the first row - have got to block7.  But then I changed my mind and now I'm starting in the middle and working out.  Jane made the Quilt in a Trip around the world style.  So hopefully this will make colour choices easier.

So, blocks A1 and A2.

A3 and A4.  These blocks all have their sashing added and have been sewn together in 1 big row. 

A5 and A6.

Last but not least- A7.

Then, there are G 6 and G 8, and then H7 (almost finished).  This is my new start - I'm sewing in the round the world style from the centre.

Unfortunately, the colour is a little off in some of these photos, but close enough.
Well, back to the stitching.
Hope everyone else is being productive or is planning their next project.

More Inspired Stitches...

What a fantastic weekend was had.
Two lovely and friendly teachers, with beautiful, achievable projects.
Firstly , Natalie Lymer, was showing us her newest patterns for a gorgeous bucket bag, needle book and gadget bags.

The colours are lovely and fresh, just perfect for these projects and the stitcheries are done in a wonderful thread that I haven't used before- Cosmo.  I may have to accumulate a selection of these threads.

We also had Natalie Ross tutoring us in some of her fabulous projects.

Firstly a lovely little bucket bag with a delicious strawberry appliqued onto it, then some embroidered flowers to embellish the panel on the bag.  This was accompanied by a "sewing machine wristie"- a sweet pincushion to go on the machine which even I could not knock off.  (which is what usually happens when I sit the pincushion on top of my machine).
This was joined by a lanyard to go around the neck with a strawberry pincushion and scissors holder, but unfortunately I didn't get a pic of this.

 The lovely display from Natalie Lymer. of Cinderberry Stitches.

Joined by an equally lovely display from Natalie Ross of In Stitches
We ladies from Victoria had such a good time at this retreat, that we have already started to talk about "when we go to the In Stitches retreat" for next year.
Sarah and her very capable crew from Quilt Fabric Delights thought of everything.
The room was comfortable, well lit with natural light.  The food- well lets just say we could have gone without our evening meal each day and we'd never have noticed!  Friendly ladies on our tables,  goody bags with patterns, starter kits, lollies.  Everything was there.
Accomodation was sooooo above standard.  The Retreat was held at a boarding school in Adelaide, we stayed in the boarding houses.  Let me tell you, there were no dormitories.

This was our spacious self contained 3 bed room unit.
Our lodgings were so good that GF Mrs G excelled herself and actually finished one of our stitchery projects!!!

This is Sarah and I standing in front of some of her bright and luscious fabric.  I did try to restrain myself with purchases, but when you're locked in a room for the weekend with all of that, what was I to do???