First of all, a big THANK YOU to everyone who entered my Everyday May Giveaway and for also reading and and commenting on my posts throughout the month! You’ve all been so lovely, patient and very helpful in everything you’ve written and shared with me!
So without further ado, the lucky random winner of my Everyday May Giveaway is….
Sharon Schipper!
Congratulations!!
I can’t wait to send out this lovely little package of quilting goodies!
Again, thank you to everyone who entered – I wish I had something special to giveaway to each and everyone of you!
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It’s come that time to say goodbye to the month of May… Lots of new and exciting things have happened and begun both in my quilting/sewing life as well as in my everyday life! Whew, it sure has been a busy one and I’m so glad I’ve been able to share all of it with you over the past 31 days! (Minus the five days I missed!)
You may’ve been wondering where I’ve been?! No word or post since last Wednesday! My bad! I tried so hard not to fail at writing and posting something each day in May but ended up falling at the last hurdle! Oh dear!
But to be completely honest with you, the past few days have been pretty busy with only today being the first time where I actually have a moment (and the energy) to sit and write.
Let’s start with the big news first! I’m working back at Spotlight again! Huzzah!
My sneaky selfie in the tea room!
I had my first shift back last Friday and then worked another day on Saturday. It was so great to be back. It felt as though I had been on a big (and very extended) holiday and finally returned back to reality! All of my old (but good) habits kicked back into place while the Sew Centre department I work in felt comfortable and familiar. There’s still a few things behind the scenes I’m a little bit rusty with, but my good-customer-service-hat is still in top notch and my internal struggle not to buy all the fabric has uncomfortably returned! Ahh!!
And on top of my very exciting return to work over the weekend, my body decided to treat me with a lovely and very annoying bout of Laryngitis! Yay! (Not!) So I’ve been drinking lots of Green Tea with lemon, sucking on Strepsils and rugging up under some deliciously warm and cosy quilts (the best medicine, I say!), in an effort to get better as soon as I can!
So because of these two things, I’ve yet again had to neglect my YouTube channel this weekend! (Boo!) I have two (with the potential of three) new videos to film, edit and upload for you over the next week or so… One being my April and May Favourites, the other a requested chatty catch-up video sharing with you all the things that are happening in life at the moment and then the potential third one being a vlog of the VIVID Light Festival that is currently happening in Sydney! We’ve been to the festival for the past two years and you can see the 2014 and 2015 videos here! So when I get my voice back to it’s full strength, I’ll do my best to get those videos up while working around my busy work/study schedule!
And speaking of study… I’ll be finishing my Floristry course in a little over two weeks!! OMG!! So exciting! Also, I know I mentioned that I would be doing a Flower Crown tutorial sometime during my Everyday May series… Unfortunately because of time restraints and lack of funds, I’ve had to push it back to another date that will be very soon! I’ll possibly turn it into a video tutorial on my channel! (And then after that I’ll be onto the beginning stages of planning our Star Sampler Quilt Along series!! Yay!)
As the month draws to a close, I hope that you’ve all entered my Everyday May Giveaway I announced last week??!! If you haven’t, it’s not too late! Just click here, read the blog post on how to enter and then leave your comment! The winner will be announced in tomorrows blog post!! BTW, I’ve been absolutely loving learning what kinds of books, people and platforms you love learning quilting and sewing from! I’m totes gonna check out some of those titles! 😀
Ooo, I love a good sewing/quilting related meme! When you find a fab one that you achingly relate to, it’s like finding gold right underneath your bobbin case! (I wish! Ha!)
In this post I wanted to share with you a few of my favourites I’ve been able to come across on Pinterest. Some of them are incredibly (and very scarily) accurate while others are just down-right hilariously true!
I tell ya, it’s the pop culture memes that really get me! Anyway to have quilts, quilting, references to patchwork and so on mixed with movies and characters that I love, I’m hands-down in! This Yoda meme is a perfect example. Us quilters really are quite crazy in one way or another! 😀
I’ve felt this feeling way too many times before! When I finally finished my Happy Quilt, this feeling resounded in me like never before! I was so completely lost, but in a good way, you know?
Take note boys! This is how you win over this quilter’s heart! 😉
And then this last one is dedicated to all of you who read my blog, watch my YouTube channel and share with me your wonderful makes on Instagram and Facebook!
I have to say, the amount of times I’ve had to reschedule this post is far too many times to be able to count!
But finally, today I got my Big Girl Camera out and took some snaps of a few of my favourite things we have growing in our garden! Since beginning my Floristry course, I’ve become a lot more interested in what we have growing out in the backyard along with being quite keen on adding more stuff to it! Mainly succulents at the moment but this will change as Spring begins to greet us closer in September!
So with these two little succulent plants below, they were very graciously given to me by my classmates over the past few weeks, which is so lovely of them to do! And what’s more they’re so easy to replant and then watch them grow and grow!
(PS. Don’t ask me what their names are – I’d have no idea! Ha! 😀)
This next particular one was a fab little find I made late last week! We were over at my brother’s house (which is owned by my parents) and as we were waving goodbye in the car, I was suddenly interested in this bush/shrub thing that’s growing next to their letterbox. So in near darkness, I jumped out of the car (which was stopped btw!) and went over to discover what it was… And to my shear delight is was a treasure trove of a beautifully coloured succulent called Jade. It had beautiful sprays of flowers budding out all around it and was so delightfully soft and flexible to touch! I was so excited by my new find! So I asked permission to snap off a branch so that we could take it home and pot it up into some soil to make it grow and flourish in our own yard! Yay!
A few other favourites that we have growing is a beautifully delicate Maiden Hair Fern that is totally loving life and flourishing perfectly before our eyes!
Another is a few of these Zygo cacti that Dad has been growing. They’ve only just begun to bloom this week!
And lastly is this Teddy Bear Cactus…
I bought this as a small plant a few years ago and within that time it has doubled and doubled and doubled in sized that we have at least half a dozen fully matured plants (that are still growing!) dotted all around our backyard in pots of all different kinds! It’s a bit of a bugger of a plant to touch with tiny little spikes that stick to your skin even if you barely brush past it!
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So there’s just a little tour of my garden. We do have lots of other things growing here and there like a few Grevillea, Banksia, Lemon Tea Tree and Bottlebrush trees (Australian Natives), as well as a few ferns, a lovely purple/pink Bromeliad that has just begun blooming too along with a Rose bush and a few little Azalea shrubs that love sitting in the sun!
What types of plants do you have in your garden or would like to be able to grow one day? For me, it would have to be either a beautiful Blossom, Jacaranda or Magnolia tree or a lovely full hedge of French Lavender! 🙂
I’m so sorry I didn’t write and publish a post yesterday! It was such a hectic day getting assignments finished! (I also wasn’t feeling too well either. 😦 The winter chills and sniffles have set in!)
But I’m hoping I can be forgiven by announcing it’s GIVEAWAY TIME!! Whoo!!
As a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have read, commented and followed along in my Everyday May series, I wanted to give something special back to show you how much I appreciate you all!!
So this is what I’m giving away… It’s nothing too big or over the top as I have to keep postage charges in mind! 😀
The lucky winner will receive a copy of one of my favourite patchwork and quilting books, The Practical Guide to Patchworkby Elizabeth Hartman as well as two delightful little ‘Flat Fats’ (or fat quarters) featuring two fabrics from the Koala-ty Time range from Spotlight!
So to enter, all you need to do is comment below mentioning what your favourite patchwork, quilting, sewing or crafting book is and why!*
**Entries have now closed.**
Now I know we still have another week or so left for the month but I wanted to give everyone a real good chance to see this post and be able to enter!
Let’s be honest, today’s post really isn’t worth reading…
The day had literally flown by with me barely keeping up!
The day started with an early rise and drive to the flower markets with mum where I bought flowers for class this week. Lots of beautiful natives, a whole tonne of big Hot House Chrysanthemums and a few odds and sods to get me by. (I’ll show you more during the week on Instagram!)
Home just before lunch where I dived straight into a never-ending list of homework tasks and assessments! Urgh!
Then tonight at my church, the PWA put on a Roaring 20’s night where all the ladies were dressed up like sparkling dames and the men all in sharp crisp suits. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures – sorry! I was enjoying myself too much to have my phone out! 🙂
So now the end of the day is here and I’ve come up short on a blog post. I actually had planned to write a post all about my growing garden of succulents and ferns but obviously that hasn’t happened! I’ll see what I can do tomorrow to bring that to you! I’m super proud of the little garden my dad and I have going at the moment!
So apologies for a post that really wasn’t worth reading… No photos or fancy words of inspiration today. Just the cold hard sting of reality. Oi I’m tired. And when I do, I get all weird and philosophical just like that odd sentence about reality…
Must. Sleep.
Goodnight, Friends!
xx
PS. Thanks for all of your feedback about my Simple Cross Quilt yesterday! I’m gonna do it! 20 block quilt here I come!
Current obsession: making as many Simple Cross blocks as I can in one day! Today’s record is five in one afternoon! Woo!
This has become quite an unexpected Work-In-Progress that I’m thoroughly enjoying! I love rummaging through my basket of solid fabrics and choosing the next bright colour to work with and then matching it with a fab print fabric!
I can’t decide whether to keep it as a simple nine block lap quilt (as it is now) or to keep adding more blocks to it turning it either into a 16 block quilt or a 20 to 24 block mega quilt! What do you think?? I would love your opinion! Currently the quilt top measures: 32″ (82cm) squared without the blocks being pieced together…
To be honest, I really wouldn’t mind turning it into a 20 to 24 block quilt… The block is super simple and deadly quick to cut and whip up. And goodness knows I have enough fabric to do the job! Even now I have a bunch of print fabrics in mind that could go so well with the rest of the aesthetic this quilt top has going for it! Yay! Such fun!
I wanted to share with you a few of the designs I made in class this week… I’ve had such a wonderful week at Floristry school! It’s one of the first times since I started when I didn’t want the week to end because I was enjoying what I was doing so much! I just wanted to keep playing!
Something seemed to click this week where I finally felt confident in my new found skills and noticed a rising passion for the art of floristry flourishing deep inside! (Corny, I know!)
This week we focused a lot on wedding bouquets and posies which are so fun and beautiful to make! Monday we had an assessment for a design called a Formal Hand-Tied Wedding Posy.
Packed full of even distributed flowers with a closed form (meaning no to very little negative space) and natural stems.
The second assessment was the informal version of the Hand-Tied Wedding Posy. The difference with this one is that there should be lots of negative space with materials placed high and low as well as placed in groups e.g. grouping of roses, carnations, foliage etc. This design should also take on a more vegetative effect which means the materials should look like they’re growing in a natural way.
The other assessment ticked off the list was the Informal Trail Wedding Bouquet. Although it did take about 2 hours to assemble, this one was slightly less stressful to make compared to the Formal version pictured below!
Formal Wired Posy
The Informal Trail Bouquet is a lot less structured, has lots of negative space and incorporates the use of line materials to carry colour and texture from one side to the other. The design is fully wired, which means all of the stems are cut off at the head of the flower, then wired and parafilmed. Materials then can be moved, bent, shaped and manipulated in any way you wish to achieve the design you want! This is sometimes easier said than done!
From the FrontFrom the Back
I really can’t stop looking at this design! I love all of the flowers and foliages I used and love the texture the pink/maroon Tea Tree sprays brings to the overall effect! So pretty!
Each of these designs are always finished off with a ‘ribboned’ handle which can either be ribbon, jute/hessian, lace, decorative ribbons, doilies or even natural materials like bark or big modern-type leaves. With the top two designs, I finished them off using a 20mm jute ribbon and bow and then used a lovely white satin ribbon on the last one.
It’s only three weeks until I finish my course and I’m trying my best to savour every minute – especially now that I’m really, really, really enjoying it!!
Today I woke up and was inspired to make a block tutorial for my YouTube channel!
Whether it was actual inspiration or a form of ‘YouTuber Guilt’ as I haven’t uploaded in awhile, I don’t know! But I put my head down and bum up and got into creating! And I’m so happy I did! There’s nothing like a good sewing session to soothe away the stresses of life!
So because time is quite limited for me at the moment, I stuck to a relatively quick and simple block to both cut and piece together. So when in need of a block like this, I always turn to my fab 130 Mini Quilt Blocks book by Susan Briscoe! There I found the inspiration to make a Mini Thread Spool block.
I’ve had an idea for a possible quilt design centring around the Spool block. The one I have in mind isn’t quite as small as this one and is slightly different in design. But I wanted to give this one a go just to see where I could take the design in my head and how to make it into a reality! (Stayed tuned for that one!)
But how adorable is this mini block though!? I’m so delighted at the size of it – it’s super cute!! I’m so keen to make more and then piece them together into a really sweet mini quilt to hang in my sewing room (that’s if I can find anymore room on the walls!!). 😀
Here’s how to make one yourself…
MEASUREMENT & CUTTING INFO:
Cut –
x1: 3.5″ square from a stripe fabric
x2: 5.5″x1.5″ rectangles from a dark or contrasting fabric (spool ends)
x2: 3.5″x1.5″ rectangles from a background fabric
x4: 1.5″ squares from a background fabric
Follow the steps in the tutorial to learn how to piece this adorable block together!
FINISHED BLOCK SIZE: 5.5″x5.5″ squared
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As always, don’t forget to share with me your finished blocks! Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter are the best ways to do this!
As I sing out loud along to John Mayer’s song, ‘No Such Thing‘ (*sings* I wanna run through the halls of my high school. I wanna scream at the top of my lungs!), here are a few more tools and notions that I find super useful when I’m sewing and quilting!
When I’m binding my quilts, I use these little guys that look similar to the clips you use in your hair to hold it into place. I find that they’re so easy to snap open and close as I go along when I’m hand-stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. And although I haven’t had the opportunity to use them yet (Can you believe it’s almost half-way through the year and I still haven’t made a quilt yet! 2016 quilts are going to be a rare oddity I think!!), I was given a packed jar full of some craft clips from a friend that I think will be absolutely perfect to use for holding the binding into place. I’m so keen to use them! Must. Get. Quilting. Pronto!
The other little notion I love to use when I’m stitching on binding is that little yellow thumble. Called such as it sits on your thumb much like a thimble would on your finger and you use it to push your needle through thick layers of fabric. Many a times has this genius little tool saved my poor thumb from bloody stabs and week-long soreness!
These next few things I find really useful when I’m doing tricky cutting and squaring up block units.
The 4.5″ set square ruler is great for squaring up those pesky HSTs (as you would’ve seen numerous times in my YouTube tutorials), while the 18mm rotary blade is the perfect size for trimming as well as for cutting tight curved lines and corners. (Fab for cutting Drunkard Path unit pieces!) The Olfa Rotating Mat is super useful when you need to be really precise with how you cut your units and blocks. It pretty much just eliminates the step of having to turn the unit around to trim down the opposite side.
Applique! A wonderfully elaborate (at times!) and effective technique to add a little omph to any sewing project!
When I’making a project that involves applique (usually the raw-edge technique), I always turn to this stuff called HeatnBond Lite. Not only is it a great price (about $8 per metre from Spotlight), it’s so easy to use and never lets me down. Using the right application (warm-to-hot iron, no steam), it never peels away from the fabric once it’s been applied and can be easily sewn through either with the sewing machine or by hand. I use this all the time to fix my quilt labels into place before embroidering around the edge.
If you would like me to do a tutorial based around using this product, let me know and I’ll start planning something fun for us to make together!
And last but not least, never the underestimate the need of having a good solid hammer in your kit!
On many occasion has this hammer come in handy, especially when something just needs a good whack to get it into place. What I mean by this is when I’m making my Little Wallets and need to get the snap fastener securely into place! 😀 Super useful too when your hanging new art or a wallhanging on the wall!
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I hope this second post about other useful tools and notions has inspired or been helpful in some way!
It can be truly mind-boggling at just how many different things one can have in and around their sewing space that helps to make the process of making a quilt easier! I’m sure my little list of tools and notions barely scratches the surface!
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