Friday 4 March 2016

March update

Here's a little bit of what I've been working on lately:

Gingerbread Quilt Shop

As some of you know, I have a little Gingerbread Village I bring out at Christmas time. Last year I was rushing to finish an ornament in December.  That won't happen this year.  I'm aiming to assemble my first ornament of 2016 at Easter, and still get the Needlework Shop completed in October too.  Don't panic about these photos - they are all the same piece of linen, it's just hard to get consistent brightness to photograph.

finished

finished with room for the vestibule to be attached

not finished yet

I'm working on the final side now

my roof will be red




This is what I work on the evenings in front of TV. You can see the rest of my village here - All patterns are by the super talented Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler.


Oh! Christmas Tree

Pattern by Wendy Williams and available in Simply Moderne issue 3 (by QuiltMania), or directly from Wendy's website here.



I still haven't finished the centre panel for my Christmas Tree quilt yet, but I was missing my sewing machine, so I jumped ahead and made 26 wonky stars for the final border.  Of course they took much longer than I expected, but they were fun because I got to play with pretty fabrics.








If you interested in making this quilt, take a look at Elizabeth's blog Occasional Piece.  She's running a quilt along and even giving away some prizes this week. Elizabeth has spent lots of time writing step by step guides for how to do wool felt applique.  I sent her some of my photos to include in her post.


Sue Spargo Instastitch

Sue Spargo is a super talented lady, and she very generously decided to release a FREE pattern for a mystery block of the month.  I only saw this pattern yesterday morning, but by dinner time I had already chosen fabrics from my stash and sewn the first block.  Now I just need to add the recommended hand stitching embellishments (which is what Sue is world famous for).

the options - all from my stash


my finished block - 16" x 16"
If you'd like to read more you can find the patterns on Sue's blog here.

So that's what I've been up to.  The weather is still beautiful in Wellington. As they say, you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

6 comments:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

Love your star blocks and all your Christmas items. I will be so glad to get back to sewing soon - I really miss it and having had the eye surgery I haven't been able to do much of it

margaret said...

how I love your gingerbread creations, having been seeing this develop on instagram. Wonky stars look so good and will complete the tree quilt beautifully, off to check out the BOM now not that I need another one.

Jill said...

Wow! Every image here is inspiring to me. Love the cross stitch and all of the gorgeous colors and patterns.

Melody said...

Absolutely gorgeous sewing happening at your place. I love everything you are stitching

Corrie said...

Oh my goodness, you are up to a lot! I love people who get ahead of the game for Christmas. Good job!

Sandi said...

I like that you did the stars wonky, I was dreading to have to make them perfect. I haven't really read the directions for them.n your packages under the tree are a great alternate to the reindeer.

Love your fabric choices for Sue's log cabin block. I think I have some of the large stripe on the right, but none of that gorgeous floral.

Will have to see, so much temptation of wonderful freebies right now!