Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a lovely Christmas day with family and friends.  

This Christmas I'll be in Auckland with my husband, our two sons, and my mum and dad.  I'm really looking forward to seeing mum and dad and our eldest son again.  They've all been stuck in the Auckland lockdown since mid August, and I've missed seeing them.   

This year I've changed my decorating around a bit. I've only included one house from my Gingerbread Village this year - it's the Retreat Cottage, and it's sitting on top of the piano, next to my beautiful house from Department 56 in USA.  

In case you're missing my Gingerbread Village, you can see a photo from last year below, and read all about them on the Gingerbread Village tab at the top of my blog.  I promise to have the Flower Shop finished for Christmas 2022!

Merry Christmas to you all, and thank you very much for your support over the years. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Midwinter Christmas continues

Some of you asked to see more of the Christmas quilts I took to Pinestream Quilters last weekend.  

Well, first up was my Oh! Christmas Tree quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  You can read more about it here.  I love this quilt because it really does represent Christmas in New Zealand and Australia.  It's all bright and summery, and that's how our Christmases are here (even though I used snowflake fabric for my background). 

I loved doing all the wool felt applique.

It's hand quilted with Aurifil of course!

I also took along Flocks by Night, another wool felt applique quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  You can read more about it here.  I loved appliqueing the trees in this scene.  

I used Aurifil lana wool to applique some of the trees down

My Holiday Homies quilt was still up on the wall in the spare room, and I was just going to leave it there until Christmas, but I made an exception and took it down so I could show the ladies on Saturday. You can read more about it here.  I designed this one myself because I wanted to use the quirky animals in Tula Pink's Holiday Homies range.    

And finally, I showed my Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt designed by Amy Smart.  You can read more about this quilt here.  

You've possibly realised that my Christmas quilts are all small quilts or wall hangings.  We don't need quilts on our beds at Christmas because it's summer time.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Midwinter Christmas

Tomorrow I'm going to a midwinter Christmas celebration at one of our local quilting guilds.  

My Gingerbread Village

Some people in New Zealand and Australia like to have midwinter Christmas celebrations, and do all the things it's usually too hot to do at Christmas - like drink mulled wine and eat roast dinners.

I've been asked to bring along some of my hand made Christmas decorations, and my Gingerbread Village in particular.  If you're a new follower, and haven't seen my Gingerbread Village, you can read all about it on the tab at the top of the page, or by clicking here.  The gorgeous patterns were designed by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada.  

So this week I pulled out my shoe boxes and sorted out which decorations I'll take along.

I'll also take some of my Christmas quilts because I expect they'd like to see them too.  I'm not going to give away too many spoilers here, but I might report back next week on more of the things I'll be sharing tomorrow.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Q4 Finish a long goals

I did well on my Q3 goals, but I don't really expect to be so successful with my term 4 goals.

I think people in the northern hemisphere get more productive as they move towards Christmas because it's winter and they tend to stay in doors more.

We are just the opposite down here in New Zealand and Australia - summer is coming and the evenings are getting warmer and lighter. Add to that the fact that the school year is wrapping up, and we have lots of school related functions to attend.  My older son just got accepted into the course he wants to do at University next year (Bachelor of Software Engineering), so there are big changes ahead as he prepares to move to Auckland in February.  

Anyway, here are the things I would like to get finished in Q4:

1.  Dresses x 3

I've decided to sew myself some new dresses and tunics this year.  I'm using Tula Pink extra wide backing (Free Fall) for two of them, and a Cotton and Steel print for another.  I made most of the first one last week, but I just need to add the tie backs and hem it now.

2. Christmas Tree Etui

This is another addition to my Gingerbread Village.  I stitched the first panel back in January, and only picked it up again last week.  It would be lovely to have it ready by mid December.

3.  Christmas Tree Quilt

This is another great design by Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits.  I've had the pattern for months, but sometimes you just have to wait until the Christmas spirit strikes.  I made a small start on this at our guild retreat in September. It's wool felt applique so also involves a lot of hand sewing.

4. La Passacaglia

This definitely won't be finished in Q4, but I do want to keep working on it. I'd love to have the quilt top all finished by 31 December, or at least 31 January. Then I'll have to think about how to quilt it.  I'll definitely do it by hand, but I'm not sure about what type of design I'll use yet.

This is a slightly different arrangement to the photo I posted last week, and I've changed my mind again since I took this photo.  I haven't started joining the top section yet, so I'll just keep shuffling them around until I'm happy with the placement.

July - where did it go?

July was a weird month for me. I was very busy with work for the first week, and then busy with holidays. Does that make sense?  Anyway, life is back to normal now with my boys back at school, and me working from home again.  Here's what I've been working on during July:

1.  Fandango Sky

This is a canvas work design by Laura J Perin. Laura's designs combine variegated threads of different textures, metallic threads and even tiny beads.  I love how she combines colours and textures.  I took this to Melbourne because I knew the lighting in hotels is never great, and if I don't do something in the evenings I just fall asleep in front of the TV! The canvas has big holes so it's great to stitch on in poor lighting.

So here's where I'm up to now:

Fandango Sky

I've made other designs by Laura J Perin in the past and they now hang on the wall in our bedroom:

Starry Nights

Jewel Box - I changed the colours on this one

2.  The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

Have you heard of this company? They design very cute cross stitch patterns and seem to be taking the world by storm. A lot of young women are being drawn into cross stitch by their very cute patterns.  They sell the patterns online as a downloadable pdf to print at home, and they really are very cheap at about USD12 per design. They have a website and are on facebook. There's even a facebook group for those people stitching the designs.

I'm not finished Part 1 yet

I've just downloaded the first of four patterns in A Very Merry Christmas Town, which is their mystery Christmas design for 2015.   There will be one part of the pattern released each month for four months and I should be finished well before Christmas. Although it's a mystery, they do tell you the size of the design so you won't run out of linen!

I bought some sparkly linen when I was in Auckland, and fortunately had all the threads I needed in my stash! (with a few very minor substitutions)

This is my version of the 2014 Christmas mystery sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery:

3.  My Scrappy Bear Paw quilt

I've been trying to fit in a bit of hand quilting each week to keep this quilt moving along.  I've quilted 5 of the 9 stars so I'm past half way.  I haven't decided on the binding yet, but expect it will be some combination of black and white.

Here's a reminder of the whole quilt top.

4. Haunted House - last one I promise

I've started to assemble my Haunted House. It's on my Finish A Long list for Q3 and I know it will take weeks, so I made a start at the weekend. I'm determined that it will be neater than my Bakery last year, when I forgot that the building should be symmetrical, and cut each side independent of the other sides. I can't redo the Bakery, but I can learn from that and make future buildings more balanced.

Here are my other buildings, all designed by Thea Dueck from The Victoria Sampler in Canada and stitched by me over the last 3 years.

I know you're all thinking that there's nothing wrong with the Bakery, but I know the Haunted House is going to be even better.

That's all for now - I wonder what August will bring?

Kaffe Christmas Tree

My Kaffe Christmas Tree is finished - in February, of course. I purchased the kit for this mini quilt back in April 2014. I don't know why I never managed to get it finished for Christmas 2014, but it is now ready for Christmas 2015.

Kaffe Christmas Tree

A number of people on facebook have asked me for instructions to make this quilt. If this design was available as a downloadable pattern I would direct you to the online shop to buy your own copy. However, it's not, and I purchased the last kit at the shop, so I will provide some brief details about my quilt.

As you can see from the photo, there are 40 squares of different coloured green fabrics. I cut at 2.5" so they ended up as 2" squares. My kit contained mainly Kaffe Fassett fabrics and I love Kaffe fabrics, but you could use any green fabrics. Or I've even seen someone do it in blues and that was lovely too.

In the background there are  48 x 2.5" squares of white and cream fabrics, some of which have sparkles.

Then there are 18 half square trianges. As you know, you need to cut the squares bigger for half square triangles and then trim them to 2.5" square. I used the same green fabric for all of my HSTs.

I used a single piece of brown fabric for the base of the tree. It's as big as 4 squares combined.

I laid out all the pieces in the shape of the tree, and then sewed them together in rows. I then joined the rows, starting from the centre and working up and then down.

I cut 1.5" narrow border, and then a 3" wider border. I made my binding 2.25" wide from the same fabric as the tips of the branches.

The finished size is approx 27" wide x 30" high.

 


I quilted the green part of the tree with a great new thread called Wonderfill Dazzle in dark green. It has a sparkle embedded in it.  I got mine from a supplier at the New Zealand Quilt Symposium, but here's the website of the manufacturer.

Wonderfill Dazzle

I used Perle 9 to outline the tree and the borders, and I used regular cotton to quilt in the ditch between the white and cream blocks. I also quilted narrow lines on the trunk of the tree in brown Perle 8.

Although this quilt is small and could be used as a table runner, I put a hanging sleeve on it so it can also hang in our hall way at Christmas time. Of course I used Kaffe on the back of mine too - this is Paperweight in Jewel.

This is the second item on my Finish Along list for the first quarter, so I'm on track. Just one more mini quilt to hand quilt and finish before 31 March.

I'll be linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday and Crazy Mom Quilts.

A finish at last

I've started quite a few new projects in 2015 which is always exciting, but I've also had one tiny finish.  This Halloween table mat was one of 4 items on my Finish Along list created about a month ago.

It's a purpose built mat for my Haunted House to sit on when it gets finished later in the year.  I'm pleased to say that yesterday I finished embroidering the back of the Haunted House, and it's the biggest section.

Haunted House by The Victoria Sampler

The other sections will be slightly faster now that I've got the dimensions of the house, and figured out the satin stitch at the top.  I often find it easier once I've done the first section. 

So, come Halloween, the house will be sitting on this mat in the hallway.

As soon as I finished the Halloween mat I pulled out the next item on my Finish Along list. A Christmas Tree mini quilt. I know, I'm doing everything at the wrong time of the year, but if I leave these until the end of the year they just won't be done in time (again).

I always intended to hand quilt this Kaffe Christmas Tree.  I decided to try something new and quilted free hand squiggly lines in the green section. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. I used the green sparkly thread I picked up at Symposium. It's great to quilt with, but it does fray terribly so I have to be careful with the ends.  I've still got to decide what to do out in the white section yet.

 

Although I'm trying to be good and stick to my list, I couldn't resist the temptation to join up with a needlelace stitch along being run by a Russian lady - Daria. Here's a link to her blog. 

I've met many Russians on Instagram and they do beautiful embroidery. Daria has got permission from a Japanese lady (Erba?) to run a stitch along based on one of her free patterns.  Here's a link to casaerba.  This is what we are going to make.  It's shown as a table runner here, but I might just make mine a square and get it framed. 

Isn't it beautiful? It looks Eastern European / Turkish / Russian to me with those domes on the buildings. Although I don't usually do things in white, I think this one should be white so I'm using the bright white - B5200 coton a broder. I have accepted that I can't see clearly enough to do 32 count anymore, so am using 28 count linen for mine.  Daria says the instructions will be spread over 15 fortnights, with about 6-10 hours work per fortnight. I think that's manageable. (don't laugh)

Last night I made a start on the four sided stitch (box stitch) border, and I hope to finish that this weekend.