'Crafting On'

 The past few days Ive been getting back to working on my hand stitched quilt. I'm just about half way finished the quilt top!

On Saturday night we had a barbecue out the back and I stitched as we waited for it to cook. All day we had been looking forward to having an outdoor fire but instead we got lots of rain which was nice too.

I love the mess of colour that is my embroidery cotton

I had such a nice Monday yesterday. I went to Kadina and was able to get lots of bits and pieces done. I finally took my engagement ring in to the jeweler to get re-sized so that I can wear it on the right finger after wearing it on my middle finger two months.
I also visited with a good friend who id not caught up with propperly in a few years. I spent time with my friend Kylie and my little god son Jayden. I started working full time just before he was born and one of the big down sides was that I had been looking forward to being able to spend lots of time with them and help her with him so we are deffinately both very pleased that I will be able to pop in many Mondays now. I had yummy soup for tea at Mum and Dads and then came home with enough time to do a little knitting and stitching before bed.

 More and more bulbs are coming up around our garden. The day care boys love the green spikes. We also have seeds coming up. The most exciting for us all are the peas, a definite winter favourite here. I only planted a few to see if the weather had cooled enough for them to survive. So far so good! Ill be spending ANZAC day tomorrow putting up poles for lots more peas to grow up.

 Hello calendulars!

For more crafting on visit Frontier Dreams

'A Gardeners Journal' quilty progress!

 I'm so excited to say I'm about half way through my hand stitched quilt top! Its coming along so nicely, with each block I finish I see my hand stitching getting neater and faster. This is the block I'm currently working on. They are seed packets

 I recently finished this  'Vegetable patch' block

 And also this 'Weeding the garden' patch. If you've seen the pattern before you will notice that I've changed a few of the pictures a bit, including this one. I'm not sure if it looks quite right but the original picture was of an older lady weeding the garden so I changed it to look a bit more like me weeding the garden in a summer dress and bare feet:)

 Ive also been doing some stitching of the fixing-back-together sort. Cameron got up from his nap today alarmed that Bunny's ear had fallen off

 I haven't kept up with sharing my quilt progress so I took photos today of most of the blocks so far. Some I may have shared before but most I don't think I have. Probably because many of them are almost finished but still have some stitching still to go. Because that seems to be my style, a little here, a little there.

This is the center of the quilt, the largest applique. As you can see its got a few more colours to go

 'watering the garden'

 'bird bath'

 'potting shed'

 'weather vane'

 'Potting plants' (which will make more sense when I've stitched the lady who is potting the plants!)

'snail' and 'butterfly' (I'm going to change the butterfly though because I don't like her pink eyes.
 Oh and I didn't add the 'Orchard' block because I showed it not long ago and also you can see it as my blog header.
So there you are, all caught up!

For more Crafting On fun  Frontier Dreams

quilt progress

I have re-found this quilt that I started months ago . Admittedly I hadn't actually lost it, I knew  perfectly well where it was but I just needed a break from hand stitching all those tiny little squares and that break went on longer than I intended! Now my enthusiasm is back and I'm enjoying it again. Ive begun working on the apple orchard block which is my favourite one

 While I was sewing and the baby was sleeping Mitch was making up a fun game. He would pull a pin from the pincushion and try to guess the colour (I don't think he thought of it as guessing, he was really quite sure he had them all right) and then place them under the "window" (my quilting ruler). He thought my sewing supplies were such a fun new toy, that goes to show its been a while since I've had them out!
(don't worry, I had an eye on those scissors by his foot and he knows their not for playing with)

I'm not sure if I ever did share the little ironing board cover that I made a while a go. Its quilted with a few layers of batting to make it soft just like a real ironing board.
Why yes that is a three year old sitting in a doll high chair. When we first got the doll high chair I found myself many times reminding little people not to sit in in until it occurred to me that its probably as solid as most children's chairs! The wonderfulness of  quality wooden toys just goes on and on. Who knows how many children played with it roughly before I got it second hand yet its still as solid as ever

Head on over to Frontier dreams for more "Crafting on" fun

the rest of the quilts...

 Here are some of the vintage sewing machines that were displayed at the quilting show. They also had cute old pattern books and some other vintage sewing accessories

 This woodland themed quilt was one of my favourites

 Mum loved the fairy quilts

 All the ladies running the display were dressed in their old style Cornish outfits, some had adorable bonnets but I didn't get any photos of them. Look how tiny this lady's hand stitched hexagons are! She must have the patience of a saint

 I love this quilt too!

This is another one that featured beautiful stitcheries

 Afterward we caught up Benny and Dad (who had understandably ditched us to browse the nearby fishing supplies shop;) We had a drink at our favourite Moonta cafe 'Henry on George' (meaning on George street)

This is what our drink and cake looked like, yum:)

my future quilt

 On the weekend our Cornish festival was on. I missed out on most of it, the maypole, etc but Mum and I did go to two quilting displays. Benny, Dad and I also went to the 'cavalcade of cars' which was great, I love seeing all the beautiful old cars lovingly restored. My favourites were model t fords, an old fire truck driven by two men in old style firemen uniforms and hats. And also a ridiculously cute little vintage caravan that Dad and I really want.

I have loads of pictures of the skillfully stitched creations, but for today I'm just sharing my favourite. I love most of the stitcheries and plan on hunting down the pattern to make a similar quilt

 An adorable apple orchard that I hope to one day plant my garden (you know, when I have a garden!)

its really killing me with its cuteness. Next post- lots of the other quilts and vintage sewing machines

thursday craftiness

I ran out of the organic merino wool rovings a few weeks back so my blanket hasn't been progressing very much at all!

Im happy to be spinning again now that I have some more.
Today I began spinning some of the light purple I dyed with 'greener shades' dye the other day. It accidently came out in all different shades as id never used a heated dye before so it ended up un even, I love it so I hope I can get this effect again!

Ive also been having far too much fun working on some tiny little quilts for the doll house, I love them!

Ive always had a thing for minitures, I used to make tiny teddies and sew them tiny outfits when I was about 10:)

The mini quilts are hand stiched and made just like I make 'real' quilts. The only difference was I just used calico as the 'batting' (I wouldnt have used anything except the colours might have shown through) And the binding isn't double thick. (oh and the size...)

Heres the back

And of course a tiny pillow to match.

Those little wooden dolls were the first waldorf inspired toys I ever got, when id only just started out my home day care

mini quilts sure do come in handy on a cool autumn morning

fairys soup and this and that:)

 Ive been growing lots of flowers near the children's play area so that there are plenty to be picked. I have such wonderful memories of making flower 'potions' with my cousins when we were little and I knew the daycare children would have fun with it too!

 Today we brought some in and the children had fun cutting off little bits with scissors, mixing and arranging them

 The big leaves are from Benny's favourite plant, 'lambs ear'. Cameron loves collecting them, rubbing their fuzziness on his skin and calls them 'feathers'

 This mini muffin tray that I thrifted long ago always finds so many creative uses. today it was a feeding trough for the farm animals. I love all the purple flowers we found this morning. The aroma was wonderful!

 especially when it was all crushed in the mortar and pestle. Next time we will do it outside so that we can add water as that will be even more fun

 I got these basket draws on the weekend and they have made the play area so much more organised.
 Id not got anything until now as I hate to have too much furniture in a room as it can look to cluttered. It turns out they did just the opposite, I'm glad to have them in our tiny space. One day soon I will take pictures of the play space as it looks now, its changed a lot. (I would have taken them this morning but I didn't want to go get another camera)
This is what I found after Josh went to bed last night. Clever boy:)

I finished this quilt and pillow set this afternoon (from the left over fabric of this quilt:) Unfortunately for our 'Finn baby' its heading to the shop