Rouenneries Table Runner

I planned on hand-quilting it, but apparently I lost my hand-quilting skills sometime over the past couple of years.... so instead I machine quilted it; freehand flowers in the pinwheels, squiggles in the sashing, and stipple in the border.

Not a bad way to use up some scraps!

Scrap Busting

Most people are into stash busting, but I don't really have much of a stash...I do however tend to have lots of bits leftover from quilts I've made. Sometimes whole fat quarters from a bundle, other times just excess bits and pieces. And usually I put them away and hope that at some point all my scraps will come together, but given my quilts vary from traditional fabrics to the more bright and funky sort, I don't really see this happening any time soon.

When I made Red Velvet recently, I carefully put aside all of the offcut triangles, then later stitched them into HSTs then into little pinwheels. And they've been sitting by my machine ever since. With a little motivation (and perhaps procrastination from my current project?), I did a bit of scribbling and came up with this cute table runner.

It uses left over outer border for the sashing, and inner border for the border. I'll use the same backing and binding as the quilt too. I'm heading to Queensland next week for a holiday, so I thought I'd tuck this into my bag for a bit of handstitching in the evening. It might also keep me busy when I get back as I'm finally sending my machine for a service; I figure if I send it off while I'm away, I minimise my "machine-less" time.

In case you haven't noticed the new addition to my sidebar, there is a link up for a facebook group for Bella's Patchwork, as a means of keeping everyone up to date with news, so if you'd like to be in the loop, become a fan. I'd love to have you!

Red Velvet

Sunday night while watching Bones, I finally finished the binding on this quilt. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out, and I've caught my mum giving it a few longing glances...

Thank you for all the super-positive comments on my last post; I'm so excited that you love the name!

A Linen Cabinet and a Little Progress

I'm a sucker for a bargain. I love getting something I've wanted for ages on sale. Who doesn't? Ikea have a clearance sale on at the moment, and mum and I decided to brave the madness over the weekend, and I'm glad we did! I managed to snap up a cute linen cabinet that will be perfect for storing quilts in. However, it will remain in its box until I move into my own place, but it's something to look forward to.

Quilting/sewing progress has been a little slow this week. I've only got two sides of Red Velvet border left to quilt, but I've been procrastinating and working with Verna instead. I've sliced and diced all my charm squares and stitched them to the background fabric. Now to trim and assemble the blocks!

A Little Progress

In the midst of another heatwave, its been a bit difficult to get much done the last few days; we were over 40 degrees yesterday, and our overnight minimum was 31!

So between sprawling on the couch and sitting in front of a desk fan, I've managed to get only a bit of sewing done; I've been working on the gorgeous Red Velvet.

The main blocks are done, as are the X blocks. All I need to do is the border blocks, then it'll be ready to assemble!

A couple of weeks ago (yup, things are a bit behind...), I had a bit of a scribble and fiddle, and managed to sew up a handbag hanger. The pic isn't great, but the idea it to hand it up, and there are tabs so that you can hang your gorgeous handbags/evening bags up in an orderly fashion (rather than piling them all onto two coat hooks on the back of your door like I do!)

Some garden progress; I harvested my first onion! The rest are also ready, but due to the heat I've been eating salads; nothing I need onions for so I've left them in the ground for now.

In other news, making progress with the shop idea; got tax advice and started to get prices, and looks like this could work...I'm very excited!!

What's The Plan?

It's got to that time of year where I've mostly finished all the quilts on my "to-do" list; all those quilts I had fabrics and patterns stashed away for but hadn't quite got around to. Right now I'm hand stitching the binding on to Sassafras (photos soon), and wondering what project I'm going to start next... my trip to the US is less than 7 weeks away, so I'm not sure whether to start anything new or not...

So I've started plotting out what I'll be working on next year! And already the list is growing. Yesterday, my layer cakes of Simple Abundance and Rouenneries arrived; these are destined for "A La Mode" and "Red Velvet" respectively. I've got a Simple Abundance charm pack which I'm going to use to make the "Pint Sized" version of "Wild Thing" (check out the FQS kit for this, it's cute!). I'm thinking that my Sweet honey bun might be nice to make the "Mini Jelly Filled". I know I want to do something with Aster Manor, but I'm not sure what yet. And I'm thinking about a double hourglass block made with some of the fat 1/4s I bought at the quilt shows this year...

Meanwhile, Bella is up to her usual tricks...she loves a good game of peek-a-boo. When you peer out from behind something (door, chair...) her right ear twitches, and her pupils dilate (we call them her "naughty eyes"). At the moment she is enjoying peering out from behind some flowers on the coffee table...maybe she thinks I can't see her?