I finished my autumn quilt last week while I was away with my son on holidays on my sisters property not far from Kingaroy, Australia. It has been sent and is winging it’s way overseas as I type this and hopefully will reach it’s new owner very very soon.
I’ve been very busy lately with getting everyone’s presents made for christmas and a few other projects I have going. I’ve just started making this cot quilt for my nephew Matty and his partner Foxy and I’m already in love with it and I probably wont want to give it away either. I’m using the Odyssea fabric range for this quilt because Matty and Foxy love fishing and because I love the beautiful bright colours and prints.
Another piece of news is that I received the Amazon Kindle I ordered. I had written in an earlier post how much I had wanted a Kindle and it’s just like my wishes were answered when Amazon released the new international version. I’ve had my Kindle for 3 days now and I love it.
I love the sight of my line so full of fat quarters. 32 fat quarters to be exact. Now I just have to decide what to do with them all. I already plan to use the autumn-coloured prints for my Fall-Inspired Mini Quilt Swap but the rest are yet to be assigned to a task.
Oh, and please don’t look at the long grass in the shot, I’ve been too busy sewing to mow my lawn, and since I’m the only one old enough to use the lawn mower here I’m the only one who does it.
I could never understand why quilters had a UFO box. For non-sewers that is an Un-finished Objects box, where all the half finished projects go until the sewer feel like returning to them. I finally understood it the other night when I pulled out the last box of my quilting stuff and found a treasure trove of goodies. I found my quilting foot for my Janome, I found all the old cottons I had stashed away, my bias tape makers, my Mary Ellen Hopkins quilt books (my favourites), and a whole heap of UFO’s.
This first one I was going to make into a single bed quilt but didn’t have any fabric I liked for the extra border and I think I was going to dye some of my own to match. I think I’ll complete it for bub’s bed since it has a fish print in it.
This blue and yellow log cabin is finished except for the binding which I will do in the next day or two. I was really into log cabins when I was quilting 5 years ago and I designed this one to look like angels wings. Also, the yellow fabric came from a set of my cot sheets when I was a baby so it meant quite a bit to me to make something from the fabric.
This last one is my favourite. All that is left to do on it is one edge and if I was to leave it that size for a wall hanging I can just quilt it and hang it. I have a whole heap of extra squares that I assume would have gone around the border but since I can find my old sketch/quilt design book I’m not exactly sure how I planned it.
My son has just gone to spend the week with his father so I have a whole week to quilt and make bags and dolls. Even though I’ll be missing my baby I’m hoping to do away with these UFO’s and finish them off at last.
So lately I’ve been pretty preoccupied with getting back into my sewing. It’s been over 5 years since I made a quilt and for some unknown reason I had this uncontrollable urge to make a crib quilt for my nieces little baby who will be born in the coming weeks. I saw a tutorial over on the Melly & Me website for a cute little Kokeshi Stuffie and as soon as I saw it I knew that I had make a quilt to match the little doll. I think it took me just under 2 weeks to make both the stuff and the quilt and I’m pretty happy with the outcome. I made the stuffie big enough and soft enough to be used either as a little pillow or a little dolly for when we grows up a little bit. Oh, and I embroidered and quilted the whole quilt by hand. The only time I used my machine was to attach the border to the top side of the quilt and to attach the binding.
Oh, and one more photo, this time of my new Brother sewing machine I picked up the other day. It’s not quite the embroidering machine that I really want but until I can afford one of those this one will be perfect for whatever I can throw at it.
I’ve been pretty slack lately, I’ve been reading a lot again which hasn’t left me much time to do take photos or even turn on the computer. I’ve decided to take a little break from the books so I’m not spending all my time cooped up reading and I’m about to start a new quilt. I haven’t picked up a piece of material or a needle for a very long time so I’m kinda excited a little bit. I am making a little cot quilt for a special little girl who will be entering our family in a couple months time. I’ll post some photos once everything is ready to go, and of course once it’s been finished. I’ve decided to embroider the entire top of the quilt and then to do sashiko quilting to finish it off, and since the overall style will be Japanese I hope it all works out fine.
We went away for 10 days not long ago and here are a photo that I took on the train of the passing landscape. This is my favourite shot from the whole trip.
I got my Moo MiniCards a few weeks back, I am so happy with the quality of the cards. I can definately see myself doing all my business with them in the future.
I also ended up getting the Moo MiniCard holder which you can see in the second photo. Everyone I’ve showed my cards to have been impressed with the quality also.
Image Credit: renaissancechambara
I am a huge fan of my Apple iPhone and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the new version. I can’t say for certain that I’ll want to go out straight away and get a new iPhone, but if the updated version is significant enough I’ll definately upgrade, that just what I do. I love that my iPhone and my MacBook are both Apple products and that work so perfectly together. I’ve always been a mobile phone junkie but since owning an iPhone my world is almost complete since I can sync everything and have great products that work well together.
After saying all that, I’m kinda liking the look of the new Palm Pre. If you are to believe all the hype, Palm has finally come up with a iPhone killer, something that can seriously compete with the new leader in mobile phone technology.
There are two things I like so far about the Pre, the slide down qwerty keyboard, because lets face it, the iPhone onboard keyboard is still not 100% easy or accurate to use and that cool wi-fi charging dock looks amazing, something I thought would be more of an Apple innovation than Palm. I few things I don’t think I’ll like is the Palm OS installed on the Pre and the fact that the app store it’s that well stocked and that it’s still in beta. I love my apps, what use is a smart phone without apps? I think Palm would have been better off installing either the Windows Mobile OS or made it an Android compatible phone.
So when the Pre is released in Australia and when it’s available I will definately make my way down to the shops and play with one, but I think I already know in my heart that I won’t be trading in my iPhone for a Pre, it’ll just be something new and interesting to play with for awhile, until I get bored with it and return to the product I love.
I recently read an article about Geektool and knew I had to try it. It’s a small program that sits in your settings menu that allows you to embed info in you desktop. There are a heap of scripts for the date, time, calendar, uptime, ram, to-do lists, unread emails and heaps more. I have only gone for the basic info on my desktop so far, I just wanted something a bit pretty and uncluttered.
As well as geektool I’ve also got an iTunes control programs running on my desktop called Bowtie. It’s fully skinnable and shows what song you can currently playing on your desktop. I think it adds a nice touch to my geeky desktop. What do you think?
Both programs are Mac only and the wallpaper I am using is one of my own photos of a Rockhampton Sunset taken up on Mount Archer.
