Blue stars

When I made big sister a quilt, Alyssa felt the fluffy batting and sighed; I like them fluffy like this! So it was the moment to plan her quilt. She looked through my books and picked a pattern and it needed to be blue. Two weeks later this is on her bed;

I do love the simple saw tooth stars, they just have a happy feel. Actually I found the quilt like this today;

She he had spilled tea on it and washed it out and left it outside to dry. I put it in the machine of course, living in the tropics it is always a race between us and the ants as to who gets where first! You can see how very ‘fat’ the batting is. All my kids request this type of batting, which makes it impossible to FMQ. I figure they sleep under it, they might as well have what they like best.

i am also nearly finished my Leanne’s house quilt, it would be done but then I decided I will go in and FMQ the whole thing. That cannot happen today, I have to lean the house, shower the puppies, meet my daughter for lunch, do some banking and teach a couple of classes.

There is always next week, right? I hope you have a wonderful weekend and something fun to sew!

See you soon,

Cathy

Read Full Post »

Oh my!

Ok, here I go again. I will try to show you what I have made recently:

I made add a new bag with beautiful linen. I use it every day and I like the look and the feel of it. I am also making a quilt for Alyssa , her choice of design and color.

Ok, typing with one finger is not so cool, I will be back when I can do better!

have a wonderful day,

Cathy.

Read Full Post »

Two hot chicks sunbathing

I am trying to blog from my IPad as I. Have no other option right now.

Read Full Post »

Better something then nothing!

I am not sure where my time has gone, but I know I haven’t been on here for a looong time, so today I will just post a few pics about what I have sewn recently.

May doodle with Christine Pollhaus.

It combines easy trapunto with fabric painting, free motion quilting and lots of beads. I just love doing this kind of thing!

I made a small bag to hold my little flashcards at school. I am happy with the colors!

Three zipper bags to give to a friend, her color choice, not mine, but I like these little bags, they are very handy.

You can never have to many bags,  and I do like the dots all over!

And this bag is for me. It’s very big, it’s from Amy Butler’s Style stitches book. I can put half an elephant in here, it’s so big. Ok, maybe not, but it does a very nice job of holding a lot of extra fabric and looking pretty sitting on my new shelf. Storage and home decor in one!

My fabric post card for May. I cut up a skirt that a friend passed on to me, the fabric is so nice and shiny and I don’t wear skirts anyway.

 

I don’t know why I like black and white designs these days, but it does look classy. These cards are so easy and fun to make, it’s a wonderful way to try out new things on a small scale.

Have I been quilting at all?

Well yes, I finished the star quilt, but I have to show you that next time!

I am going to catch a nap before work, I hope to see  you soon!

Have a wonderful week,

Cathy

 

P.S. Remind me to tell you about my trip to Vietnam!

Read Full Post »

Travel bag

Hello there! I have been pretty busy, though I don’t have that much to show for it. I am on a count down to go on holidays since it has been proven impossible for mothers to relax at home during kids holidays, ha!

Here is what I made:

 

Stitched on linen.

 

This is meant to be a flower so sorts, with a pearl and beads in the middle.

 

The trick is that if you put glue around the flower circles first and let it dry, then the fabric will not ravel. I did the same for the leaves too, it took some time to be honest.

 

My latest garden!

It’s big, about 20 inches tall and holds a lot of stuff when necessary. I took it to Bangkok last weekend ,without decor obviously, and managed to put all my stuff into it. I also spilled my pureed vegetables  in it. It’s an odd feeling to sit in a bus and slowly realize that my legs are getting wet and it smells strangely of familiar veggies! So it has already seen its first wash! I will try to do better this week, no veggies are allowed to come along,lol!

So this is what I made yesterday. I am very happy to say that I also made all my medium stars, 28 stars all 8 inches wide.  Sorry, no pics yet.I did not have time to make the big ones, so it’s what I look forward to when I get back home.

 

My first frangipanis are blooming in the garden, I love them so much!

 

These ones grow on a branch that broke off a tree in my old house. I planted it and now it is a small tree itself. This is the basic frangpani, it smells wonderful and looks great. I have five different ones and these two are the first to put out flowers now that it’s getting really hot! I just find them amazing!

 

Look what’s drying on the front gate. Amaris’ quilt that I made her last year. The guinea pigs peed on it, so it got a wash. I love this simple pattern and would like to try in in hot colors, like orange and red.

And last but not least I got my second postcard in the mail! Thank you Tina, it’s so intricate!

 

I have to get ready now, tomorrow I am heading to Bangkok and Sunday to Vietnam. I will see you all in about ten days. I am looking forward to going to a nice resort with my daughter in Hoi an. I am not even sure where that is in Vietnam, but we’ll fly there and it’s a surprise for me. I feel very blessed and excited to get away for a bit!

See you all soon!

Take care,

Cathy

Read Full Post »

So many projects, so little time!

Well, I just have to show you all my half done projects today, because it doesn’t look like I am finishing anything very quickly right now.

I always wait with blogging until I can show you the whole finished thing, and it doesn’t work.

But I am sooo  happy to have my sewing machine back, it’s purring like a happy kitten!!

 

Please meet Tilda, or at least a Tilda doll. I think that will be her name, unless she gets a lot of sisters and I have to get more inventive.

I just did her eyes, cheeks and hair in the last couple of days. Her dress is not finished, she has no undies, tks, tks, and no shoes yet. But considering she lived naked for a whole month her circumstances are improving. She will be back when she feels properly dressed and photo ready.

I made another little girl, very little actually. Tilda is a good 18 inches tall or so, but this next one s about two inches.

 

Isn’t she cute? She will be the front of a little bag, this afternoon I hand quilted the back of the bag.

I found this book a couple weeks ago and just couldn’t resist.

 

I know, I know, it’s all in Chinese!!, but the pictures speak for themselves and if you’re lucky you get a couple of English words in there too!

 

See, we can understand it perfectly, the pictures that is!! And just in case, they tell us at the top that this is : How to make! It’s what I get for living in Asia, Chinese books!

 

This is the original girl from the book.

I also made some new pillow covers for the garden.

 

Sorry about the bright sunlight. I made the striped ones new, the dogs trample around on them all the time as they jump from the porch to the garden.

 

Bailey graciously offered to pose, she was rather intrigued and licked the camera and the lens full on right before this shot. I usually lay here on this bench early morning and the dogs will come and cuddle for a while. It’s a good way to start the day!

And here is what I did this morning:

 

This quilt is big, really big. I had to push the TV cabinet over, just to get enough floor space. And Bailey helped too, she snatched the tape and ran off with it. So I banned the dogs to the porch, but then Alyssa felt sorry for them and put up their play pen and sat them in the living room. They have two moms you know!!

 

I also solved my safety pin shortage crisis! I found these decent quality safety pins, smaller then I had wished, but they work very well. So I am now in possession of some 300 -400 safety pins, which should last me a while! Yeahhh!

 

Safety pin land! And I am still thinking how to quilt t his quilt. I think I have to quilt it quite densely as it gets heavy use.

 

Ok, well, now you know what I have been up to. I hope to finish this quilt next week,  that’s my goal.

Now I have to go to bed, as tomorrow will be a long day!

I hope you have fun too!

See you sooon,

Cathy

Read Full Post »

Short post better then no post

Alright, let’s see, what can I do in 15 minutes?

 

This is what I sewed today ( not in 15 minutes). It’s the cute and easy pattern that I showed you last time.

 

I really like the happy look it has! Right now it’s 60 inches square. I need to go buy a bit more fabric and give it a nice wide border!

 

Ok, so far so good.

I am sooo happy that my sewing machine is back from repairs!!

Now I can put together two quilt backs and get busy finishing these two. Ahhh! I feel a bit lost not finishing one thing before starting another. I also have a half made Tilda doll on my counter and ten more ideas in my head.

Sorry, I gotta run.

See you soon,

Cathy

Read Full Post »

Progress

Things are going well here, my tree is growing.

 

First I finished stitching and sewing all the leaves and stuffed them a bit. Then of course I had to stick them on the tree to see how it looks and send a copy to my daughter for her input (it is for her after all!

 

On the bottom is her dog Bruno and his three puppies, just in case you are wondering. I know they are family to her, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to put them ON the tree. My family is on the right side and her hubby’s is on the left. The only change she wants is a leaf for her upcoming baby. I can do that! 🙂

Now to sew on the stars. I really ironed and measured and marked carefully to get it right, and guess what, it worked!! Much to my happy surprise!

 

So then I had to decide how much white frame to add. first I wanted the whole six inches, but it would have been difficult to cut and piece, so I settled for half.

 

I like it, it looks pretty good. This is my top, it measures 42 inches square, which is a decent size for a wall quilt.

Honestly, I have no idea how big wall quilts should be, I seem to see them in every possible size.

I am really not sure if I can quilt it like that or if I have to take all the leaves off first. I am afraid I cannot get the cloth straight for quilting if I applique the leaves on first, arghhh! Any advice on this?

And here is my solution for when you’re stuck,

Snack!  how about a sandwich;

 

Seven grain bread,salami, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce with mustard and pepper. And yes, I had butter on it too.

Are you hungry yet?? This is my favorite breakfast actually, usually with smoked ham.

Ok, I will stop talking about food now before you walk away to get some too!

I do want to show you what Amaris has been painting:

 

I may be biased as a mother, but I think it’s quite nice!

 

I  can see her progress over the last year, she is much more detailed and gets the light really nicely.

 

Her older sister in Vietnam asked to see her pictures, to hang one in her new apartment. It’s such a thoughtful way to encourage a budding artist, I think it’s sweet! ( Why didn’t I think of that?)

 

 

I am happy for my teen girl to have a hobby and a talent, being 14 is difficult enough.

Lastly, I have to show you her brick wall:

 

I love terracotta!

Anyway, back to quilting. When I got the family tree top done I started wondering where all my safety pins had disappeared too. You know, so and so likes to clean his comb with them, I drop a few on the floor, but all of them gone?? Then  had a light bulb moment: they are still stuck in the quit you wanted to throw away twice! Hmm, what now, I do need these pins to baste the quit. There were a couple more light bulb moments and I am happy to say that I took  that quilt and practiced my jester hats on it. The hats were not magnificent, to be honest, but it was definitely the better solution then throwing it out, and it felt sooooo gooood to finish this garden.

 

Hello birdie, I did this part with loops, which means I must have done it in January, right? If I were to do something like this again I would hand applique the flowers and birds. It was a pain to stop every few stitches to rotate the quilt to get around each flower.

 

Swirly wind above, cloudy hats below. That was the idea anyway. I put some loops between the hats to help me get from one hat to the next and because the bottom section was all done that way. I had put two layers of batting in the middle, hoping to get the quilting nice and puffy. Instead I almost couldn’t move the thing under the machine, which is why I got so frustrated with it all. I finally hid it among other quilts on top of my cupboard cause it annoyed me so much. That part really worked, I clear forgot about it until I got desperate for my safety pins, ha!!

 

I have now forgiven myself and the quilt for both of our bad attitudes. I flatly refuse to take all the blame on this one, I have never met a quilt this stubborn before. All is well that end well, we are friends again now, and it only took half a year.

 

I like the swirls, they are fast, fun and easy and really show up nicely. And I can do them in both directions, I found that out too!

 

Here is the whole garden, and I also put a nice pink binding on it, but I have no pic of that. So the bottom is loopy, the middle “hatsy” and the top swirly. Best of all, it’s done. It’s rather cute and sweet, but I don’t want to do anything like that ever again!!

While taking this photos, I found this in the garden

 

Alien much? This fellow has a tail piece, simulated wings, a hairy chest and some bling on top for good measure, plus a red mouth! Nice humor in nature, I love it!

OK, I have to quit and go to bed.

As soon as I can figure out what to do to quilt my family tree, I will do that. But tomorrow is scoring tests, weekly shopping, shower the puppies,and three hours of teaching. Next is two days in Bangkok, so Monday will be my first chance to put in any real time for fun again!

What are you doing this weekend?

I hope you have fun too!

See you soon,

Cathy

Read Full Post »

August already?

Yesterday was Swiss National day and I was halfway through the day before I remembered. And I AM Swiss. Oh well, I hope they had fun!

I sure did, I spent the whole day quilting. That hasn’t happened for a while, which made it all the sweeter. In the morning I had to hurry and finish my FMQ challenge piece, and yes I did get it in on time! due to the time change. I even had one hour to spare. Then I caught up on some much needed sleep and around lunch down I got down to business to baste my garden quilt. I worked on it all afternoon and watched a movie at night so I could hand stitch the binding down. It rained all day so my first chance at pics were this morning. The puppies were eager to help by running around the garden, so we all got along well.

 

This picture I took before the rainy days. This is the quilt top before quilting, obviously. I am rather happy I got all twelve blocks done, it took me about three months!

 

I didn’t dare to lay it on the floor today, what with wet dirty puppy paws all around me! They just went wild running around to make up for yesterday, I guess.

 

Are you talking about me?? This is Bailey, she has gone from 600g to two kilos now. she’s just about as rambunctious as she looks here!

 

The always innocent looking Bandit. He has grown from 400g to 1.4 kilos now and can intimidate bigger Bailey any day. So his innocent look is just a handy disguise! They are both adorable and add so much to our lives! They have just finished all their basic vaccines, which is good for them and theyare bundles of energy and fun!

Back to the quilting, my garden quit is not finished yet. I stitched it in the ditch with mono filament thread, the plastic stuff. It’s a first for me and I liked it quite a bit,as it doesn’t show the mistakes, ha! The problem is that I really had a hard time seeing what I was doing too! I couldn’t get it into the bobbin, it kept jamming, so I used regular thread in the bobbin. I wonder what happens if you iron it???  It just better not melt. I guess I better not iron it!! Maybe I will experiment on a scrap. Anyway, I still plan to outline all the applique shapes, which will take some time. I just had to get it basically done to keep my sanity, because……..

I have been shopping and I am really itching to start my next two projects.

Happy dots!! This is to be a wall hanging for my oldest daughter, it’s my belated wedding gift for her. She picked a combination of patterns, something with sawtooth stars all around and an applique family tree in the middle with everyone’s names stitched onto it.

 

Even the scraps look happy! I really like these little dots, it’s a departure from my last three months of brown/greens and it feels good. I had to buy a meter of each so there will be plenty for many other projects. I think I’ll start a dot collection!

 

So having duly somewhat finished my garden quit yesterday I set out to cut all the pieces for my stars. I really want to try to do exact work, it would be so nice not to lose the points on my stars just this once, don’t you think? So it took me over an hour to cut these babies, 7/8ths of anything is not easy to cut. I also ironed all the fabric first, though I didn’t wash it. I will even try to set the seams and actually take my time with it. Honestly I am not sure I can live up to all that but I will try. I did cut very carefully in hopes of avoiding future disasters. My track record for stars is not too good, either that or I am plain too picky!

And then since I did go to China town last Sunday, I also got the fabric I need for yet another quilt that will not get out of my head:

 

Blues, and… do you see the dots?!! and

 

Pinks.Hopefully it will all turn into something like this:

 

This is from Lynette Anderson’s book as is the Garden quilt.

 

I really like her projects very much! I am just not sure about the size of this quilt. it is originally 34″ by 44″ , which is rather small to be useful?? The applique blocks are 4″ square, it seems to me that for the work it will take to applique and stitch all that I’d rather have something 60″ by 80″. As soon as I can make up my mind I can start to wonder where I will find the time to do all of this, hehe!

And then I  finally got some decent wire for my beading!

 

It does not look glamorous, but the fact is that to make anything decent you need good, strong pliable wire. My bead soup is waiting:

 

Isn’t it pretty? I just about want to eat it, I love the corals and the carnelian hearts, I so want to do this!

Ahh, I also made this two weeks ago:

 

My very own leather bag! I love it, I absolutely love it! My daughter does too, so I promised to make her one for her birthday, belated again, she turned twenty last Monday and we’ll have lunch together today to celebrate (it’s a holiday today in Thailand)

 

I like the bling! A lampwork heart and pretty lace.

 

This makes me smile every time I see it,  ha! For rings I used key chain rings, so the color would match the tag.

Well, this got to be a very very long post, sorry about that. It will take me a while to get around to all these projects, let alone finish them all. But I like to have ideas and options, it’s fun. I hope you enjoyed reading about my plans.

What are you doing this week? any sewing, any quilting?

I’d love to hear about your projects!

Have a nice day,

Cathy

 

Read Full Post »

Fabric Labels!

Hello, I am back! That’s pretty fast for me, don’t you think?

Well, I realized that I never got to tell you about my new labels. I had planned to make them ages ago and finally got them done, yeahh!

I got the tutorial for this here:   http://patchworkpottery.blogspot.com/2008/09/fabric-labels-tutorial.html.

The tutorial is great, it’s so well written and illustrated!

You need some Tee-shirt transfers and some tape, I got twill tape. It’s one of those little things I have always wanted, because it adds that little extra to any project. They must be printed in reverse, so that when you iron them onto the ribbon they will be the correct way again.

I now have a whole roll of little labels for my projects and feel very good about that indeed!

The bigger ones are for quilts , should I ever want to label any.

This is the back of my new wallet, complete with the foundation FMQ from last month and my first label ever!!

I might as well show you the front too. Well, I think you might have seen this before, I remember bragging about owning a village.

I also made a small camera case and bag for my daughter, as she put in a request.

A small case with Velcro, I really need to make one for me too!

and a little bag, I am sure you can see the label on the loop.

I also colored my stitching, which turned out well for a first try.

I am trying to decide 1. f I can iron this thing and 2. what I can make out of it??

The Inktense pencils worked very well. I applied the fabric medium first and then colored over it, it was super easy! The black back stitching worked as a “wall” and I could just slide around with the pencil in each space. I have to admit that I wish I had bought the pastel colors instead, they would be more useful overall then these strong colors. Maybe next time??? I did find them In Bangkok, you know, hmmm.

But I am happy with the results and how easy it is to do. Now I am looking for a bigger project to try this on, you know, like a whole cloth quilt with a lot of free motion quilting all around it? I just have to find another holiday to do it all!

And by the way, my last long to do list worked out wonderfully. I managed to shower the puppies when my friend called and invited me for lunch. That was a lot more fun then working through a list anyway and I went to work un-showered and took care of most of the other things somewhere along the week. I did learn that maybe my shower should come first thing in the morning!!

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead with some free time for sewing!

See you soon,

Cathy

Read Full Post »