Yay I finished my Flying Geese in a Ring Swag!

I have to say that for a while I thought it would be a problem... what with various health issues in the family including my neck which so rudely gave me a headache whenever I spent time on the machine (or the computer) lol I had to go about a month with almost no sewing! Ah hand sewing I hear you say, yes well I am a pedantic pain and I did several more applique blocks on my 'bunnies on the go' design using Darcy Ashtons patterns, however that made my neck heaps worse lol and the physio a little stroppy :) she couldn't understand why I couldn't just walk away from sewing altogether for a few weeks or so.

close up of the canoe... the little carrots are raw edge and sewn on, the orange bit is less than a cm in length - it was fiddly to sew!

This is what they look like together, I have a three more to add...

 Here are the Geese on a ring! I used some of my most treasured local hand dye fabrics, as the colours are truly scrumptious... Unfortunately I checked her website to order more and she has retired :(( oh dear, so if any one knows a site of a home dyer that uses procion based dyes and a really tight weave cotton please let me know!

Smart Arts Christmas Party

Hello and Apologies! I was desperately trying to spend more time in November actually doing craft... especially since in October I worked out I had almost spent more time online blogging and reading. Then I tried to merge two google accounts, which went quite well except I couldn't save my reading list to the new one (even from scratch) So again apologies for not visiting reading and commenting or even posting.

So Novembers big event was meeting all the lovely ladies at the Smart Arts 'Fabric' Group (I use the term broadly as there are many artistic and adventurous ladies so there is no limit to the wonders of fabric) This was the Christmas break up on the 19th...They (we) also planned some of the calendar events for the new year, fabric dying, fabric painting and all sorts of other product education sessions - its going to be amazing :)

For secret santa presents we were limited to $10. So I made a pouch... and then filled it with bag fixings and wrapped it in fabric :) I was happy with how it turned out.

Below are a variety of pics that I took over the afternoon... Starting with the show and tell - apologies to the ladies I was so excited I have forgotten who did what!

 A picture set on canvas utilizing nature and fabric

 A major hexie piece!

 A series of fabric dying techniques

 You rmemember the 'copper' quilt from the redlands exhibition, this is Lyn with 3 'inktense' artworks she completed in a week

 There are two of these display books - one is for ADC's but I can't remember which is Helen's and which is Marianna's

The work is stunning I am truly blessed to have fallen amongst such a group of ladies, and hope that I can learn and maybe share a few things too :)

Now for the people shots....

 A special cake for Betty's 80th

Small blog meet - Fresh Sewing Day

Well hello to any new bloggers who may wander in! I am joining Lynne's small blog meet again as I am currently sitting on 9, I also hope to travel around and meet more people and see lots of wonderful things being made - as always :) A big thank you to Lynne for helping us all out!

I am combining the blogs as I only have one finished item to post - my silk scarf in tones of orange... Go here to see the whole thing and use the pattern :) The only thing left to do is to press or set it (I haven't tried that before so I'll let you know)

 

Overall I am really happy with how it turned out, and it filled in those evenings by myself when G was oncall :)

CanTeen quilt update

Ok well a while ago I posted about my bandanas arriving... A few things have happened since then, I have worked out that I have three colour groups that I like...

 The pinks and purples

The blues whites and yellows

 and the one I started with the black red and hints of yellow and blue

Then I added some bold solids - I have to add that with this colour palette I was thinking of guys, cos everyone needs to use a quilt :)

 and selected a backing... (bottom right)

Then I took some time to play with patterns...  the trick was to pay the quilt out in a way to work with the featured bandanas both visually and size wise.

The one I chose for these colours was the pattern with large square in a square blocks (or log cabin variation) alternating with the bandanas. 

The beggining

The first blocks...

A stack of blocks trimmed to size...

A stack of bandana quarters trimmed to size, some I had to unpick the hem because I wanted to feature the text around the outside...

The quilt top all laid out ready to sew together, I just need the dedication block for the missing space (thanks Vicki for the idea )

Its definitely busy, and believe me those pieced blocks do weird things out of the corners of your eyes lol! However its not for me, and I think it works alright together... please give me your thoughts x

A change of direction - silk yarn

One of my 'evil' purchases at the Craft and Quilt expo was this gorgeous silk yarn

It has a wonderful sheen, is hand dyed and I particularly fell for the variegated... Anyone who is interested the yarn is by Alchemy but I warn you the price is not for the faint hearted - that was my "evil' part as I didn't strictly need it lol... However I think that I will easily get a dainty scarf per ball so that makes one or two for me and some great presents ready for Christmas :) - and there is my justification!

So while I have been resting from my weeding and quilting, I have been sitting watching TV and crocheting - which I have been unable to do for the last 2.5 years due to the vertigo and other forms of dizziness. I have to say it is wonderful to be getting full capacity back :). Although I've stayed optimistic and positive all the way through, its amazing to be able to do ordinary things without wondering what the repercussions will be. This will make you laugh - there was a period when I was having a brilliant day if I could wash my hair! lol and this period lasted months! Rofl! Isn't life amazing, have you noticed that often when we are given a challenge it leads to so many other benefits in the long run? Please let me know of your experiences :)

Ok back to the yarn.... I decided to do a simple grid pattern, its really easy simply chain stitch as long as you want the scarf to be wide (keeping it in multiples of your grid ie my grid is 3 so I chained 27) Then to start you need to chain an additional number of stitches to equal the length of a row stitch and the across (this will make sense in a minute)...then I decided to use a double treble stitch (which equals 4 chain stitches) to give some height to each row (here if you don't know the stitch), so the basic pattern is;
a. chain 4 (4 for the pretend db tr)
b. db tr  - repeat in every stitch across the chained run, for row one as a base.
c. chain 6 (4 for the pretend db tr and 2 normal) then
d. 1 db tr then 2 ch - repeat this step all the way across the row...
e. repeat steps c. and d. until the scarf is as long as you would like

For added interest you can add in solid patches like I have - once you've established the grid its easy - instead of the 2ch replace it with 2 db tr, I just di this by sight, some rows have none with some up to 3 depending on what felt right.

Hope this helps

and now its finished....

with a tiny amount of silk left over in case I decide it needs tassels of some sort...