My project roundup for last week

Friday night Australian time saw the first installment of Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt for 2014. It is titled The Grand Illusion. You can view the progress of others on Bonnie's Link Up page.

Grand Illusion Week 1

The first week's instructions required us to make Broken Dishes blocks which many of you have received any of my BOM projects will know are one of my favourite blocks to use. I am all caught up and waiting for next Friday night when I will have a quick look and then head off to bed.
Today has been a busy one for me. I have sent out the first block in my new BFC 11th Anniversary Set BOM. 

BFC 11th Anniversary BOM Block 1

Just a reminder that this is the free BOM I am running using the free designs that Suz from BFC Creations is putting up for free download off her site to celebrate the 11th anniversary of her business. Six designs have been released already so make sure to go and collect them as they will come off the site the day after Design 12 is released and will then be available for sale. If you would like to participate in the BOM please send me an email and I will add you to the list.

Block 8 in the  Forest Owls BOM has also gone out to those participating.

Forest Owls Block 8

 Nancy has used my Zig Zag tablerunner pattern and embroidered her runner with free embroidery designs from BFC to enter their freebie contest. The tablerunner pattern cannot be downloaded from my blog but I can email it to you if you send me an email. I think you will agree with me that she has done a great job.

Nancy's Zig Zag tablerunner

You can probably remember where I recently covered two small Moses baskets to be used at the local hospital so that angel babies an stay with their parents for a little longer before they say their final goodbyes. The baskets have the Cuddle Cot cooling system in them to enable this to happen. At the end of last week I adapted a bassinet and its existing liner to suit the larger cooling pad and also made the linen including this candlewick quilt to go in it.
The designs are from a set by Julie Hall Designs that I purchased a couple of years ago. They are all 4x4 designs that I combined to make the quilt.

Cuddle Cot/Bassinet Candlewick Quilt

The quilt is made of of cotton and fabric that could stand up to rigorous laundering an still be  delicate. The lace was taken from a wedding gown belonging to one of one of the midwives.

The little birds have been having a wonderful time in our garden. These goldfinches availed themselves of the water in the fountain to have spruce their feathers up today.

Check your accounts and change your passwords

In a recent post I told you that my Ebay account had been hacked. Just discovered my Paypal account has also been hacked with over $3000 worth of payments assigned to my credit card.
Please check your accounts and change passwords. I have been in contact with Paypal and I am hoping to get all of this back.

Trip down memory lane

I have been meaning to share the links to these videos for a while and just remembered them again tonight. As most of you know I live in Devonport on Tasmania's North West Coast. The video below is the first one in a series of a car trip commencing at Launceston and travelling along the highway to the far North West Coast.

The series of short films which were made in the early 1950's by the Education Dept to be shown to students in Tasmania's schools have been digitized and uploaded to YouTube by our state library system which are called LINCs.

You can access the remaining clips in the series by going to this YouTube page

Projects to Share

A quick post this morning.

Karen has finished her Polka Dot Giraffe quilt

Evelyn has sent in a pic of a quilt she made using the layout of my Cuddlesome Sea Creatures quilt. You can find the quilt with the link to download the pattern on this page 

End of a Big Week

Friday is upon us once again and another week is nearly over. Most of plans have gone out the window.
Last Saturday we had our usual penguin guiding volunteer work with a meeting and then the guiding at night. We had some glorious sunsets that night.

Sunday I measured up the 34 cast members in readiness to start the costumes for a musical that the local choral society is doing next year that I am costuming.The musical is called All Shook Up and features Elvis songs all of the way through. First hurdle trying to source black and white striped knit fabric for prison costumes in the scene that features Jailhouse Rock. Outfits (skirts) in the next scene to change form drab to colourful and I have managed to work that out at 2.00 am this morning.

Monday we had the ladies sewing group that meet at my house. A change of day as Tuesday I had major dental work done so it should have been a matter of recuperating for the remainder of the week but no I had a 4 hour meeting with the show director on Wednesday while we went over the script with a fine tooth comb so that I could get a handle on what type of costumes are needed for each scene.

We found a hat we liked on eBay for one of the characters so I went to bid for it and discovered my account had been hacked so it was a conversation with Ebay that began Thursday morning while we sorted that out. Think they understood when I told them there was no way I would be buying a Honda racing bike.

Thursday afternoon I went to the local sewing machine shop for a demonstration on the new Brother Dream Machine. A fantastic machine but I think the new houseful of carpet put paid to that this year. The sister shop of our local Stewart's Sewing Machine centre was having its 40th birthday yesterday and we each got a present. I was thrilled when I opened the pink noodle box to find these lovely fat quarters.

This week there has been a flurry of gorgeous birds in our garden. The most beautiful little blue wrens have returned. They flit around so quickly it is hard to take a photo of them.

The  lovely ladies from the Buderim Machine Embroidery group have been working on overdrive. They have sent me another lot of beautiful lace angels to go in my Bridie's Blossoms packages.

Thursday morning I also embroidered 30 white men's hankies with the word Dad on them for the fathers of Angel babies at the Royal Hobart Hospital. It is a little keepsake that fathers can treasure.

Forest Owls BOM coming together

I have just sent out Block 7 in the Forest Owls BOM and have also stitched Rows 1 and 2 together.

Forest Owls BOM Rows 1 and 2

I am going a little more slowly with this BOM but that being said I will probably have another block ready to be sent out in the next day or so.

It is a challenge to design a quilt around sets of designs. Some designs are fairly square in their dimensions, others more rectangular so you have to be creative in how you incorporate them into their own individual quilt layout.

Freebie and Fold and Sew Piecing Technique

Suz over at BFC has generously put up a free download of a lovely Santa design. Make sure you get him before this coming Tuesday.

The Missouri Star Quilt Co have just published their new video showcasing a fabulous quick and easy pieced quilt called Tipsy Tumblers.




Also visit the website of  Handicrafts by Peg to find out how to piece lots of other quilt block using this no cut folding technique.

Projects and a small freebie roundup

One of my lovely blog readers has sent me a lovely gift. They purchased the Loss set of designs From The Needle of Anne and they were emailed to me on their behalf. Thank you  very much they will be put to very good use.

We are having a lot of bird life visit our garden and I have been trying to take some photos of them in our fountain. It is difficult as they see me if I stand up at the window. The first is a photo of our native Little Wattlebird which is  honey eater. They just love our camellias and hang upside down extracting the nectar.

Little Wattlebird

The European Green finch is an introduced bird and is very similar in size to a canary. In fact it is a songbird as is the canary.

Louise has made the Pole Twist Table Runner. This is a quick to piece runner and is perfect for gift giving or for something to change the look of your table or sideboard. You can find the links to the pattern  on this page.

Louise's Pole Twist Table runner

Karen has taken the HIA Stack'Ems BOM blocks and with a bit of tweaking has created two smaller quilts to be donated to a hospital.

I have just sent out Block 6 in the Hatched in Africa  Forest Owls BOM. 

Block 6 Forest Owls BOM

Make sure to frequently visit the Bernina blog freebie page to pick up their current Tea Time alpha.

Creative Machine embroidery have some lovely free designs this month so be sure to go and collect them before the end of December including the cupcake design and gift tag. Spend some time browsing the site and following the freebie links.

Flair Magazine is closing so make sure to go and collect any freebies you may need.

We are ready for off!

Myself and three other friends usually meet at my house on Tuesday afternoons to work on various projects. Three of us are going to do the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt that Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville is running commencing at the end of  November so today we put our fabric selections together to compare them so that as we progress further down the track we can look back on our fabric journey and how it is played out. All three of us are using purple instead of yellow. Wendy (background) is using all batiks whilst Elizabeth (left) is using a mixture of batiks and other textures. I am using all scrappy from my cupboard and it is not all on display. We can't wait to get started.

Earlier on in the year we also started the Project House 360 Embroidered BOM and of course I was doing mine in red/black and white. Unfortunately there have been no updates since August and we are very worried that something has happened to Christine Stainbrook who is running the BOM. If anyone does know that she is OK can they please email me so that we can put our minds at ease.

I have had some enquiries about the lace angels the Buderim ladies have been making for my Bridie's Blossoms packages. The more open lace angel is from Janome Card 129 and the little angel with the hearts in the middle are from  Criswell designs.

A new week

Yesterday I finished lining the smaller of the two Moses baskets for our local hospital so they are now complete. When the fabric needs replacing with something a little more fancy if needs be I can use the ones I have already made as a template.

Smaller Moses Basket

Rachel from Queensland has previously sent me two lots of angels and they have all been used in packages so I was thrilled Norma and her Machine Embroidery Group held at the Buderim Craft Cottage on the Sunshine also generously offered to make these gorgeous little angels to be included in our Bridie's Blossoms packs. It is all these little keepsakes we include that families cherish in their memory boxes for years to come. I have photographed some of them for you to see.

Buderim Machine Embroidery group angels

It seems that the weeks just seem to fly by. No sooner is it one Friday than the next one happens to be here. 

Two of the three friends I get together with on a Tuesday afternoon here at my house are going to do the 2104 Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter called Grand Illusion. We are going to get our fabrics together tomorrow and photograph them all at once  to see how  our choices compare with each other. 

Remember if you want to be a part of the new BOM I am running with the BFC anniversary design set that will be released in the next few weeks please email me so that I can add your name to the list.

Projects and Pics

I finished binding the HIA Stack'Ems quilt yesterday afternoon. There is just Block 12 and the construction pdf to be sent out and hope to get that done later on today.

HIA Stack'Ems BOM Quilt Finished

I have also lined one of these small Moses baskets for the local Maternity unit to use for their angel babies. It is designed to hold the Cuddle Cot cooling pad. The cover also had to be removable for laundering and also have holes in the rear for the cooling unit tubes to come through. I would do a bit and then walk away for half an hour or so to work out how to solve the next problem. This one is a prototype so I did not use expensive fabric to start with. I have one more small basket to do for a much smaller cooling pad but it does not have handles so may be a little less complicated.

Lined Moses basket to be used with Cuddle Cot cooling pad

Basket quilt

You will notice that the small quilt is stitched with the same design I use for the little vests. It is an embroidery design graciously given to me by Anita from Chrystal Embroidery.

We had a bit of rain last night and as a consequence had some lovely colours in the sky at sunset at the penguin viewing platform

Polka Dot Giraffe Quilt Finished

I have quilted and bound the Polka Dot Giraffe BOM so that is now safely tucked away until I find a good home for it. The last of the lessons in that BOM have been sent out. 

Polka Dot Giraffe BOM

There are only a couple of more lessons to be sent out in the HIA Stack'Ems BOM and that one will be finished. I am going at a slower pace with the HIA Forest Owls BOM.

A little bit of forward planning. Suz from BFC will be  generously releasing the first of the designs in her free anniversary set commencing next week and I will be doing another BOM with those designs. If you want to be part of that BOM please send me an email  and I will start compiling my email list. 

I am also replenishing my Bridie's Blossoms packages so that I have a few on hand for then they will be required.