Project Roundup

It is Christmas Eve here in Australia and we have a beautiful bright and sunny morning here in Devonport.

Yesterday our weekly sewing group had a little more special afternoon tea. In keeping with our quilting/embroidery group and all the pinwheels we make I made some fruit mince pastry pinwheels.

For those who might like to try them I found the recipe here. I used two pastry sheets which I cut into 9 squares each. They are reasonably quick to make and look fantastic.

We also compared our progress on Clue 4 of the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter.

You can catch up with what others are doing at Bonnie's link up here.

Just a reminder if you need a quick to stitch gift for a quilter or a sewer check out my popular scissor case tutorials that I revisited last post. 

You might also like to make the sewing machine needle organizer which can be found here

or the cup, mug, tin organizer which can be found here. I have my mug organizer on my sewing bench all the time.

Blocks 3 and 4 have been sent out in the BFC Anniversary BOM. We now have 225 people receiving these free lessons

BFC Anniversary Block 3

BFC Anniversary Block 4

I have also stitched the block together for Row 1.

BFC Anniversary Row 1

This is Wendy's progress on the BOM with her blue tonings. Wendy and Elizabeth get to see what is happening with our BOM each Tuesday before anyone else.

Wendy's BFC Anniversary Block 4

Wendy's BFC Anniversary Row 1

BFC Anniversary Block 3

This is Elizabeth's progress with her rich metallic green, brown and plum undertones.

Elizabeth's Anniversary Block 3

BFC Anniversary Block 4

BFC Anniversary Row 1

Block 10 has also gone out in the Forest Owls BOM and I have added another row to the quilt in progress.

HIA Forest Owls Block 10

HIA Forest Owls Rows 1-3

Wendy just has to stitch down the binding on here Embellished Dogs BOM. If anyone would like to receive the past lessons for this BOM just send me  an email .

Wendy's BFC Embellished Dogs BOM quilt

Insulated Carrier to use with Thermomix Thermoservers

I found a great tutorial from sewingmammas.com for an insulated casserole carrier. I thought it was an ideal size and shape to carry the insulated Thermomix Thermoserver dishes so I modified the pattern to suit the dishes. I have written a tutorial for my tweaked design for both the round and oval dishes. The carrier itself is lined with Insul Bright and makes the carrier a great accessory especially if you need to transport the fabulous fruity dream soft serve. I am also going to use it when making yoghurt.

Insulated Carrier for Round Thermoserver

Insulated carrier for Oval Thermoserver

You can download the pdf from HERE. When the page opens click on the downward pointing arrow to download the file.

There is still time to make some of these for Christmas presents.

If you are looking for a small gift for a sewing friend why not make a scissor holder. Quick and easy. There are two versions, the one with the pointed top is here

and the one with the rounded top is here

Weekly review

This week we have had warm weather and we have had cool weather. Just the thing for curling up on top of the couch.

It has been a busy one as I try and finish off a few projects as well as do some work on the BOM's etc.
I have completed Clue 3 for the Bonnie Hunter Mystery (Grand Illusion) and have compared my Clue 3 with my two Tuesday afternoon stitching friends who are also doing the mystery. You can check out what other people are doing by visiting the Linkup page

This afternoon I delivered 6 more recently competed quilts to the local women's shelter. This is the last of my charity sewing for this year. 55 quilts have gone to shelters in the North and North West during the last 6 months. I have also made up the items for and delivered 162 Bridie's Blossoms packs to the hospitals in Tasmania for angel babies

Charity quilts for local shelter

Bridie's blossoms packages

Blocks 3 and 4 in the BFC 11th Anniversary BOM have just been emailed out to those who have signed up to do this BOM.

Megan has sent in pics of her BFC Anniversary Blocks 1 and 2. She is just using one colour for her embroidery and it works well with her fabrics. If you are wanting to make an ultra modern quilt with a minimal amount of colours this could be a way to go.

Megan has also completed the Pole Twist Table runner.

You can find the free pattern for this from the link on this page

Bullard Designs are generously giving away a free mini set of designs that includes the present and star designs below.

If you want to spend a bit of time surfing the net here is a link to Japanese quilt shop (Otsukaya) webpage that has many free project patterns. If your web browser supports it make sure you translate. For most of them you can right click on the web page and choose translate if they have that feature.

I know that many of you like to know how the penguins are going. Here is a pic of one from last Saturday. It is very hard to take a good photo as they do not come out of their burrows or up from the sea until it is very close to dark and we are not able to use flash photography so as to not frighten them especially if they are feeding young.

Project progress and some freebies

Wendy has done Block 2 in her colourway for the BFC Anniversary BOM I am running.

Elizabeth has done Block 1 in purple sage green and gold tonings.

I have started the costumes for a musical show that I am doing the costume design and construction for that will be on stage in May next year. It features 1950's music by Elvis and so the costumes need to be true to the period. This is going to be my first skirt.

KennyKreations are up to HollyBird 7 with their free give away from their Yahoo group. I have copied and pasted the latest design  and rotated them to see how you could use it as a table centre idea  or even around a Christmas tree skirt. In fact you could make a wedge shaped skirt and put one of the birds on each one. It would look very elegant in gold on a white background or gold on a red background

KO designs have two new great test freebie designs. Make sure you click on each design once you have signed in to collect each freebie.

Basketkase Designs have this lovely design which would be great for a card. You do not have to sign in to get the design just click on the image of the design and then in the bottom left hand corner you will see the prompt to download it. I have changed the colour of the stars to see what they would look like in metallic silver.

The weekly roundup

Friday night Australian time saw the release of Clue 2 in the Bonnie Hunter 2014 Mystery quilt called Grand Illusion. I finished all the required blocks yesterday morning. I am so pleased that I can use black and white as my neutrals as you all know that colour element is part of just about every quilt I do.
Bonnie has a link page that you can go to each week to see posts from others who are participating in the mystery 

Grand Illusion 2

Today I have sent out Block 9 in the Forest Owls BOM

Forest Owls BOM Block 9

and also Block 2 in the BFC Anniversary BOM

BFC Anniversary BOM Block 2

Saturday night we went on our usual outing of being volunteer park guides at the Lillico penguins. We met a lovely couple on holiday from Pennsylvania in the US. This was their second trip to Tasmania.
There were some gorgeous penguins being very cooperative and showing themselves well before dark.This little fellow just peaking out is a baby that now has all of its adult feathers so is now waterproof and able to go out to sea to fish for itself.

This little baby came out of his burrow and as you can see still has a lot of down. When they grow feathers they do so from the tail upwards.

This penguin below was very busy scurrying in and out of his burrow collecting twigs and bits of grass to build his nest. You can just see the twigs in his mouth. He was very fast and it was diffiult to get a good photo of him.

There was also a full moon on Saturday night and I managed to take some shots of the moon shining on the water near Don Heads

Full Moon over Don Heads at Lillico

For those still working on  items for Christmas, Lyn Kenny from Kenny Kreations is generously giving away some Redwork Holly Bird designs, currently there are four. However, they are only available through her Yahoo group so you will need to join that to pick up those lovely design.
I thought that some of them would look lovely down the middle of a table runner. I would like to design one for you but do not have the time at the moment