Thanks Mum xx

Again with the baby quilts

Ok, last post about these baby quilts. Promise.

 

So first, I made the one with the orange border. Interestingly, its the least good, I think, in many ways. I like that as I made more, I improved in my sewing and accuracy and such.

 

 

But I still like the colours & the fabrics. This one is destined for NZ, in the not too distant future.

 

Then in the middle, I made one from a pack of precuts. I don't remember what the precut pack was called, but it was Moda, and I bought it at The Needlewoman, a lovely quilt shop in central Hobart. I also bought that bright orange border fabric from the first quilt there. They are lovely, and tolerant of small clumsy children.

 

 

After discovering how much time precuts buy you, I sped through this one. I wanted to try quilting with a contrast thread, and also quilting a little more than I usually do (see a theme here?!) I think it came out fine - it looks a little wonky in the picture above as its been folded for a while, but its quite sweet in real life. You can see where my machine got serviced (if you really look), and it really shows how much of what I was struggling with earlier was my machine - the stitches are much more even post-service.

 

  

I love this fabric selection - its cute and bright and modern all in one.  This one is heading off to the UK in a month or two, fingers crossed!

And that, for the time being, is the end of the baby quilts.

More small quilts

So the baby quilt production line continues....

 

 

This was my third in this batch. The colour scheme is not my personal favourite, but somehow I had a small stash of pink and acqua fabrics, and it was clear that they weren't going to disappear any time soon unless I actually used them. So I bought two more fat quarters, and turned them into this:

 



The baby I have in mind for this one was born a few weeks early, but got home last week and so with perfect timing I finally bound it, and its ready to go in the mail.

This one got delayed as my trusty old (ancient?) sewing machine finally gave in. I took it to the repair place, and regretfully told the lady that I had never had it serviced (or actually even oiled or cleaned it much) in its 21 years of life, and she just smiled a patient smile and said they would call me. They did, and now my machine is back to its old self - well, even better than its most recent form of its old self.

Which made quilting this lots of fun. So I just kept going a bit more than usual.

 I decided early on that I'd try something new in each of these quilts. This one I wanted to do a pieced back (which I did) and to do more quilting than I usually do (which I also did). It turned out great (I think), and I'm really glad I tried both. I feel a bit nasty giving these lovely people a baby quilt with white backing, but you can't be too precious about these things :)

I love these quilts so much, that I took quite a few picture (noticed?) so I'll post the others in a separate post. I'm sure that's enough for any dedicated reader for today!

Yippy Skippy

This is Skippy. Well, half a skippy, really. Skippy is a lovely dress pattern from Make It Perfect, who is now local (ish) to me! I really liked the dress pattern when I saw it, and wanted to give a downloadable sewing pattern a try. I also knew I had some superfine merino jersey from NZ that would look great as this, but only enough for a top. So I tried to be good, and ran off to Spotlight to buy something with a similar stretch to make a wearable muslin. Turns out, I love my muslin - it is way more than wearable!

 

 

Its a dreadful photo (hey - check out my bathroom! Next time, tidy up before photo shoot...) but oddly far less dreadful than those my dearest husband took under duress. So that's what you get for now. If it helps, the fabric is a sort of marled grey-blue. Despite not having made a downloadable pattern before, and not having sewn any adult-sized clothing for a while, this was really easy, and has some lovely touches. The puffy sleeves are cute as, the cuffs on the sleeves and hem are a great proportion, and it just sits nicely. To be fair, there were a few things I would have changed, and will change for the final version - it could be a little longer (I made it exactly to the pattern, just without the skirt & pocket), and the neckband sits out a little thanks to the fabric. But generally its lovely. And it turns out that sewing all those small person clothes has taught me a thing or two :)

Fingers crossed for my merino version....

 

To make up for the ordinary photo, here is a kookaburra.....

I really didn't use any zoom to get this photo - he was just chilling out in a tree at child-eye height, very conveniently! Unfortunately, my rubbish camera wanted to focus on the sticks rather than the bird, but you get the idea.

Misty Mountain

We had a rainy weekend here, which made for some spectacular views on kunanyi/Mount Wellington (apologies for the poor quality phone pics)

 

 Junction cabin

 Like the faraway tree - the tops in the clouds

  The mountain was in bloom too, which is a beautiful but subtle affair. The whole place smelled incredible in the rain.