Little man on a mission

I finished Tristan's shorts today, and, while I was at it, used up some of the scraps to applique a tee to match. I love the shorts (Ottobre 3/2008, #7 Aqua Pants) - there's a lot of pocket detailing and they look great in the Kokka Trefle. And here they are in action. My little man on a mission had a great time playing house, digging in the dirt, eating dirt (natch) and sweeping up the mess afterwards. The pants and tee went in the wash not long after. Scroll through the photos to see why!
See? Man on a mission :)

A start and a finish

Wonders will never cease! I've got a habit of posting new craft books and fabric, promising to make something with them soon and then consigning them to the cupboards and promptly forgetting about them. Well, this time, I've actually made a start - below is a picture of the cute Kokka fabric (posted about here) with the pattern laid out ready for cutting. I traced off the 'Aqua pants' from Ottobre 3/2008 in size 80cm and have since cut them out. They're waiting patiently to go under my needle just as soon as Tristan finishes his lunch :)
And a finish, of sorts. I decided to give the Sew What! Skirts book a go and decided to make a trial skirt before I cut into my precious (and exxy) Saffron Craig fabric (posted about here). Thank goodness I did! It's been a while since I've made any clothes from a pattern, and an even longer time since I've made anything for me. I made three mistakes on this trial skirt (all stupid and thankfully redeemable) and have decided that the drawstring waist is too bulky for the look I am going for. So, I will have to make a fitted waist, probably using bias binding tape and a zipper. Eek! Surprisingly, the actual drafting of the pattern was easy. So if I can get the waistline right, it should be a lot of fun to make some gorgeous skirts. Of course they won't be as easily adjustable as elasticised or drawstring waists, but they will better suit my round figure.
Anyway, here's the nearly finished skirt - if you look closely you can see the safety pin still in one end of the drawstring. I just need to handstitch the ends and the skirt is finished. It's a bit billowy, so I hope a wash will knock the size out of the fabric (yes, I'm naughty I didn't pre-wash) and it will sit a bit better. At any rate, it'll be a great beach skirt - perfect for tossing on over bathers.And, completely unrelated, here are a couple of pictures of Tristan, who is now nearly 15 months old. He loves 'helping' me bake, and, just like his big sister, his favourite part is banging the tins and licking the spoon! He's also part-time walking, although is making it near impossible to photograph him - as soon as he sees the camera he drops to his knees and crawls away at light speed. He's a cheeky little monkey, but you can see that from the photos.

Funky Chicks for a funky chick - a finish

I am so pleased with this little quilt! The meandering in a lovely soft variegated pink King Tut thread really complements the quirky fabric and I am glad I chose yellow binding over the pink. It's a simple quilt but I love how it's turned out. It just needs to be washed and dried and it'll be on its way to my auntie who lives in Sale in Victoria. Her chemo is off to a rocky start so hopefully receiving Funky Chicks will brighten up her day a little. I haven't seen her in years, but if she's well enough we'll see her in late December at a family get-together in Healesville, just outside Melbourne.
The quilt measures 43" x 36". For fabric details, see this previous post.

Granddad's visit means baking!

Granddad's visit over the weekend (he went home Tuesday) was the perfect excuse to bake - more people to eat it, less calories for my hips! I took the opportunity to make a lemon and coconut tart from Homemade. It looked delicious, and it was. Unfortunately, despite baking it for the alloted 40 minutes and allowing it cool, upon slicing it up I discovered that the middle hadn't cooked through. So, we changed the name to self-saucing lemon pudding :D
The kids adore Granddad and he dotes on them. They haven't seen him since out lightning visit to Bendigo in July, so it was great that he could take the long journey from Bendigo to Melbourne Airport by bus and then plane up here. At nearly 82, the eight-hour drive each way is a bit too much. I'm just grateful that he is still able to travel under his own steam. He's a lovely fellow. I'm very fortunate in my father-in-law!

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And in crafty news, this gorgeous Kokka Trefle fabric arrived last week from the Retromummy Shop - it's to become shorts for Tristan, with a matching applique tee. Summer is here and now that he's on his feet (yes, he's walking! Just. Still can't stand himself up - can only pull up, but he's taking steps between close objects), he's getting pretty dirty from lots of time outside - I'm discovering boys need more changes of clothes than girls!

Pay it forward slot open over at Miss Monny

The lovely Monika, who signed up as one of my Pay It Forward recipients has some slots open in hers if you're interested: link.

Learning to quilt by hand

I've often posted about wanting to improve my handquilting. When I was in my LQS the other day, I spotted a small sign advertising a handquilting class the following Sunday! I signed up on the spot and went along to the class yesterday. It was run by Canberra Quilter Kerry Gavin, who has been quilting for more than 30 years. You should see her stitches! They are tiny and perfect and she has incorporated some amazing designs into her quilts. My favourite that she showed us had four eagles, all stitched by hand and highlighted with trapunto. Amazing. Did I say amazing? Amazing.

The class only had five students, so we had lots of one-on-one time with Kerry and she was very encouraging. She first had us prepare the top - an ivory square of homespun, including marking up the design with pencil and basting the square by hand. We then tacked facings along each edge and, finally, we were ready for quilting. We spent the next two and a half hours learning Kerry's technique, which uses two thimbles: one on each middle finger - one on top and one underneath. The one on top controls the needle and the one underneath helps push the needle back up through the fabric. This was only a slight variation on my self-taught technique, so I didn't have too much trouble adjusting. I was amazed at what difference those small changes made though. I started to get much smaller and even stitches. Nothing compared to Kerry's - or Cynthia's - another lady in the class who was immediately AMAZING (there's always one), but so much better than what I'd been managing previously.
Kerry also let us in on one of her secrets - she uses a very loose, low-loft all poly wadding. It's much easier to needle than what I've been using. I've also been handquilting through a flannel backing, which doesn't help! Anyway, here are some photos of my practice piece. It looks a bit grubby - that's the pencil markings. The third photo is of the back - I was stoked to see the stitches on the back almost the same as those on the front.

(This is the back - I played with the contrast/brightness so the stitches would show clearly)

I will finish this piece off - I might even trapunto the hearts - Kerry also gave us a lesson in how to trapunto and I bought the needle and floss. At $22, I'd better use it, eh?

I'm also going to rip out some of the handquilting I did around the butterflies on the VHC quilt I'm making for Tristan - I can do it much better now and have a great idea for how to link the blocks together. Let's hope it looks as good in real life as it does in my imagination.

Doll quilt revealed!

Now that it's been safely received and opened by Helen, I can now reveal the mini quilt I made for the EBDQS3 swap, 'Tequila Sunhouse'. (Measures approx 17" x 20")

Helen recently participated in a block swap where she asked the other swappers to make a 'wonky house' block, based on her tutorial, which was a variation of Lazy Gal Tonya's ace tutorial. I thought this was a good jumping off point for my quilt - she now has a wallhanging to go with her yet to be made quilt.
Helen also loves brights, especially orange and pink. I had the tiniest piece of the fab orange, yellow, pink and gold striped fabric in my stash and that was the first fabric I grabbed for this quilt, I also had a largish piece of the graduated yellow through red fabric, which I thought would complement the roof nicely. I had lots of fun making the quilt and when it came to the quilting I took my inspiration from some table runners I'd seen made by The Silly Boodilly (Victoria). It was perfect for this little quilt, as it gives the house great texture - almost like corrugated iron, which is a common roofing material in Australia - especially for wonky old joints! Here's another shot of the back - I used corner patches for the hanging pockets - a very simple and effective way of doing it.Anyway, I hope Helen likes the mini. I enjoyed making it for her and there might even be some more wonky houses in my future :)

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And here is the sweet little mini made for me by Cass. Her first attempt at hexagons (I am yet to give them a go - they scare me for some reason) - she's very cleverly used some cheater patchwork fabric to great effect. Check out the backing - at first glance I thought it was pieced. What a great idea to add some interest to the backing! She also sewed on two hanging pockets - very thoughtful of her.Thanks Cass!

Under the needle

This is what's under my needle. The comfort quilt I'm making for my aunt. It's called Funky Chicks, after the cute tossed chicks fabric and also my aunt being a totally funky...you guessed it, chick. I'm doing a medium all-over meander for the first time and am pretty happy with how it's going. I don't know whether it's the denser quilting or my new choice of batting (Matilda's own wool/cotton blend, on Emma's recommendation), but there's no shifting or bunching happening. Woot!

(Click on the photo for a bigger image)

What's under yours?

Skirt ahoy!

Sew (little pun), you know that I love to sew clothes for Romily and Tristan. Yes. Have I made anything for me recently? No. Why? Well I don't much like my shape these days. Too many excuses (some legit, some not) have seen me avoiding all forms of exercise and enjoying maybe a few too many muffins. Well, now that Carl is doing night duty with Tristan and I'm getting a bit more sleep, the time has come. I've been heading out early mornings with Tristan, who thinks sun-up is getting-up time. Anyway, back to sewing. I need some summer skirts that fit around my 'bit too round' body. But I don't want to make skirts that won't fit once I get rid of my spare tyre and love handles (love those euphemisms, don't you?). I was browsing in my local fabric shop the other day and came across this grouse book (click on book for Book Depository link).
No patterns! Gasp! Eek! I know! You measure your waist, your hips and the length of fall and voila! You can make your markings straight onto the fabric, or, if you're me, onto a roll of cheap sew-in interfacing (which will 'stick' to the fabric while you're cutting it with no pins required - another bonus for time-pressed crafty mamas), which you can reuse.
The book is fab, because it's all about options, baby. You can have a drawstring, elasticised, zippered, snapped or wrap-around waist. You can make straight, A-line, half-circle or full. You can layer, you can embellish; the options are endless!

After I'd grabbed the book I spotted some Saffron Craig dressmaking weight cotton and snapped it up. Now I just need to decide which style (I'm thinking a wrap dress with side ties) and get cutting.I also spotted this fantastic tutorial on making a skirt from a tablecloth. Genius!

Crazy coconuts

On the kids show Bananas in Pyjamas, the character Rat in the Hat says 'cheese and whiskers' whenever something goes wrong. I started saying this instead of 'shit' whenever I dropped something, etc. When I joined the army ten years ago I found myself swearing A LOT. I've really tried to improve my language since then, but whenever I'm under stress I tend to revert to swearing. With two littlies in the house, this is certainly not appropriate behaviour. As I'm nudging 40, it's perhaps time to learn some personal mastery!

As part of this journey, Romily and I have been making up some crazy exclamations to use instead of naughty words! One of our favourite expressions is 'crazy coconuts!' I use this a lot and I think it's pretty harmless. It's become part of our family vernacular, and I think it's the perfect expression to use about the crazy coconuts weather we've been having in Canberra lately.
Lots of storms, rainbows, electrical storms, huge cloudstacks building almost every afternoon. We've had hot days and cold days. It's even been snowing up in the mountains just south of Canberra. All this in mid-spring!
Cold, rainy days have meant the kids and I have spent quite a few of them inside. What better to do on a rainy day than bake? Romily has been helping me use up our overripe bananas and we've made some delicious batches of muffins (secret ingredient is a small tub of Vaalia toddlers yoghurt) as well as a couple of more-ish banana chocolate cakes. The recipe is so easy and obviously foolproof, since I've managed to make it twice and been very happy with the results. I went off-road (or is that off-recipe?) and added some cream cheese icing. Delicious. If you want the recipe, get yourself a copy of the Homemade recipe book that I posted about here. You can order a PDF or hard copy. The PDF is only AUD$8 and the hard copy $15 + P&H. It's the best cookbook - all of the recipes are easy and most of them were contributed by busy mums so they're good for all the family.

Art quilt exhibition in Canberra

Congratulations to Canberra-based art quilters Helen Gray and Pamela Munday whose work has been selected for Art Quilt Australia 09, an exhibition of contemporary quilts presented by Ozquilt Network Inc and Craft ACT.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 7 November and continues until 19 December 2009 at the Craft ACT Craft & Design Centre, Level 1 North Building, 180 London Circuit, Canberra City ACT.

From the Canberra Quilters blog. I'll definitely catch this one.

Progress - on two fronts!

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I have finished another quilt top - this one for my aunt Keryn. She's a funky chick, who likes chickens, so I thought the Tossed Birds fabric from the Timeless Treasures Bon Voygage range was perfect for her. It coordinates beautifully with some of the Park Slope (Erin McMorris) range, so I grabbed some half yards of each (had to do a bit of searching to find it - I ended up getting most of what I needed from Fabricworm).
The fabric is so busy it needs some very simple piecing, so I went for 8" finished squares with a small 2" border of complementary fabric. I'm planning on doing a large edge to edge meander in pale pink. The backing will be the same as the border fabric. I've got a gorgeous white microdot on yellow for the binding, which I think will tie it all together nicely.

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I also mentioned I'd been doing some handquilting. While I'm no expert and my technique is terrible, I love the look and texture that close lines of quilting give to a quilt. I really wanted the caterpillar to pop out of the centre panel on this quilt, and it's certainly going to do that. The rest of the quilt is machine quilted in the ditch and outlines, but the centre will be entirely handquilted. I've tried with and without the hoop, and find the hoop does help make my stitches a bit neater as I don't have to hold the fabric - the hoop frame just rests on my arms/lap. No doubt if I persevere my stitches will become more even and smaller. I've booked into a handquilting class on 8 November, so that will probably help too. Just need to find the time to practise what I learn - my life story!

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And finally, my copy of Quilts, Baby arrived. Nicolette also posted about it over here. It's a great little book, with lots of inspiration not only for baby quilts, but for doll quilts too. Lots of different ideas to explore in there. Possibly for PIF gifts!

EBDQS3 swap quilt sneak peek

Now that it's made its way safely to Western Australia, I can post a sneak peek of the quilt I've made for the EBDQS3. I couldn't post it before, because I thought the colours would be a dead giveaway. But, as Helen now knows who it's from, I think it's okay to show you a tiny bit of the front and a shot of the back.The big reveal is on 7 November, so stay tuned. Mine hasn't arrived yet and I'm busting a gut to know who's making mine!

Eggy odyssey

For those of you who have been reading my random writing for long enough, you'll remember that Romily and I kicked of a rainbow egg odyssey nearly two years ago. We usually have scrambled eggs on Saturday mornings as a treat and to give her a super energy boost before she heads off with Carl to swimming lessons. We've been adding a few drops of food colouring - at first it was to make the meal more appealing to a fussyish two-year-old, but it's since become something fun, as well as a basic chemistry lesson! She's learning what colours mix well with others, and what the yellow colour in eggs will do to an otherwise pleasing combination.
Here's some pink eggs we had recently. They looked yummy! We have some rose colour food colouring which holds its colour pretty well over the yellow in the egg.
Sadly, mixing red and blue to make purple did not survive being added to the yellow egg mix! We, of course, ended up with brown. Now brown eggs an appealing meal does not make! Carl had to look away while he ate his. We just stuck with yellow on the weekend while my parents were here. I don't think they would have liked green eggs, for example!

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There has been some sewing going on around here - I've pieced a top for one of the comfort quilts I'm making - this one for my aunt who is just starting chemotherapy after having an advanced breast cancer removed. I've also been doing some handquilting on Tristan's very hungry caterpillar quilt. I'll post some pics over the next day or two. We're going a bit slow here, Tristan has croup again and is very clingy.

It's time to Pay It Forward

I am participating in some 'pay it forward' fun over at http://mandsnest.blogspot.com/ and am continuing the fun here. I have three spots to fill for peeps who want to join in too. I will make a handmade gift for the first 3 interested people. I have 365 days to do it in…What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well: you must have a blog and before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.(Just cut and paste this one if you like, changing 'http://mandsnest.blogspot.com/' to 'http://waterfallcascade.blogspot.com/' which I did!) Looking forward to this :)

Edited: thanks for playing ladies, we are now full!

More sewing for my favourite client

Yes, you guessed it, that would be Romily. While I was fondling fabrics trying to work out which I'd use for the EB Doll Quilt Swap, Romily espied some purple/gold and cream/gold 'Japanese' fabric I'd bought a while ago. I'd had good intentions of making a panel quilt with a silk panel I have, but when I got the fabric home I saw that my idea wasn't really going to work and it wasn't going to be my style of quilt at all (not that I have a set style yet, but I'm working on it and that wasn't it).Anyway, Romily got very excited and asked me in such an endearing way to make her a skirt that I could not refuse. And, let's face it, when one is procrastinating from doing the things one should do, what better offer should come along than to make a skirt for one's dearest daughter? (And that would be enough 'ones', yes?)So, being the obediant mother that I am, I whipped up this little skirt in an afternoon. I didn't use a pattern - just measured Romily's waist and the fall to above her knees and went for it! I cut a strip across the width of the purple fabric, and a narrower strip of the cream, also across the width. I sliced the purple 2/3 way up and french seamed in the cream strip. Then I sewed the side seam, made a casing for elastic, inserted the elastic, stitched in the ditch on the side seam and each opposing quarter, whacked on a two-fold hem and voila!

As you can see, Romily was very happy with the finished product. Because it's made from quite heavy quilters cotton, it balloons quite a bit, which she loves. She declared it to be a 'dancing skirt', which means she loves it. So easily pleased! I am taking full advantage of it while it lasts!

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I mentioned procrastination. Our third and final written assessment prior to the exam on 2 November was a dreaded group assignment. I say dreaded, as we each get the same mark, no matter how much effort each individual puts in. When dealing with people who may or may not have the same standards, it can be tricky to come up with an end product that is mutually acceptable. Fortunately, I was very lucky in being grouped with a couple of fellas from Defence who were very easy to work with and who met their commitments. Even more fortuitously the other half of our syndicate also got along well and both teams managed to meet in the middle and submit work with which we were all happy - we even managed to submit the assignment one day early! Now that's out of the way, the only two study things standing between me and Christmas are the exam and a research proposal that I must submit next week. I'm transferring to a Master of Philosophy in Business (half coursework; half research), which means that this is the last semester of coursework I'll have to do. Yay!

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So, onto the EBDQS3. I have finished the quilt, just the label to affix (it's drying as I type) and it will be ready to mail off tomorrow, well inside the deadline. I can't show any sneak peeks, unfortunately, as the person I'm making it for might read my blog. I am very happy with this little quilt and will be sad to see it go!