Ornament Swap

On Tuesday night the Material Girls had their Christmas break-up at a local Chinese restaurant. Each year we have a Christmas ornament swap. I made one of Rosalie Quinlan's Hearts of Christmas.

   

I was lucky enough to receive a lovely Stitchers Stocking made by Anne.

 

Love the star and all those rusty bells. Thank you Anne.

 

Just one more week of school before the Christmas/Summer holidays start. At the moment I'm caught up in a whirlwind of performances with my school choirs ... Community Carols tonight, Grade 6 Leaver's Assembly tomorrow, Nursing Homes and Apex Park singing on Tuesday, Early Childhood Christmas performance on Wednesday ... I think you get the picture! Lots of fun but I'll fall in a heap at the end of the week!

I'm really looking forward to catching up on my blog reading/commenting and completing some of my many unfinished projects in the holidays. 

Simple Pleasures Top

After plodding along on the applique borders I have finally finished my Simple Pleasures quilt top.

 Will probably cut the outside borders back a bit ... I deliberately made them wider than 

required to allow for fraying while I hand appliqued the triangles.

 I nearly gave up on the triangles a couple of times but am glad I persevered

now I see the finished item.

 Now to quilt it ... thinking I might try hand quilting with perle thread.

 

Twinkle Twinkle

I have completed the top of Twinkle, my first Figtree Club project.

It uses a Breakfast at Tiffany's jelly roll,

a pretty floral for the border ...

 and lots of yummy Figtree cream.

 I particularly liked the light and medium fabrics so  ...

decided to not use the darker fabrics in the jelly roll.

Just need to find some backing fabric and get it quilted now.

My pile of tops seems to be grower higher and higher ... have a couple of other
new ones to show soon.

 

 The next Figtree Club project, a tablerunner and placemats made from the new Buttercup range ... comes out in January. I can't wait that long for my next Figtree 'fix' so have started Jelly Breakfast, a version of the Jelly and Jam pattern, using a Whimsy jelly roll. Love how quickly these blocks come together.

 Yesterday I 'decorated' my blog for the festive season. It was the cute birdie that caught my attention when searching for a Christmas background. Only 5 weeks to the big day and 4 more of work ... that alone is a reason to celebrate!! 

FIS Blocks and Twinkle

On Friday I found some time to work on my Friends in Stitching blocks. This first one is called Mystery Block. 

 

The instructions to make it can be found here.

  

The other block I made is called Framed Friendship Star.

Go here to see how it's made.

Yesterday I did all the cutting and made 5 blocks of Twinkle, 

my first kit from the Figtree Club ...

using this beautiful new range.

Here ...

and here ...

are close-ups of the fabrics in the jelly roll. I just might have found another new favourite!

 

More Simple Pleasures

Back to Simple Pleasures and here are those squares all sewn into four patches. 

(minus the brown ones ... they weren't doing it for me!!)

 All the blocks are made and the centre of the quilt is complete.

Really pleased with my fabric choices, especially those cute spots.

 I lay the quilt top on the sewing room floor to try and get a picture of the whole thing ... 

when this happened!

 

 Here's a (nearly) cat free shot.

 

 Now I'm working on the borders ... they will be a bit different to the pattern.

These scraps were too cute to toss out ... so they're currently looking pretty in a glass jar until I think of something better to do with them.

My first Figtree Club kit arrived today from Sarah. It is so gorgeous and features the latest Figtree range, Breakfast at Tiffany's. I can't wait to get stuck into it over the weekend.

Cottage Blessings Bag

As promised, today I have some pictures of my finished Cottage Blessings bag.

I'm really pleased with how it looks in the Rouenneries fabrics. When it was finished I remembered I was going to do some quilting in the grey background of the stitchery part ... even bought the thread for it ... but too late now.

The bag was supposed to have a pieced backing but I loved the fabric so
much I just used a single piece ...

and took lots ...

of photos!!

I recently replenished my stash of Rouenneries from Debbie at The Village Sampler in Lilydale ... was running low on some of the lighter prints. So .... the plan is to start catching  up on my Friends in Stitching BOM  blocks. I am soooo behind ... not game to work out how many I need to make ... but it's quite a few.

One more day of work then a big concert tomorrw night with one of my school choirs. The Tassie Bloggers are having a camp this weekend ... but after not being very well in recent times I need to stay home and chill! Look forward to reading lots of great posts from the Tassie girls.

Simple Pleasures Progress

It's been a while ... but here's a little look at where my Simple Pleasures quilt is heading. The squares below are to make the 4-patch blocks. I'm using Cottage Charm fabrics by Heather Mulder-Peterson ...  (not sure if the browns will make it into the quilt) ... and doing a scrappier version than the original.

The stitchery squares will all be appliqued onto spotty fabrics .. just because I like spots ...

and I plan to use the cream fabric to frame the 4-patches.

My stitchery squares are bigger than the original pattern (yes, I messed up the size when appliqueing them!!) but I think they will still work. I am enjoying the applique part and getting much quicker the more I do.

I have finished my Cottage Blessings bag so will be back soon to share some pictures.