A bag with a difference.

Arriving home from our holiday last week I was delighted to find a Christmas parcel waiting to be discovered in the mail box.  What fun, I love parcels, don’t you?  It was from my quilting buddy Carol, who lives in South Dakota.  What could it be?  I try to avoid reading the customs declaration so that I get a nice surprise. It was a bag, made from woven selvages.  Now, that’s a clever idea, I haven’t seen selvedges used quite like this before.  A lovely label is sewn on to the inside pocket.

My new selvedge bag

It was thanks to Carol that I discovered the wonderful world of working with selvedges, and she also gave me the link to Karen Griska’s great Selvage blog.  Do check it out, it is full of all sorts of inspiring works of art.   I bet I’m not the only stitcher who laments on all the selvedges which were cut off and discarded over the years.

 Close up of woven strips

Carol and I obviously both had these interesting little strips on our minds for Christmas, because I sent her a little selvage Christmas Tree wall-hanging.  Great minds must think alike!

My gift to Carol

Borders, bindings and backing

I’ve been feeling rather guilty about the burgundy and cream cobblestone quilt that I’m making for my niece.  With Christmas sewing to finish for gifts, then a holiday away, I haven’t touched it for quite a while.  But, I’m pleased to say,  I have been working away steadily over the last few days.  The cobblestones were all sewn together, and I just needed to add a plain burgundy border to it.  It doesn’t seem such a big job, does it, but it took me ages.  Then I thought to myself, perhaps now would be a good time to make the binding.  It would be terrible to be cutting the binding strips up when the quilt is completed to find I had run out of fabric!  So that was a job well done, all stitched, and pressed in half.  Of course, I did measure the binding to make sure I had more than enough.

Plenty of binding prepared

The next job was to assemble my excess blocks to use as part of the backing.  The backing takes a horrendous amount of fabric, doesn’t it?  This strip goes down the middle so I have yet to stitch the rest of the backing fabric around the pieced blocks.  But I’m getting there, one step at a time.

Extra cobblestone blocks are going in the backing

It is a good feeling when  things are coming together.  Wonder how I’ll feel when I’m down on my knees for hours pinning all the layers together?  That is not my favourite part of quilt making.

Christmas is packed Away

I know I’m a bit slow, but I’ve only just taken the Christmas wall-hangings down.  Some years ago I read a handy hint about Christmas decorating – make items to fit the space available.  This works very well as the hooks are already in place so it is just a matter of taking photos, paintings and the like down, and replacing them with the Chrissie stuff.  The cards have now been removed and all the other festive paraphernalia packed away into their respective crates.  With two new Santas on show this year, it is getting to be a bit of a tight squeeze to get everything in the crates. Perhaps I’ll just have to buy another empty one and see how long it takes to fill up.

I have just hung up a new (to me) wall- hanging in the dining room above my sewing cabinet.  This was originally made for my adult son and  shows an appliquéd Kea, a New Zealand native bird which is also known as a mountain parrot.  My son decided he didn’t really need it when he moved houses.    It goes quite well with our new green curtains, don’t you think?

Kea - flying high

Reflecting back

Now we are back home from holiday I’ve had the chance to catch up with some of my favourite blogs.   Some of the ladies can lay claim to finishing an impressive number of quilts.  Good on them – wish I had been more productive over the last year.  So I decided to have a count up of my own, to  acknowledge how I have done over the last twelve months.  Oh dear, it is not the least bit impressive, I’m sorry to say, but I have completed:

Only one large quilt - “Black, white and a Splash of Lime”, made for my daughter Nicky and son-in-law Robert who were celebrating their 25th Wedding Anniversary.  My generous overseas pen friends sent me lots of different fabrics to use in this quilt.  Not that I couldn’t have gone shopping myself to buy more, you understand, for of course I could, but to add lots of variety.

I made three double handed oven mitts, kept one oneself and gave two away.  I like to use the “silvered” heat resistant wadding inside these and back them with sacking.  Hemp sacking is almost impossible to find these days, so I am guarding my remaining sack with my life!

Also completed was a pretty little needle case in blue with a floral stitchery front.  This was made to go with my sewing pouch I had made the previous year.  There was a  little bit of animal flavour in my sewing too.  First came “Daisy the Turtle” made for Joy, who collects turtles and has many hundreds.  Daisy’s body was green, and her shell was covered in white daisies.  Next came “Funky Chicken” pincushion, made for a pincushion swap I was involved in, she was rather cute too.

I achieved more in the Christmas line, completing two Santas and a Rudolph the Reindeer Stocking, these were for me.  Then I made two selvedge Christmas Tree wall hangings, kept one and the other was sent to South Dakota.  One stitchery Christmas cushion for the caravan, and two Christmas aprons.  And I nearly forgot, I completed two Christmas Kiwi appliqué blocks, which I set in small timber  frames, both these were gifts too.  And not forgetting the mending I diligently did during the year,  the never ending repairs to Robin's work shorts, and repairing the stitching on our vertical venetian blinds!

It is not a huge list, but I’m quite pleased with what I have done.  I’m still working on the Cobblestone quilt for my niece, just need to finish the borders then I can start the machine quilting.  And my Angel stitchery quilt is ready for quilting now too.  I don’t even want to know what is lurking in other bags that I have started and put aside, there is no way I am ever going to count up my UFOs!

I’ll leave you with some words penned by my quilting buddy Carol from South Dakota:  “May 2011 be filled with fun loving quilting.  Our stash may be overwhelming, and our hopes and dreams for all of these UFOs will be getting them finished.  What would life be without quilting for us?”

Happy Quilting, everyone.

Hearts aplenty

I have been quietly stitching away at my heart blocks this holiday, just a little bit now and again.  In between sightseeing, catching up with friends, having a dip or two in the hot pools, and reading my books.  Although the hot sticky weather is not too conducive for hand stitching, I can occasionally be found sitting under a large shady tree diligently stitching away.  I have only completed two blocks over the last week or so, but that’s OK.  This is my “take away in the caravan” project, so I’m not really in too much of a hurry.  Mmmm, I’ve just remembered, there is another stitchery quilt I want to start, so perhaps I had better hurry up after all and finish these hearts. 

Two of my “Twelve days of Redwork” blocks

A shame indeed

The rain came down overnight while we were away on holiday and the family in the tent behind us at the campsite were drying out their belongings.  A large tapa cloth was flung over a wall and walked over to have a look at it.  The tapa cloth was soaking wet, the layers were coming apart, and it was was full of holes.

“We just use it as a ground sheet”, the young couple told me.  I told them that tapa cloth was completely made by hand, and was a highly revered item in the Islands, and usually given as gifts for weddings and funerals. “It doesn’t matter”, they told me, “we’ll just chuck this one out when it gets too holey, then pick up another one from the local Auckland pawn-shop.”  It seems a shame indeed, that something so wonderful can be treated so little respect.

  Rips and holes everywhere

The first rule of travelling

The first rule of travelling is…….. check out the local quilt shop!  We are currently very happily ensconced at Awakeri Hot Springs Motor Camp and soaking in the thermal hot pools, such bliss after a hard day of being on holiday.  So a drive to Whakatane to check out the local quilt shop was a welcome diversion. “Pins 2 Patches” of 46 Domain Road is a shop full of all sorts of wonderful goodies, with a very welcoming owner.  She was a little late opening the shop after the Christmas break, she told me, and had customers queued up waiting on her doorstep.  Sounds like her shop is just the type that customers can’t wait to get to!

The fabric selection is very extensive and is arranged by type in different rooms.  Lovely bright prints for children, and co-coordinating pastels  fill one room, together with a selection of printed panels so suitable for a cot quilt.  Children’s quilts line the walls of this happy and cheerful room.  

The kiddie print room

There are quilts everywhere, and baskets of fat quarters to rummage through.  There were threads and needles, and notions galore.  I  checked out the patterns, looked through the magazines, and chatted to another customer about how we would both like to make one of the quilts on display.

Patterns and notions

Step into any of the other rooms and more fabrics are displayed on shelving in their colour families.  I love batiks and noticed a large selection of these glorious fabrics on display. 

A whole lot of glorious colour

While I dithered and decided, Robin was waiting patiently outside in the car beside the beautiful flowering tree.  (I think it is a jacaranda tree - am I correct?)  I finally purchased a couple of Christmas prints, and bought a new magazine for my holiday reading.  What bliss, pottering around a quilt shop!  It doesn’t take much to make a quilter happy, does it.

If you would like to follow our holiday adventures, check out our Travel Blog on www.romanyrambler.blogspot.com