Chookshed birthday fun!

I've had a great weekend of stitiching - joining Chooky and friends for her birthday celebrations.

I started on Friday night, hand stitching in front of the fire with friends.

 This "Little Spools" project made an appearance while I was at the Scrub Stitchin' Retreat in Apil. I was lucky to be sitting with the creator/designer Carol Roberts of Cherry Pie Designs, who gave me lots of little hints. I've managed to put a few together and love sitting down with this 'no thinking' project at the end of a busy day. I was watching a pretty intense film with my daughter on
Saturday night, so I stuck to tracing and cutting in preparation for next time!

I put a quilt top together a couple of weeks ago, using flannels for a snugly, winter quilt. I'm making it for a friend who has recently moved from temperate Port Macquarie to the very chilly Canberra.!

On Saturday I prepared the quilt for quilting, and today I donned the white gloves and got to work. This is my least liked part of making a quilt so I set myself the goal of finishing the quilting and binding by the end of the weekend.

I did it!!!!

So happy to have finished - I'll embroider a message and then send it off  in the post. Now I can get back to my first love...hand stitching!!!!

Thanks Chooky, for the virtual birthday party. The photos look great. I know you girls would have laughed yourselves silly!!!

Friday night excitement!!!

I've been busy putting together a quilt for a new addition to the family - expected in the very near future - but he decided to make his way into the world a little earlier.

I put this disappearing nine patch quilt top together whilst at a recent retreat...

I pinched this photo from Chooky's blog!

... and when I came home I traced lots of little animals in the white patches.

I do love this elephant!

Every night I've been madly stitching in order to get the quilt finished. I'm not quite there, but not too far off either.

Didn't get much done over the weekend though - too much time travelling to Sydney to cuddle this precious bundle!!

Thanks Wendy for the virtual sew-in. I love being part of this friendly, supportive group of bloggers so appreciate all your efforts.

Friday night prepping

It's been lots of fun playing with fabric which is way outside my comfort zone. The fabrics sent for Jen Kingwell's Pretty Circle Game are a far cry from the burgundies and greens I normally gravitate towards.

In saying that, I think I find it easier - I'm not so emotionally attached to the fabrics!!!

These are the templates and fabrics I selected from the latest bundle of goodies.

And here it is, all cut out and ready to sew.

Thanks so much for hosting Cheryll, I hope you had a good night too.

So close...

Wow..this one is taking a long time!!!

I've been loving Jen Kingwell's The Circle Game BOM. I put this block off because so many who are participating said it was tricky...nothing quite like putting off the hard stuff!!!

I spent days deciding on fabric placements - every time I came back to it I made a little change here and there - and there are so many little pieces.

But surprisingly enough it hasn't been too tricky to put together - just extremely slow going ( I have chosen to piece everything by hand!) .

Come Friday night I'd already pieced all the smaller bits so it was about putting it all together.

Once again, it took so much longer than I thought...I'm so close!!!

Thanks for the virtual sew in on Friday night - it's always so motivating and I love looking at what all of you have been up to.

Friday night inspiration

I continued on with the nine patch blocks for the beautiful Christmas wall hanging and they are finally all ready to go...they seemed to take forever. I feel as though I need a break from that project so I've packed everything away, very neatly, and now I'm afraid it won't come out again for a while!

It's ok to pack it away...Christmas is a long way off!

So for a complete change of pace I pulled out my latest package of goodies from Jen Kingwell's BOM, The Circle Game. I've fiddled around with fabric placements and organised two of the blocks, taken photos, and put them in little bags ready to go - like a mini kit! I'm off to the Scrub Stitchin retreat soon and the plan is to hand stitch these blocks while chatting and laughing with many of you from 'blogland'.

Thanks for hosting another Friday night Wendy. I look forward to admiring everyone else's work.

Catching up...

I've had lots of little squares, in neat little piles, staring at me every time I play in my sewing room...since before Christmas!

Today I bit the bullet, found some interesting podcasts, and finally sat at the machine.

I managed to finish a few ...

There's still plenty to go!

Friday night return!

Yay...it's been a long time but I have actually been stitching.

A good friend mentioned she had signed up to Jen Kingwell's "Pretty Circle Game" BOM. I decided I just had to join her and I'm loving it. It's the first time I've ever signed up to a BOM and I was really keen to give hand piecing a go. It was love at first stitch...here are the the first couple of blocks.

Well, Friday night I had a little package waiting for me when I returned home from work. How exciting!

I was too tired to do much but I spent ages just looking, admiring, thinking...I'll do more than that over the weekend!