A hot Sunday

 Oh boy its HOT today, 32 degrees for Launceston and its horrible. I'm so lucky to have the air conditioner  so thats been on since 10.30 this morning. The house is nice and cool but my sewing room is at the back of the house so its taking awhile to cool down, but thats Ok, I'm still sewing and I have the fan going flat out. On Friday I was sitting at my sewing machine and the view of my back garden looked so pretty I had to take a photo to show you.

 I do get easily distracted at times, especially when the blue wrens come to play, I can watch them for ages, flitting around from one part of the garden to the next.

 The other day while going through my box of "stuff" I came across this quilt hanger. So out it came and its perfect for my mini spools quilt. I forgot I even had this hanger. Its amazing the goodies  you find when you are looking for other things.

 Quite some time ago I bought these plaster candle light houses in the christmas sales. Well last night I had them lit and they looked so sweet, the room is dark and just the glow of the houses make sit look so cosy. They will look lovely in the winter when the fire is going as well.

 I have finished my Bionic gear bag and I love it, its very similar to the Sew together bag thats all over Instagram right now, I have made 3 of those already. But this one is bigger and has 4 pockets inside. I did a patch work front and added some stitchery blocks. This is one  side.

 And the other.

 I added my little name tags to make it even more special.

Here is the inside, full of my hand work projects. I love this bag.

Well I hope you have had a wonderful weekend, stay cool  or warm wherever you are and I hope you find some sewing time.

Cross stitch & Liberty

 I have had another fun weekend in my sewing room, the days go way too fast though. During the week I was looking through my trunk that basically has stuff in it that I'm not using . I was looking for some threads when I found these jar cover  cross stitch pieces that I made at least 10 years. I used to stitch all the time until I discovered quilting  then I slowly lost interest.

 As these were all finished and just needed making up I have decided I must do just that. So now I'm deciding how I'll make them.

 They are so sweet and as I just made lots of plum jam recently these will fit beautifully on my jars. I have dug into my Bonnie and Camille fabrics so they are sure to be pretty. This will be my job for this afternoon while the boys are watching the cricket.

 I am a big fan of Instagram, if you are to you can find me at lizziethequilter. I joined a Liberty swap and my gifts are all ready to be wrapped.  I had such fun making them.

 I will show you everything properly as soon as my gifts are received.  My partner doesn't know I'm making for her so I can share a little bit  now.

I loved making these lavender bags, of course  the lavender is from my Garden and smells beautiful.

Remember when I had heaps  of plums and I was cooking with them lots, well now we have 3 buckets full  of Granny smith apples so I'm looking for recipes to use them up, I have made apple crumble twice already this week, this morning I stewed a few so I can make muffins.
Any ideas on what else I can use the apples for? I'd love to read your ideas or recipes.


Have a wonderful week ahead and I hope you find some sewing time.

Lots of sewing

 Don't you love it when you find a new pattern and you just can't wait to get started and make that very first block. This was the case when I saw this quilt on Pinterest, its so pretty. Its an older design by Fig Tree quilts,

 I sorted through all my fig tree fabrics and then realized I wouldn't have enough for all 16 blocks so I put a shout out on my Instgram page and I was so lucky that  a few friends had exactly what I needed so we did a few fabric trades, it was so much fun.  My first block took me at least 2 hours to make but now I have the swing of things I'm hoping the next one will be shorter.

 Later this year I hope to be teaching a few more classes at Patchworksplus shop, Sarah and I have been coming up with a few class projects and we think a disappearing 4 patch will be a great class, can you believe that this block was just  4 charm squares sewn together.

 With some careful cutting and rearranging it soon became this sweet block. I can't wait to make more.

 Number 3 son is a minecraft fanatic and he asked me to make him a wall quilt, He drew 4 blocks, here is block one. At least the others have a bit of colour in them.

During the week I ordered some of the new tilda fabric, oh its beautiful. I can't wait to start sewing with it, I just need to find that perfect pattern once again. I should design something myself.

I'm spending today  with a very good friend for a sewing day so I had best get organised, we have some serious catching up to do.

Enjoy your Sunday and I hope you find some sewing time.

Hexagon fun

 I have had a fun Sunday playing with hexagons, I have gone through all my scraps and found the most pretty Tilda fabrics, I think these will will become a rectangle style cushion for my lounge, the blues are so pretty and it will go nicely with the others cushions I have made.

 I love fussy cutting fabrics for hexagons, they really give the design some interest.

 I also cut and basted lots and lots of Fig tree hexagon, these are for my new design, so many pretty colours, I loved playing with these this afternoon, now for tonights entertainment I will start sewing them together.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and  you found time to spend on your sewing projects.

2 New Designs

 I'm very excited to share my latest 2 designs with you all. Introducing " Baby Love." A pretty Baby Bunting decorated with my stitchery designs

 Don't you just love this pram. Makes me wish I had a  baby girl, Nah not really. I'm well and truly over that now. I like my good nights sleep every night. And now my boys are teenagers I have much more time on my hands to do the things I love to do like sew and design pretty projects.

 The baby quilt was such a delight to work on, The fabrics are  by Aneela Hooey and  called Posy are just so cute. It was fun fussy cutting a few prints to include in the quilt.

 Of course it wouldn't  be complete without a few cute stitcheries thrown in the mix.

 The photography is so beautiful, I especially love the bunting pages. Its so pretty and makes my projects shine. I would love to be there for a photo shoot one day, just to see what they do with my projects and how many photos they take before they decide on the "Right" one.

If you look closely you can see my bunting sharing the cover with lots of other amazingly beautiful designs.
If you are looking for this wonderful magazine its out now in Newsagents. Patchwork and Stitching Vol 16 No 3

Have a wonderful week, hope you find some sewing time.

The week that was..

 Its been a funny old week, I worked Monday and Tuesday then I had the rest of the week off, Oh I had big plans to do lots of things , first on the list was to keep quilting this old project, only 4 blocks to go then a few baskets to be hand quilted. Nearly there and I must say I am thoroughly enjoying this project again.
Second thing to do was to  make Plum Jam, Our tree is full of luscious plums, we have given so many away and still we had heaps. So after searching the net for a few recipes I found one.

 The smell while these plums were cooking was amazing, Lovely  aromas swirling around the house. While the jam was boiling away I made choc chip cookies, sorry no photo, by the time I thought about it there were 2 left so hardly worth the effort, I take that a good thing though. My boys do like cookies.

 Decorating the jars was almost as much fun as making the jam.  I haven't tasted the jam yet but son number 2 assures me its pretty good.

 Thursday I had a sewing day planned but 2 of my boys got gastro, so I spent most of Thursday and Friday washing bed linen and disinfecting everything in our house.  They were so miserable. 48 hours later all is well and back to normal.

Now its Sunday and my days off are almost over, back to regular routine tomorrow. I have got some sewing planned just for me this afternoon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Friday night with friends

 Well what a week its been, I worked full time everyday and boy was I tired. I normally only work part time but my collegue had the week off so I worked all day, It was a good week though. I do enjoy my job. Then we had friends over  from the mainland for a visit  so we were entertaining them as well,

 After such a big week Friday night with friends was just what I needed, Thankyou to Cheryll for hosting, During my holidays I was sorting my quilts and as I have a few that aren't finished I thought I would spend  this year trying to get them finished. This one I started so long ago, I think it was 2009. It's all made and half hand quilted .

 I have mainly hand quilted around the baskets, then I thought I would do a hand quilted flower in the red squares, well I did a few  then I got bored so the quilt went into the cupboard for a LONG time.

 Even though my taste in fabrics have changed alot since I started this quilt  I still love it.  And I feel that once its all finished I will love it even more.  I gave up on the hand quilting, unpicked the flowers that I had stitched and  last night I started quilting  a grid design  in the red squares, If you look closely you will see a flower  shape that I unpicked in the back ground.

 There are 20 red squares and you know when you realise  you will never get back to it but you want it finished then you have to make some changes. I am really happy with the grid quilting, I also  did a bit of straight line machine quilting around the border so it all ties together.
Our friends left to go home today so tonight I am keen to do a bit more on this quilt.

 Of course I have to share a few garden pics, my zinnias are looking so pretty right now. So many different colours.

 I have corn flowers as well,

 And my sumo lilliams are beautiful. I was so thrilled when these babies flowered.

I won't tell you how much I love my garden because I'm sure you already know.

If you would like to see what other ladies got up to for Friday Night with friends, click here and you will see the list of names.

Have a wonderful weekend. Hope you find some sewing time.