Welcome Guest Blogger Marcel Parums!

 It's a pleasure to introduce Marcel Parums, my ten year old nephew who has made this wonderful felt elephant and taken the photographs himself. Over to you Marcel:

 "I made this elephant at school when we were studying India. Our craft teacher gave us a 2D pattern, then she showed us how to make the gussets to make the elephant 3 dimensional."

 "I chose purple for his rug, and sewed on the ears and his tail. The stitching that we used was blanket stitch."

"Finally after we'd finished sewing it all, we left a space for stuffing. We put a wire pattern inside the four legs to help him stand. We bent the ends of the wire so it didn't stick through the felt. And finally stitched up the hole."

Thank you, Marcel, for your blog contribution and for sharing with us your beautiful elephant!

More Happy Birthdays and future projects

I have lots of birthdays in June and July, and here are some more presents I've made. We have a cashmere beanie for Aniela, and a lavender bag for Lavinia.

And a very special doll quilt for a very special one year old - Happy Birthday little Sienna! The quilt is inspired by the gorgeous work of Kathleen Tracy.

I have recently become a Kathleen Tracy fan, to the point of purchasing all her books! - including a print-on-demand copy of her out of print 'American Doll Quilts'. I am looking forward to that one arriving in the mail, and then I will have the complete quartet.

I have lately developed a love of a more traditional style of quilting, and Civil War and reproduction fabrics. To me the colours and designs are classic and timeless, and make me feel more connected to the women in the past who quilted and crafted. The close up above shows my first attempt at needle-turn applique and hand quilting. I really loved doing this: siting on the couch with needle and thread and meditatively stitching.

I also made Sienna a doll. The knitted body is an old Jo Sharp pattern, and the clothes are from Hop Skip Jump's Poppy Doll pattern.

Here is a full length shot showing her sweet floral bloomers.

And here is the backing.

This is my next cross-stitch project and I am really enjoying stitching it so far. The linen is a 20 count, so the stitches are nice and large and easy on my eyes! And it is growing very quickly. The pattern is 'Hedgerow Birds' by Blackbird Designs, and I am using the recommended linen and DMC threads - all bar one DMC colour - we'll see how successful the substitution is in the fullness of time! The recommended linen looks a lot more yellow than the photo on the pattern, but I think it will turn out ok. You can see the colour difference in my pics.

This is on the to-do pile. A Quilted Crow designs table runner, using felted wool felt from their beautiful shop.

And another future project - pattern and fabric bundle both bought from the Quilted Crow. The ladies at the Quilted Crow are having their first book published soon by Martingale and are very excited! Such wonderful news! Please go and visit their New Town shop and support these wonderful local talents!

There is a whole world of beautiful things out there - and not nearly enough hours in the day to make them all!

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday on Tuesday, and to celebrate I have bought myself two new Bower Beads: a kookaburra and thylacine stripes. These are designed by Tasmanian jeweller Ruth Waterhouse. I love Ruth's designs and have a few of her pieces. I purchased the beads at Sargisons in Hobart.

This photo shows the detail on the back of the kookaburra. So beautiful! I am loving these beads: the detail, the weight of them and how they feel on my wrist. Delicious.

Lavender bags and some knitting for the cold

June and July are big birthday months for me, and here are a few gifts I've made. They are all cross stitched and filled with lavender. My new cross stitch obsession was inspired by this beauty. The piece above is actually tiny and the picture below gives you a sense of the scale. I loved stitching this, though the small stitches were right on the edge of my capabilities without any magnification to give me a hand! I used a cream Semco 25ct evenweave, with one strand of DMC over one stitch.

The scale of these two is much larger and a lot more rustic with coarser linen and two strands of floss over two stitches. The floral pattern is from this lovely book, and the bird is from a vintage knitting graph I found on the web a couple of years ago. Happy birthday Kate, Anne and Lou!

Last, but not least, here is a balaclava in 8 ply New Zealand merino. I've been wanting to knit one for the past two winters, but have only just got around to it. We have had some cold mornings here in Hobart, and a couple of weeks ago I decided it was easier to walk to work than defrost the car. I really wanted to wear the balaclava, but I look quite scary in it, so decided on a beanie instead. This will have to wait for an appropriately chilly bush walk. The streets of Hobart aren't ready for it!

I've been home from work the past three days with a bout of labyrinthitis, but am starting to feel a bit better. I'm off out to dinner tonight with a couple of friends. We will try and get a table at Garagistes - this is our second attempt. Wish us luck!

A Bevy of Cushions

I have been making new cushions for my couch: getting rid of the old hippy style green florals and replacing them with blues and reds and woolen checks. I found the embroidered tree at an op shop years ago - so much work and someone gave it away! This is an old beloved cushion and the linen is starting to wear. I will need to unpick it, mend the linen and then resew it.

The largest cushions are wool - from second hand kilts and op-shop fabric. I unpicked the kilts and gave all the pieces a hot machine wash to slightly felt them. I particularly like the blue and beige check. The needlepoint floral is a piece I stitched thirty or more years ago. My grandmother taught me how to do needlepoint and bought me the kit. The piece sat unfinished in the cupboard, to be discovered and finished many years later. I backed it in velvet and filled it with feathers. I finished the red check cushion this afternoon. It's just two squares sewed together without a fancy closing - I just sewed the opening up with an invisible seam. Because the wool fabric has been pre-washed in hot water, I can throw the whole cushion in the washing machine and know it will come out ok.

This gorgeous piece of fabric is Kristen Doran's 'Winter Nest' panel. It has been waiting patiently in my old oak filing cabinet. I had thought to incorporate it into a smock, but think the cushion does it better justice - it is on permanent display rather than hiding in the wardrobe.

The back is red and cream cotton ticking, bought from Spotlight a few years ago - such a pity I can't get this anymore.

There is something quite uplifting and energising about changing things around the house. Sometimes I go around re-appraising all my stuff and getting rid of anything I wouldn't buy now - looking with fresh eyes and ruthlessly giving things away instead of hanging on to things 'just in case'. The op-shops benefit from my donations and I end up feeling lighter and relieved of the past.

I can't believe the weekend is almost over. Where does the time go? Time now for some soup for dinner and then I'll settle in front of the tv for the next installment of 'Downton Abbey' - an addiction after only one episode!

A curtain for the bathroom and a new hat

I finished painting the bathroom window a while ago, and here is a little curtain I made to cover the ugly metal vent at the top. I used a sheer linen for the background to get a see-through effect, and the little birds are from scraps of fabric I had in my stash. The finished curtain is lovely and light, and floats gently when there is a breeze through the window.

The flying birds are from Kajsa Wikman's beautiful book 'Scandinavian Stitches' - I'm glad to be able to bring a little Syko delight to my bathroom!

And here is the blue beanie made from Michael's Christmas handspun. It has turned out well. I ran out of yarn, but managed to find a similar weight in my stash to finish the top - you can just see it in the picture. The border is 'Saxon Braid' from Nicky Epstein's 'Knitting on the Edge'. There is small typo in the pattern, so keep your wits about you if you ever use it. I ended up writing out the pattern in long hand so I didn't have to continually reference the abbreviations. I've used this braid in other projects - it's a bit of a favourite.

A Finished Quilt!

Here is my finished Verna quilt, professionally quilted by the Quilted Crow ladies in New Town. They did a wonderful job and I'm thrilled with the quilting - but now it's done I don't like it any more! I loved the fresh and citrus colours as I was piecing it, but my tastes are moving more towards reproduction fabrics and classic reds, pinks, blues and browns. More of that to follow in another post...

 Here's a close up of the beautiful stippling, and the plain binding.

Here's a good view of the different fabrics. I haven't washed the quilt yet, but have been assured that it will crinkle really well. It's not very soft at the moment, and would hopefully soften up after a few washes. Postscript: My dad popped around with an early birthday present - a new heater for my little flat - and I have given the quilt to him. He loves it!

Some Knitting and a Quilt Update

Here is my first project with Michael's wool. It's going to be a beanie. The braid will be the bottom of the hat. Then I'll pick up stitches along the edge and continue knitting upwards toward the crown, tailoring it to fit me as I go. That's the plan, anyway!

I pieced six more rows of my Row by Row quilt, and am still loving it.

Here is another close-up. I'm managing to line up all my corners with a bit of easing here and there. 

The rest of the weekend will be spent finishing painting the bathroom window frame and maybe thinking about the little curtain I'd like to make.

Happy Birthday Sara (and a quilt sneak peak)

Last week my beautiful friend Sara turned fabulous 40, and one of my gifts was this cloud and raindrop wall hanging. I based it on one of many similar items floating around on the web and am very happy with the way it turned out. I used a wool blend flannel and some acrylic felt. Happy Birthday beautiful lady - I hope you have a wonderful year!

During the summer holidays I had fun making some other 'just because' gifts for Sara too, including a beautiful Poppy Doll and a doll quilt.

The quilt was inspired by this magnificent creation, and was a test run for a full sized quilt I'll make in the future.

Here's the doll showing her fabulous flannel trousers.

And another view with different outfit, gift bag and paper garland.

And a close up of the garland. The paper circles were cut from an old book using a circle cutter, then 'chain pieced' together in pairs on the sewing machine. You open out the circles, and voila - a beautiful paper garland!

One last close up of the doll quilt - I just love those yummy colours!

The Row by Row quilt is starting to take shape. I cut out many little colourful pieces of fabric. They are lined up in sewing order on my ironing board,

And along the back of my couch.

Then after cutting out 240 little calico squares, is was time to start sewing...

The colours remind of the covers of old Noddy books from when I was a kid. I'm loving this quilt already...

Vintage Delights, Bags for the Boys and a Quilt Kit!

First on the list in this post is a big thank you Lynda, Nikki and Kerryn for your generous and positive comments about my blog so far. I am very touched and encouraged to keep on going - thank you!


The items above were sent to me as a belated Christmas present by my lovely friend Michael in Castlemaine. I am just thrilled with them! The vintage knitting patterns belonged to his grandmother, which makes them very special indeed, and the wool is from the Victorian Handweavers and Spinners Guild.

Here is a close up of the wool. It's all hand dyed, and one hank is recycled. I already have a beanie in mind and am looking forward to getting my hands around the knitting needles again. Thank you Michael! By the way, Michael is an ambassador for beyondblue and you can make a donation at their website to help them continue their vital work.

During the school holidays my nephew visited from Melbourne and we had a play date at my place with one of his Hobart friends. I organised a treasure hunt and the prizes at the end were these zip pouches inspired by Denyse Schmidt's designs in her book. The green square of leafy batik represents a krynoid from one of the old Doctor Who series. My nephew and I love watching those shows together and 'The Seeds of Doom' was voted best series so far!

I put the boys' initials on the back and used a string of vintage buttons as zip pulls. My nephew uses his for his Nintendo - it is the perfect size and he is chuffed to have a special safe place for his favourite game.

People keep asking me for renovation photos, so here a couple so far. This is the bathroom window after sanding. I finished it at 9pm last night as I was determined to have everything done and most of the dust cleaned up before I went to bed. There is still a fine layer of dark brown dust over some of the walls, and I'll clean that up before the long weekend ends. I didn't have the strength last night!

Here is the first coat of undercoat - fresh on this morning. I'm a little concerned that residual wood stain has wicked up through the paint, but I'm hoping that a second layer of undercoat will seal all that in before I start on my top coats. The bathroom seems a lot brighter already with the dark brown wood gone.

Last of all in this post, I am excited to share with you my new quilt kit! I bought the latest copy of American Patchwork and Quilting and totally fell in love with the quilt on the front cover. I hopped online and bought the kit and it arrived in a week! I think everything else will go on hold while I get straight into my lovely American Jane Row by Row quilt!