Time of Year

Can not believe it has been a week since I did a post, must be the time of year. I have hardly been in my sewing room at all. I did manage to get my tulip blocks sew together, but that is all I have done on the sewing front. Haven't even managed to take a photo to share.

Received my first Christmas card and realised that I hadn’t done anything about sending out my international card. Normally I am more organized than this. I think since I send the present for my family back with Mum when she was here to visit I just had not thought about sending anything else.

I did get these cards in the mail yesterday, along with my SSCS gift. Once I wrapped the SSCS gift, it looked quite small, but hopefully the person receiving it will like it.

I went to my first Christmas party last weekend it just seemed so early in the year. I am noticing that I am getting invited to a lot of Christmas party in the fist 10 days of December, but nothing after that.

Don’t think I will get much sewing done this week; we are going out tomorrow night for my birthday, which is not until Sunday, but it is more fun to go out on a Friday night than on a Sunday. On Saturday we have my company Christmas party. So will see how tired I am over the weekend.

Have a great week

Green and Purple

I had been asked by the girls at quild to do a demo on the bucket bag I made early this year. Andrea had posted the instruction on her blog. The easy way to demo this was to make a new bag. I think I was in a green mode when I was picking out fabrics from my stash. I just love how quickly this bag goes together.

And for the purple, I finished my tulip blocks yesterday. Laying out the blocks was a bit of a struggle. Every time I move back and looked the dark tulips were in a row, I think I manage to get it to work. I have been sewing some of these together this evening. I so pleased with how this is coming together.

For my neighbours to the south, hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Quick Post

Here is the table topper that I made for myself, it actually going to live on top of my check freezer, so muck nicer to look at than the freezer. The freezer is in one corner of my sewing room, so I see it quite often.I just had to share the photo of Taz and Max, they were just being too cute. This is both their favorite chair, and they don't always share.

Retreat photos

Here are some photo, of what the other girls were working on at retreat. I just love the variety. One girl was even working on a disappearing 9 patch after seeing my bag.

Back from Retreat

The retreat was a lot of fun, we had lots of laughs, and I got lots done too. I have been quite tired today. I think that's normal after retreat. Fond it hard to stay focus at work.

On Friday I started the weekend with making PJ bottoms, and although they went together easy and quite quickly, I didn't enjoy making them, so I will stick to sewing quilts. I made all the bears paw for my SIL quilt. I think these are turning out great. I also did some hand work, and quilted the last table topper. Of course we had a shopping break on Saturday.Here is what I picked up. The flower fabric is to go with my purple tulips. I just love that I could find all the colours in one fabric. The only thing that could be better is if it had tulips into it. I guess it will be "Purple tulips in a flower garden", but I think that name would be too long. The pattern and batiks just wanted to come home with me.

I will share more retreat photos later in the week.

Heading out for Retreat.

I am going to a weekend retreat starting tomorrow, and ending Sunday. It just an hour out of town. I have taken tomorrow off work so should get there at a decent time. Some of the girls are planning on getting there first thing in the morning, I will be happy if I get there around lunch time.
I just finished packing my projects to work on. I planning on spending most of the time working on my sister-in -laws wedding gift. I have lots of time, but want to get a start on it. As you can see these are not the colours that I normally work with, but I think she will like them. Thought doing this at retreat would be a good idea, as I would be less tempted to work on other projects.

Now I need to go pack some clothes, nothing like leaving it to the last minute.

Dye fabric

Last night was my guild meeting, it was a really fun meeting. We had a show and tell night, everyone show five projects. These project could be at any stage, so we got to see quilts that were finished years ago, all the way to fabric that had been picked out for a soon to start project. At the last meeting we had a guess come in to show us hand dying fabric,so one of the best things last night was that we got our dye fabric. Its so pretty, I just have to come up with an idea of how to use it. The dark spot in the picture is where the cat was drooling on it:-)

Then when I got home, I had a pattern in the mail, that I had won on Quilting is My Passion blog. What a nice evening.

This evening I did some work on my tulip blocks, they are coming together nicely. I want to have enough put together so I can hopefully pick up the rest of the fabric I need for this quilt this weekend.

I think the kitties are trying to tell me to stop what I'm doing and pay them a bit of attention.

Purple Tulips

Started work on my tulip quilt. This was the first time I used the Angler to do the HST. I was surprised how quickly the HST when together, it took longer to cut the fabric than to make the triangles. I am really like working with these purple fabrics. I haven't worked with purple for a while, and it is my favorite colour. I really like this mix of all these different purples.

I am planning on having tulip blocks in the center, then a purple and green border. Then all this sent on point with another green border. Not sure what fabric I will use to set this on point. and who knows I may change my mind. LOL

I will need to make sure I can use the Angler in my feather weight as I am going to retreat next weekend and want to start on a Bear claw quilt for my sister-in law wedding gift. There are a few HST in that quilt.

Disappearing 9 Patch Bag

After seeing the Disappearing 9 Patch Tutorial on Helen blogs, I decided that I wanted to give it a try and see how it turned out. I didn't want to start a new quilt so needed a small project that would be quick and easy. A simple bag, using scraps would be perfect. I had a few squares from our guild challenge that I am not using on the challenge project, and I always have a few other batiks in my scrap pile. I was a little worried about the how the colours would work together. It sure looks better together than it did part way through. I just did 4 blocks on each side of the bag, and black for the handles, sides and bottom. This went together quite quickly and I am quite happy with how it turned out.