February is all but gone

What I had planned to be a month long blogging break quickly turned into two. We're back from a  busy holiday home in Australia visiting family and friends. A month has flown by while  catching up with our regular life, unpacking souvenirs (the fabrics are washed and folded), and acclimatising to the cold weather. It will be a short winter for us this year. The daffodils are already in bloom here and other plants are wondering wether to send out their new shoots or wait another month until 'mad March' is over.

I haven't been posting, but I have been busy sewing. Will post about that as soon as I clear some space on the camera......

Thanks Kristine for reminding me that I have a blog!:)

PS. This is not my house:) The was taken in Captain Cook's cottage in the Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne.

Flying home

A different kind of Christmas compared to the previous post - the excitement of the beginning of summer, school holidays, new bikes and beach holidays.

Christmas lights

The thing I like most about a winter Christmas - the lights in the dark nights. When the weather starts to turn cold, and the days are shorter, I can't wait to get the Christmas decorations up at the beginning of December and we don't take them down again until the Epiphany on the 6th of January.

Christmas in Kinglake

An early Christmas lunch in Kinglake. Most of you probably know of Kinglake because of the terrible fires in 2009. Many quilts were donated to the survivors - not only those who lost their homes and possesions, but also to those who lived through that terrible time and were equally affected by it.

The day before yesterday we travelled up to Kinglake to visit my aunt Margaret, a nun and pastoral worker who had been involved in the area prior to the fires, and was up at dawn, the morning after the fires hit, serving breakfast to those who made it out.

Margaret has continued working in Kinglake helping to hold a community together. When a house became available, one of the few that survived, she moved there. On Thursday we spent a wonderful day visiting her there and meeting some local folk. Thankfully, there has been plenty of rain this winter and early summer, and the forests of burnt trees are dressed in plenty of green.

Heavenly stars

Heavenly Stars crib quilt top. Yet to be quilted. I have an idea for quilted circles in the wavy pink background, and concentric rings in the pink striped background. I am looking to this book for inspiration.

Heart wreath

Heart wreath. My design. Began as a cushion cover and grew to a crib quilt - hence the sawtooth border.

I've challenged myself to create an Advent of Christmas related posts inspired by Pine Ridge Quilter's 25 days of Christmas. Mine will be bits and pieces of quilts, crafts and Christmas related things. Thanks in advance to everyone who has offered to help - I couldn't do 25 posts on my own!

I had to post this one early because tomorrow things will be a little bit up in the air - literally:)

Looking for the heart

I was following a 'blog trail' starting from Wonkyworld to Black Threads a few weeks ago where I came across this book  'Stitchin' and pullin': A Gee's Bend Quilt'. I was struck by these words;

"Look for the heart....when you find the heart your work will leap to life...."

I started piecing together fabrics randomly from my 'use-it-up' box (fittingly the heart fabric was chosen by a friend of my daughter, for a dress last summer, and the quilt is going to her soon-to-be-born sister). 

I randomly machine pieced the fabrics together and once I had a block I placed it on an upterned crib quilt that I already had, for idea of size. I like to think that quilters would have once worked like this, back before rotary cutters, printed patterns and design boards.

Once I had four blocks, I cut strips of the sashing fabric with large dressmakers shears. This was all done by eye - I was surprised at how accurate you can be, with a decent pair of scissors.  There was just enough sashing fabric - the top and bottom borders are pieced - with practically no fabric left over. This quilt just seemed meant to be. The whole quilt went together in about four days - if you have been following this blog then you know that is a real departure for me.

The back is pieced - I didn't have anything large enough - and these were scraps I wanted to use up. The top and back were done in a few hours. I was so enjoying seeing a quilt go together so quickly that I pin basted with safety pins, and quilted freehand lines without a hoop, using perlé 5 thread (no reason - it is just what I had).

I have never done a pieced binding before but I am really happy with how it turned out.

I thought it was fun to photograph these two quilts together. One neat and one free. Next I would like to do something in between.