Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Mini quilts for sale.

Baby quilt for a special girl
I have been having so much fun making tiny quilts lately for our school fete and to give to friends that I have decided to make some to sell. I've also been making table runners for friends which has been great, as I've enjoyed the change from bright child type prints to something more grown up, like Kaffe Fassett fabric. I still have my little rainbow obsession (as my almost 10 year old daughter calls it) but the beauty of quilting is the endless possibilities of colour combinations. Here are some of my quilts. If you like the look of one, or have something different in mind, let me know, and I'll whip one up for you.


baby quilt for my nephew (with a seafaring daddy)

stars and stripes toy quilt

Kaffe Fassett table runner (wrapped in cellophane)

Rainbow mini quilt (toy size)



Helen's garden lap quilt

I also received my first stippling foot for my birthday in September so am excited to be able to start doing more complex quilting designs. It's been so freeing to move away from quilting straight lines and "in the ditch" and start doing curves and squiggles. Who would have thought cutting up pieces of fabric and stitching them back together could bring such an endorphin hit.

So...the upshot of all this is that I will soon hopefully have some mini quilts for sale and am happy to take orders. The little dolly sized quilts and table runners will be $20 and I haven't yet decided on a price for the larger cot sized quilts which are lovely on the floor for babies to lie and sit on. Perhaps around the $60 to $80 mark. I might get organised with an ebay or etsy shop down the track but for now, if you are interested, just contact me by leaving a comment.


rainbow tablemat
Many of these photos of quilts I have made  have appeared on my blog before but here are some of my favourites together in the one post.

The quilts are made with 100 percent cotton fabric and are machine pieced and quilted. The binding is sewn on by machine and then stitched around the back by hand.

I hope there is someone out there who needs a little quilt for a child, a dolly or a teddy.    Or a tablemat for a friend's table.       



baby quilt showing backing fabric

Baby quilt featuring Beatrix Potter fabric

baby quilt showing size
table runner (Kaffe Fassett fabric)

dolly quilt

boy's rainbow baby quilt

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Catching up

 It's been quite a while between posts so I thought I'd just upload some of my favourite photos from the last few months to give a glimpse into what we've been up to. Looking back over the photos, I feel lucky to have had so many happy times with my friends and family. I guess we don't tend to photograph the bad days, do we? Nevertheless, I have been feeling the most relaxed and happy I have felt for a year or two and I am enjoying it so much. I think I have let go of a lot of my expectations of life, myself and others and am making peace with the messy, beautiful, chaos that is my reality. I even loosened up on the recent school holidays and stopped obsessing about how much TV/computer time/junk food the girls had and how untidy, and dusty the house was and taking home baked goodies along to get-togethers in the park with friends. Surprisingly, without any nagging from me, the girls still turned off the TV/computer and played outside climbing our bottlebrush tree and doing plays with their friends. The world didn't end because our house was untidy and nobody cared that I took chocolate chip cookies from Coles to the park for playdates.


The girls enjoying a ride at Movie World while Scott did some heritage work at the Gold Coast for a few days

Dress rehearsal for a planned production of Alice in Wonderland. (Can you guess which character this is? "I'm late....I'm late....for a very important date").

 I nearly burst with pride when my big girl played Dorothy in a Fame musical.(That's her in the blue gingham dress with Toto in a basket)

 I had a picnic with old friends at my old uni for my 47th birthday and the best part was watching the girls and their pals playing for hours in this enormous tree. The other best part was sitting by the lake, watching the ducks and their ducklings trot in and out of the water and chatting and eating yummy food with a handful of very precious old buddies.

 Some photos to show you what has been growing in my garden lately. How beautiful and cool is the green of this maidenhair??

 Most mornings I get up and go outside to see the morning sun on my flowers.

 Finally....some sweet peas! Is there any smell in the world more redolent of the innocence of a happy childhood?

 My newly planted little garden complete with lots of rocks to deter the Kipster from burying his bones. Fat lot of good that did!

 The kids in our street come to one of the G girl's regular free homemade lemonade stalls.

 With a special friend at Alma Park Zoo.

 Hanging out at the dog park with Kip (which we do maybe once every three months. Such slack dog owners!)
 The dog pog with a new chewy boney thing.

 My new hobby is making table runners for friends. All the fun of choosing fabric and playing with colours with a fraction of the time and money involved in sewing a quilt. I fell in love with this Kaffe Fassett fabric and am on my third table runner from three fat quarters.

 Facepainting at the Ekka

 ditto
 The girls chilling out at a friend's birthday party 

 With friends at the Medieval Fair
I've been making dolly quilts for our school fete and this one went wonky as some donated fabric wasn't 100 percent cotton. Never mind. After it was test driven by this rather surprised looking dolly, it went to a special little friend as I didn't like to sell a wonky quilt at the fete.

My beautiful Dad with some of his girls at Nudgee Beach on Mothers' Day.

I hope life is good at your place, bloggy pals.