One More Sleep

This time tomorrow, all going to plan, I will have a little team of cabinet makers installing my new kitchen!  YEAH YEAH YEAH.  To say I am a little excited is beyond words.  Whilst I will only have my cabinets installed and no bench tops or will I have any appliances connected, well actually I will have no ELECTRICITY to the house at all tomorrow, it feels as though I've made it.

The kitchen was dismantled on the 7th of December.  But before that I have had to rip up floor boards, cement courtyards, move and shift boxes and boxes of tiles, pack up etc.  So in reality I have been living in a construction site for 3 and a half months.  Sadly this means no sewing (with the exception of the day and a half I hijacked by neighbours living room while they were on holidays!).

So here are a couple of current state of play photos.  More updates to come in the following days, but may need to be after Friday when I have electricity again!  In all honesty I've been pretty lucky with everything, particularly the weather.  I might even go as far as to say I think i might miss my outdoor kitchen….. briefly.

Hope everyone is having a fab week.    Who know I might even manage a little sewing on the weekend.

Ciao Kimbo

A great start to 2014

I have started the new year well.  I am leaving a job which has been making me unhappy and not a lot of fun to be with. AND I have made some real progress on unfinished projects which had begun to languish in the plastic boxes that line my sewing "room."

In terms of photographic evidence of this effort ... here is a photo of a quilt top finished for a sister-in-law. She likes red.  I discovered when I started to make this and looked through my stash, I clearly don't like red so much.  A little bit of shopping for red fabric did happen which was fun.  I also paid attention to Sue Ross in class, when she told us that you did not need to commit to all one colour, as long as the overall effect was the one you wanted.  I think the black and pink add a bit more life to the overall quilt.  I also over cut, then trimmed back.  By that I mean, that my sewn block sizes where trimmed back by more an half an inch.  While this was a bit of a pain (100 blocks of pain)  the benefit when I sewed together those 100 blocks was significant.

The next is the plaid pattern from the Moda Bake series that I'd been showing at class periodically.  This pattern needs seriously accurate cutting and sewing.  Not my core strength shall we say.  So the photo, with movement, hides a lot of not quite perfect seam alignment.  I am not sure I would ever make this again (I definitely wouldn't make it this big) but if I did, I would go for a plain background I think.  I like it, but it really is very, very scrappy.

Looking forward to seeing you all in February when we catch up. I will be the relaxed one.

Insanity and Perseverance

Happy New Year to all!  As you might recall I am in the middle of renovations and my place is a little disrupted at present to say the least.  My entire downstairs has been demolished leaving me pretty much restricted to my bedroom and bathroom plus a little bit of my courtyard.  After happily idling away hours and hours in my bedroom doing nothing I couldn't resist the temptation of starting something…..

So I snuck into my empty neighbours place and hijacked their dining table, with cutting mat, rotary cutter, Acqu Cutter and my Baby Betty, I started what I am calling Insanity and Perseverance as I will need both in bucket loads!

And just incase you would all like a little insight to how I've been living for the past 6 weeks……

But end is in sight now that the tiler has finally started laying my tiles.  It was supposed to finished before Christmas, then before New Year, then by the end of the first week of January but the first tiles only laid yesterday!!!!  It's all very exciting and frustrating at the same time, I think just like my new project it's insane and requires perseverance in abundance!

Ciao bellas

Kim

Holiday Sewing

Yay for holidays! 

I was inspired by Steph's dress below, so I headed off to Tessuti for the Tessuti Eva dress - a very cute updated take on the maxi, although I did have to lengthen it by 4 inches (note Imperial quiltspeak measurements, lol).  I used a light cotton with a slight silvery metallic shine. 

Thanks for your inspiration Steph! This is the easiest dress to wear and make, and I might say, hides a multitude of trifle helpings come New Year's day lunch! 

My DH has renamed it the Sydney To Hobart Spinnaker: apparently I should be watching out for a strong wind, or I'll be heading off to Tasmania faster than a person can say Wild Oats. Hahaha.  

On the quilting front, I finished the Scrap Sunday Morning Quilt, and am really happy with how it turned out, with especial thanks to Marjorie for the divine, generous bundle of scrappy strips that she sent which made all the difference.  I quilted it by machine using wonky straight lines in a square grid pattern. It's a great size for a king size bed, and has been warmly welcomed by the puppies. 

HUGO: "Excuse me! I'm hard at work test-driving this new quilt!"

OTTO: "Don't worry, I'll test this corner!"

Wonky grid quilting.

 Kaffe fabric backing. 

I'm making a few more dresses, and then I'll be starting a couple of  baby quilts with some adorable charm packs courtesy of Fat Quarter's 25% off Black Friday sale (which is the Friday after Thanksgiving and traditionally a huge sale day - who knew?), great value even with the postage. 

Have a happy January, darling ladies. Looking forward to seeing your creations. xxx Denny.