Two projects finished tonight.

So far I'm sticking to my list, and have finished off one of Cheryl's PNG quilts.  The two are quilted, but need to have the binding, and I think I should be able to finish those tomorrow.

I also completed my February Xmas project - you can see it here.

Are you a "LISTS" person?

Last week I had two crafty friends visit for a few hours.  They wanted me to show them how to use gold leaf to embellish calligraphy or other paper crafts.  I brought a folding table into the kitchen and set it up next to our round kitchen table, and I put a pile of calligraphy books, inks,brushes, pens, etc. on it so we could use the kitchen table to work on without all the other stuff taking up work space.   I left everything there until last Friday night  when Ken asked if I was going to leave it there.  (Meaning 'when are you going to move all that stuff?')   I left it there to motivate myself to do some more calligraphy and I did actually mess around a bit on Thursday night, but didn't achieve anything much.

I get frustrated because there are so many things I want to try, and I get myself in a tizz and end up just making a mess.  So I moved everything back into my study, and in doing so got into a worse tizz about the mess in there.   I spent an hour putting everything back where it is supposed to be, and while I was in the process, I found some UFOs that I'd forgotten about,  tucked away in a corner, which made me even more depressed! 

I decided to get from the cupboard one of my many blank journals, and list all the things I have to do (not all the things I WANT to do, that's in another journal).  When finding the blank journal, I re-discovered the pile of blank journals in the cupboard along with a list of suggestions on what they can be used for.  So I spent another half hour deciding what I might do with each journal, and made a list...can you see where this is going?  Anyway, I finally got back to my original plan, and used one of my blank books to list the projects I really need to do before starting anything else.

The first thing is to finish quilting and binding the unfinished baby quilts that were given to me by a friend when her sewing machine died.  Then I have to make a Xmas themed item by 25th February, for the One Xmas Item a Month Project.  Without consulting my new List journal, I can't remember what the third most important item is, but it doesn't matter - I must concentrate on the first one if I'm to get anywhere.  So I quilted the quilts today, and tomorrow I'll cut the binding, and hopefully have them bound by tomorrow night. Which leaves me two days to do my Xmas project....I'm only making a stocking from a printed panel this time, as it is quick to do, but hopefully by late March, I'll be more organised and have something a bit more worthwhile to show!

Bits and bobs

I am like a dog chasing its tail.  I still haven't made any more quilts for the PNG quilt collective, and I haven't done any more on the cross stitch Peacock sampler.  I've finally finished washing and ironing all the linens and lace I received last month, but haven't started photographing it yet.  But I looked at my previous posts, and I think I've just about covered them all with the first lot of photos I posted.  I'll take some more better photos eventually, but it won't be any time soon.

A month ago, I joined a blog group committed to making one Xmas project a month, and mentioned that I'd made my first item.  I forgot to post a photo here, but it was just a little tree ornie, so I'm not even going to bother doing it now.  Tonight I was getting the fabric ready for my February Xmas project, and had second thoughts about how I'm going to use it.  It is a panel with four Xmas stockings to be cut out and made up, but I've been making stockings from other panels for years and I'm tired of them!  So what else can one do?   I decided to cut out each section and lay them on the table in different configurations.  I was thinking of appliquing the sections to a piece of other fabric and making a runner.  But it just didn't look right, so I set them out differently and thought this set out might look nice as a small table cloth.  .

  

 The first two are of four different 'boots' in different layouts, but the third is two pairs of boots laid out end to end.  I like them both, What do you think?   Even if I use these to make cloths, there will still be plenty to make more Xmas boots!                                                           

 

PNG baby quilts delivered.

I have just updated the blog for the PNG Quilt collective, with some photos of PNG natives with their babies all wrapped up in the donated quilts!  Go here to see.

Opshop tablecloths

I was over at Savers in Greensborough yesterday, looking for a microwave dish to replace one that got broken a while ago.  While I was there I had to check their manchester racks, didn't I, although I didn't expect to find anything of interest, as Savers don't seem to get much in the way of vintage linens these days.
But I was in luck this time:  I found a lovely embroidered linen cloth and a chicken scratch gingham.   These photos were taken before they've been washed and ironed, so the cloths aren't looking their best, but good enough for a pic.

I received an email from my cousin Yaso this morning, with two photos she'd taken of the natives in PNG with some of the quilts we sent over.  I'll be posting them on the PNG blog shortly, after I've got her permission to use them.