Old UFO quilt now a WIP quilt!

The handkie quilt might have to wait for a little while now, as I have something else I want to work on first.  I won't finish this completely, as  there is a lot to work on, but I want to make inroads into it before I lose interest!
A few years ago I found this bag of blocks and fabrics in an opshop and rescued it, thinking I would be able to finish it myself. 

No instructions, no pattern, nothing except six completed blocks and a pile of matching fabrics.  When I got home, I spread everything out and tried to make sense of it, but at that point in time, I lacked the experience to figure out how to make more blocks out of the fabrics.  But last night I finally got the help I needed.  Our lovely new Quilt Shop in Eltham has various classes up and running, and one of them is a once a month 2 hour workshop for those who have UFOs that they have got stuck and can't go any further.  I was the first person to sign up for this workshop,  and could hardly wait for Thursday night!  I took along my bag of blocks and fabrics, and spread it all out on the table for our tutor Leanne, to have a look.  She is indeed an expert quilter and stitcher - there were eight of us there and we all benefitted from her knowledge and experience, even though we had different projects to discuss with her.  It was fun seeing what everyone else had, and most of us learned more than what we expected, simply by watching as she advised each individual.


With my project, she showed me how part of the block was made up with flying geese, and the easiest way to make them.  Then she worked out how much fabric I would need, and how many pieces to cut, to make up more blocks.  Of course without a pattern, we had no way of knowing how many blocks were in the original design, but I said it didn't matter to me, I would just make up as many blocks as I could with the available fabric, and make up a quilt top with them.  So I was kept busy for the rest of the session, cutting my fabrics up into the required shapes and sizes.  I hadn't finished doing that by 9 pm, but at least I knew what I had to do once I got home.  So I was very happy indeed - went in with a UFO and came out with a WIP!

Links to quilts made with handkies and vintage doilies.

I have had a few people ask me where I found the idea for making a quilt with handkies, so I am providing a link to my Pinterest board for quilts using handkies and doilies:
https://www.pinterest.com/gandkwil/ideas-for-vintage-doilies-and-handkies/

Cross stitch and other items going cheap!

More moments of reality in this household as I opened the cupboard to look for something and everything else fell out....too much stuff!  So I went through it all AGAIN and decided what to keep and what to get rid of.  I am long over eBay, it has got so huge that it is hardly worth listing anything on there.  I don't even look at it these days (rather spend an hour on Pinterest, at least I can't spend money on there!).  So, getting back to my cull.   I took my bag of unwanted goodies to the Quilt Shop on Friday, and one lady took some vintage tablecloth UFOs off my hands, but nobody was interested in the cross stitch.  So I photographed everything and am posting it here, so my blog readers as well as Down To Earth members will be able to have a look and let me know if there is anything they would like.

I was going to give away everything and just ask for postage, but there are a few complete new kits that I have put a price on because they originally cost quite a bit, and I'm sure you will agree that it is only fair that I get something back!   If you see something you want, let me know by email and I will work out the postage cost.
Here we go:

The four kits above come complete with everything needed to do the project.  The Juniper ones have "Flower Threads" which I discovered cost a bit more than the usual stranded cotton!  So I have put a price of $10 on each of these.

The Indian chief has been started, just a bit of the headress has been done.  I am posting this pic to show that it is a pre painted canvas, not counted cross stitch kit.

The old cushion cover above was started by someone who was an excellent stitcher - not me! ...there are no threads with it.

Supper cloth above, a bit done, some threads were with it when I got it.

Tea cosy.  I would love to keep this and finish it, but my stitching is not up to this standard, and I don't feel like unpicking it all and starting again.

Handkerchief quilt

Ever since I saw a quilt made of vintage handkies on the internet a year or so ago, I knew I had to try it.  After giving away most of my handkie collection last year, I kept enough to make a quilt or two, and decided this weekend was a good time to start.  I've been working on chicken stitcheries and patchwork for months, and it was time for a break. 
There are several variations of handkie quilts in books and on the internet, and I'm planning to make two.  The first one that I started last night is with the printed handkies.  I bought two metres of off-white cotton, cut it up into 14" squares, and used quilt spray to adhere the handkies to the squares.  Then I machine stitched around the border of each handkie to hold them permanently.  The reason I cut the background squares into 14" is because the largest handkie was 12.5 " square, so taking into account seam allowance  for joining the blocks, I cut them all the same size for the rest of the handkies.  Here they are spread out on the floor in the layout I have chosen (with help from my husband who has a good eye for these things, I am finding!).

Because they are all so light coloured, I think I will buy some slightly darker fabric to use for sashing and the border.  Ken suggested much darker fabric but I don't want to 'drown' the handkies in a very dark border.  What do you think?

The other handkie quilt I want to do will use the embroidered handkies I have.  They mostly have something embroidered in just one corner, and to use them like I have with the ones above, it would be just a big expanse of white handkies, so I found a pattern which has them folded diagonally, with the stitched corner showing, and attached to background fabric in a different way.

Still in chook mode.

I have made a few changes to my No Eggs Today wall hanger.   I decided to add a thin black border after I'd quilted the back and wadding to the front, instead of doing the envelope finish.  Someone had suggested adding a border of lace to the stitchery, so after playing with various laces from my stash, I decided to use a red and white trim.  It still has to be hand sewn on, and I think it looks rather sweet.

I started the runner below on a whim after I saw a similar styled runner on Pinterest, with a chook print surrounded by chicken wire print fabric.  I received the panel from a friend in France, and I didn't have enough of the chicken wire fabric, so I bordered the centre section with black, and added a red gingham border, and will use a plain red for the binding.

Additions to my vintage linen collection.

I just happened to drop into an antiques market the other day....well, it wasn't quite like that.  I had passed it several times when Ken was driving, so I had to find a time to go there on my own!  There were a few linens, mostly whitework and crochet - on display, and I asked the lady in charge if she had any more.  She took me to a chest of drawers and opened it to reveal piles of embroidered cloths and doilies!  I didn't have time to look at everything, and she didn't have time to pull the whole lot out and show them to me, but she riffled through them quickly and four items caught my eye.

A machine embroidered supper cloth with roosters - just had to have that, even though I don't strictly collect machine embroidery.  A breakfast traycloth, and a doiley featuring Scottish dancers, which is a great match for a tablecloth that I have had for a while.  AND a fantastic find - a patchwork boot done in crazy patchwork!  I wish I knew how old this is, or where it came from!   All these items for a total of $28. :-)

On my way back home I stopped at the opshop to drop off some things I have had in my car for months.  I shouldn't have stayed to look around, but this cross stitch kit caught my eye, and in spite of swearing off cross stitch in favour of stitchery and patchwork, this rooster found his way home with me!  Sigh....

Updates.

One more teacosy made for the Teacosy festival.   I called this one Carnaby Street, after the fabric pattern.  The lace was a piece that I had in my stash, just enough to go around the bottom of the cosy.

Decided to make the No Eggs Today stitchery into an all purpose mat which I can use as a centrepiece on the kitchen table or coffee table, or I can sew a rod hanger on the back and hang it up somewhere.  This is the top, I just have to add the backing and interfacing, no border, as I am going to make it up envelope style.

While in chook mode, I saw a lovely table runner on Pinterest, and it inspired me to make something similar with fabric from my vast chook fabric stash.  Thought I'd taken a photo of it, but can't find it, so obviously not.  Ah, just remembered - I did take a photo, but it is on my tablet, and I can't post from that to here.  Well, I suppose I can, but it is too much mucking around, so it will have to wait until I've finished the project and then I can show it here as an FO and not a UFO ;-)

Two finished projects and a WIP.

Last year I was showing a fellow Elvis fan some of the Elvis fabrics in my stash, and she gasped "Ooooh!  What are you going to do with that one?"and I rashly replied "I guess I could make you a quilt".  Well, I couldn't go back on my word, could I?  She lives in Qld. and only comes down to Melbourne a few times a year, and I knew she was coming back in February, so I got my bum into gear and made this:

The back is a denim print fabric of which I have several metres in my stash, given to me by a friend who had decided she would never use it.  I thought it was perfect for Elvis' back!

This is the second tea cosy I have made for this year's teacosy festival at Bundoora Homestead.  But there is a slight problem....Ken has taken a fancy to it, and doesn't want me to donate it to the festival!  So I might be making another teacosy this week...

At the Eltham Quilt Shop sit and sew on Friday mornings, I have been mostly working on the hand stitched binding of recent quilts and wall hangings, but if I haven't got a quilt to work on, I need something else to take.  I was looking through my thousands of patterns (you know the feeling) and when I came across this one, I looked no further.   The magazine has it made up as a cushion, but I don't need any more cushions, so I'm thinking of making it into a framed picture or wall hanging, and hanging it in the chook house just to remind the girls that we do not tolerate moods.  Just keep laying eggs, thank you!

A good start to the Sewing Year.

I have big plans for 2016!  A list of to-dos that are achievable.  I was happy to close 2015 with most of the projects on my wish list completed.
I finished the backing and binding of the Naughty Kitty clawed quilt yesterday.
Then I made a  denim pincushion that I saw on Pinterest, and had to make for myself, to match the denim sewing machine cover I made last year.   And I made a tea cosy for the forthcoming Tea cosy Festival at Bundoora Homestead, which opens next month.  I am going to make a few different ones, as there is no limit this year to how many can be entered by one person.  I've got some nice chicken fabric out to make the second one, but Ken was admiring the fabric, so the teacosy may not get to the Festival!  We'll see.  I have until 31st January to make them.\

Ten MInute Table runner Xmas gift.

I made this table runner for my home Carer.  She loves any hand made crafts, so she was tickled pink with this :-)

Cat mug rugs

These aren't strictly mug rugs, more like large coasters.  I made a cat mug rug for a friend last year, and her home carer was admiring it.  My friend asked me to make another one for her carer, and I invited her over here to go through my cat fabrics so she could choose one herself.  She liked this one so much she asked if I could do two, one for her and one for her carer, and as they don't take long to make, I agreed.
They are exactly the same; coloured cat print on the front, paws on the back.

Table runners for Cancer fundraising.

My friend Louise is passionate about raising funds for the Cancer Council, as she has lost several friends to the disease.  She had a fundraising afternoon tea party last year which was so successful she decided to have another one this year.  I offered to make some patchwork items for her to raffle or auction to help make some more money.  I made a pink table runner and a smaller blue one.  Both were made using the "Ten Minute Table runner" technique.   As it was the first time I had tried this, it took a bit longer than ten minutes for the first one (the pink runner), but I can see when you've made a few of them, it probably would take less than 20 minutes to make one!

They didn't take long to go!

Christmas theme table runner completed.

Here is the runner I have made for an exchange on the Down To Earth forum.  I am so pleased to have finished the binding with neat mitred corners!  Should have started doing this a long time ago, but I don't feel like undoing all the binding on my previous quilts and redoing them properly.  Not now!

What I am doing.

The Xmas table runner I have been working on at the Quilt Shop is all but finished, just one side left to hand sew the binding, and it will be posted off to Queensland on Monday.  I will take a photo of it to post here later.
One of our friends is the proud grandmother of a little boy, and she loves to show us photos of him on her Iphone.  I asked her to email me her favourite photo of him, so I could make a mug rug with his picture on it.  Now S. is not a craft person at all, and she didn't really understand what I was planning. So when I presented her with this last week, she was blown away!

 It is a bit bigger than a mug rug, but smaller than a placemat, so I told S it is a snack mat!  Of course she can use it any way she wants to;  some people have said they would frame it and hang it up somewhere, but I wouldn't go that far. 

Photos at Eltham Quilt Shop.

The quilters and stitchers in this area of Melbourne are so happy that Sharon and Alison have opened this shop!  I have been to all of the Friday morning 'Coffee O'clock" sessions, and plan to continue doing this as long as it is running.  Some of the group are regulars and others pop in when they can.  There is also a Monday sit and sew group and some ladies go to both.  I don't have that much time to spare unfortunately!  But I am very happy to spend two hours a week dedicated to working on my own projects and seeing what the others are doing.  Sharon and Alison cook a cake on the premises for our group every week, we are thoroughly spoiled!  I took some photos last Friday to post here so my readers can see why I have been raving about The Quilt Shop.  Of course there are other patchwork and quilt shops around Melbourne, but I haven't seen one yet that has so much space and offers so many amenities to their customers!  I posted a photo of the shop front a while ago, but this one is a better shot.  The next photo shows where it is, near the corner of Bridge and Susan Streets, Eltham.

When you walk in the front door, this is what you find:

Tables piled with goodies, two comfortable chairs to browse books and magazines, and the grey cabinet with drawers holds embroidery floss.

Straight ahead is where most of the fabrics are arranged in colour categories, with more tables laden with various products.  At the end of this corridor is the studio or craft space.

Standing in the studio looking back up toward the entrance.  The wall on the left holds all the accessories needed for the quilter, nothing is left out!

Here is our lovely workroom.  The tables have powerpoints on the sides for those who need power for sewing machines.  The white wall you can see has special covering to enable people to 'stick' their work up to see how it looks.  There is a name for this, I can't remember at the moment.
On the left out of the picture is a kitchen where tea and coffee is readily available. 

On this side of the room is an ironing board and iron set up for whoever needs it, a table with a large cutting mat and ruler, and a rail to hang quilts which are examples for future classes.
Ahhhh!!  I'm in sewing heaven here...thank you so much Sharon and Alison!