The quilt that inspired me to try. A quick history of my sewing experience

Christmas time for adults means a lot more family hours than throughout the year, and I like that.
I was concerned that putting my boy to sleep in a house full of people was going to be Mission: impossible, but thankfully Nan's double brick house is perfect for such occasions and he slept as well as he would have at home.

I call her Nan, but she's my husband's Nan, really. Since I've known her since I was 16 it seems out of place to call her Jean! She was the guiding light for me and my family into quilting. I want to share with you the quilt that finally made me ask Nan "just how *do* you patchwork?" I mean, I learnt paper piecing in high school, but I'm pretty sure I took all year to half-finish a cushion that I never wanted. It was so slow and boring!

[side note] I am totally a sucker for ALL THINGS SPARKLY (as I found out when I planned my wedding. Between "yes" and "I do" I got the reputation for saying "ooh sparkly!!") I've always been a little bit attracted to the Japanese fabrics with gold in them and never had the balls to use some (I think we've all been there).

Anyway here's the quilt:

I just love the blues and fuschias doing their thing!

Nan often does "sampler" style quilts.

Look for gold in all hearts is embroidered in gold. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture. If you've read this far you're already more interested than my husband who was enlisted to hold up the quilt for me to take pictures.

That is probably my favourite block of all. I am not interested in replicating the design, I just LURVE the fabrics & the appeal.


So she lent me her age-old mat, cutter, and ruler and from there I've learnt via youtube, rekindled one of the best friendships I've ever had, and taught my sisters and Mum how to patchwork!


And here I am upgrading my sewing machine 2 years later. A cup of tea and the manual in hand I'm ready to take my new Singer to the next level!!

Until next time, wishing you many stitches in your family

The Christmas Blog. HoHoHo

A total Christmas update in the one blog...
The Christmas party for my other circle of sewing ladies was at Ripple Patch headquarters. Samantha has just launched this online store and lessons on site business and kindly offered her premises to host our Christmas celebrations.





I had to take along a gift to the value of about $10. So did Mum, so we both took Qwash quilt wash and I wrapped them both in the following ways...



And speaking of gifts, my gal pal gave me this AWESOME keyring which just screams "CASSTHECOOLEST"!!!!
I LOVE it!!


I made a Christmas tree with lollies as inspired by this lollipop tree
which is the same site I got those candy cane mice from.


I decorated my first ever gingerbread house! My local Coles sold a kit with completed cookies ready to be erected and decorated and I had a ball. No cleaning up happened on this day. My baby did get breakfast and lunch though, so it's not all bad LOL.








I recently saw Ashley's post on treat jars using baby food jars & knew I'd use it soon. I just love www.makeit-loveit.com I'm a true fan!

I made some up for my friends Dani & Kelly with Christmas candies (Red & Green M&Ms and chocolate santas) & Christmas fabrics.

They came over with their gorgeous kiddies for a get together at my place ...connecting with friends, family, and connecting with friends' families. What Christmas is all about!

Name game quilt swap - join by 15 January 2012 [CLOSED]

I just signed up for this as seen on Ally's blog. Exciting, I've always seen these swap things but never in time to be a part of it. I can get a mini quilt with cassthecoolest on it :-D

Sign up by clicking here SORRY FOLKS THIS IS CLOSED NOW
Here are some of the swap basics:

It will be an international swap and is based on the idea of making a mini quilt for your swap partner, using their name / blog name in the quilt.

The size is up to you, but it should be bigger than a mug rug. Work on a minimum of 9” x 12”

It will be a blind swap which means that you won’t know how will make your mini quilt, until it’s delivered by your lovely postal service.

Leave a comment over at the blog post or send her an email if you would like to join too!

Sign up WAS open until 15 January 2012.

I love upcycling. Using make up freebie bags for kids

It's been so long since I've posted, I've done so many projects but not loaded the pics. For now I'll share the gift I made for my nephew.

You may have accumulated some free make up toiletry bags when you bought cosmetics. I thought this orange one might be a good Nintendo DS carry bag to go with the other items I bought my nephew who turned 10.

Here's what the "before" shot looks like:


I appliqued the green initials *under* the green and blue fabric, using fusible thread. This is the first time I've used fusible thread this way, I have previously only used it for sewing binding, but after seeing these video tutorials from Punch with Judy where I bought the thread, I thought I'd stretch my skills once more. I love learning new sewing skills!

Then to get the nice square edges, I sewed interfacing over the top of my design and turned it through as she demonstrates in this video.

Then stitched around the edges with my twin needle for looks, and ironed it to the bag for hand sewing around the outside.

Then add an Itunes voucher and some sour iceblocks for what I hope is an ideal gift for a 10 year old!

Making boys' shorts for our boys

My friend asked me to show her how to make some shorts for her little cutie pie, and we made a few pairs together. We decided to make matching singlets as well!

Here is the first one I got finished, I don't have a photo with it on my son sorry.


These are pretty simple seeing as they're loose and no 'fitting' is required, but I must be honest and say I read over this tutorial to refresh my memory before heading up to Ally's and cutting out her cute knits.

Here is the other one that I got a few good shots of...

The first look at the penguins. So cute! Spot the handmade quilt and wipes cover in the background. I didn't mean to include them :-P

Then we headed outside for better pictures.

You can see that I put elastic on the bottom seams of the shorts. My boy wont be a baby for much longer and I just like the bunched look whilst he can still get away with it :-)


You can see his mind ticking over, here. This was right before he tasted the flower, and horrible Mummy took it away. Resulting in this....

Naw I think he's cute no matter what he does. The poor model, life's clearly SO tough!
And a shot with a toy I don't mind him tasting...

My creative circle

Another day, another stitch! Today was one of our craft meeting days. My Mum, Sister in law, Aunty and I regularly get together for the sole purpose of craft. Oh and chatting all day just goes with the territory. It's the stuff of "How to make an American quilt" movie scenes. No it's more lovely than that. It's inspirational. It's so lovely to be a part of a family who make time for goodness. I believe in goodness, and sharing it is just great fun.

This time, instead of meeting at one of our houses we went to a local cafe. I can be seen doing some stitching for another of my crafty friends, Ally. I don't have any hand sewing to do at the moment, and she doesn't like the embroidery much so I have told her I'll get to it between my projects. She keeps cooking me delicious meals, so helping her with our block of the month is the least I can do.


Mum is working on a tea cloth she started last century, and if she ever gets finished I don't dare anyone to touch that thing, it's going to be precious. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by damaged craft, I say!



Sharon was working on crochet again, little by little she makes these glorious creations!






Aunty Sandra showed us some of the adorable little winter dudes she has been sewing with a 5th grade class.


And I shared some cute mice I cut out this week...

No sew Christmas gifts, how cute are they?! I found them at this tutorial and just made the shapes up from looking at them. I tried making the ears a little bigger as I went along, as you can see.


All of us, and the assistant, Larson.

Roll up roll up! Crayon rolls are complete

I have finished the first 5 crayon rolls, thanks to the tutorial here at Skip to my Lou.

They're all a tiny bit different. All (except the velcro one) have elastic and grommet for fast clean up. Seriously, who has time for ribbons and bows during clean up?
I bought just one set of 'large crayons' from Kmart to be sure of sizing, but didn't put them in rolls 2-5 for time saving reasons. My 8 month old isn't keen for me to post this blog, he'd rather be carried around all day haha.
They all have padded inner (pellon).

First one has a cute mushroom trim around the outside. The yellow ribbon keeps the grommet in place so you only need to loop the elastic around the rolled up roll and yank the elastic with the other hand. No need to hold the grommet (the plastic springy bit)

---

Second one has ric rack around the edge. It's a small size ricrac though, so it's not very noticeable in real life. The dark blue was my choice for the inner seeing as I read a post about crayons making a mess of that section if it's a light colour fabric

---

Third one. Cutie cupcakes! This fabric was too cute to leave just on the outside so I put a panel of it on the inside. You could use this to write your child's details in texta or just leave it as a decorative panel.

---

Fourth one. Another cutie cupcake. The only two differences between this and number 3 is that this one has a green ribbon to keep the grommet close to the roll, and number 3 has a black one. And the inside cupcake panels are different sizes.

---

Fifth one. This one is SOLD





Please let me know which you'd like (by commenting below or contacting me any other way). They're $10 this week seeing as that's the price I gave on online opshop, but $12 at the market on Saturday if there are any left because the $10 comparisons do not have the same quality trims and fastening, and I think they're certainly worth $12.