It's been awhile

I had a great three weeks in New Zealand visiting family and I arrived back in Australia last weekend but it seems I never left apart from trying to get back into some sort of routine.
Indulge me while I drag out some Nana brag photos.

Here are the three youngest grandkiddos, I don't think the twelve year old would appreciate a photo on my blog. The girls are wearing the dresses I made for them and they fit perfectly. Sophie on the left is six and wants to grow her hair like Rapunzel on Tangled. Ella is our polly pocket rocket, she wants her hair long but it just won't grow! She helped me make bread and is very good at shaping balls of dough so she's the little baker. Noah is two now and is just mad about anything to do with the movie cars.

Being the youngest of four kids means Noah watches everything and then copies so when I was taking a photo of the stick insect, he raced to find the toy camera and copied my close up style, lol.

The weather was fabulous, not too hot and not cool except for at night so we did get to go to the beach which is not far away and dig for pipis. I suppose the taste would be like clams and we even got a few cockles.

When you dig for pipis that are not far into the ocean and when the tide is going in, you have to  twist  your toes to feel them under the sand, it's quite a sight and good exercise.

We soaked them overnight in sea water for them to spit out the sand and my DD made some delicious pipi fritters for dinner the next evening. It took me right back to my childhood with every summer at the beach doing the same thing.

My older sister and I had a couple of nice lunches out together and both of us chose a beef and pear salad with blue cheese dressing for lunch on one of those days. It was so delicious that I had to try and make it at home. It turned out to be really delicious but I could have added a few cherry tomatoes and it would have been perfect. I served it with my sourdough which I've missed so much while away.
It has salad greens, red onion, avocado, red capiscum, avocado, pear and roasted pine nuts along with the beef.

The dressing was so delicious that I just have to share. After it's been in the fridge, it goes thicker and would make a rock star dip.

Blue cheese dressing

75g Costello blue cheese, chopped

125g (1/2 cup) creme fraiche

1 green shallot, end trimmed, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tbs white wine vinegar

1 tbs light olive oil

1 tbs good-quality whole-egg mayonnaise

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

To make the blue cheese dressing, place the blue cheese, creme fraiche, green shallot, garlic, vinegar, oil, mayonnaise and mustard in the bowl of a food processor and process until mixture is almost smooth. You can also use a mixing wand.Taste and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl or jug. Serve at room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until required. It will keep for several days.

So what about the sewing? Well there wasn't too much of that but I did prep all my leaves for another panel on the Trailing Vines quilt before I left and I only have a few more leaves to sew on.
I don't think anybody is in a rush for the next panel to download so when I've drawn it up, I'll let you know here on the blog.

I did stuff another trapunto block for the Coxscomb quilt, each block takes me about four or five evenings to do so it's not a quick job.

You get the idea of what it will look like from the back view without the yellow pen I used. I was too lazy to iron it so it might look a bit rough. The only thing I didn't get to work on was the snowball quilt from my last post but better to have too much than not enough sewing to do.

I tried to keep up on my blog reading while I was away even if I didn't have time to leave comments.

I'm looking forward to catching up. I do have a couple of Coxcomb and Currant blocks to email to some of you so that requested it so if you don't recieve them within a day or two, could you flick me another request please.

Until next time, Janet

A new quilt

I did say I was going to do something colourful. I had a blast cutting out these snowballs and they all came from the stash so it's a real mix of lots of different fabrics.
This quilt was one that Lizzie over over at Broderie had been working on and then Jean over at Linen and Raspberry started one too and I was sold, I needed one of my own and Lizzie kindly allowed me to use her idea. The blue links will take you to their posts showing their quilts.

I bought a charcoal Kaffe spot for the squares and initially thought it would be too dark and swallow up the florals so I ordered the same funky Kaffe spot that Lizzie and Jean were using which is in the photo below.

Out of curiosity, I thought I'd put a selection of both spots on the wall just to note the different effects the two spots gave.

I decided on the darker charcoal spot after all,  not because one is better than the other. I just liked the contrast. Excuse the photo taken in my dark sewing room, the editing shows the fabrics a bit brighter than they are but the charcoal looks about right. I have edited out about four of the snowballs that were bothering me and replaced them.

I'm going to mindlessly hand piece this one while I'm away in New Zealand for several weeks. I'm leaving on Thursday and I get to see my family and four grandchildren so I'm a bit excited. I have some other things to work on as well so I have variety. I'll try to keep you updated if possible.

Coxcomb and Currants

All nine blocks are done, tra-la-tra-la. I think I hear birds singing.

Ignore the yellow pen on the alternate blocks, I have a bit of trapunto to do before these can be assembled. When that's done, I have the trapunto pattern for the border to draw up but that can wait.

As a rule, I don't count things like how many applique pieces etc that I do but I was curious as to the number of circles I stitched and 396 is the answer to that.

I'm off to the sewing cave to play with something more colourful, you'll have to wait and see.

I'm still here

It's been ages since I popped in to visit blogs let alone feed my own. I've been feeling so unwell due to some new  medication that had some unpleasant side effects but I'm all sorted now thank goodness.
On days I felt well enough, I got stuck into some sewing that's been on the list. This is dress number two out of the Gnomeville fabric. It's for Miss Sophie who is six. I'll never buy another Burda pattern after this one, it seemed to miss some steps and I'd rather not have to think too much and fill in the gaps. My Bernina played nice for the buttonholes which are my little phobia.

I seem to be stuck in all things red lately. These are the first lot of blocks for the Just Takes 2 quilt along. I'm doing mine in the red and white but there are others doing it and using lots of colour.

Progress has been steady on the Coxcomb and Currants project, I've done another two of these blocks and I'm currently working on the last one.

Is there anybody who is stitching the Trailing Vines quilt with me? I've uploaded the third panel for you. Just click on the Trailing Vines page underneath my header to go to the page with the links for downloading the patterns.

It's motivated me to draw up another panel to get stuck into this coming week but I'm also wondering if I'm putting lots of time into something that's not being used since I can't get any stats on the number of downloads. I'd love to hear of anyone making it.

Happy 2012

Happy New Year to you all! Thank goodness 2011 is over, it wasn't a good year.
I set myself a goal to finish the hand quilting on the Double Wedding Ring quilt by the end of 2011 and I achieved that, woo hoo! I felt a bit sad after those last stitches but it's not finished  yet, there's a long way to go with all the trapunto feathers to do, you can see some that I've done in the photo. It's quilted within a half inch of it's life, the most stitches I've done on any quilt to date yet it remains very drapeable with the cotton batting.

To my dismay I discovered a hole in the background on the second to last border and I know the obvious fix would have been a bit of applique to cover it up but........

in the end I went for an embroidered bumblebee inspired by Sandra Leichener.

Here it is and now you know why it's there. It'll do, even with it's little humpback, lol. I call it my humble-bee.

I'm getting excited about the  Just Takes 2 and have my fabrics all ready. I'll be doing the sampler in red and white solids. This red is from P&B neutrals range and the white I'm using is from the same range as well.
When I wash yards and yards of fabric, I concertina it in folds straight off the bolt and use safety pins to hold the edges together. After washing, I remove the pins, unfold it all and put it in the dryer. I get a lot less wrinkles and there's no tangling around the agitator, it works great.

I'm not making any resolutions for the new year, I'm going with the flow and I'm open to possibilities. I do want to concentrate on my many big projects (oldies but goodies) so I guess there'll be more of the same.

Do any of you have big sewing plans for this year?