[ On my sewing table... ]
this week...
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posted on October 11, 2011, at 3:07 pm So I’m all ready to cut up my fabrics, all ready to complete Part 1: Choosing & Cutting Fabric on time, like a good little sew-along participant. I had been stressing over whether I could get away with not buying more fabric to cover the fabric requirements for the bold solid, and settled finally on 2 yards of solid chocolate Kona, with a good yard of Alexander Henry’s Heath. It was Sunday afternoon, with Monday’s Part 2: Making Napkins looming, and so I grabbed my printed instructions, and with great precision given by the new blade I inserted into my cutter, I proceeded to cut up the first patchwork fabric, sticking strictly to the very clear guidelines.
Ah. I stood back and smiled. Lovely. And right then, as I was about to grab the next strip and cut it into the “subcuts”, I gasped. OMG!!! OH. MY. GOD. I’d forgotten to wash my fabrics first!
What followed, that is, what came out of my mouth, isn’t for public exhibition. My brain was dancing on hot coals, trying to work out what I should do. I mean, I don’t have any more of that fabric! What will I do if it does shrink in the wash? How will I make it work???
I put on my Big Girl Pants, and marched those little strips down the hallway into the washing machine, along with the rest of the fabrics for this first set of 4 placemats and napkins.
Now, all there is to do is wait, allow them to dry, and then, with my eyes wide open, place the cut strips on the cutting board and see what the damage, if any, is. Hopefully, if there has been shrinkage, it will be minimal.
 Part 1 - yeah, not the image I wanted to share with you today! If not, I might have to resort to opening one of those bottles of wine peeking out behind the washing line. That way, I may not have correctly cut fabric strips, but at least I’ll be happy!
posted on October 4, 2011, at 4:23 pm Perfect! I’ve been wondering what to use these fabrics for!
 orange I wish I could remember who’s fabric range it is. Can’t for the life of me remember the name of the design. Do you know?
 pink All I know is I love it. I take it out of the cupboard every now and again to stroke it.
 brown There is one more fabric in the cupboard that’s part of this range. It’s like the piece on the right in the above image, but it’s red and taupe, and will stay tucked away in the cupboard for now. But do you want know what I’m going to make? Click on this link:
Oh, Fransson!’s Color Blocks Placemats & Napkins Holiday Sew-along
I’m making 3 sets of 4, so I’ll have 12 placemat + napkin sets in all.
There is just one possible hitch. I need to buy more fabric. What do you reckon are my chances? It’s not like a metre or so. Nope. I need 3 metres of a neutral solid, and 9 – nine!!! – metres of a bold solid. I also need some cotton batting, enough to get 12 pieces of 15″ x 20″ (38 x 50cm) each. Might make a trip to Spotlight tomorrow to suss out some cheap metres. Wish me luck. If I don’t find anything cheap enough, I’ll see if I can use the Kona solids I have in the cupboard. I certainly don’t have 9 metres of any of them, but I might see if I can do a bit of a mix and match deal.
Or… do you think I can use muslin? I don’t have nine metres of it, but I sure do have a lot. Possibly 5 metres? I have to check. But what do you think? If Anya could win the challenge on this week’s Project Runway using muslin to make an outfit that cost of all of $11:50, do you reckon I could use it here? I could use it as the neutral solid, and then all I’d need to buy is the bold solid, although I think I need to raid my cupboard again to see what other treasures I can find to get me my nine metres, yeah? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
But hey, don’t you think these fabrics will look awesome in napkin and placement sets?
posted on August 13, 2010, at 1:38 pm If I could, I’d sure go to Elizabeth Hartman (aka. Oh, Fransson!)’s class on machine quilting! Here’s my first attempt…
 front view  back view
Not so good, right?
I had my machine set correctly, I think, so what went wrong???
 darning foot in place  presser foot pressure down  drop feet in
posted on August 13, 2010, at 1:20 pm Sorry folks, give me a minute! Accidentally clicked the “publish” button before I’d typed the post! Give me a few minutes and check back. Actually, I might just do a new post so you’ll know it’s the new one. Make sense? See you in 15.
posted on July 4, 2010, at 9:28 pm I’m so excited! I had cancelled my project from last year to make a quilt for my friend, because she’d originally had her heart set on a very traditional, “old-worldly” kinda quilt, and a few months ago, she bought a fabulous, modern house, and decided she didn’t want a quilt any longer, it just didn’t fit the look! I was really disappointed, but figured she didn’t know much at all about modern quilting.
Today that all changed. I showed her some of the incredible modern quilts around, showed her Cherri House Quilts, and Oh, Fransson!, and Red Pepper Quilts, and let me tell you, she’s very excited now about her new quilt. Wish I could show you her new house. It’s incredible. The architect is amazing – she was one of the architects on the Eureka Tower project – and the house is all white walls and beautiful, warm, Australian timber, and stainless steel, polished floors, and terribly clever use of light and space… can you tell I love the place?
 We spent an hour or so pouring over quilt designs, and looking at fabrics on the internet, and she fell in love with… guess what… Laura Gunn’s Poppy range in Spice! The timber in her house is pretty much the same colour as my kitchen table, and you can see in my ‘Adding gray to spice’ post below how divine the Poppy fabrics look against that wood. I’m very thrilled, because as you already know, I adore the fabrics too, and I’m really looking forward to making this quilt for her. It’ll be a king-size quilt for her bedroom, so fairly large. First thing I did when I got home tonight was login at the Book Depository and order a copy of City Quilts, and as soon as it arrives, we’re going to spend a day together narrowing down the fabric and design choices. Amazing, she’s really excited about it now!
 By the way, did you know that if you’re in Australia, even though Amazon’s book prices are way cheaper, it works out better to buy from the Book Depository because of their free international shipping? Moshe made me buy a copy of George Calombaris’ book, ‘Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart‘, so that’s on it’s way too. Have you seen it? It’s amazing! The recipes look just delicious. Moshe got hooked on Masterchef while he was in the hospital, and he loves this guy loves his cooking 1, so… better humour him and get the book. Works for me, right?
Now all I need is more time to finish some of these projects I keep taking on! Oh, and I’m calling this quilt, the Eureka Quilt.
1. I was corrected quick smart this morning!
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