A Finish - Old Fashioned Cookery & Handy Gadget

The Ferris Wheel Quilt is FINISHED!!!  YAY!!  Marvellous what a deadline will do.

I hope the recipient likes it and that it brings her much comfort.
It was difficult to get a good shot of it because of it’s length, but this is the best I could do.
Mathematics is not my forte so my DH had to step in and work out a nice arc to dissect the squares for the quilting pattern. I also quilting in the ditch.  In the end, I was happy with the quilting.


We were gifted some green tomatoes by our neighbour.  What to do?  My late maternal grandmother made THE best green tomato pickle, so I rummaged around and found a recipe which I thought might be close to the one she used to make. In the past I have never been able to replicate them. She never had a recipe, and when we asked how to make them, it was ‘just a handful of this, a spoonful of that etc.’

This was the end result and I was really pleased (and surprised) at how good they tasted and how very much like my Nana Mac’s pickles they turned out to be.  We made many, many bottles and we have been gifting them to family and friends who seem to be enjoying them too.  Chuffed with that!

This is one of the handiest tools I have owned.  Gifted to me by a dear friend whose darling husband made it.  Thank you my friend
I use it mainly for guiding patchwork under the foot of the machine and it is better than an awl or unpicker because it hasn’t got the extremely sharp point to accidentally poke yourself with.  It seems to grip onto the fabric too and stops the piece from slipping.  It is also very useful for poking out corners. 
Are you a pinner or non-pinner?  I used to be a ‘fly by the seat of the pants’ non pinner when I did patchwork, but now I pin obsessively and I am much more pleased with the results. 
Until next time………happy crafting……….Dianne.

Mother’s Day Treats, A new project, & Comforting Food

It was so nice to have both our daughters  at our house on Sunday to share Mother’s Day with me.
Second daughter, Bonnie and DH gave me a big, beautiful bunch of flowers and Bonnie also gave me a relaxing massage.


Isn’t this flower a beautiful colour???



 Our other daughter Rebecca (a mummy herself) cooked my favourite breakfast, eggs benedict and she spoiled me with a new pair of flanny pj’s and a puzzle book to take on our trips.
xxx Love you girls to bits.
Why is it when the colder weather hits, our minds immediately turn to warm comforting food, food and more food.
We noticed recently how much sugar the canned baked beans have in them, so I decided to find a recipe for homemade baked beans.
The one I chose was this one from taste.com.au, leaving out the cloves and molasses.  

They were so delicious and definitely something I will be making over and over.  Lovely to have on toast on a lazy Sunday evening. I used a ham hock for the smoky bacon taste because Coles’ didn’t have any bacon bones – I would use bacon bones next time.  The ham hock didn’t go to waste though, it was used to make a pea and ham soup.

Early in the year I had some chicken carcasses in the freezer and made up my own chicken stock and froze it.  So, last week I made some chicken noodle soup when the temps turned really chilly.  It warms the body and soul.
Now for some brayer love.  Do you have a brayer?  I find them so useful, and last week at quilting someone had the little wooden one for sale.  It is meant to be for seam pressing as you patchwork, but I thought it would make a lovely little brayer to use in mixed media adventures.  Dear Lilian has since painted the roller red one day while I had my back turned.  Perhaps she thought it should match the other rubber one.


Speaking of which, I used Methylated spirits to clean it.  It worked well, so Shirley, when you read this, we now have another use for the ‘metho’. Shirley told me how good it was to remove nikko pen from plastic and it really works!  Thank you Shirley. Everyone probably knew that except me?

Before & After
A NEW PROJECT? – am I insane??
Our daughter would love a quilt for her friend for her 30th birthday.  “When is it, I asked?” 
“September” she replied.  Yikes, can I go away for the whole month of June and meet that deadline?  Of course, I said yes and immediately started searching for something using strips and something easy peasy. 
I ended up purchasing this Ferris Wheel pattern by Karen Griska.  She has the blog :       selvageblog.blogspot.com and she designs and makes the most wonderful quilts.  I bought the pattern HERE
It takes a few blocks to get it, but it is quite fast and easy.  Be sure to check her version out – it is smashing!!!
This is a start, and I am trying to do at least one block a day. (PS the yellow one has been discarded now, too ‘in your face’)
There are also ‘secret’ projects being worked on, and one of them is nearly ready for the big reveal – after some 10 or 11 years!!
An early morning is planned tomorrow to go to Brisbane on the bus to the Quilter’s Picnic which is being held by Queensland Quilters Inc. this year.  One will have to be up and out of bed by 5.30!!!  HELP!!!
Until next time………………………………….Dianne.

Art Quilt Finish : Art Clean Up : Transfer Techniques

A finish at last!
A couple of months ago I did an online course with Deborah Boschert called “Branches Buds & Blossoms : a botanical fabric collage”.
This is the result and I will put it into our quilting exhibition display in September.  The theme for the display is “Botanica”, so this will fit perfectly.
I have called it “Branching Out” as I find my textile art is branching out into collage a lot lately.  It seems to be something I like doing.
Deborah had some great hints and tips, and it was a very enjoyable exercise.

Just recently I discovered a box marked ‘Art” which has been sitting in the bottom of the linen press for about 15 years unopened since we moved into this house. 

Embarrassingly, most of the stuff inside had to be chucked out as it had deteriorated somewhat.  This prompted a bit of an art clean out.  Looong time ago I was very into folk art painting and did such an awful lot of it.

A lot of the supplies from that era were put to the back of the cupboard and the back of mind until a couple of days ago.  Here is what I discovered ( & embarrassingly – again - I forgot I had some of these things).  I was very excited to find them, anyway. 

Brushes Galore - all shapes and sizes

A tube of oil paint in burnt umber which I used to love using for antiquing and giving the aged look.




An ink nib, a kemper tool (you fill the well with acrylic ink or watered down acrylic paint and draw with it), and my wonderful paint trowel.



The dining ??? table – plenty of paints.
Have you ever tried to transfer a quilting design onto a quilt which has already been layered.  Jeesh, it is no mean feat.  This often happens if the quilting idea comes at a late stage in the artistic development of the piece  LOL.
Firstly I tried using the pattern drawn onto tulle and this was very successful but I used a white pitt pen to transfer with.  By the time I had quilted one lot of scrolls all the other transfers on the fabric had rubbed away.  Grrr.

During a wakeful period in the night (you know how it is) I remembered I had purchased a clover product called Transfer Mesh.  Couldn’t wait to get out of bed next morning to give it a whirl.
I find Clover products very, very good on the whole.  This transfer mesh was quite troublesome though, as the pen and pencil wanted to get stuck in the wee holes, which is probably why they tell you to use blunt pencils.

I used a 2B pencil to draw the lines onto the mesh and then a Karisma pencil to transfer to the fabric (as per instruction on the video).  What I learned, with trial and error, was a light touch is better than going hard at it, and slow and steady is better than fast and impatient!!
If you have one of these sheets, do give it a try, it was the best solution to this awkward problem  You can see a video of how to use it HERE – but be aware the audio is terrible.
Until next time……………Dianne

While the Cat’s Away

When my hubby went away to Sydney for the football finals,  I got quite a bit done in the sewing room and on UFO’s.  He doesn’t mind me going off to the sewing room when he is around,  but he tends to hi-jack me and drag me off to do other things!!  Don’t get me wrong – I miss him when he is away and always look forward to his return.
 
At the recent quilt show I was demonstrating the olfa circle cutter.  It is a great little tool and you always get an accurate circle.  It took a little bit of mastering, but well worth it if you are going to be cutting a lot of circles for a project.
Me showing how it’s done!
For instance, by just doing an edge stitching around your circle and cutting it into quarters or triangles you can do all the variations of Drunkard’s Path without doing curved seams.  I know - cheating!!

“Playing with Circles”  Quilt made by Fay Suley                  Fay – demonstrating Kaleidoscopes at show

There are so many modern and stunning quilts you can make with circles.  The circle cutter demonstration was very popular and now I have a whole heap of random circles and some very holy fabric to play with!! 

Shirley  was showing her embroidery skills and it was creating a lot of interest. (That is her stunning underwater reef embroidery on the steps behind her).
I took my iron and portable ironing board along to the show and set it up.  Unfortunately, one of the ladies accidentally ironed some fusible material and it got stuck all over the iron and made a terrible mess of both the iron and ironing board.

I have tried everything I know of to get the black spots and marks off the sole plate of the iron to no avail!
As for the ironing board, I whipped up a new cover using a tutorial from here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/iheartstitching
It was easy and I just used a bit of charity fabric this time, but next time I could really jazz it up with something funky.

Recently I purchased some polyester batting from a large craft supermarket.  I chose a polyester ‘cheapy’ because the project I wanted it for was a quilt that was going to be washed a lot.  If you see this one – my advice – don’t waste your money.  I am going to chop it up and use it for stuffing.  It stretches everything out of shape and you can’t get it to sit flat at all.
I have purposely blurred out the name but you get the idea?

I went back to the brand I love and I purchased the fusible one from a local distributor, Pauline Rogers from ‘Quilters World’.  The fusible one was brilliant for the small project I was using it for and it remained well fused as I quilted it. 

Pauline has all manner of items you may need for quilting and patchwork, and another tool I really love is the Charisma marking pencil.  When you purchase it, she gives you both white and black leads, refills, and an instruction sheet which is important to read.   I am rapt in mine and use it all the time now for marking.
Are you getting the message that I may be a bit of a quilting gadget geek???
Until next time………Dianne