Sew Seasonal – Linky Party

 We’ve been talking about it for the past month, now it’s finally here! No not Christmas yet, but it’s almost as exciting! It’s time for the Sew Seasonal Linky Party! Yay!

Alyce and I are very much looking forward to seeing what you’ve made with the Sew Seasonal patterns – and I’m sure you’re all looking forward to the chance at some prizes!

Before we get to the linky party, let’s have a little show and tell. Alyce and I came up with the bright idea (slight sarcasm there) to sew something fabulous with all 25 of our patterns! It was such a good idea in theory, but in practice, it was a an effort to get it all happening in time amidst the rest of the Christmas sewing! But tada! It is finished!

So unfortunately, mine’s not as fabulous as I had planned. I tossed up the idea of a bunting, a cushion, a quilt… and settled on your everyday wallhanging. Wait, no it can’t really be used for every day, so a special occasion wallhanging!



I went the easy route. Sewed the blocks together in rows of 5 and then appliqued some happy looking letters to celebrate the season with a bright red “Merry Christmas!”.



It was a complete happy accident that I had the right amount of blocks with green and red backgrounds. I had originally planned to randomise all the block backgrounds, but forgot when I made the ornamental blocks and used just white! But it works, so I”m totally going to pretend that was intentional!



Some hanging corners on the back and it’s ready for December to arrive to we can display it with Christmas cheer!

So there you have it! That was my grand attempt at using 25 blocks in the one project! Alyce was far more creative than me and she managed an advent calendar! Do pop over to Blossom Heart Quilts and check it out -  it’s pretty fabulous!

Now it’s your turn – whether you used just one block, or all 25, let’s see what you made! The linky party is up on both my blog and Alyce’s (but we have shared the code so you only need to link up on one of our blogs and it’ll work on both! Interwebs magic).

Need a refresher on the awesome prizes for linking up?
A huge thank you to our sponsors for joining in our Sew Seasonal fun! Make sure you check them out while dreaming about winning one of these!

Fat Quarter Shop

2 x $10 vouchers (launch day prizes have already been awarded!)

Intrepid Thread

Joy by Kate Spain - full fat quarter bundle + panel (oh yes a FULL bundle!). This prize will be given to the project picked as a favourite by none other than Kate Spain herself!! 

Fabric Worm

2 x $25 vouchers

Sew Lux Fabric and Gifts

1 x $25 voucher

Stash Modern Fabric

1 x $30 gift voucher

Blossom Heart Quilts

Japanese Christmas fabric - fat eighth bundle

Quiet Play

Cherry Christmas Charm pack

Oh and if you haven’t made anything yet, it’s not too late! The linky party is open for one week. You can find the Sew Seasonal patterns in our Craftsy shops (paper pieced patterns here, rotary cut patterns here).

Can’t wait to see what you’ve made! Thanks for joining in the Sew Seasonal madness!

WiP Wednesday – bit of this and a bit of that

 I’m all over the shop. I have so much to do and yet I can’t seem to get any of it done! Argh, sewjo, return!!

I’m trying to force the sewjo by working on a few things. I started on one of my Polaroid block quilts. That’s right. Quilts. Plural. I had grand ideas of a big Polaroid block quilt for my kidlets to share. They had other ideas. They’d like one each. Purple for Lulu (2.5) and red for Jaybird (5). Right. Two quilts. Before Christmas. Sure kids. That’s how much I love you.

So Lulu’s blocks have been sashed with purple and then cut back to 6” blocks, slightly wonkified. I want the blocks to have a bit of movement to them so I blatantly copied Jane’s fabulous idea. Have you seen her amazing rainbow Polaroid quilt? I’ve blatantly stolen it to post here (just kidding, I asked her first!).



So now I need to get busy and sew my blocks together. Then start on the red version. Along with all the other things I have planned.

Like this quilt I drew up in EQ7. One of these versions is going to be for my fantastic dad for Christmas. Just need to decide which colour scheme I like best (because it’s all about me).

The diamonds are Pear Tree fabrics that I have already cut into 8” squares. That’s one thing I love about EQ7 – I can use swatches of the actual fabrics I’m planning to use to see how it looks.

Then there’s the Storybook Lane fabric house panel to make, the wallhanging and boomerang pillow cover for my Mum, something for my sister and… I am seriously running out of time.

Talking about running out of time (how did you like that segueway?!) it’s nearly time for the linky party for Sew Seasonal! Ooh yes – can’t wait!



Come back here on November 30th and link up what you’ve been making with the Sew Seasonal patterns. You still have a day or two to make something if you can be all Speedy Gonzales at the sewing machine.

The patterns are still half price in our Craftsy stores – for a few more days anyways. Then it’s time to make those patterns work to pay for our fabric stashes. (click the above pics for links to shop! Yay!)
Can’t wait to see what you’ve been making! Plus, there are prizes on offer! You can check out the full list of prizes, sponsors and fun here. So my friends, get sewing seasonally and come back in a few days for a chance to win something fab!

As for me… I’m off to tackle my giant “Sew Much To Do” List. Wish me luck. I need it.

Linking up with WiP Wednesday. Keeping me accountable.

Sunday Stash – the Spoonflower edition

So I finally got around to ordering the fabric for my Nan’s 90th quilt. I used a part of a letter my grandfather wrote to my Nan when they were first dating. Popped it on Spoonflower with a basic repeat and tada! I have my very own, very special script fabric.



I did end up with a bit of a vertical line of negative space but I managed to avoid a horizontal one so I’ll count that as a small victory. Never claimed to be a fabric designer ;)



The snippet of the letter says:

“We are going to get engaged, and then married, and live happily ever after. Now don’t you think that is a Swell Romance Story. Well Pat dearest, I will have to close.”

I spent awhile going through the few letters my Nan had and just loved this little piece. They did go on to get engaged and married – in war time years and had 4 children. Unfortunately my grandfather died of lung cancer – he was only 44 so not quite the happily ever after ending. From all the family stories I have heard, he sounds like a wonderful man, so I’m glad to be able to include him in Nan’s quilt in a small way.

As for the rest of the quilt design – I have made a start. I will be appliqueing a tree over the script fabric, with each family member’s name embroidered onto the leaves. Big job when I have trouble hand sewing, so I am working on it gradually. I have til March after all.

When ordering from Spoonflower, they had a deal on to buy a FQ and get one free. Couldn’t pass that up. It was SO hard to choose as there are some fabulous designs on Spoonflower. But I settled on this cute underwater FQ:


and these sweet birds (I can’t resist bird prints!):



No idea what I’m going to make with either of them but happy to include them in the stash. (Forgive the fold creases, no time to iron as I’m headed out shortly!).



Pretty happy with these additions!

Linking up with Sunday Stash at Finding Fifth

Being selfish and that’s okay.

We quilters love making quilts to give away. Not too often do we seem to keep them for ourselves. And I think sometimes, it’s okay to be selfish.

Especially when selfish looks like this:

Hello pretty.

Pretty fabric:

This one is my favourite from the Seaside Cottage line by Heather Mulder Peterson.

Pretty pattern:

Spanish Tiles, also by Heather Mulder Peterson. The pattern is in the Living Large 2 book and this is the lap size version (around 60” x 70”).

Pretty quilting:

My rather poor attempt at FMQ swirly swirls type stuff. Okay not so pretty but the idea was.

Pretty pieced back:

Red Swirl from Vintage Modern with the remainder of the Seaside Cottage prints.

Yep. It's all about the pretty. Selfish pretty.








And it’s mine. All mine. Mine mine mine. (I’m really getting the hang of this selfish thing).



Even Teddy looks envious that this is all mine. Watch it Teddy or you’re going to the op shop. Paws off.

Sharing my bit of selfishness with TGIFF over at Sewing by Moonlight.

and with Sew Modern Monday over at Canoe Ridge Creations

Sewing, unpicking and a bit of stashing

 Sewing and unpicking. They tend to go hand in hand don’t they! So what’s more appropriate than a sewing block about unpicking?! Especially when it looks this pretty:

This little beauty of a block was sewn by Marieka from Bespoke Bites. But it now belongs to me! She whipped it up at Quilt group yesterday and sent it home with me to start my Wombat Stew sewing room block collection! Didn’t she do a fab job – gorgeous seams and all those pretty colours! I got a bit of a bonus with this block as while Marieka was making it for me, she was also pattern testing it for me too! Thanks, lovely! It turned out fabulously! (You can read Marieka's post about her block here).

While on the purple theme, I started a new project today. Not sure that my sewjo has returned but I’m forcing it to work a little bit as I have so much to do before Christmas! So I went with something easy – a bit of applique and relatively quick (at least in comparison to paper piecing!).

This little collection is the start of a new quilt project – the pattern is Soulful Blossoms from the Living Large 2 book (see some gorgeous pics here!). If the book title sounds a bit familiar, I’ve rabbited on about it a time or two – it’s where the Spanish Tiles pattern is from. Oh and for the curious, no I have not finished the Spanish Tiles. While I hate having WiPs hanging over me, I had hoped a new project might inspire my sewjo again!

And of course, sometimes a bit of an addition to the stash can bring the inspiration back! Well any excuse for new fabric right?


These fat quarters are from Spotlight. The raindrops would make the perfect background for a paper pieced umbrella block; can’t resist a text print; and the owls are for Lulu – a bit owl obsessed at 2 and a half.

As for these two fat quarters – who could resist these tape measures?!


I bought these on ebay from a seller called FabricTime. Very well priced and lots of seriously cute fabrics!

I’m a bit late for a Sunday Stash but linking up all the same! This week Sunday Stash is at Alyce’s place!

Gobble Gobble!

Generally we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, but in my little family, we try to  at least do something to mark the occasion. Part of my kidlets’ heritage is American and I lived there myself for a few years and have nice memories of Thanksgiving – so we make an attempt to at least have a nice dinner on Thanksgiving. This year I might go wild and attempt cornbread if I can find a nice gluten free recipe!

Even if I don’t manage that cornbread (mmmm cornbread), I did at least come up with a turkey paper pieced pattern in honour of the occasion! The EQ7 sketch looked a little like this:




Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to make it myself. But fortunately for this blog post, I have two fabulous testers who did make it! Would be a very boring post with only one photo otherwise – so thanks Gina (Party of Eight: Our Story) and Elaine (Dashasel Sews)!

Here’s Elaine’s turkey – loving the text print!! Loving this happy little turkey.



And this one is Gina’s. I might pause to add, this is Gina’s first ever paper piecing project! She did such a great job too!



Keen to make your own turkey for Thanksgiving? I know – it’s cutting it fine, but I’m sure I’m not the only one that leaves sewing to the last minute! I just popped this little guy into my Craftsy shop for immediate download and my brand new Etsy shop (not so immediate download!).

I’ve also added a couple of other new patterns to the shop including these two:



I may not have been doing much sewing of late, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of pattern designing – there’ll be a few sewing themed patterns coming up soon. Here’s a sneak peek:

While I’m loving playing around with patterns, and have oodles of ideas to keep me busy… I am very much missing my sewjo. So if you see it wandering about, looking gloomy and sad, please send it home where I can put it to good use. There are piles of fabrics that may be gathering dust in the meantime, and that is a fate that no fabric should be subjected too.