Goody goody gumdrops

 Okay so these technically aren’t gumdrops but I’m taking a bit of artistic licence. Plus I couldn’t think of a better blog post title. Is there a snappy little saying about gumball machines? Well there should be.



This new paper pieced pattern was inspired by my gorgeous friend Erin and encouraged my gorgeous friend Gina. I am very lucky to have such great friends who put up with my moaning about designer’s block, who then give me great ideas, and even test them or specifically buy fabric for them. Yay friends!

I made this little block into a cushion. Just because.



And appliqued a couple of coloured gumballs to the bottom of the cushion for a bit of added interest.
I was surprised to find that in my stash, I had very few large coloured polka dots! This print was the best I had to represent the gumballs. Plus using a fabric like this (Erin’s awesome idea) meant less fiddly paper piecing trying to put the gumballs into the machine!

You know I can’t resist a bit of fussy cutting. And when I found I had a text print with 20c on it… well it had to be incorporated into the block!



In hindsight I should have used a darker grey for the handle. Live and learn right?

And because I think this is fun – here’s the before and after so to speak. The EQ7 sketch and the fabric version.

Not too bad hey?! Want to make your own awesome gumball machine? I have just listed the pattern in my Craftsy shop .

Now the rest of today is dedicated to Bee blocks and getting things finished! Hey speaking of Bees (like that segue?!), we are looking for more Aussies to join do.Good Stitches (can you believe there are none on the waiting list?! What?!). Why not pop over to the Flickr group and check it out. If you sign up, tell Rachel Kristy sent you – then maybe you can join my Bee Circle and we can sew together. Fun right?!

Right, sewing calls.Oh and thanks for the commiseration about breaking my machine. Turns out I magically fixed it (maybe I put the bobbin thingamajig back in wrong? Who knows?) so we are friends again and sewing once more! yay!

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday at crazymomquilts :)

Round and round and round and…

 Three Round and Round blocks are now done! And I am loving them!



Here they are, all in a row! So bright and cheerful and happy.



The pattern is Round and Round by Camille Roskelley. Love her patterns. The fabric I have used is Color Weave in 8 different colours. Love this fabric. And just a regular old grey homespun background. Love this grey. Wait, what?! Yeah inner quilter loves lots of things I’m not otherwise aware of apparently.

So I’m on a bit of a roll. I even have all my pieces cut, trimmed and ready to make some more blocks. It looks a bit like this:



And I got started on block four this morning. It looks like this:


And it’s going to stay looking like this for awhile. Because I broke my machine. Okay I’m being a tad dramatic. But I did something and I don’t know how to fix it. See I was chain piecing and thought hmm, the feed dogs aren’t feeding the fabric through very well. Maybe the machine needs a bit of a clean out. And we all know how that goes. Shock and horror over much lint has accumulated inside. Including that chunk that has somehow compacted into a brick of lint in between the feed dogs. Thorough clean. Everything back together again. Can’t get the bloody screws to go in.

That looked like this:


And it looked like this for… I kid you not… nearly an hour. I am apparently completely crap at putting screws back into the plate of my machine. I spent most of that hour attempting to go those stupid tiny screws back in. My five year old probably could have done a better job had he been home at the time. He can certainly take things apart easily enough!

I had one last attempt (amidst much swearing and general annoyance at everything on earth) and tried it from the other side of the machine and success! The plate was back in place, time to get back to sewing. Except now the tension is super duper wonky and I think I’ve somehow messed up putting the bobbin case back in. I could cry.

So I’ll just admire the pretty progress I’ve made so far, and go back to tackle the machine again when less swearing is likely to ensue or at least when the children are out of earshot. If only I drank wine. I have a feeling that might help.



To end on a brighter note, thanks to those who took up the Fridge Painting discount on my paper pieced patterns – still some time left if you’re keen! At this point, any sales may go towards funding a new sewing machine that cleans itself. Or maybe just towards some therapeutic chocolate.

Busy busy

 Lots happening, lots to do. I’d really rather sleep. But as it’s barely after 11am and I have a busy kidlet in the process of toilet training, I don’t think sleep’s really an option (can I just say that I believe Minnie Mouse undies have magic properties. When all else has failed, MM is doing the trick for no more puddles!).

Moving on.

I am hoping to do something with this today:



Why yes, that is 160 3” half square triangles, thanks for asking. And a ridiculous amount of trimming over the past three days (wouldn’t dare attempt that all in one hit!). I am hoping to turn these into a few more blocks that look like this:



Yep. I’m back to working on Round and Round – another fabulous pattern by Camille of Bonnie and Camille. I”m a bit of a Camille fan. I just love her patterns and her fabric. And now she has a Craftsy class all about pre-cuts! Woohoo! I’ve already signed up, started watching and am very much wanting to make one or more of the patterns that are included as part of the class (patterns include Piece of Cake and Swoon plus an awesome hashtag quilt!). So I need to get a few things done first before I start planning more quilts (the list is getting stupid long).

So that’s my agenda today. But before I forget, I have also consulted Mr Random and have two winners for the paper pieced pattern giveaway! Thanks for joining in the fun guys – if ever I decided to paint my fridge again, I now have heaps of super awesome ideas. Plus I had a chuckle reading the comments!

Onto the winners: Kelly and Angela! 

I have emailed you both – thanks so much for joining in the giveaway fun!



Didn’t win? Still want some patterns? How about a 15% discount?! Email me (kristyqp at gmail dot com) with the subject Fridge Painting Discount (so I can find your email easily!) and let me know which patterns you want and I’ll send you a paypal invoice and later, the PDF versions of the patterns. You have from now til Friday 29th Aussie time to email me if you’re keen!

I know, I know. This is all long and complicated. But unfortunately Craftsy, where I sell all my patterns, does not yet have a coupon code option (and I’m not up to date listing patterns on Etsy). So it’s the best I can think of for the time being!

Off to tackle that mountain of HSTs. Or nap.

Create.

I think that word is a sentence in and of itself. What more do you need to add really?! Perfect motto for the sewing room. Or as a gift for one of your gorgeous friends’ birthdays.



I may have mentioned before that I’m kind of loving my staple gun. I have a bunch of blank canvases and I am putting them to good use! Let’s be honest, my actual quiting skills are not up to par when it comes to dense quilting for a wallhanging. So turning things into a canvas works for me.

This is my first attempt at reverse applique. And let me just say, it was nowhere near as hard or scary as I thought! Okay it was a little bit scary when cutting the grey fabric away, hoping desperately I hadn’t just shoved the seam ripper through my background fabric as well. But it worked.

I read over a few different tutorials and picked out the parts that made sense to me and got started. I made my word on Pic Monkey (font is “Special Elite”) and printed it out.


Then I traced that onto fusible webbing – mirror reverse. Because if I traced it as it looks now, I would have had a backwards canvas and that would have made me cry. In hindsight, when printing, I should have tried mirror or reverse printing – would have made it easier than tracing the letters onto the back side of the paper, and then again onto the fusible webbing. Lesson learned. Then I ironed the fusible webbing onto the rainbow dot chevron fabric (Frippery by Thomas Knauer) which came in my awesome scrap pack from Hawthorne Threads.



Layered the grey fabric on top, pinned the living daylights out of it and got down to the sewing. I used a small stitch and sewed on the lines of the letters – sewing on the interfacing side – basically on the wrong side!. Bit nervewracking. But then, I paper piece and that’s sewing on the wrong side too!
My starts and stops leave a bit to be desired but I know better for next time



Then the hard bit. Using a seam ripper and teeny scissors, I had to carefully cut the inside of the stitching out. I was a bit worried I’d either rip through the fabric, or cut through the seams. Fortunately I managed to do neither! Woohoo!

Added in a bit of batting behind it to make the canvas look nice, staple gunned like a crazy woman and tada! A happy canvas is done! In less than a few hours. Awesome
.


It reminds me of those artworks you do as a kid were you colour the background in rainbow pastels, and then over the top in black. Scrape the black away for a “magic” painting. Well this is my “magic” sewing!

I hung it on the lounge room wall to take photos and my children were quite impressed! And rather disappointed when it was later taken down to be wrapped. I think I need to make one for myself now!

Linking up with Let's Get Acquainted and to New To Me

We’re all just spoolin’ around!

 I’m loving seeing the different Spoolin’ Around blocks from the And Sew On BoM popping up in Flickr and in the linky party!

Here are a couple that have caught my eye so far.



Mary’s block: Love the textured fabrics for the “thread” part of the spools!



Susie’s block features fussy cutting on the spools – cute!



Anita used selvedges on the tops and bottoms of her spools. I’m a sucker for some selvedge incorporation!



And here’s Wendy’s (or Derek as I sometimes like to call her ) version all in solids!

How are you going with your block? Still some time to get it made and added to the linky party! You don’t want to miss out – some really fabulous prizes up on offer!

A Japanese fabric bundle from Blossom Heart Quilts

A 2wentyThr3e charm pack from Fat Quarter Shop

1 scrap pack from Fabricworm

All you have to do for a chance at one of these is download the free pattern in my Craftsy store, piece it together, take a photo and link it up to the linky party! Too easy! Looking forward to seeing what you make!

Sew Retro 2 is Sew Now.. Too?

 Whew. Mammoth job. I have uploaded 8 new patterns to my Craftsy shop tonight. The 7 individual listings of Sew Retro 2, plus the bundle of all 7 together.

I’ve blabbed on about them enough of late, but here’s a pictorial refresher.

Sew Retro 2!

I’m not even sure which one’s my favourite.

I love the kettle and matching coffee cups.



And the kitchen scales…


Oh and what kitchen is complete without at least one chair?!



Strange fact. When I was setting up my flat when I went to uni, I really wanted one of these old 50’s style fridges to go with my old 50’s style dining table and chairs in my old 50’s style apartment (none of the that was planned, everything was just old ). But the salesman talked me out of it as he said they were too expensive to maintain. Sad. Instead I got a crappy old fridge and painted Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” on it to cover up the rust. Good times. I miss that fridge.



Enough reiminsicing. Back to the patterns. I have now listed them all in my Craftsy shop, and in doing so have passed the 50 pattern mark! Woohoo! Much celebration must ensue. Or at least a giveaway.

So want a chance to win a paper pieced pattern or bundle if you’re so inclined? Just leave me a comment on this post and I’ll pick two winners for their choice of pattern/bundle on Monday 25th Aussie time.

Can’t think what to say in a comment? Tell me what you’d paint on your fridge if you were in a fridge painting kind of mood.

Feeling wordy

 It’s okay – I’ll restrain myself. And keep most of  the wordiness to the pictures. There’s been a bit more progress on Fontastic! It’s now ready to have the borders added.



I just sewed charm squares of Simply Color together to make some really bright borders.
I also added the remaining words to the quilt top so now it’s a really big quilt! Okay King Single bed size. But it feels huge!


A beautiful friend of mine gave me some fleece backing to use for the quilt. And it is the perfect amount – if I just add borders to the sides, and not to the top and bottom. So that’s the plan now.



My sister has been visiting so I put her to good use to hold the quilt up. She’s tall. 5’10 or 5’11 so that might give you an idea of how big the quilt is! I love this one with the silhouette behind. The shorter shadow on the right is my son who couldn’t miss out on the fun.

Even puddled in a heap, Fontastic is looking so fabulous.



So a massive thank you to the lovely Erin for the idea of this quilt, and to the testers for making it come together and to my gorgeous anonymous friend who donated the backing. I hope to get the side borders on today and then start figuring out how to finish it off. Basic quilting looks like the plan – for a change, you know.

The other WiP for when I need a break from sewing… I’m hoping to have Sew Retro 2 ready to release in my Craftsy shop very soon.



What do you think? Keep calling it Sew Retro 2 or come up with some other name? Decisions decisions.

Busy Bee

March has been busy. Really busy. And it’s not yet done! Much of this month has been spent preparing for my Nan’s 90th party and her gifts.  We had the big party this past weekend and had such a fun time! Nan loved her gifts (though she was a bit overwhelmed by it all!).

Instead of wrapping up the gifts, we put them on display at the party for people to see. I was rather touched the family liked what I had made that they wanted to have them on display! The family tree canvas looked fantastic and picked up on the green decorations we had as our theme (Nan’s a St Pat’s Day baby).



Don’t mind the wonky sheet. We tried to make it longer but every time we did the hooks fell out of the wall so we gave up!



It was a fabulous night, and no one wanted to leave. Unfortunately we were kicked out of the club at 10pm (well we do live in a small town haha!).



A wonderful time was had by all. I did have a little giggle when I heard that the next morning Nan apparently told Mum that she’d had the most wonderful dream that the family had a big party for her birthday! (Nan has a touch of dementia these days!). Thankfully we have photo proof for her that it wasn’t just a dream hehehe!

In addition to all the 90th fun, I did manage to get caught up on my March bee blocks too!
Turns out I’m Queen Bee for this month too! Didn’t realise until I checked the schedule. Oops! So here’s what I’m going for.


I’m really loving grey, aqua and red at the moment so decided that’ll be the colour scheme for my Bee blocks. The pattern is super simply (and free!) – Modern Sliced Scrappy Block from Don’t Call Me Betsy.

Next up was a bit of a challenge for me – a dresden. I’m not a big dresden fan. All that appliqueing.But I got it done (with a few little wavy bits that had to be ironed into submission).



The colour scheme was simply “scrappy and colourful” so I decided to go a bit rainbowy too. All those fabrics were pulled from my scrap basket. Making me realise I seriously need to sort that thing out. Pattern for this one is here.

For the Care Circle of do.good Stitches, we were asked to make Scrappy Trip Along blocks. Don’t kick me out of blogland, but I haven’t jumped on board that trend. I guess I'm not much of one for scrappy.



We were asked for Irish Seaside scrappy colours – green, aqua, turquoise with low volume neutrals. Bit of a struggle for me, very different colours to the seaside I have down the road here.

And lastly, but not leastly , we have the Wombat Stew block. Fiona’s Queen Wombat this month and she loves Mid Century Modern furniture and architecture. So guess what her theme was!




She had a couple of Pinterest boards dedicated to the MCM theme so I picked out what I thought would be fun to do (a door!) and then added my own little touch with the plant by the door.

So I’m almost caught up on March. Bee blocks are all done, but I still have to do my And Sew On block – aren’t I slack?! Don’t forget to link up your BoM block too – the linky party’s looking a little lonely!