With Sprinklings of Joy and Hope

Pieces of contentment with sprinklings of joy and hope, that sums up last week quite nicely. The sights and sounds of an historic steam train through town always bring an extra excitement. Flowers are blooming more abundantly and the birds singing more sweetly with the beginning of spring. There has been an encouraging improvement in my husband's health with the addition of another medication this week, hopefully a sign of good things to come.

Another SIMPLY MINI Organic Quilt in lovely soft colours is now complete and listed on Etsy. 

My favourite Moody Blues fabric above is drying in the gentle spring breeze. Bought on a one-day sale at Spotlight yesterday (big happy face)! There was only a handspan of fabric left on their roll after this was measured out for my quilt backing. Perfect timing!

I'm really enjoying watching my younger three daughters choosing and colouring pages. There are so many delightful colouring books available now. I love observing how each one chooses designs and colours according to their personalities. I might just have to join in on the fun too!


Sharing at SkyWatch Friday.

"I Can Do"

To live successful lives, we must have the firm belief, "it can be done", both in our physical and spiritual lives.

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength" Philippians 4:13

"I can do." This is the declaration of faith.

When you think something is possible, you will be able to see the course of action to take.

                              From Unleashing the Power of Faith, by Dr Yonggi Cho

Somehow I always come home from holidays with a greater sense of "I Can Do" and how wonderful it is. 

Are you like that too?

Sharing at SkyWatch Friday.

I Love School Holidays

A time for everyone to do something creative......

Glimpses of Goodness

It's a beautiful life with glimpses of goodness to be found every day. The Lilly Pillies are now ripening to a gorgeous bright pink and dropping onto the ground. These Australian natives are edible but the variety we have growing in our garden is rather floury and tart to taste with a seed in the middle. I've heard of people making jam from them but I like to just chew on a few when I pass by.

The Jane McGrath rose was released to help support the Jane McGrath Foundation, raising money for supporting breast cancer awareness and assistance. Jane was the beautiful, young wife of an Australian test cricketer who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2008. Yesterday was a special Jane McGrath Foundation day at the 5th Test Cricket game between Australia and England with the signature pink featuring heavily amongst spectators, commentators, sponsors etc. Also the day I took the rose photo above (coincidental) and the day Australia won the Ashes Series 5-0 bringing great excitement to the cricket fans amongst our family.

I'm about to stitch the last piece of grey onto the star blocks of the quilt I've been working on for months. Then I can begin to stitch all the blocks together.

Sneak peak of a book which arrived in the mail together, more to share soon.

Happy mail - a holiday postcard from a friend arrived today. I still love snail mail.    :)


Sharing at Our World Tuesday.

Musical Stairs

A little chain piecing is being done as I make a start on a new quilt, this time for our 15 year old twins' bed.

One of our twins looked through my quilt books in search of something she liked. This was one she chose which both her twin and I also liked, plus I knew it would be fun and easy to make. It's called The Bass Line from Sarah Fielke's new book Hand Quilted With Love - I think I'll call mine Musical Stairs.

In her book Sarah explains a little of the history of this beautiful quilt -
This quilt is very special, and although I designed it, I didn't actually make it. 
Each block was made for my friend Amy by quilters and bloggers from all over the world.

You can read more about Amy and this quilt in Sarah's book (and also Bloom's comment below - thank you Bloom).

10" lengths at the back, smaller strips at the front - all 2" wide

After reading Sarah's instructions I decided to make the quilt a little differently, using her photos as inspiration. I'm in the process of cutting many 2" strips from my fabric stash as well as white. From each strip I have cut four 10" lengths. The 10" lengths are being paired together, one white to each print, chain pieced both along both the top and bottom with right sides together (first photo).

Each 10" pair is then randomly "opened" and positioned for cutting to make two finished "stairs" of varying height.

Each end fold is trimmed off.

This results in two "stairs" for each chain pieces pair without any wastage. This works very well except for fabric which has a directional print. The directional prints as well as smaller pieces of fabric from my scraps are individually sewn to a long white strip and trimmed to result in a finished length of around 9". I'm sewing seams which are slightly wider than 1/4" for greater durability.

Each stair is then ironed with seam allowances to the print side. I'm hoping the twins will become involved in the sewing, or at least in arranging the stairs ready for sewing into blocks when the time comes.

Sharing at WIP Wednesday.

A Singing Heart

The quiet joy of anticipation bubbled over into great excitement yesterday when the mail man left a package at our front door. I knew straight away it was much more than the mentioned nondescript "little something". Look what was inside! A beautiful copy of Sarah Fielke's new book Hand Quilted with Love, thoughtfully wrapped in a fat quarter of Sarah's latest fabric range. Even the cotton twine matches, half of which has been squirrelled away already by one of my teenage daughters (just spotted some around an ankle...).

Sarah's book is about far more than hand quilting, in fact several of the 16 quilts shared in this book have no hand quilting on them at all. There is a great variety of designs, something for every level of experience, all beautifully photographed and presented.

Quoting from Sarah's Introduction: 

Try new things, be adventurous, and crack your own quilting code. 

Don't be hung up on whether something is right or wrong, 

or on whether you are a "modern quilter", a "traditional quilter" 

or even an "art quilter": 

just be a QUILTER, be creative and love what you do.

Sound advice for many areas of life.....

Most of my quilts contain a lot of different fabrics. 

I don't usually use one or two greens when I can use 30.....

I don't ever get stuck finding that PERFECT fabric. 

(Sarah, page 8)

So where did this wonderful parcel come from? From someone I've never met who lives hundreds of miles/km away, the very thoughtful, generous and talented Bloom whom some of you no doubt already know. As well as being a devoted wife and mother, Bloom stitches beautifully, designs, quilts, sews, blogs, produces unique project articles for Australian Homespun magazine and has the most amazing garden.

With my parcel came the discovery that Bloom also makes beautiful cards! Filled with kind words Bloom's card sits here on my Sunlit Treasure quilt which I made from Sarah Fielke's previous book Quilting from Little Things (North by North East design). 

No wonder my heart is singing! Thank you Bloom!

Dropping By....

To say hello like this friendly kookaburra who has been hanging around our back fence the last few days. He looks like a relatively young kookaburra with clean fluffy feathers. Kookaburras are the largest kingfisher in the world and are native to the east coast of Australia. They make a loud, very distinctive laughing noise.

I received a most wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday and feel totally spoilt. An unexpected gift which both warms the heart and feeds the creative soul.

Lots of fresh and fun ideas to try with even the tiniest of favourite scraps. Sunday Morning Quilts includes some new (to me) ideas and techniques to try too, I love it.

The beautiful bird fabric I shared earlier now graces our wall as a mini quilt (22"x25"). Rather different to my original grander visions but these little panels didn't want to mix with the others I also made. So I've ended up leaving them simply and happily perched together, finished with a little hand quilting.

I was delighted to find a straight stick around our yard to use as a hanger until  some dowel is bought.

Here are the orphaned blocks which just didn't seem to mix well with those used in the mini quilt. Each one is quite pleasant by itself but I'm not sure what to do with them now, so I guess I'll put them back in the cupboard until inspiration strikes sometime. Any suggestions?

In the meantime I have some other sewing plans to try....and a beautiful new book to enjoy! 

Sharing at In The Studio.