Flu? It won't happen to me!

My Supplies 

"I never take time off work..

No I don't need the flu shot.."

Wrong!

Actually the flu shots were given out on Thursday at school, a week too late for me.

So I've done only a tiny bit of sewing despite being holed up at home for days. I've just been too tired. Panadol is my friend!

Under the influence of my friend's few pain free hours I sewed on the binding of this little Kimono fabric quilt.

I haven't finished all the quilting but it's moving along slowly.

On the bright side, it's just 4 more school days before holidays so if I can just get through the next few days I will have a much better time at home.

Not bad for a 19 year old

My son just returned from Japan and look what he bought home for me!

The prices were pretty similar to what you can get online. I thought he would have been able to do better but it seems the online price is the list price or pretty close. I loved the Echino and Lecien fabric the best.

Kimono No More

I am a bit excited because my son has just gone to Japan and with him is a printout of lots of fabrics I love and some cash. I really am hoping that he will bring me back something new to create from.
Meanwhile, a few months ago I went to Kazari and bought an old blue kimono and a roll of blue fabric swatches.

I forgot to photograph them first, but in the space of 4 hours I had unpicked the kimono and pieced the fabric pieces into strips and then a quilt top.

There were about 10 colours and I had a few blues that I added in to make the top.

Most of the quilt back was from the front and back of the kimono. The collar and sleeves, once unpicked, were stitched into some of the quilt top and along the sides of this piece to make it larger.

I just fell in love with the bold lines on this kimono and it was only $20!

At least now some of my guilt has been assuaged as I have made more room for my new incoming Japanese treasures.

Its not that I haven't been doing anything...

I missed my weekend blogging because I went away for a beautiful weekend to Blairgowrie. Although it rained in Melbourne we had two relatively pleasant winter days at the beach. We went on three walks with a couple of breakfast breaks on the morning walks. At night we entertained, cooked up a storm, lit the fire and played scrabble. I did finish binding one of my quilts while we were away. Thank you Lisa for letting us stay at your place.

Last week I also managed to go to Kazari to buy the fabric for my Japanese quilt and that binding is also completed now. It was so good to go there. There were so many choices and I was lucky to have a friend with me to give a second opinion. Sometimes it can be so confusing and I really believe that the binding on a quilt can make or break the final piece.

So here is my over the top Kaffe Fassett/Brandon Mably quilt. The colours are way to crazy. I contemplated pulling it apart and making the inner strips of sashing from a smaller print fabric but in the end I just let it go. It's on my son's bed already and although I still need to do some stitching in some of the larger squares it's found a home.

So I have been sewing but not blogging. Four quilts were basted too and Castle Peeps is ready to have its binding stitched down. Phew, soon I will back at school and all this fun will be over. Love holiday breaks!

Japanese Delivery and more sewing

After only a couple of weeks these gorgeous fabrics arrived from Japan via Etsy. They feel beautiful. Can't wait to use them.

I fell in love with linens after buying some packets of fabric from Amitie a while back. They were an assortment of linen, Liberty and fairytale characters. The 36 blocks made from these packs were finished this weekend so I went to buy the linen sashing at the shop. Lots more sewing happened getting the sashing on but unfortunately I was 4"of fabric short of finishing the quilt top so I'm only going to show you some of the blocks.

 The pattern is so clever because you get to use lots of scrappy bits and pieces and the colours can be anything as the background linen seems to absorb it all and let each block shine on its own. There are a couple of finished quilts like this one on A Very Fine House's blog .

Anyway, after all this beautiful fabric arriving from overseas I think I am going to attack the hubby's shirts first and I have started cutting the first few blocks today. I just need to stew on what I might make with my new stashes. It's so hard to cut sometimes.

Machine Quilting

I have been ringing around to find out how much it would cost to quilt my Japanese Kimono Fabric Quilt because I thought it might work better than the usual hand quilting I do. I've also been reading stacks of blogs and have found that lots of people just seem to manage doing the machine quilting with their ordinary home machines. I really can't decide what to do. I know $150 - $200 is reasonable because of the work involved but should I try to do it myself and risk the mess? I have a walking foot - I am just scared.

Productive Day

It been a good day for sewing. First I went to Amitie to match a backing for a quilt top I made over the holidays. I bought all these scrap pieces of kimono fabric from a reject bin at Kazari in Richmond. They smelt terrible so I had to wash them all first - they still were smelling rather different from the lovely cotton smell I am used to. They ironed well despite the dip in detergent and I spent a couple of afternoons cutting and sewing the pieces together. They were really interesting fabrics with different textures and weaves. I will definitely visit them again.

Anyway, I didn't get such a positive response from my family so I put the quilt away to think about. I decided to have another look at it today and bought a lovely chocolate brown variegated fabric to back it with. I also bought some yellow Kaffe Fassett fabric to finish another quilt. That's now complete as well.

Next job was to finish the Moonbeam baby dolls I had started at the market.

Done - sewn and ready for stuffing.

So at last I was able to work in earnest on my nieces' quilt. 28 patches made and 14 to go.

Now to clean up the mess the storm has made. The hail stones made holes in our porch roof and water poured into our family room through the doors. The volume of water was just too much for the down pipes. At least the garden looks happy.