Another Finish

With this finish I have achieved all I had wished for prior to Christmas.  Happy Dance.  And, it’s not even at the eleventh hour.

Back at the end of September I pieced a donation quilt using some “Cars” fabric I found in an op shop.   Well, finally I got around to quilting it.  

This time I used a new pantograph call Bauhaus Baby.  I was a bit nervous as to how it would turn out, as there are definite straight lines and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to follow it exactly.  It would be more organic than using a computer driven machine.

The first row looked a bit how’s your uncle, being on the plain border, but as I progressed and it created the all over texture I thought it looked okay.

I really like this quilt and hope that some little boy will too.  It fits into the “minimum effort for maximum effect” category, as the design is so simple.

Here is the backing showing a bit more of the texture.

I had decided to give myself a bit of a break until Christmas, but I just may have started a new project, one that I originally planned to complete between Christmas and New Year, but decided to get a bit of a head start.  I might be a bit excited about it.

December Stitching - So Far…

Considering we are only at 11 December, I’m pretty pleased to have a few finishes already.

Firstly, I completed a secret project, so nothing to share there as yet.

Then, as I was catching up with some friends for a very leisurely, if rather warm, lunch yesterday, I had to make sure that I had completed their little Christmas gifts.

The two lace coathangers have now been gifted.

This morning I completed my One Monthly Goal, the Sashiko Celtic Christmas Tree, which is now hanging in the lounge room.

It has some bling added to it.  In the photos of the project, it had red, but when the kit arrived it had silver iron on diamantés.  I wanted red, so bought some scrapbooking ones, but was worried about how durable they would be.  In the end I went and bought some little beads and am much happier with the result.  It’s good to have this one finished in time for Christmas.  I will be linking up with Stories From My Sewing Room later in the month.

The other little finish was huge……..  I stitched a little cross stitch Christmas bell last year.  It had come as a magazine mini kit.  It took so long to transform it into an ornament.  I think the bit that took the longest was getting out the bag of stuffing from its hides hole.  It’s nice to have added it to my hand made decoration tree.

I have done a little more on my spiked granny squares, but not a great deal.  There are now nine squares completed and another on the way.

After I threaded in all the ends I had a little pile of colourful offcuts and had an idea.  Years ago I was in Spotlight after Christmas and they were getting rid of all their left over ornaments for 10c an item.  A few came home, including a pack of six clear baubles that you could fill with things.  At the time I did fill one, but have never done anything with it. 

I hunted them out and voila, a cute and colourful bauble.  

The one I made all those years ago is now also on the tree.  Nowhere near as colourful, but nice just the same.  The snippets are from when I made my sewing machine cover and mat.  I’ve just scrolled back through my blog.  That was in 2009!!!  I knew it was a while ago, but didn’t realise it was that long ago.  Oh well, it is good to have used a couple now.  I’ll have to come up with other ideas for the remaining four baubles for next year.

That little lot has ticked quite a few things off the list for this month, but I still have a couple of other projects I want to work on.  We’ll see how we go with them.

Treasures

During November we visited a couple of garage sales and of course the Gulgong Swap Meet.  As a result a couple of treasures came home with us.

Firstly, at the Swap Meet, in addition to Mick’s bargains for Rosie the Suzuki Sierra, I came home with one treasure.  On Saturday afternoon I had been for a wander around and didn’t find anything of interest at a reasonable price, but did see one thing that caught my eye at the back of a stall of old tools and generally rusty things.  It was full of old tools. Of course there was no price on it. I mentioned it to Mick, and couldn’t get it out of my mind, it was so unusual.

On Sunday morning I went back over and it was still there.  I asked a price, he asked me what I would offer - $5 and he said “What about $10?”  Deal done.  One happy Janice.  So what was it?

This old tool box/trug/basket thing made out of a kerosene tin.

I’ve never seen anything like it and it is so well made, with the cut edges rolled over wire, like in early cake tins. A true depression art piece.  I now need to get a couple of flowering pot plants to sit in it on the back verandah.  Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love it.

Now to the garage sales treasures.

We are now on the lookout for LPs, as we have a working turntable once again.  The band “Wings” is one of Mick’s favourites and we came across this record.  He was rather happy to find it at a good price.

I never knew that there was a quilter living diagonally over my back fence in the next street, until there was the sewing room destash garage sale after her passing.

There were quite a few treasures that I didn’t need, but some that did need to come home with me.

“The Making of a Peaceful Day” by Anni Downs has been on my “One Day” list and I already had the pattern book.  Finding the fabric pack, ready to go, was a great score and had to come home with me.  Now I have a project to work on once I finish my Blue Quilt.

Anni use to sell packs of 16 layer cake size pieces of fabric.  There were two packs of Contemporary fabrics and one of more traditional at the sale.  Yes, they now live here.  I have been planning to make the Crossroads Quilt by Treehouse Textiles, so the contemporary packs with some supplementary fabrics from my stash are now in a box ready to go.  This will be my project between Christmas and New Year, while Mick is glued to the tele, watching the Boxing Day Test Cricket.

A couple of books, some more random fabric and a pounce pad also found there way to my sewing room.  Just what I needed…..not.

On the same day there was another garage sale with craft items.  Also a deceased estate, but mainly spinning and weaving supplies.  Ooh, there may be a swifter….fingers crossed.

No, there wasn’t a nice concertina swifter but there was this, which for me was probably even better.  It does the same job but is homemade and you just move the pins to suit the size of your shank of yarn.  Why was this better?  Because I realised that it had been made by my Dad!  Dad was the Mr Fixit in the local Spinners and Weavers Club and liked to tinker making things.  There were quite a few things that looked suspiciously like his work.  He had a thing about making little boxes and there were a couple there, so I was pretty sure he had made this.  I showed it to my brother and he confirmed it.  I’d been kicking myself that I hadn’t kept one when the house was sold, but now I do have one.  Score.

At the same garage sale there was this interesting wool with a Japanese label.  It should knit up nicely.

The final treasure is a case of “Small things amuse small minds”.

See the little kitten with the yellow hat?  I have had the one with the blue hat for quite a few years and now have a matching pair.  They are only about two inches high.

I have quite a few kitch items decorating my sewing room, some of which has been with me since I was little.  I made this shelf when I was eight.  We were going to learn some woodwork at school, so I needed to know how to do it beforehand.  (I’ve always been a bit of a control freak.) The pattern came from a 1950s Home Beautiful magazine and had to be enlarged via a grid - no photocopiers for enlarging back then.  I bought the little squirrel at the white elephant stall at the school fete at about the same time.  I loved the fluffy tail.  Its ear got broken at some stage, but Dad glued it back on.  The little horse is even older. I have no idea where it originated from.  It has a broken leg that has been glued back on.  There is a little hole in the top of its head and I popped the feather in there when I was a kid.  On the lower shelf, the little tin is a money box and was gifted to me by a school friend.  I have another smaller tin with the same picture of a girl stitching.  The jug in the middle is a vase that Mum had forever.  Some years ago she was going to get rid of it.  No way!  I had always liked it and do use it to hold spring flowers.  The other little jug has been with me since primary school.  Back then it was popular for groups of women to go on a bus trip to the Blacktown Shopping Centre, when shopping malls were a new concept.  Mum brought the jug back for me on one of those trips.

So, lots of treasure, none of much monetary value, but all of it has made me happy.  It doesn’t take much.

Other November Happenings

After wishing for a quieter month, it didn’t quite pan out that way.  Firstly, how did I go with my non-stitching goals?  

READ A BOOK - Fail

TRY A NEW RECIPE OR REVISIT AN OLD ONE - I thought I had failed, but then I remembered that I made a Honey Ricotta Tart for a Christmas party, which I haven’t made for quite a few years.  I forgot to take a photo, but it turned out well.  I actually made it twice, as I did a trial run first.  They were both successful.

GO AWAY IN THE CARAVAN - Yes.  We had planned two weekends away, but in the end cancelled our little trip to Braidwood for the Airing of the Quilts as the weather forecast wasn’t the best.  I’ll get to the other weekend away in a minute.

KEEP MY BLOG UP TO DATE - I started well, but then petered off.  No worries, I will do a catch up now.

As I said, we had a weekend away in the caravan.  We ventured over to Gulgong for their Swap Meet.  Our initial plan was to go over on Friday, play the tourist for the day and then set up our little stall on Saturday for Sunday.  The weather forecast was for hot weather and we would be camping off grid, so we decided to delay until Saturday.  Yes, it was hot - 35 degrees C on both days.  Thank goodness for the awning.

We enjoyed a nice morning tea at Mudgee on the way over.  Mick had Basque Burnt Cheesecake and it was delicious.  I enjoyed some fruit salad.

We had our little stall selling bits and bobs.  We did OK, but the numbers of lookers were down.  Most of the selling seemed to be between stall holders.  The hot weather wouldn’t have helped.

While we may not have sold a great deal, we did find a couple of bargains.  Mick found a basket for the roof rack on Rosie the Suzuki Sierra for next to nothing and he also found a UHF radio for her - brand new in the unopened box - at about a third of the normal price.  He was very happy. We also bought 2kg of fresh cherries.  Yum!

We headed home after lunch and the ute started to have a few issues when we were going up hills.  Yes, we were towing, it was hot and there was a head wind, but it should have handled it with no worries.  We would stop, let it rest and the warning lights would go out……until the big hill coming out of Sofala.  We limped to an area where we could get off the road.

And this is how we came home.  Very sad.  Thank goodness for NRMA membership.  The van was dropped off at home and the ute taken into the service people.  They decided that the problem was that the transmission oil had been overfilled. We never touch that, so not sure when it was done.  Anyway, the main thing is that it should hopefully be fixed and wasn’t anything more serious.  The test will be the next time we tow the van in similar conditions.

We’ve had a couple of other little outings.  

The first was to the Christmas Fair and Swap Meet at the Bathurst Showground.  We didn’t have a stall, just went as lookers and bought nothing.  There was a car show on as well, which had some tasty vehicles on display.

We also had a quick trip to Sydney last week.  As Mick has now been playing lawn bowls for the best part of a year, he felt it was time to get a decent set of bowls, rather than using his Mum’s ancient old set.  The perfect early Christmas present.

We travelled over the Bells Line of Road in rather misty conditions.  You could see the very low clouds as we were leaving Bathurst.

It was rather lovely and atmospheric.

We knew there were roadworks at Mount Tomah and had to wait a while for the escort vehicle to come along.

It was hard to get a photo of, but they are doing some major road stabilisation work near the Botanical Gardens.  This is due to bad bushfires going through the area in early 2020 and then only a year later getting repeated torrential rain, causing the road to collapse.  They are going to have huge pilons buried deep into the ground.  Not an easy fix.  Quite a few of the roads around there, including Mount Victoria and Jenolan Caves were severely impacted.

As we reached the lower Blue Mountains we started to see beautiful Jacaranda trees and some bougainvillea, both plants that don’t grow in our area.

We were ready to stretch the legs by the time we reached Windsor and had an early lunch at our favourite cafe in the mall.

There was a beautiful Christmas Tree on show.

We haven’t visited Windsor for a while and since our last time there have been a couple of murals added to walls.

You know I love some good street art.

After that it was down into the madness of Sydney, pick up the lawn bowls and head straight back home.

We’ve had quite a few visitors this month too.  As I previously mentioned, some friends from Queensland stayed a couple of days at the start of the month.

Then, we had some visitors to dinner from Victoria.  It was Susan from Granny Smith’s Quilting and her hubby.  We had a lovely evening and we may have cooked up a project to work on next year.

We then had some more visitors from Queensland stay for a few day, an old workmate of Mick’s and his wife.  It was nice to catch up with them.

Finally, more Queensland visitors, my cousin and her husband stayed for a couple of days.

Quite the revolving door, compared to usual.

I think that’s enough for this post,  I’ll share a little more soon.

My Goals for December

Here it is, the final goal setting for 2023!!! Let’s keep it simple, being that crazy time of the year.

ONE MONTHLY GOAL

As I would like it completed before Christmas, my goal will be to turn my stitched Sashiko panel into a wall hanging.  I think I will just find a backing, bag it out with no binding, add a hanging sleeve and do some simple quilting to hold it together.  There is a bit of bling to add to it.  I’ll see how I go with that.  I have found a suitable hanger in my stash, so this should not take too long……that’s the theory anyway.

I’m linking up with Stories from my Sewing Room.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

I’m still on my little break and looking forward to getting back into it next year.

KNITTING AND CROCHET PROJECTS

I need to finish off my lacy coathangers.  Once again, it shouldn’t take too long…….once I start.

I am guessing that there will be a little more progress on my Spiked Granny Square Rug, as it is something easy to pick up for a few minutes.

HAND STITCHING

Our Friday Stitch and Chat group has now finished until the start of February, so that incentive to do handwork is not there at the moment.  However, our Wednesday Patchwork Group will continue to meet each week except for between Christmas and New Year, so I will continue to take some stitching along.  I would like to finish the “What Sweet Delight” stitchery, but it is not high on the priority list.

USE MONIQUE

I have another small quilt ready to load on her, so I do really wish to have it completed this month.

WIP/UFO

A few of the above projects fall into theses categories. 

FINISH SOMETHING

I jolly well hope so!  Quite a few things!

15 MINUTES A DAY

Yes, this is also a priority, as I have done quite well at keeping up with it.  There may be a day or two that miss out, but it is to be expected. 

OTHER GOALS

READ A BOOK

I slipped up on this last month. My report card would read “Janice needs to do better.”  I’m looking forward to getting lost in a book at some stage this month.

TRY A NEW RECIPE OR REVISIT AN OLD ONE

I’ve also been slipping up on this.  I’ll see what I can find. 

HAVE A FUN DAY OUT

Nothing specific planned, other than Christmas, so we will see what transpires.

GO AWAY IN THE CARAVAN

There are no plans at this stage.  It is too busy to be travelling and the garden needs attention at this time of year, so we prefer to stay home.

KEEP MY BLOG UP TO DATE

Wish me luck.  I will try.