The Treehouse

A custom order of pouches.

When Catherine spotted the huge pouch that I made for the Nancy Drew blog hop she immediately requested a couple for herself! She picked out the fabrics and I took it from there. I made the small size and the medium size so I've made all of the sizes now and they're all of them very useful sizes indeed. The pattern is by Noodlehead and can be found on her blog

 

Small size...

 

Medium size...

I have plans to make more of these soon, they're useful for all kinds of different things.

 

Nancy Drew is a Clue

Day 3 of the Nancy Drew blog and it's my turn to show my creations. As Always, thank you to Mdm Samm and Cheerleader Carol for their tireless efforts in organising such a fun event. I've never really bought a lot of novelty fabric but the Nancy Drew fabric was irresistable and it's even more lovely in real life and a great deal of fun to play with. 

Sleuth your way to the end of my post and see if you can work out what my favourite thing to do, other than sewing, is!

Clue 1

I use this small electronic device, or a real life version of the type of thing that it stores, daily. I decided that it really needed a little home of its own to next in during the times that I'm sewing on my sewing machine.

and the inside...

I used 3 of my favourite Nancy Drew fabrics to make this case - the black magnifying glass, the red silhouette and the bookshelf.

Clue 2

I love to hand sew - applique, cross stitch, embroidery, English paper piecing etc. I thought for a long time about how I could accomplish my other favourite thing to do while I am sewing. The solution to the puzzle involves the use of a set of headphones. I like big headphones that stay on my head not those little ear buds which refuse to stay in my ears. I thought that the headphones also needed a nesting place for when they're not in use and came up with this...

and look inside...there's plenty of room - 

I can even fit my other device inside and probably a sewing project or two as well!

Clue 3

I thought that a little celebratory quilt was in order next. So, I whipped out the fusible web and went to town drawing and cutting, snipping and ironing. Coffee and a Cozy was the result...

Did you solve the mystery? It wasn't really very hard was it? I have always loved books and reading. There aren't many books that I won't read or try but I do love to snuggle up with a quilt, a cup of good coffee and a cozy mystery book now and again - it feels like a real treat. I can often go from start to finish without moving from my spot!

When I was young, there was no book shop in our little town so it was a good long trek to nearest one but what a treat that was when we made the journey - usually to spend birthday or Christmas money. I can remember choosing Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys books along with a wide range of other books. Other than that, our library got a lot of visits from me! These days of course, I can buy a book in the space of a few seconds by clicking a few buttons on my Kindle and I can listen to books on my iPod, downloaded from the internet in the space of a few minutes and I can drive into town and buy real life books. 

Here are all my 3 clues together...

Now for a few credits...

the tutorial/pattern for the Kindle case came from Melissa at http://www.100billionstars.blogspot.com

the tutorial for the open wide zipper pouch for my headphones came from Anna at http://www.noodle-head.com/

the pattern for the book and the mug on my quilt came from Anni Downs' book Some Kind of Wonderful.

Now, in order to further hone your sleuthing skills you'll need to follow the clues below so that you can visit the rest of today's bloggers and enjoy their creations. 

That’s Sew Julie 

Scrapbook-ChickADoodle 

Lily Patch Quilts 

Cherry’s Prairie Primitives 

The Thimble Room

The Treehouse <--- you are here

The German Mom 

Stitch, Stitch, Stitch.

Quiltin’ Jenny 

Blackberry Creek Home Arts

Summer Stitching

I didn't get around to blogging during the summer so this is going to be a bit of a catch up post.

 

My intention was to get up to date with the cottage stitching but...that didn't happen. Instead, I was overwhelmed with a desire to finish off the stitching of The Library by Little House Needleworks. I had had this on the go for way too long and get dipping in and out of it. It's finally finished and framed and I am thrilled to bits with it. I'm also excited about the new charts with book themes that Diane is designing and am looking forward to stitching Around the World in 80 Days with Carole next year.

I think a wall of book related cross stitching will look marvellous :)

I spent quite a bit of time preparing hexagons for the Fat Quarterly Hexy MF quilt along and enjoyed piecing the flowers together. I am almost halfway done with those. This is the latest photo that I have of them - the colours look nothing like this in real life, the photo does them no justice at all.

I'm thinking of putting them onto a rich purple background - probably an Oakshott one.

I made a few Great Granny Squares for Lori Holts quilt a long but getting time on the machine during the holidays isn't easy so a few is as far as I got!

They are really quick, easy and fun to make - I will be making more very soon.

When the recent issue of Fat Quarterly came out I immediately wanted to make the Keep Calm quilt and dove into the stash in search of red fabrics. I had enough and got them all ironed and ready to cut into. Then I showed the quilt to Catherine who is a huge fan (particularly around exam time) of the 'Now Panic and Freak Out' saying. A request was made and I found myself diving back into the stash for blue fabrics! Here's the result...

It's been washed since this pic and has crinkled up beautifully and has already been on a trip to France and had plenty of snuggle time! The Keep Calm quilt will happen eventually :)

Back to School time means new bag time and while the cupcake bag that I made earlier in the year is still going strong it was a little small and definitely not waterproof. Another request was made and the result was this gigantic, waterproof bag...

I bought a yard of two different Kokka laminates a while ago when they were on sale. I've never sewn with laminate before and was a little nervous of it to be honest until I read a very useful blog post by Kathy of Pink Chalk Fabrics which encouraged me to at least have a go. Kathy has a few posts on laminates and this post led me to her Pinterest board for laminated projects which led me to this tutorial by Cheryl of Sew Can Do for a large bag. It turned out a bit bigger than I thought but Catherine is thrilled with it and it even fits an A4 lever arch file inside so she doesn't have to carry two bags anymore! The laminate was easy peasy to sew with - I will definitely sew with it again (if only to use up the other yard to make myself one of these bags).

Finally, my stitch a long with the crop girls was completed - a bit late but better late than never. I just picked it up from my framer this afternoon and I think he did a great job...

Outrageous Owls by Glendon Place.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, that was quite a long post. I'm currently in the mood for 'finishing off' things and so, inspired by Sinta's BOM rehab I am working on finishing my neglected Henrietta Whiskers quilt - I'm hoping to finish before the weekend is done :)

 

Sewing for Guides

Catherine's Guide troop are trying to raise money for a new tent so they were having a little sale last night. I was asked if I would make some of these little wine bottle jacket thingys for them to sell so I set to work and created a simple pattern and away I went.

I also made a few of these little bags for them to sell. I find all sorts of uses for these and I had some pretty, modern fabrics left over from a jellyroll.

 

Hopefully somebody liked them enough to part with some cash for the tent fund! The tutorial for the little bags is on May Your Bobbin Be Always Full blog, they're super easy to make...I even got over my zipperphobia to make them! I wanted to make more but sadly time didn't allow. I'm hoping to get to get chance to make a mug rug or two this weekend...I think I may need to invest in a couple of nice new mugs first though :grin:

My Needle and Thread have been...

busy stitching on LHN Needle and Thread! I've been itching to stitch this since it arrived a few months back and I determined last week to get started on it. Well, once I'd started I couldn't stop! I didn't actually have too much stitching time last week as it was 1/2 term but when I did get time this is what I stitched and I enjoyed every minute of it. I've also made a start on Blackbird Designs Snow Garden as part of a SAL...I want to get those lovely houses stitched and not have them sitting in my stash basket gathering dust. As you can see I did make a solitary, rather lonely klosje but at least it's one more to add to my total :D

 

There was a sale on at my LQS last week - it was their first anniversary of opening so I had to pop along and see what was what! I had thought to get some blue fabrics for the Clamshells and these are what I came away with...

 

Look at the cute kitty - I'm going to try and fussy cut her for the clamshells. Over in the far right hand cornder of the picture is a lovely blue fabric with some golden leaves in it, I almost cut it out of the picture altogether! I need to have a little visit to the stash because I recall a few blue fabrics from the last time I had a good tidy up in there. 

I've one more little task that I want to play at this month - Jenny's Jeans Challenge I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to make a bag...I think there are some dilapidated jeans in John's wardrobe that I can make use of so I think I'll go and hunt those down.

The weather is just awful here today - very humid and on and off rain...not a good day to have washed curtains and bedding at all, I've run out of indoor drying space and I fear that my hexagon stitching time tonight (cricket match) may be cancelled altogether if much more rain falls :(

 

 

Saturday Klosjes

I can't resist this pretty fabric - it's Garden Song by Nancy Halvorsen. I first came across when I was looking for fabric for Karen's birthday bag and couldn't resist getting some for myself with the intention of using my Inklingo Dresden Plate shapes on it - I'm still going to do that but am using the scraps for Klosjes. I cut out lots of shapes today that I had printed off using Inklingo yesterday and managed to get two sewn up as well. Here they are posing with the 'just about to bloom' lilac in the garden.

 

We cropped today, well - I sewed...everybody else cropped! and I had drawn Karen in our birthday swap. I made this bag for her in the blues from Garden Song.

   

It almost didn't make it to the wrapping stage...I rather fell in love with it and I think Karen likes it too :) Happy Birthday Karen!