Stack of Critters #7

These little guys are just So cute! This is a joy to stitch.
Hope you all have a productive weekend! I'm off to buy a walking foot for my sewing machine so I can do some quilting on gifts for next year's Christmas! I'm getting in really early!

Happy Stitching,
Kerrie

Provence Market #22

Filled in a bit more leaf area last night. I'm just so excited about my bag that I got 3/4 done on the sewing weekend - I simply can't wait to get my sewing machine back to finish it! And I find myself also thinking about my next patchwork project - I'm really excited about it too but I don't even have the fabric yet so there's not much I can do about that just yet!

Happy Stitching,
Kerrie

Patchwork Update

Well, Judith (champion!) worked it out for me - my needle position was out by just enough to make a real difference in the end result. Once we moved the needle across on my sewing machine, my 6.5" squares were actually 6.5" instead of 6.25". Now I can get sewing my strips and slicing my squares. I knew it would be something simple, I just didn't know what. There's just not enough hours in the day...

I unpicked 4 rows of strips and re-sewed 2 rows of blocks last night once the needle position was sorted. Tonight is my Dad's 65th birthday dinner so I probably won't get much more done on either my patchwork or cross-stitch.
Bring on the holidays! 2 more sleeps for me until I am on holidays...
Happy Stitching,
Kerrie

Provence Market #1

On Friday night, I started on a new kit that will match 2 others I've done previously. It is a Dimensions Gold kit called Provence Market.

I am very pleased with my progress over the weekend, although I don't expect to get this amount done every day (this is 3 nights work). There is a lot of colour changing involved and not many big blocks of the same colour.

I picked up my new sewing machine on Friday and after a bit of frustration due to threading it wrong, I got it working and am super excited about starting on my quilts over the Summer break. I haven't sewn for about 15 years but when I did it at school, I enjoyed it so I'm looking forward to getting back into it again. I'm having a cutting lesson on the weekend to learn how to cut the strips properly. I've also set up one of the spare rooms as my new sewing room with a desk under the window and the sewing machine on top. It has great light and a reasonable view so it will be a delight to sew there.
Happy Stitching,
Kerrie

 

Giveaways no more

The idea behind my recent give-aways was for me to get rid of my used patterns so I could make space to buy more projects and share them with other stitchers. But the give-away winners are still to contact me with their postal addresses so I still have those and all my other patterns sitting around taking up space. I've found another way to dispose of them and unfortunately, it means you won't be getting any more freebies, but they will be available to purchase at very cheap prices if you really want something.

I'm passing them on to Old Stitch who will eventually add them to their site for sale: 
So yes, that means you won't be bothered any more by my give-away posts for items you don't want, and I won't be bothered by stockpiles of stuff taking up space at home. 

Who'd have thought it would be so hard to give away stuff... anyway... I didn't get any stitching done last night as I was boxing up my patterns to post off. I've also rearranged some furniture and now have a desk in my spare room under the window that will become my new sewing desk for when I get my new machine tomorrow - very excited about that!
Happy Stitching,
Kerrie

Winner and another finish

Clare is the winner of the Bucilla Phillipians design. Please send me your postal address so I can get it out to you asap. Congratulations! xstitchlibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com

I also got another Christmas card done, the final of the 3 free designs:
Here it is before I stuck it down properly...

This one has a red button for the nose. I didn't realise they were in the kit so the other 2 are missing theirs (there was one button missing anyway). That's probably why I got the magazine cheaper in the first place.

I also managed to complete another freebie from a magazine. This is before I washed the soluble stuff off and put it in the frame that came with it. I'll finish it up tonight.

The Quilting Wholesaler's show I went to with Judith on the weekend was fascinating. We walked miles! It took us 2 hours for each aisle (my husband could have done the whole show in about 5 minutes, we took 6 hours!). I was exhausted on Sunday and slept in quite late! There is so much cool stuff available. It might have even sparked a more increased interest in patchwork... we ordered the plain materials I need for my Summer quilting project so I can't wait for them to arrive. Today I'm ordering a new sewing machine - the one I have was my husbands mother's and it doesn't work properly. Rather than spending a fortune on repairing it, and it still being 25 years old, I'm going to get a brand new one for the same cost! Very excited about that.
Happy Stitching,
Kerrie