13. Stylish suggestion

We are upsizing our house which means tidying our unit ready for sale.
Joy.
I think I have good taste.
But it may not be the taste that gets us the most money at auction.
Our Real Estate agent suggested a Stylist - I am not reading anything into that.
She drives a Porsche Cayenne 4x4 so her style must be ok ;)

She liked our furniture and our paintings, so that was nice.
She suggested cushions.
I suggested the fabric.
She agreed.
The result:

I bought this fabric AGES ago and covered these IKEA rocking chairs (can't find a link, so they must no longer be available) with Amy Butler Nigella Imperial Fans print in the stone colourway (upside down, but who is looking!).  I bought a fat quarter pack from some US online retailer, planning to make a couch quilt with it.  Now it is cushions, which I kind of like.  If I change my mind, I will cut the cushions up and make the quilt :)

12. Focus on Enjoyment

One of my favourite blogs is The Curious Kiwi and in this epic post she mentions this post from so i sewed this on sewing for enjoyment.

What a great idea - why do we put all this pressure on ourselves?

11. Zara's quilt

The first quilt I ever made was a wedding present for my friend who lives in an 1880's farm house (old for Australia).
It was a Queen size quilt - what was I thinking?
I managed to finish it for their first wedding anniversary ;)
...
Anyhow, a year ago they had a baby girl and I was planning to finish it before she was born.  This didn't happen.  I bought the fabric before she was born and then I cut everything else the week of my birthday in January.  Things slowed after that and I managed to finish sewing on the label the night before her first birthday partyin December!

And here it is:

 I used the Purl Bee Flying Geese Mini Quilt as the basis of the design and just keep adding blocks until I got the size wanted (approx 90cm x105cm).

The front fabric is all from the first Denyse Schmidt range for Spotlight (Picnics and Fairgrounds).  As I was making it I kept cursing myself for not using a higher contrast range of fabrics so the piecing would be more visible.  There is a lot of piecing with Flying Geese!  However, I wasn't going to change halfway through and now that it is bound and finished, I actually like the busy look to it.  The backing fabric was on sale at Fabricworm a long time ago (Michael Miller?) and I bought it as the Mum loves elephants and I love red and pink together.

 As a link back to her parents Queen size quilt, I used left over fabric from that quilt for the squares in the corners - they kind of go with the rest of the quilt.

 I embroidered the label and I love it! No more printed labels for me.

10. Christmas presents

For Julians carers at Childcare (all 10 of them!), I decided to use this fantastic tutorial and make little zipper pouches for Christmas thank you gifts.  They were really simple to whip up - that is once I decided to put in all the zips first.  When I was trying to complete a pouch at a time, I was swapping needles from the zipper foot to the 1/4"seam foot and forgetting to change the needle position - it only took 3 broken needles to discover that I am not switched on enough in the evening to do this!

 

 

 I liked these so much that I decided to make them for my cousin-in-law (top left); Mum (bottom left) and sister-in-law (bottom right).  And for once, I made one for me (top right).  The little key-ring on the side allows me to clip it onto my work bag - now I will always be able to find my phone :)