Chistmas is in the House!

I recieved my table runner from the EB Christmas swap on Friday. Had been out and about for the day and arrived home to a card from the post office. Without even taking the girls out of the car (much to their chagrin) I was off to the post office. Had it unwrapped pretty much immediately and well before I'd made it home again. What better to do at traffic lights than explore a pretty new present like this?

It's REALLY lovely. A beautiful mix of red, gold, cream, and navy. I absolutely love the gold thread through the red fabric and the quality of the sewing is great. Much better than what I sent on so I feel a bit bad for the person that received mine. Although if she stands back and kinda squints she could pretend that the one I made has corners as neatly finished as the one I received.

Well done, Ruth, and thank you! I fell very lucky to own something that has so much care and thoughtfulness infused into it.

I'm nearly done with the decorating around this lovely piece too. Shall throw up some piccies once finished. Just one last finishing touch required. Will hopefully get out to the shops for it tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and I changed the name of my blog. Because, well, because it's my blog and I can!

Posting Day

So, here's my Christmas table runner from the EB swap sitting wrapped and ready to post. I am just awaiting a quick visit from my sister who has something to drop over to me and then I'm off to the post office. Can't wait to receive mine. If I'm really lucky it will be tomorrow but as I don't know where it's coming from I'd best prepare myself for it being Friday. Or even Monday. The decorating of my house this year is awaiting its arrival as I want to match in the colours. So as you can imagine, I'm feeling a little impatient, it being 1 Dec and all - the day I would normally be hooking into getting the decorations up (and the accompanying bottle of bubbles).

Tadaaaaaaa...

Christmas Table Runner for the Eb swap is finished. I think I am happy with it. Well, it looks alright from afar anyway. I don't like the fabric as much in real life as I did in the pic on the internet but all bound and finished it looks quite nice. I quilted it on the machine doing a diamond kind of pattern. Didn't always sew as straight as I may have liked. Binding is a tad scary in places. I've never worked with bias binding before. In theory (and in my mind) it would be easy peasy but again, didn't always sew as straight as I would've liked and that affected it. I unpicked parts of it a few times to redo it but have decided to call it a day. It's the back side of it anyway. Again, just don't look too closely and it's fine. Hope my swapee likes it. Posting it 1 Dec. Here is a sneak peak. I'll add some clearer photos later after my swapee has received it. Don't want to completely ruin the surprise.



Finished the first set of PJs on Monday night at my course. The best part is, they fit. YAY! I have never done button holes before. Discovered it's REALLY easy. You do have to be careful to be precise but that's as hard as it gets. Have cut out and started to sew the second pair because we are getting really close to needing them. I have 1 other set of summer PJs but definitely need at least 2. It was roasting last weekend so the other set came out. It's cooled off again now but still, I need to hurry. Will try to get them finished across the weekend and then next week at my course I can go back to working on the Christmas dresses for the girls.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Still no third package from the Fat Quarter Shop (henceforth known as FQS because I'm sick of typing it in full). Nor have I seen the stuff from Hanc**k's AND now I have a new fabric order to add to the list of things I am waiting for. I re-ordered the backing fabric for my Christmas Table Runner (TR) swap since it's in the missing package from FQS. I ordered it from the Fabric Shack (FS) as they had a half price delivery deal (cost me all of $2.50) and it was cheaper there. I have heard from a few others on the EB web forums that they've ordered fabric from the US that has taken a month or more to arrive. We are jointly concluding that Aus customs may have had a minor meltdown with everyone taking advantage of the current state of the AUD and doing so much shopping online from the US. It has instilled in me a little hope that maybe, just maybe that third FQS package will arrive and in so doing made me feel impatiently cranky every day that it doesn't. Boo to that!

I'm also still waiting on my new camera and iPhone from my insurance claim along with a new pram (that was in the back of the car). Oh, and some new sandels for the girls. They found our car, by the way. The rotters (for want of a better word) who stole it took it for a joy ride through the bush (it's a 4WD). It was found dumped in the rather up-a-beaten-track carpark of a hardware store that sells to tradies. It was covered in mud and scratched down the entire length of each side from trees they didn't bother steering clear of, has a few dings in it, stinks of cigarette smoke (they kindly ashed all over the drivers door), has been so thoroughly cleaned of all it's contents I am surprised they didn't vacuum it for me, and is devoid of number plates. Currently with the insurance mob getting all fixed up.

Hopefully I will take delivery of the camera and/or iPhone this week (when I spoke to the case manager chick on Friday she'd received quotes for them and was going to authorise them so I can get my stuff) and then I can share some picks of where I am up to with my current creations including what I'm doing at my sewing course, the TR swap, and a few other bits and bobs. Might even have some fabric arrivals to share with you too by then.

But for now, off to internet research/shop for some new car seats for the girls for when we get the car back.

EB Christmas Table Runner Swap

This is the culprit. The culprit for my sewing course and for this blog (well, one of the chicks I encountered there is the culprit for the blog - yep, I'm looking at you LilFrankie). I've never done any quilting before and never really been interested but it caught my eye in the recent posts section and I thought, "why the hell not?". So I started surfing the net for pics of Christmas Table runners, which revived the idea of doing a sewing course. A lovely, lovely friend with whom I used to work and I had looked into it once before. We were hoping to find one close to our work place and do it together. She is fantastic at sewing and incredibly creative. She has encouraged and inspired me to have a go (indeed, I should name her as a co-culprit). She feeds me patterns from Russian pattern mags that she buys and translates the instructions for me. The dress that I have mostly finished is one of those patterns and the maternity outfits I made are from another (same pattern just made one as a top and one as a dress), and I have a number of patterns for kids stuff that she's given me. Oh, and then there is the whole box of fabric that she picked up at the markets when I was pregnant. It's all sitting there waiting for me to morph it into something else.


But I digress, what I wanted to write about was the fabric and the basic pattern I have chosen for my table runner. The fabric I have ordered today from The Fat Quarter Shop

The fabric is going to be Toasty Glitzmas by Robert Kaufman


And the inspiration for the design of my table runner is coming from here: http://www.pleasant-home.com/2010/07/another-table-runner.html

I hope I can do this.