Candle making!

For Christmas 2012 - Jeff & I exchanged token gifts.  I bought him a scented candle making kit.  The kit included the basics.  He made candles using the ball mold, the taper mold.  They turned out great.  Then the boxes started to arrive...  from candle-making suppliers...!

The scents, colour dyes, wax, wicks, extra moulds.  All adding to a cacophony of colours and smells, shapes and textures.

Every sense is used in candle making - maybe with the exception of taste!  Unless of course, you use to much scent, sometimes the lower, more mellow notes such as vanilla can be tasted when too much gets up your nasal passages.

For Christmas - Jeff & I exchanged token gifts.

Convergence design - WARPED

Convergence design.  Workshop taught by Carole Wood at the Bramble Patch, with permission from Ricky Tims to teach this wonderful technique.

I had been caught in traffic and the weather was so hot that day in July.  Andrea was already well under way - I didn't tell her I was booked into the class as well.  I thought it would be a nice surprise to 'turn up'.  I did not anticipate the delay.   It was a rush on the day to get the FQs sewn up and cut into strips.  Narrowest strips towards the centre.  Then switch positions, resew, turn 90 degrees and slash again.  It's a great technique IF you can get the strips sewn as soon as you sew them.  Otherwise the strips would need to be labelled, before being put away to transport.  I called the finished lap quilt 'WARPED' after the heat wave weather that day, and the wobbly seams made it even more an apt title.

I arrived at the Bramble Patch three hours after Carole had started to teach everyone.  I had so much fabric to choose from with me that I my first big task was to pick four different fabrics - which also would converge into the middle of the design.

I did a lot of sewing that day, Carole helped me to catch up. At the end of the day, I left with almost the quilt top finished.  I was determined to finish it - so the day had not been wasted.  I add a small strip border, to frame it and bring out the orange in the batik design.  After this, I added a wider border, then bound it using the double fold technique.

I am very pleased to have finished it.  It has even been hand washed, still looks vivid.  I wasn't happy with the mauve fabric, so I tried to hide it with some hand sewing, using variegated thread, very therapeutic.

This was my second attempt at this design.  For the first one I used 'Free Spirit' fabric, designed by Ricky Tims himself.  It is still an UFO.

Log cabin design, using foundation piecing

This is a great blanket that seems to be ageless and I still have it on the back of the sofa.  Granddaughter and cats LOVE it.  Tiggy below did not want to pose on it for the photo though.  It's really cuddly and homely.  I have used it across my knees in the car AND at my desk at work.

Original I bought the soft flannel colourways to make robins, Brenda Walker style.  I took the stash to my Thursday Quilting group and a lady, sat at the furthest chair away said the colours and shades of the pile of FQs worked beautifully.  So I went home and cut the FQs into strips.

The actual design is Log cabin, worked using foundation piecing.  Each separate block took about an hour to sew up, on the Brother Innovis machine that I use.  I picked up a second hand Brother Galaxie when the Innovis went into Nutts for a service.  It has automatic thread cutter and a knee lifter.  The combination of the two 'new' features reduced by sewing time down to 30 mins per block.  Great time savers.

Foe the backing - I have used a whole piece of soft flannel.. It has washed lovely.

Woolley Jumper bag - designed by Brenda Walker

I went to a class at the Bramble Patch.
Brenda was an inspiration.  At the class, Brenda had an embellishment pack to add to the bag.  Brenda's design had really, cute fluffy sheep appliqued on the front.  The pack also had a small piece of knitting on cocktail sticks! to represent the sheep knitting.  There was a rustic wooden fence, too.

I wanted it to be a sewing bag.  I used a FQ that had rows of sewing notions, which I used for the side  straps and handles.  The side straps are 'detachable' so the bag can grow if required.  There are pockets on the outside and one inside.  The middle panel was Osnaburg fabric.  The green check/heart fabric is a woven  design.  Andrea came to see me while I was in class, she helped me to pick the buttons, which match the style of the bag perfectly.

I am still using the bag today, it is keeping my crochet blanket & wool together.