Cooking in the Summer.

I just love summer cooking so thought in the absence of a few sewing pic's, would throw these in.
First, Passata with fresh basil. Makes the best pasta sauce and now I have a stack ready to go now in the bottom of the pantry.



Then, a trip to the strawberry and cherry farm today meant first eating our weight in the most divine strawberries in the world and then 5kg bought home to make jam and potted fruit. I ran out of jars though so half went in the freezer for jam and these ended up ready to go: Potted Strawberries and Cherries in vodka and raspberry wine. There are a few just in the sugar syrup as well for the kids. Perfect over icecream - YUM!

The mess.

I always love looking at others creative areas on blogs so thought I would quickly take some pics of the sewing room in it's natural state.

Some of the stash (or rather, just a little of the stash)

Some of the lovely dolls quilts from swaps and have one more to pop up.












Some of the Christmas bags for presents that have gone out or are ready to go out filled with goodies.


Lastly a sneak at the latest project that I hope to have done by Christmas.

EB DQS

It's that time of year again, EB's dolls quilt swap. While eagerly waiting the opening of the parcel, I know my swappee has it in her hot little hands.

I was so happy with how it turned out so hope she likes it. She listed red and aqua as favourite colours and liked heavily quilted quilt so hopefully she will like this one.

Lugger Bags

Inspired by the clever blogger Milly, I've made some lugger bags over the last few months.

The first was for an EB swap. Still not sure if my swapee liked it but I thought it was fantastic and would have loved to keep it.

This next one was my older son's request as a present for his teacher's birthday. They are his hand prints all over it. I really hope she likes it.


They are super easy to make and I took the opportunity to print some more fabric with hands for grandparents and creche leaders with both boys. More bag pictures to come.

EB Dolls Quilt Swap

It's getting longer between posts, but that doesn't mean nothing is going on.

I will post some of the lovely swap items I have received lately. My camera isn't working so I am finding it difficult to do some posts.

Here is a sneaky peak at the design of a dolls quilt for the EB dolls quilt swap. I am just loving it and am going to have a lot of trouble popping it in the post.

DQS7 - Swap Time again

It's that time again when off to the wild blue yonder goes a quilt.

I was lucky enough to get someone on the other side of the world this time that gave me my the option of "Quilter's Choice" and encouraged quilters to try something new.

This gave me the perfect chance to try thread painting. A technique I have wanted to try for some time and gave it a crack about 6 months ago and gave up. I was determine though to do this!

It involved first the drawing and painting with fabric paint:
Then filling in with thread and quilting:



It looked a tad plain so added a couple of stars and beads:Add a border, little more quilting (and shocking photography.....I promise it is square!) and we're done!














While a far cry from my usual type of quilting I am stoked with the results. Hope my swap partner in the far yonder of the USA is happy with their package.

Link to a Give Away

It's been a while between posts only because it's been a while between projects. I couldn't however miss sharing this give away. Love my rocket ship.....then meet the designer: Kellie. Her quilts are amazing and I've just bought her Christmas Tree pattern on her blog so hopefully will get that made before Christmas. She has a great giveaway at the moment.