Sunday Cleaning

Have you cleaned your sewing machine lately? Being inspired by other bloggers I decided to remove the bottom cover of my Necchi and clean it out.

I regularly clean the bobbin area, but haven't opened the bottom plate before. This is what I found, Yikes!!! Look at all the lint that has accumulated over the years!

The inner works is full of little grey rabbits! It really needs a good spa treatment, and I can do a lot myself.

I used the sewing machine brush and got it all out. Now the sewing machine should have a much better performance than before.

This is a treatment that most of you can do yourself, there is a lot of lint accumulating in your sewing machine over time.

I will definitely do this regularly, once or twice a year should be appropriate, in addition to a good bobbin clean out after each project is completed.

Keep on quilting!

Cat's Heaven

Here's my latest charity quilt, Cat's Heaven. Our little houseguest is the perfect model for the quilt.

She loves sitting on the window sill watching the birds outside.

It all started when I got this Accuquilt die with the cute cat, I had to appliqué the cat on something, and why not on a charity quilt?

I searched my stash for suitable fabrics and found a few that matched well. Among those were the bird fabric.

The dark cats are watching the birds, ready to chase them. The cats are raw edge appliquéd on the quilt with a blanket stitch. I used the walking foot for quilting a simple cross hatch design.

I used every bit of the scraps to assemble the six inch squares for the patchwork.

The backing is the icing on the cake, a sweet print with tiny birds and bird houses. The binding is sewn on by machine to make it durable and withstand a lot of cuddling and playing.

Finished size is approximately 39"x50".

This is my charity quilt number twelve for the year, and number 41 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.


Keep on quilting!

Aurifil DOM Block October

The Aurifil Designer Of The Month for October, Alyce Blyth from @blossomheartquilts, has designed the AdventCalendarBlock.

I made my version in bright batiks from Island Batik, the line is called Southern Blooms. These colors may be more appropriate for the summer climate in Australia during Advent than the cold in the northern hemisphere. Bright colors make people happy!

Keep on sewing!

Snowflakes Coming

The October challenge for the Island Batik ambassadors was to create a table runner or table topper appropriate for the coming holidays. There product had to include appliqué, by machine or hand.

Here is my contribution: 'Snowflakes Coming'.

I used the Blue Sea collection from Island Batik and chose 17 of the 21 prints for my table runner. Cutting 243 two and a half inch squares was a breeze using my AccuQuilt GO! cutter. It makes accurate cuts and very little waste. 

Chain piecing of all the 2.5" squares took a lot longer time than cutting them. This is the closest to a quilt swirl I could manage for this runner. Looks kind of cute, doesn't it? 

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All the piecing was done with Aurifil 50wt in white #2024. I quilted the runner in a cross hatch design with the variegated thread Stonewash Blues #4669. The raw edge appliqué was done with Aurifil 40wt #2024. I used 50wt #2024 in the bobbin for both quilting and applique to get a clean finish for the backing, which is the neutral batik Almond.

The ultra thin Hobbs Thermore polyester batting was used in the quilt sandwich. 

The binding is a blue batik from last year's collection London Calling. The binding was sewn on with Aurifil 50wt in blue #1128, Light blue Violet, and hand sewn to the back.

I found the template for the snowflakes in an old quilting magazine. I can tell you it was a tedious cutting process with a small pair of scissors to get all the details right, and I had to make five of them! The neutral batik Almond  was used for the snowflakes.

There was actually snow on the mountain in the distance, how appropriate for the photo shoot! Winter is getting closer...

When looking for a location for the photo shoot I spotted this place down the hill from where I live; a golden ground! A perfect background for a blue and purple quilt.

Last night's freeze made a good amount of the leaves fall off, but still enough of them hanging on the trees to get good pictures.

 The table runner on top of the crisp maple leaves. The runner is 18"x54" finished.

There was even an orange leaved tree in the neighborhood, how appropriate to display the blues together with the complimentary color!

A nice effect of the sunlight and shadows in the playground!

This is how my new table runner will be used during the coming winter months, though not outside! It is very difficult to get good pictures of the purple colors inside, outdoor pictures in natural light are the best.

A full length picture of the runner with a background of glorious fall colors.

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik.