August Round Up

It's funny but until I put together my pic monkey collage I would have honestly said that August was another non-productive month like July. However, it hasn't been. It seems that I have been inspired by lots of other quilters out there this month.

Even though I have kind of fallen off the Zakka Style Sew Along bullet train, I have made 4 of the projects this month. 

Two of the Zakka projects, the elephant bookmark and delightful linen bag, were perfect for my mum's 78th birthday. She loves elephants and I am trying to encourage her to buy either an ipad or a kindle for herself to put in the DL bag.

Fran got the sugar cookie sack to put with her tea set.

The other ZSSA project, the bakery basket, was perfect for my baking friend Marieka of Bespoke Bites. It's not her birthday but I love her to send things for just being her.

It was also the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop at  this month and my project was very time consuming. I lost 5 days to a dreadful flu that had me bedridden and so I had to quickly make the trees and leftover houses in 2 days before I delivered a patchwork talk, illustrating my life, to 40 ladies at a Friday night dinner.

The back of the Neighbourhood Playmat was inspired by Kristy's Quiet Play LEGO Playmat for her son's birthday. 

Juliet's Tartan Kiwi paper pieced Art Folder and Rachel's Stitched in Color Nursery Versery mini-quilt were the  inspiration for my own Nursery Versery Art Folder. 

Left - Nursery Versery Art Folder
Top - Bakery Basket, Sugar Cookie Sack and Darth Maul cape (easiest thing I made all month)
Centre - Neighbourhood Playmat
Right - back of NPM featuring LEGO blocks, Mondrian blocks
Bottom - Delightful Linen Bag, Elephant Never Forgets Bookmark

How did you fare in August?

Nursery Versery Art Folder

Phew! I made the deadline! 

I saw the Nursery Versery Competition early last  week on Stitched in Color but did not think that I could even contemplate entering. 

• First there was my deadline for the Practically Paper Piecing blog hop on Monday. 
• Then there was volunteering Wednesday and Thursday morning at the school the Library to help set up the Art Show and Bookweek.
• Then my parents came to stay from Thursday afternoon to enjoy Grandparent's Day and the Bookweek Parade at school the next day.
• My mum and I also went to the movies for a Pre-School Fundraiser on Thursday night.
• Making a Darth Maul cape Friday morning right before the Bookweek Parade.
• Saturday saw me at 2 soccer games with the boys and then onto a birthday party in Byron Bay with Fran.
• Then we took my mum out for a birthday brunch this morning (Sunday).

If that wasn't enough to dissuade me, I had no Nursery Versery Fabric until the folks from Fabric Worm delivered my order on Wednesday.

Then there was the small matter of coming up with a project for the competition. I had contemplated using the fabric in this week's Zakka Style Sew Along project, a patchwork photo frame, but it did not seem a good match. Rachel from Stitched in Color had made the most adorable mini quilt that looks like a storybook cover and I found it inspirational.
Then Juliet of Tartan Kiwi posted a very practical paper pieced Art Folder tutorial on Thursday and the idea began to form. 

But I only got a chance to start the project today. Sunday. Deadline Day. Luckily we are a few time zones ahead in Australia. So it is after midnight as I write this after spending from 11am this morning on this project virtually non-stop.

So here's my version of the paper pieced Art Folder by Tartan Kiwi. I followed the tutorial closely but decided to make my large enough to fit in an A4 colouring book. My paper pieced blocks were 10"square and adding the purple border bumped the project out to a finished 14" square.

I paper pieced the familiar paper pieced little house, from my Neighbourhood Playmat with fussy cut mouse windows but just made the roofline less steep.

I went with the purple colourway and then was able to use some of my precious other Heather Ross prints from previous lines like Far Far Away 2 and Gnomes and Mushrooms from  Spoonflower. I did minimal quilting, mostly outlining and then continuing the raindrops. It should be a one-stop art shop, for Fran when we head out to restaurants for more birthday brunches.

You should pop over and check out the other contestants on the competition post. Some are pure brilliance!

PPP - Neighbourhood Play Mat (+ A Giveaway)

Neighbourhood Play Mat

Hello and welcome to my little blog for today's stop on the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop through Quiet Play.

I am totally new to the foundation paper piecing method - my first lesson was with Kristy just last month. And my first block, a little house, is incorporated into my finished project today. See if you can spot it. 

With each of the house blocks I used two charms from the Lu Summers 'Summersville' collection. Then I stuck to solids or tone on tone prints in the primary colours, plus orange, green, black and white.

If you are interested in making this project, the 8"x8" 'Little House' pattern was designed Kristy and is available on her blog as a FREEBIE along with her 8"x4" 'Little Tree' pattern. The 8"x4" 'Charming Tree' pattern is available here on my blog.

So here it is. It's a whole paper pieced neighbourhood playmat for the kiddies - complete with faces at the windows, zebra crossings, roads to drive on and a Lorax in the park to keep an eye on the environment.

On the back, also inspired by Kristy's version, are 2 stacks of Lego blocks so that the playmat   can double for a Lego mat. 

And my middle child loves it!

I used the Quilting in the Rain' s 'Quick Quilt Binding' method of folding the backing fabric over to the front. It was my first time and it was sooooooo much quicker than any other method I have yet used.

I also included a sleeve with the option to hang it on a wall.

Summersville Charm Pack Giveaway

I have two charm packs of Lu Summers' 'Summersville' to give-away to two lucky readers. All you have to do is comment below for a chance to be in the running to win one.  This is open to international readers too. 

The winners will be randomly selected and posted on Sunday Stash #28 coming up on Sunday 2nd September. So you have until 8pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on Saturday to enter. Please make sure you leave a contact email that is valid to be in the running.

Thanks for joining me today on the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop. See you at the Linky Party starting Wednesday August 29th.


Linking up also with...

Look What We Found in the Park

Look what we found in the dark in the park

We will take him home

We will call him Clark

Well not quite, but other Dr Seuss characters have been spotted in the neighbourhood this week - swomee swans, humming fish, Brown Bar-ba-loots and even a Lorax!

So this week's task was to get the central park for my neighbourhood sorted out. There were a lot of conceptual challenges for me.

I was not really up for more paper piecing but I got some inspiration from Flickr photos of blocks with parks or playgrounds. I made improvisational blocks 8.5" square, the same as the house blocks. 

Then I set about sashing the park with green grass and then a grey border.

I have yet to see 'The Lorax' movie but it is definitely one of the best of Dr Seuss' books. My kids and I love listening to the audio version read by comedian Rik Mayall (think 'Young Ones')

This week's stats:

Completed projects  - Sweet Sugar Cookie Sack

Currently in progress  - Practically Paper Piecing  'Neighbourhood' project

Yet to start - Craftsy BOMs

                         - Zakka Style Little Pocket Pillowcase
                

On Hold projects   1 - Katie Jump Kites - top finished

I have not joined up with WiP Wednesday since June...so it's nice to be back.

The Neighbourhood Grows

Because of school holidays I have not really had uninterrupted time to sew in about 3 weeks. My husband could sense my frustration and was lovely enough to cook pancakes for breakfast and take the kids to church on Sunday so that I could have peace to sew. Lovely man.

So I spent most of the day piecing together a new pattern for simple trees. I am sharing the pattern in a tutorial on Thursday 25th July for the 'Let's Get Acquainted' Blog Hop.

I also added 4 new houses to the neighbourhood.


Next I have to tackle Kristy's more complicated Paper Pieced tree patterns.  Thankfully my extra charm packs of 'Summersville' arrived from Want it, Need it, Quilt! yesterday.

Now don't forget that there is a NEW blog hop starting late next week hosted by about 25 keen paper piecing bloggers. It is called 'Practically Paper Piecing' and is the brain-child of Kristy from Quiet Play. I am using these neighbourhood blocks for my project on August 20th - so stay tuned!