Last nights leftovers....

Of roast pumpkin and chicken were added to onion, crumbled fetta cheese and olives to make pizza for tonight's dinner.    Once you have covered the pizza bases with tomato paste just arrange the topping  all over and pop into the oven  for 25 mins.   While they are cooking there was enough time to finish off sewing up the beanie that I was knitting during the week.

Time to take the pizzas out of the oven, cut into quarters, sprinkle generously with roquette leaves and enjoy.

Hubs and I met up with some very good friends at Berrima for lunch yesterday.   Being a  2 1/2 hour drive from our house it was time to enjoy a little sweetie and coffee on arrival.   You cannot argue with the writing on the cup!!!!   I chose the award winning salted caramel and chocolate tart and I can see why it was a medal winner.        Delicious.  

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Happy sewing all

 

The last lap

It is always a good feeling when heading down the last lap of sewing on the binding and that is what happened just after lunch today.

I did a simple quilting stitch using the walking foot.  It was a matter of just sewing up and down each column of the rainbow and then into the middle of each block.    Even though it was a simple design it took just on 8 hours to complete the quilting.      In the picture below the quilting can be seen if you look closely.   Being white thread on a white background it does not show up too well.

And now for the completed quilt.   The same fabric was used to bind it as the backing with a bit left over to do another small project.     More about that later.

I am feeling very pleased with myself as my goal for August was to complete the quilting but I did manage to finish the quilt off completely with a week left in the month.   I really enjoyed the rainbow challenge even though I did not participate this year hopefully it will be running again next year.   A great excuse the use up all those scraps that keep appearing no matter how fast you sew.

Now to tidy up the living room, return my machine and all the other bits and pieces to the sewing room and start work on a few smaller projects that have been in the pipeline for a while.

Linking with Elm Street Quilts OMG for August and Oh Scrap.

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Happy sewing all

The boring bit

I did manage to finish off all the quilting on the rainbow quilt during the week and spent sometime yesterday and last night making a start on  pulling all the threads through to the back, tying  off and burying them.   Very boring and mind numbing.  

Just to give myself a break from all that mindless work - and what takes forever with very little to show for all that time spent - I picked up the beanie and seem to be making good progress.    I have reached the stage of shaping the crown now.

I did set a goal of trying to have all the quilting finished by the end of the month - that has now been achieved- and seeing that there are nearly 2 weeks left of August my goal is now to finish off the quilt completely.

If you would like to see what others achieved last night for FNSI go over to Wendy's blog.

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Happy sewing all

Ready, Set, Sew

This week I had time to make a start on quilting the rainbow quilt.   Here it is all pinned and under the walking foot.  

This time next week my aim is to show you the completed quilting...hopefully.

Linking with Oh Scrap.

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 Happy sewing all

Putting in a Zip

That sentence usually strikes fear into my heart and into the heart of many others also.      When I decided to make some zippered pouches I looked at "google" and found many different ways of making them.   I did a couple and took what I considered the best way from each of them for me but putting in the zip was always the same - fiddly and difficult.   They all mentioned using a  zip longer than the intended pouch but had you cutting them down to size or even smaller and making sure that the zipper pull or head was in the middle of the bag and open.    This is where the fiddly bit happens as you are moving the pull along  upside down was you sew.     After giving this some considerable thought and thinking that there must be a better way I just happened to stumble across someone else who had the same problem and her method was a light bulb moment for me.

I will not go into the actual pouch making but just the insertion of the zip.   So here is the secret to successfully getting the zip in without any bad thoughts or words flying around your sewing room.

Make sure that the zip is longer than the intended pouch but have it closed all the way and sew in.   This is what it will look like when in from the top.    As you can see the zip pull is nowhere along the area that you are stitching

Just give a quick press and you are ready for the next step which is to top sew down both sides to keep the lining in place.

Next step is to bring the zip pull into the middle of the pouch - this is most important as you will cut off the zip pull if you do not - and sew cross the zip where it meets the ends of the fabric.     Once you have sewn across the zip at both ends you then trim off the zip to fit the pouch size.

 A close up of the stitching across the ends of the zip can be seen below.

Then proceed to finish off your pouch with a perfectly non fiddly inserted zip.   I hope the above helps anyone else who finds putting zips in purses etc difficult.

Now as you know the first Friday night of the month is always FNWF run by Cheryll at Gone Stitchin" and last night I decided to do a little knitting just for a change.    I was inspired by Cheryll last month when she showed us her pretty beanies.    Being the slow knitter that I am the thought was I could start a beanie for Miss M for next year and it may be finished in time.....LOL.     I still have a long way to go.

Linking with Oh Scrap.

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Happy sewing all

  

August OMG

Goal setting time has arrived and this month my aim is to get the quilting on my rainbow quilt done.  As you can see it is sandwiched and pinned ready to go.   Normally I always use a wideback for the backing but on this occasion I saw this "bargain" and just joined it to make it the necessary width.   I will have enough left over which can be used as the binding also.

In an ideal world getting the binding on would be even better but there are "things" happening at the moment which need to be dealt with so being overly ambitious is not an option.

There are plenty of other lovely items being prepared by others at the moment in the hope of being finished by the end of the month and they can be seen over at Elm Street Quilts.

Back soon and in the meantime

Happy sewing all