Monday, July 27, 2009

Carrying on the Pear Theme and a Winner

Just carrying on with my love of Pears, I just had to build another collage of the pear related pics I had before I bid farewell to my Pear Pincushion and Needlecase being the Linen and Raspberry giveaway.

It is quite amazing when I looked around the house , I noticed we had Pear paintings, Glazed Pear ornaments, and of couse I had plenty of photos on my camera of pear photos I had taken in the supermarket.

You are probably all really bored by now of me and my pear thing, so without further ado the winner using the Google Random Number Generator is ....................................... Number 4

Patchwork Rose.

Thank you so much for all the comments , I so enjoyed reading them all and I have also found many new blogs to visit.


Until next time
happy sewing
j

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Thing for Pears and a Giveaway

I have always had a thing for pears. I love to cook desserts that include pears, I love to use them as decoration around the house. Pears and pear shapes will often find their way into my needlework , and of course pear fabric will always find its way into my stash. and so the love of pears continues into the sewing room , Heather Bailey has a pattern called Fresh Picked , which among other things includes a pattern for a pear pincushion.

I have made a few of these pear pincushions lately and figured that maybe you would like one to have in your sewing room.



Made from Linen and Raspberry Toile it also has a small pear shaped needle case to keep it company.

If you would like to be included in the draw please leave me a comment , you may even have some pear stories to share.

I will keep this open until Saturday 25th July (Christmas in July) for us here in the Southern Hemisphere, with some luck who knows we may even have some snow :-).


Until next time


Happy Sewing


j



Sunday, July 12, 2009

Another Quilt Start

It is always exciting to begin a new quilt, and this is no exception.
This is a Medallion style quilt and it is featured in a book by Dianne Finnegan called a The Quilters Kaleidoscope. I think it is now out of print but you can always try EBay or look out for it at garage sales etc.
The quilt I am making has similarities to this using the orange peel block but it is finished with a different border and has some other quirky features, but more on that as I get further along with it.

The reason this is so appealing is that it uses mainly reproduction prints and I have such a collection , as I have been receiving quarterly mail outs from Patchwork on Stonleigh for many years. Patchwork on Stonleigh fabric club mails out fat 16ths , and over the years I have used very little of those pieces and they have just mounted up. I do not need to purchase any fabric for this quilt it is going to entirely from stash and that is a good thing.





The colours of the orange peel pieces are Blue, Pink , Beige and Brown. I have some quite old but luscious browns and beiges.




Here I have just sat some peels on the background fabric to ensure they fit into the grid, I know I have some duplicates there , this is purely a trial run.





At each intersection of the peel is a circle , yea, I don't have to worry too much about my points, they will be hidden. I really am a yellow lover but I am not sure whether yellow will get the gig or will it be red, what do you think ?.



Off to make some more orange peel segments, they are a bit addictive.
Until next time
Happy Sewing
j






Sunday, July 5, 2009

Tonight's Dinner

OK so I know this blog is not really about the food I eat, but I just couldn't resist showing you this. After a rather indulgent weekend away and spending a lot of it sewing, Mr L & R called me for dinner and this is what he greeted me with.
He had bar b qued this lovely piece of swordfish after he had marinated it in a small amount of lemon infused olive oil and Thai spice. He also made this lovely salsa of avocado, red onion, tomato and capsicum . A jacket potato and all presented so beautifully.
However I just could not resist the touch of sour cream. I guess it just completes the indulgence.

If you are in Australia you are probably asking Dinner this early ! yes we are up the coast and have to return home so we always have a late breakfast and early dinner so we can be back in Sydney at a reasonable hour, home in time to read the Sunday papers.
Until next time
Happy sewing and cooking !
jean


Friday, July 3, 2009

Today's Mail

As you will have seen from the button on my sidebar , I joined the Summer Pincushion Swap that was organised by Sandra from Quilt at Home. My parcel turned up in the mail this morning all the way from The Netherlands.
Here is a little peep , wow what could it be
Taa Daa , a lovely Watermelon.
Thank you so much Sandra, you must know that I have a thing for fruit.

It was also suggested that we put in a couple of little extra goodies and I received this lovely little scissor charm along with some lace and a piece of fabric, in lovely shades of raspberry.


Thank you so much Sandra for organising the swap and for drawing out my name. Distance is no barrier in the blogging community.
Until next time
Happy sewing
jean