Book

Not much sewing has been done this week, as my sewing machine was away to be serviced.
I did finish the book for Hugo, made from the wallpaper I bought at Reverse Garbage. Karla gave me a crash course in bookbinding! He can use it as a sketch-book - he likes drawing. It's a present for his 5th birthday, the day after tomorrow. I am rather happy with how it turned out:




I finished a set of ATCs, but can't show them here yet as they are for the SCQ-ATC swap in April. Have to make 2 sets more, one is in progress, the other has yet to be designed.
I am also working on some other ATCs, to trade with people who responded to this blog. Will show them here soon!

And I signed up for a course at Quiltuniversity.com, called Tools of the Trade. Sounds like a good way to learn all about my machine! The course starts on February 9th. I'll keep you posted!

Sydney and more ATCs

I haven't done much this week, because DH and I went to Sydney for a few days, while the grandparents stayed with the boys. Sydney was wonderful, it was great to have a mini holiday. Haven't thought about quilts or ATCs at all, except when I looked at this:



Can you guess what it is?
That's right - it's a close-up of the roof of the Sydney Opera House! Inspiring, isn't it?



(more pics on our Dutch blog!)

Before we left, I managed to make 2 more ATCs, called 'About me: Dutch quilter in Oz':



I 'stole' the idea from Sharon and used a lovely charm square with windmills on it that Cathy sent me to represent The Netherlands, koala fabric that I bought for Ernst's I Spy quilt to represent Australia, sewing machine fabric to represent the quilting and scraps of my favourite fabrics (that I used for Hugo's magic quilt and Robbie's baby quilt) to put between them.
I have more of the 3 main fabrics, so will make some more of these, with other strips between them.

I really must make some more ATCs, as I have had so many reactions on the postings here that I don't have enough ATCs at the moment to swap!

ATCs

I have started on the baby quilt and am also making some more ATCs. Nothing to show yet, but I thought I'd show you the ATCs I have received so far.



1 4 7 8
2 5
3 6 9 10

Nrs 1 and 2 are from Helen in Tasmania, nr 3 is from Cat. Nrs 4 and 5 are from Sue, nr 6 is from Corry in The Netherlands. Nr 7 is from Sharon in Victoria, nr. 8 is from Mandy and nrs 9 and 10 are from Margeeth.

I found this to put them in:



Looks good, don't you think? And now to fill it...

Sun Hat

Not a quilt this week, but Amy Butler's Blue Sky Hat:





Not very difficult to make, but it's a bit floppy - next time I may use another stabiliser than the duck cloth she mentions in the pattern.

Thanks for all the votes! The kookaburra is clearly the favourite - well, I completely agree!

Last week friends in The Netherlands had a baby, so I will start a small baby quilt one of these days. I think I will make a disappearing nine-patch with the flannel scraps I have.

I've also started making a book out of the wallpaper I bought at Reverse Garbage (see posting of December 23rd). It's almost finished, so I hope I can show it here soon.



PS 5000 visitors in 8 months - wow! Thank you all for coming here! I really appreciate it!

Parrot

Here is the parrot:



Which bird quilt do you like best? I've made a poll to see which one is favourite and I'd be very grateful if you would participate! (at home it's 2 votes for the puffin - DH and Hugo ('because it's blue') - against 2 votes for the kookaburra - myself and Ernst. Robert doesn't really care yet) Here are all 3 birds together:



I also made another set of ATCs, called Autumn Leaves:



By the way, if you are reading this and would like to trade ATCs, you're very welcome to mail me; you can find my emailaddress by clicking on my 'View my complete profile'.

We have had a lot of heavy rain here in Brisbane in the last week and Hugo (almost 5 years old) made this piece of art, called Rain:



A real artist in the making, don't you think? ;-)

Happy New Year!

On the last day of 2007, I made another set of ATCs. Fist I weaved strips of fabric, ironed them on fast 2 fuse and did a zigzag with metallic thread:



After ironing on the backing fabric I fussy-cut 7 ATCs out of the big piece:



I used my red and pink fabrics, because they are not my colours at all, so I didn't mind experimenting with them. But I really like the result!