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10 posts from May 2011

May 27, 2011

A new birth sampler pattern.

The girls over at Giggle Buttons and I have teamed up on a mini project, which is available exclusively with Giggle Buttons.

The Baby Love Birth Sampler pattern features 4 porcelain buttons, a Chloe Doll, a pink rattle,  a pink baby bottle & a pink sweet butterfly, which have been designed by the girls, and of course a pattern and instructions by Red Brolly.

The finished size of the birth sampler measures 8" x 10".

 
  Birth-sampler

If you would like to purchase one of these patterns, you can do so by going to GiggleButtons.

Oh, by the way, there is a boy's design coming!

Have a lovely weekend!

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P.S Did you remember to enter into Debbie's (from Sew and Tell post) pattern giveaway on her blog? It closes today. Plus, she's found the time to design a cute, little pin keep featuring Brutus!

Piggys-in-a-row

May 25, 2011

Another sneek peek at Fairy Garden. Part 2.

Would you like to see a teeny little bit more of my new quilt?

I thought that I would give you a more of a peek this time.

There's lots going on in Fairy Garden, as you would expect. Busy fairies painting, small forest friends, sweet mushroom houses, sleepy eyed owls and lots of flowers...of course!

As I've already told you, it's called "Fairy Garden." It's a brand new quilt design, with stitching, patchwork and little bits of applique. Just finishing writing the pattern and it should be out in the next 2 weeks!


  Squirrel

Mummy-mouse

Mushroom-house




Brutus-Fairies


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May 23, 2011

Sew and Tell..

Sew-and-tell-banner

Today I bring you another peek into the inspirational world of you lovely sewers and quilters. I absolutely love doing these posts. I love to see how you organise and create in your space.

Please come with me as we go for a visit to..... Welcome-bannerI would like to introduce the wonderful and inspirational Debbie, you may know her in the stitching circles, blogs and chat rooms as "Debbie St. Germain." She has been coming to my blog for a little while now and it's great to finally get to "meet" her.

   Debbie-photo

 

Look what's near where she lives...

Egfalls

Gorgeous isn't it?

Now what should you know about the wonderful Debbie? Firstly, she lives in the beautiful Rhode Island in the States. Secondly,  she has her own blog, WoolenSails, which she's been running since 2008. And it's just lovely and whimsical and lots of inspirational photos from around where she lives. She also sells lots of wonderful e-patterns which you can buy from her blog.

Now to the sewing part...Would you like to see some of her work? What about where she creates? You should see how lucky Debbie is. Look at these...

Here's her...wait for it...sewing room!

  Work-surface

She does admit that it's a work in progress. She has it  set up so she can move around freely on her office chair. She spends the day whizzing and spinning across the room, moving from space to project, to books and supplies.

The little basket you can see on her wall is her new scrap basket. She throws in all the small pieces that are cut off from her sewing. So, she can grab a piece from here if she needs something small for applique or if she is practicing on the machine, she can use a piece to try the stitches on.
Debbie2
Debbie has organised all her creative bits and pieces into drawers holding things such as scrap wools, scrap pieces, tools and other bits. But.it gets better, she also has another room  which is devoted to her other craft of wool hooking. Here, she also keeps all her magazines. We, unfortunately, we're not allowed into that room as Debbie admits that it's a little untidy.

Would you like to see some of her sewing?

Debbie belongs to and participates in lots of online crafting/quilting groups, some public, some by private invitiation. She also belongs to an ebay group called USAPRIM. It is a group of wonderful woman who create primitive goods, made in the USA. She also belongs to two primitive quilting groups, and several flicker groups, including Red Brolly. Debbie believes that groups are a great way to make new friends and to learn new techniques and styles.
This piece below is one of her favourite pieces.

Fav-piece
It's her favourite because it was done as a challenge in her primitive quilt group.
Each participant was given partners and her partner sent her fat quarters, wool and an assortment of embellishments such as lace and buttons,  and, guess what the challenge was? She had to make them into a quilt!!!

By her own admission it was a challenge to create something with the lace and assortment of buttons and the chicken panel. I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?

She also loves folk art and creates a lot of quilts from pictures that she has seen. Here's another favourite of her's, which was created by flicking through old quilting books and using ideas she had seen.

Debbie reproduction

Debbie, like a lot of us, learnt her skills from her mother and grandmother. Spending lots of American summers at her grandmother's house quilting and rug hooking.

Finally, it's time to say goodbye to Debbie. If you see her around in the crafting and quilting circles make sure you say hello and I would just like to thank Debbie for her time and letting us into her crafting world.

I'll just leave you with her favourite inspirational quote...

Debbie-quote

 

AND...almost forgot, you should go and check out her blog. Debbie is being very generous and is running  a little giveaway of one of her e-patterns.

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May 19, 2011

THE PERTH SHOW.

VISITING GIRLS- perth

 

  The Perth Craft and Quilt Fair opened yesterday to record crowds!

  If you're in Perth between now and Sunday- don't forget to......

Welcome copy6

                       Lips

 

 

May 18, 2011

Tutorial:: how to make a sucky puff quilt

  Tutorial
Sucky-heading
::How to make a "Sucky Puff" Quilt


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Finished Size approx 42 1/2" x 54"  or 28 rows of 21 Sucky Puffs.

These are not to be confused with Suffolk Puffs. The Sucky Puff (so named by S.J.V.H and friends who stitched the quilt), or yo-yo quilt is very easy to make. Once you have alot of Suckies, you can turn them into quilts, table runners, cushions or hang over a window or make a wall display.

Sucky-puff-template


Step 1: Use the template shape provided to make yourself a template from template plastic or cardboard. The seams are added in the template.

note: the template when downloaded should measure 4" in diametre. Though really you could use any size you like.


Mouse-2 Step 2: Along the edge of each circle, turn over a 1/4" hem allowance to the wrong side of the fabric. Sew around the edge of the circle with a running stitch

 

TIP: The stitches don't need to be neat and tidy. The bigger stitches work better!

Step 3: When you have sewn all around the cirlce, pull the thread to gather the Sucky Puff and finish with a secure knot.

Sucky-puff4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 Stitching the Sucky Puff


The front of the Sucky Puff is the side with the gathered edge. You can sew a small Pom Pom in the centre of each Sucky Puff to finish.

When you have enough suckies...It's time to Assemble!

Suckies-tutorial

Tip

 

 

Once you have enough rows, you can start sewing the rows together. On the edge of the finished quilt sew large Pom Poms at intervals of about 6 Sucky Puffs.

 

 

Sucky-puff-quilt1

 

Make sure you show me your finished Sucky Puff quilts!

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May 16, 2011

Having a clean out.

My computer has been running a little slow of late with the weather getting colder and all. So over the weekend I decided to have a little clean up of all my files and get it running a little faster.

I came across all these photos from my book "Little Chicken Feather and Friends," and just wanted to share the photos with you as I thought they were too lovely just to put on a disc and file them away.

Boys-cushions

Chicken-feather-on-cot

Close-up-of-flower-on-basket1

Close-up-of-sheets1

Flower-baskets1
Skipping-sophie-pillow

I just love that "Sucky Puff" quilt, it makes a gorgeous display. So next blog I'll give a tutorial on how to make it.

Hope you enjoyed the revisit to "Little Chicken Feather" as much as I did!



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Piggys-in-a-row

May 09, 2011

I'm in the book of Guinness world records!

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Have you ever wondered what goes into attempting to set a world record?

Well, my last post gave a little hint as to what I was up to this weekend. A small town named Bowral, in the picturesque Southern Highlands of NSW-a few hours drive from where I live,had a call to arms! They needed people with umbrellas!

They were attempting to set a Guinness world record...the largest umbrella mosaic! The current record holders was a town in Serbia, which consisted of 1,026 people holding umbrellas. Brutus and I thought that this was most important that we attend...since my business name is Red Brolly and all.

So, we packed up the car; picnic rug...check, wine....check, sardines....check, mice and cucumber sandwiches....check, cheese and sourdough for me...check...UMBRELLAS....check! We were off!

It was a gorgeous Autumn day and everyone was in great spirits. Bowral, is attempting to claim the town as the birthplace for Mary Poppins. Apparently, P.L Travers lived in Bowral about the same time as she wrote Mary Poppins. So, the umbrella mosaic was to be on Bradman Oval in the shape of Mary Poppins.

IMG_6543


Brutus and I registered and were officially counted and given a place on the marked out shape...

Tickets


how amazing..we were given spots on her handbag! Of course. You know how I just love bags.

We took our spots on her handbag and settled in for the the official start time of 2pm.

IMG_6589

It was a great atmosphere. We were entertained by the brass band and characters from tme movie wandering through the crowds.

IMG_6553
 Can you see her parrot umbrella??

 

As more and more people crammed onto the oval, the air was buzzing with excitment.

Then, all of a sudden the gates were closed...we were officially counted! At 5 minutes to 2pm, we were told to all stand up and get ready to put our umbrellas up (For the attempt, all umbrellas had to be put up at the same time and taken down at the same time).

Then we had to wait for the start gun....

IMG_6595

Then, BANG, we were off. Umbrellas up! And we had to keep them up for 10 mins. Brutus was lucky, he had his tail to help him if his arms got sore.

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10 minutes went by and then, BANG, the starter pistol was fired to stop and put down our brolly.

Yay! It was official, we had broken the world record. Over 2,000 people had turned up to create an umbrella mosaic!

 

Now Brutus is really letting it all go to his head! All this fame is really getting to him...

"Brutus, who are you calling?...The Guinness Book of Records?...No, Brutus, I don't think you will get your name mentioned...Yes, Brutus, I can see you on the T.V....."

 

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May 06, 2011

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I think...

I'm off to help set a Guinness world record attempt this weekend. It involves Mary Poppins and my umbrella! A red one of course!

Will fill you in on the details next week with some photos!

 

 

 Mary Poppins Birthplace Bowral

If you're in the area and would like to be involved, you can read all about it here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

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May 04, 2011

My NEW quilt...Fairy Garden!

Banner

 

Have you been wondering what I've been designing? I have been very busy at the design table drawing and stitching. Here's a little snippet (now, I can't show all of it to you can I?), of my new quilt!

It should be out soon, but just thought that I would share with you a little peek...

Jigsaw
 

Teasing you aren't I?

 I've used some ideas that friends have suggested on my Facebook page. Hope you like it.

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May 02, 2011

Brutus featured in Homespun!

 

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Currently Australian Homespun magazine is doing a "My Town" BOM for 2011. Each month there will be a Block of the month design from some of Australia's top designers-including me! I designed a block featuring Brutus, of course!

Now, I'm a little late in telling you about this...it started in March (Vol 12 No 3), and it will run through until December 2011. My block hasn't been published yet...so not to panic. The latest edition (May) is out now.

But all of this fame and hype has gone to Brutus' head....

"BRUTUS!!! NO, I will NOT go and fetch you your slippers! AND, I will NOT open you a bottle of San Pellegrino Sparkling water...tap water will be fine!"

Humph......

 

"Now, where's my ink pad got too?"...

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