Christmas is coming...

And apparently the goose is getting fat.  I'm not sure about the poor goose but I'm certainly getting fat!  I went to retreat in Ballarat last weekend and I believe I ate my bodyweight in chocolate!  It was delicious though!

I've been thinking of making some Christmas quilts for my living room as I have a banister dividing the room because it's one of those 70's sunken living rooms where they put up the banister in case you fell to your death down the one step.  I'd tear it out myself but my husband loves it so I do my best to disguise it with dust quilts hanging from it.  While I was at retreat Spotlight was selling the Christmas fabric cheaply and as I had a 30% off voucher too I bought 13 metres of fabric for very little money woo!

I decided to make napkins for the Christmas table first.  I used a pattern by Shabby Fabrics and added the little trunk part.  I'd left all of my turn through holes and threads to do at my Tuesday sewing group.  All the ladies saw were half circles with this weird thing sticking out and they were so polite ooohing and ahhing over them.

They were amazed once I folded them into trees!  I probably could have taken a better picture!

After that I decided to make a Merry Christmas bunting.  I cut the fabric into rectangles.

Then cut the letters out using appliqué paper.

I used my machine to blanket stitch around the letters.  

Four down, quite a few more to go!  Why are there so many letters in Merry Christmas??

I don't think I'll get around to starting the Christmas quilts and, in fact, I need to look at a lot of pictures for inspiration first anyway.  That might take some time.  I'm thinking years of time...

And here I am, the quilter, hemming pants.  Sigh.

I finished the second bedroom curtain to the stage of the first curtain.  They'll be hanging until I feel enthusiastic enough to hem them.  But I got the hard heavy lifting part done at least before I had to empty my studio for the engagement party.

Oh la La!

I finished the baguette!  I'm not sure the French would like to claim it as one of their own but I am quite impressed with it considering I have little sculpting and painting skills!  I've always looked at those short  pottery video clips where they create a trinket bowl or something with a bit of flattened airdrying clay and and after a few smooshes here and a smoosh there there's a work of art in front of them and I thought "I can do that!" Well this baguette has certainly cured me of that idea!

The theme for the party is sunflower picnic because my son proposed to Erin at a mystery picnic and her favourite flowers are sunflowers.  A mystery picnic is a great thing to do if you ever have the chance.  You're given clues in order to pick up your food and after you've filled your basket you're directed to your picnic site.  And you don't always have to get married afterwards ;-)

The baguette was a very important part of the picnic display because once Erin realised what was happening she kept saying "I'm holding this ***** breadstick!" So I had to include one and I couldn't have a real one or it'll be covered in ants and other bugs within minutes of setting it out.  Although, that would have been far easier!  Ha ha! 

So this is how I see the picnic display looking.

There's another thing crossed off my to do party list.  What's next...

Curtains maybe?

Quick cushions

The theme for the engagement party is sunflower picnic.  I bought a cheap blue throw to use as a picnic blanket and saw some sunflower yellow cushions so I bought those and hoped to buy some blue cushions as well but I couldn't find any.  So I bought another blue throw and used that to make cushions.  As these will probably be one use only I wasn't going to spend hours on them (says she after spending days painting letters that will be thrown out after use!) so I folded the throw into quarters and cut along the folds willy nilly with scissors.  I ended up with four pieces of fabric that looked like this picture.

I then folded it up like a pillowcase and stitched the edges closed leaving the centre open.

Because I wasn't going to do a great job of hand sewing that opening closed I then used the lining from the first set of curtains to make two cushion inserts.

And I had a huge bag of stuffing I've saved "just in case".

The stuffing probably took longer that making the whole thing!

I put the insert inside the cover and hand stitched the hole closed.

Ta da!  They turned out nicer than I'd hoped.

I then made a couple of square cushions.

And that left me with these two long strips and I wasn't going to waste them so I stitched them together and cut out another square cushion.

Ta da!  These are lumpier and bumpier than the ones I put a cushion inset inside.  But they're ok.

They've been useful already!  My son's girlfriend hurt her ankle.  She was feeling very sorry for herself.

I started my paper mâché baguette for the picnic scene.  I boiled some torn up toilet paper and made a pulp.  After straining I added glue.  I saw a video where the gluey pulp was then rolled out and wrapped around the tube form but when I tried the pulp stuck to the rolling pin and not to the form! 

So I grabbed handfuls of it and squashed it onto my form.  It took forever to dry!

Once it was dry it looked like a pile of pulped up toilet paper stuck on a form so I bought some of that ready made filler you fill holes in your walls with and smeared that all over.  I bought a real French stick at the shop so I could attempt to copy one but before I had a chance to use it my dog stole it and ate it.  I didn't kill him.

But I had realised that the real bread isn't as smooth as I was trying to make it so that was good because it made things a bit easier.  My next task is to paint it and I'm very nervous!  I hope it all works out!

How are the curtains I hear you ask?  Well I can't actually hear you ask because I don't even know if anyone even reads this but I'll pretend!  The curtain was too long originally so I shortened it but luckily hadn't sewn it.  And it was too short.  It's still too short because I've lost the will to finish them!  I'll do the second curtain and hang that and then I'll hem them whilst they're hanging.  Fingers crossed that  they'll be just right!

These curtains will be the death of me!

About ten years ago I decided I needed new curtains for my bedroom so I went shopping.  I couldn't find the drop length I needed anywhere and custom made were too expensive!  But I did find some tab top linen look curtains in IKEA and thought I'd remove the tabs and add curtain tape.  I washed them first.  I'm glad I washed them first because they shrunk 15cm!!  This then made them too short for my windows grrr!  I should have taken them back to IKEA for a refund but I decided to add a different fabric to the top and make them look as though they were intentionally that way.

I made one of the curtains and for many reasons didn't finish the second.  Well now I'm redoing my bedroom and I need curtains!  I thought it would be easy enough to finish the second curtain but no, it wasn't to be.  I'd cut the lining too short which is probably why I gave up on finishing them ten years ago.  When I went shopping for new lining the type, colour and size were different so I bought enough lining for a pair of curtains and unpicked the first ready to start all over again.

I cut all of my fabrics and hemmed the linings.

I am so glad I have extra long tables for cutting and pressing because these curtains are long and heavy!

I went crazy with the pins!

I finished one of the curtains and hung them to check the length.  My lining is waaaayyy to long!  Which makes me wonder if the original lining would have worked ha ha!

So here is one curtain temporarily hung.  I need to fix the top because I didn't use enough hooks and clearly the bottoms need a lot of attention but luckily, I still like them so I will persevere.  My back, shoulders and arms are killing me though and the thousand odd dollars I was quoted for custom is now looking like a good buy!

I finished painting the side of the deck for the engagement party.  Jim will be in charge of sprucing up the grassed area and we have a bit more work to do on the deck.

I finished sanding and oiling the outdoor furniture.  We need to buy more furniture and I was going to try to find some on Facebook Marketplace but after doing all this work I'm wondering if brand new would be better!

I've painted polystyrene foam letters.  Oh boy were they a pain in the bottom to paint!  But they were cheaper than wooden or carboard ones!  Never let it be said that I'm tight with money but uh...I'm tight with money!

And I bought some fake food for the picnic rug display. I can only begin to imagine the bugs if I use real!  I want to make a French stick out of paper mache next.  I don't know how successful I'll be but the YouTube videos I saw made it look easy enough.  Famous last words!

I've been busy!  But no quilting...