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In Quilt

Goodbye 2012

December 31, 2012 4 Comments

Goodbye 2012..

I had a great year.

A great year for starting this blog. A great year to start my love on quilting…

And most of all, I love meeting all of you!

Some of my favourite projects this year :

Some projects above are to be done in 2013..but I am glad it was a part of 2012 as well..

Have a lovely new year!

XOXO

In Completed Projects

HST In Color Order Quilt Top + QBSA Dec 2012

December 31, 2012 10 Comments

Hi!

My second last post before the final post of the year.

I love spending a Sunday afternoon getting something done. Because that feeling boost my Monday and the week onwards. I got the quilt top for the HST In Color Order BOM done.

By the window pane:

By the riverside on Sunday evening while letting my little one splashes himself in water.

HST Incolor Order Quilt top by the riverside

Too windy for a hang-over-the-tree photos though.

I also got my December quilting block swap Australia done. Yes I am late. Such a bad partner. I received two great blocks from Erin. A great addition to the blocks I have received. I hope by the end of 2013, I’ll be able to piece all of them up to a quilt top. Still working on my last year’s QBSA quilt top. LOL.

I made Erin a star block as requested. I chose the Fading Star here and use Jinny Beyer‘s line together with some purple stash to blend the fading star.

Before I got to the final block – as usual a little time spent with the seam ripper.I hate silly mistake but I make them every so often. HOHO.

I need to go through my 100 day hustle this final day of 2012 and will do a last post tonight summarizing a wonderful year! See you!

XOXO

In Quilt

Planning templates – Free Downloads

December 30, 2012 6 Comments

Hi!

Today I want to share with you some of the great planning templates you could use to organize your life and sewing!

I used the free templates here for cleaning routine, this one for daily tasks and goals, and this one for weekly menu.

As for the sewing one above, I made that myself. And YES, I am sharing it too. Click here to download the PDF file. Should you have any trouble downloading this one, please report to me. Thanks.

For more, Shayla from DesignFinch has listed a lot more with links here.

I have always love planning – and swear by it that it saves time and made me more productive..However, I sometimes fail to do so every now and then, SO, this year I want to really try to stick to them all year round and thereafter!

It might be a good idea to get yourself one of this too! This is a home laminator. for those in Australia, you can buy this one here. It’s only $16! A bargain for stationery freak like me. LOL.

Once the planning templates are printed, you can laminate them and use dry wipe off white board markers or Frixion markers. That way you can re-use it over and over again.

I hope you have fun making plans for next year! I am looking forward to share my plans soon and would love to see what others are planning too!

Till then, Have a great time celebrating New Year!

XOXO,

In Quilt

W.I.P : HST In Color Order BOM

December 28, 2012 20 Comments

Hi!

How are you enjoying your holiday?I hope all of you had some fun times with friends and family! I miss my big family back in Malaysia. 🙁

Anyway, remember this fabric I bought with the voucher I won over at Kristy’s..

Been Shopping with my win of Voucher- FQ shop

I bought Blush Anna Bella Bundle in the intention of making my mum a quilt.

And as she love sampler quilts, I am making the HST BOM by Jeni over at her blog.

Mine has a different twist, as I did not use any solid. I meant to use all the fat quarters in the bundle without adding any more fabrics. Beside, I think my mum’s house matches this kind of style rather than the modern one. Though it was tempting to make as Jeni’s as it was really nice and clean.

For now, all 12 blocks are done and squared up. I will be piecing the border soon and start on quilting. (I have 3 quilt tops to quilt up to date – hope I’ll get to them soon!!)

On Christmas eve, I received the above! It was so nice of Lisa to come over to my house to send this over before going to her family dinner. I won this bundle of Aurifil from here. Thanks Laura! OOO I love the colours! I am totally over the rainbow for sure to have a grab at this!

Well, till then,

Enjoy the end of the year! I am making big plans for next year and “planning” is a big part of next year, really!

(I will be sharing where you can get these free planning templates soon!)

XOXO,

In Quilt

So Fine Threads by Superior Threads

December 26, 2012 9 Comments

Hi!

Today, I will be sharing a little experience using one of the Superior Threads. I bought mine here on Sale for a very great value.

Firstly, this threads is not cotton. It’s Polyester. I know some may have an issue about piecing and quilting cotton quilt with polyester, but I have very little experience and have never used a quilt longer than a year yet. LOL. So, I’ll give it a try anyway. Besides, this threads is meant for quilting. So I think it should be fine in the long run too.

The threads comes in two sizes : the 550 yds and 3280yds spools. I bought the latter one as I figure it is more cost effective and I hate it when threads finishes up so quickly. the only problem I had with this big one is that I don’t have the suitable thread holder. My machine is meant to be used with the smaller spool.

(You can buy the thread holder pictured on the right here though)

Since my budget is a bit off already due to some splurge of fabrics on sale (ehem), I did a little detour for the threads before it goes to its normal threading route.

And it works great! Except that I do have to make sure that it is in the right position every now and then. I do think it is still worth buying the thread holder, but for the time being. I am happy.

Now, everytime we use a new threads, we also have to make sure that it winds on the bobbin with the right tension. The tension on the bobbin is as important as the threading tension. I broke one of my bobbin while adjusting the tension! yikes. After several try and error, i got it fine.

I love how fine the threads is and was quite impressed with how much threads you can wind in the bobbin. I find that I need to change bobbin less often. The threads also doesn’t break as much as Gutterman Cotton that I previously used – I guess that’s due to the material itself. But overall, I like to piece and quilt with it. I am not sure about lint : but I do find lots of lint around the machine (inside bobbin case etc) lately, it could be due to the threads. I’ll try Aurifil soon and compare them!

Till then, I hope you had a great holiday and welcoming the new year with lots of fun things!

XOXO

In Completed Projects

Jack Attack quilt done!

December 21, 2012 36 Comments

Hi!

Finally, I made it to the end.. Though Lynne has finished her QAL way back in September, I am glad I made it to the final. Trace back the W.I.P post of this quilt here.

I guess I should stock up more backing fabrics. That was the main reason for it taking a bit of a little more time. I finally decided that I would make the backing with whatever I have – patch it up.

Quilting Gallery Bloghop Giveaway Winner

December 17, 2012 3 Comments

Hi!

Just a short note, I picked the winner for the giveaway as a part of the bloghop by Quilting Gallery.

As usual, bloghop like these, never fails to introduce us to a lot of wonderful people out there, and a lot more blogs to follow..I had fun hopping around, though i must say I did not have much time as I was busy with conference in Melbourne and touring around this weekend.

We had an amazing time traveling from Canberra to Melbourne by car – 9 hours of travels a few stops and rest. One of the stop was Albury – I love their beautiful was train station / info centre.. We even had a long rest at their botanical garden which was gorgeous!

Anyway, the winner was picked by Random.Org :

Who is : Huesei – who left the 112th comment:

hueisei December 10, 2012 5:12 PM

I am a follower

Thank you to all the participants and all of the bright thoughts and comments. Thank you for all the new followers, and I hope that you have fun hopping over my blog from time to time.

Have a wonderful week!

XOXO

In Quilt

Oven Mitt – Zakka Style

December 6, 2012 4 Comments

Hi!

Firstly thank you to all who joined over my Giveaway Day hosted by Sew Mama Sew.. It was so much fun wasn’t? It was so fun to find new blogs and meeting new followers.. I’ll definitely take a visit of my follower’s blog if they have..but I have been quite busy lately.. hope I’ll be free in a week or two for more updates..

Anyway…I bought a kindle version of Zakka Style. I know it is not new in the market and yes, there is even Zakka sew along a while back, but I have just bought the book.. (how late am I?? LOL..) I just have to give it a little review anyway..

The book is filled with crafty handmade tutorials and are great for making quick gifts. It is a fun book with great crafty contributors. So it is worth a buy. Worth visiting some of the contributor’s blog too. And it is so much fun using linen!

Zakka Style: 24 Projects Stitched with Ease to Give, Use & Enjoy

I have never bought any craft kindle book or e-book so I thought I’d give it a try.. But I must say, I am pretty much not liking the electronic version. I miss flipping the pages, I miss the shiny paper. And its hard reading instruction while sewing. Unless of course you print it out. which is not as nice as the real book too.

The only good thing is that it arrives quickly to have a read at it. Other than that, I very much prefer the real printed book, no matter how long it takes to arrive here in Australia, no matter how much it cost more to post as well..

So I guess this would probably be the last crafty e-book I’ll buy. How about you? do you prefer E-book or the real book?

I made an oven mitt from this book as a gift to my friend.
It turns out quite pretty. I should make one or two for myself.. my oven mitt definitely need replacement.

I am joining the bloghop party on the 9th hosted by Quilting Gallery. Do drop by and join in..

Till then,

xoxo

In English Paper Piecing

Penrose Tile Quilt

December 2, 2012 16 Comments

I made the Penrose Tile English paper Piecing Quilt Block for the Travellin Pic Stitch Blog Hop!

(Update: Travellin Pic stitch was a bloghop held by Laura in 2012, where I won the prize of a box of Aurifil thread for my entry. It was a challenge to create english paper piecing projects using an inspired photo taken from a recent travel)

So, it all began with a photo :

The photo was taken at one of the famous spring carnivals in Australia, Floriade.

Then, a few pulls from my stash.. Tula Pink – Birds and the Bees lines were among them. I didn’t use them all in the end though..

Picking up a pattern to do. I was inspired to create a Penrose Tile Inspired block.

Penrose Tile Inspired English Paper Piecing Quilt Block

So I started with the diamonds for the center pentagons. These are 72-degree diamonds.

Basting it to the tiny paper pieces..

Then the black stripy filler diamonds which is the 36-degree diamonds.

Here’s the middle part of my block is done. Not pretty happy with it, but I embrace the imperfection and move on to finish it off as planned anyway. I still have a lot to learn on how to really hide those whip stitches from being visible too much at the front.

I tried using a thimble as my fingertips were getting sore. But I think I am not used to it yet. It makes things go slower and a bit weird – I ended up pushing the needles with the finger with no thimble on.

By the end of this block, I did finally learned how to minimize the visible stitch.. maybe next time I’ll have a go again and leave a better tip to share.. as for now, I do think that I still need to practice more.. it is kind of addictive once you have a clear objective for the pieces…Sometimes I didn’t even realize the time when I start stitching – but I’d better be careful next time as it may cause injury for being too long in the same position.

For the penrose tile, you can actually just let it keep growing larger and larger by the round.

But I decided to keep it small as I wanted to make a mini quilt to hang.

Anyway, this block is going to be appliquéd to a hand-quilted mini quilt soon. I have been meaning to try hand quilting too. Wish me luck.

but before that, how about a messy back photo of it…

Time to remove those papers…

Here is another photo at Floriade from the top of the ferris wheel

Thank you for your visit here. Thank you Laura from Quokka Quilts for organizing this bloghop. Sure was a fun one. A great motivation to definitely start EPP too. Now hop on to Laura’s blog to see more fantastic EPPs with fun travelling Pic!

Some related EPP tutorials:

In Bag Sewing

Drawstring Lunch Bag with Handle – TUTORIAL

November 24, 2012 19 Comments

NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.

In this post, I am sharing with you the tutorial for drawstring bag with handle. Like these ones I made :

These are perfect for lunch bags, I have made many to gift friends and for myself. They are the perfect size (I have here a tutorial for 2 sizes). They are easy to grab, use and wash. Believe me, my friends love theirs!