A mini holiday

We went to the coast last weekend for a mini holiday and had an amazing four days. The Australian country side and coast are just beautiful.

And this is the holiday's contribution to my fabric stash. This selection is a mixture of Moda, Art Gallery and Robert Kaufman. They match with my fat quarter bundles beautifully. 

I got these beautiful fabrics from Steph's at Moruya. I found her shop a couple of months ago when we went to Moruya for a drive. Her shop is very nice, bright and full of beautiful, modern fabrics. As oppose to the service at Canberra fabric shops, Steph welcomes you with a warm smile and is always happy to help you if you need a hand.  It looks like I will go there often- it is only two hours away from Canberra- yayy!

Improvised quilt back

I haven't been able to do much sewing since I posted the laptop case. I have had a constant headache. I got my eyes checked two weeks ago because it is where the pain starts. It was confirmed that I needed a new pair of glasses. After waiting for a week for my glasses to be ready, I put them on at the optometrist and said to the girl that they didn't feel right. Of course I was told that my eyes needed some time to adjust to the new lenses; like a week or two. Since then I have been waiting, waiting...but no, they are definitely too strong for my eyes. I try to keep them on but they make me feel sick after the first minute. Until I pay another visit to the optometrist I have to keep taking pain killers...

In the mean time, I managed to sew an improvised quilt back for my baby bow ties quilt. I used these fabrics on the quilt as well. I feel like the more I try to use them up, the more they multiply. Needles to say I still have some leftovers but I hid them away...

Please excuse the bad quality photo. I took it with my phone after I finished it late at night.
 

I got quite confused when I first started to sew the pieces together but once I worked it out, it formed very quickly. I think it will look great once it is bound and finished.
I showed it to my husband and asked him very enthusiastically what he thought about it. He looked at it and said "are you happy with this?" I said "yes!" He said "ok then", and he continued ironing his shirt. The summary of this is: boys will never get it...

Do you like improvising? What things have you sewn with this technique? Please don't forget to leave a comment. For a blogger, there is nothing sweeter than finding a comment in her mailbox! :)
Happy sewing!

Quilted laptop case

My lovely husband bought me a MacBook last Christmas- it is oh so good! It also gave me an excuse to start another project, a quilted laptop case.

I started making this case last week and finished it yesterday. Let me tell you; every single thing went wrong while making it! I couldn't find iron-on fleece interfacing so I bought normal polar fleece instead and used utility fabric to make it a little sturdy, the back and front pieces didn't match in size although I cut them  carefully. Then came some zipper problems. Later I realised I didn't have enough fabric to make the handles wide enough, blah blah...I thought about throwing it out of the window a couple of times but I didn't :)

  
I used the backing fabric on the pocket as well. I love polka dots!
I love the pockets. They are deep enough to carry a notepad and the charger comfortably. 

I haven't followed any tutorials to make this case, maybe I should have... at least when sewing the zipper. See how there is excess fabric around the zipper on the left corner? Next time I will find a solution for this too. 

Generally, I am quite happy with the result even though it is not the best looking case :) The graphic design course I enrolled in is starting today- hurray!- so this will be pretty handy when carrying my laptop to and from the uni campus.

Please don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thank you!

Finished baby bow ties quilt top

After a post full of vent, it is time to share a couple of photos of my gorgeous baby bow ties quilt top!

and you need a tall husband to hold the quilt from behind the fence :-)

I had doubts about using such a light colour as background but I am absolutely in love with the outcome!

I might try making a scrappy, improvised back for this quilt and just do straight stitch quilting along the lines and around the triangles. What do you think?

Two things...

There are two things that I have been meaning to write about. The first one is about informing you about how to follow my blog since the "join this site" link doesn't work for some reason. To be honest, I didn't care much about it thinking it is not that important. I changed my mind when, the other day, a few of my friends asked how they could follow me and said that the link for this wasn't working. Here are the screenshots to show you the way:
Step 1: Click on the boxes on the right hand side of the screen.

Step 2: You will see this screen. If you cant read it, it says "We are sorry. We were unable to handle your request. Please try again or return a bit later."

Step 3: Now, click on the top right button which says "Follow". 

Step 4: Choose which account you will use and join me!

Or, alternatively, you can follow me on Bloglovin. Whichever one you choose, thank you for joining me! If you don't join and just read my posts randomly, thank you again!

The second thing I want to tell you about is an email I received almost two weeks ago from a reader.  When I first saw the email, I got so happy because a reader was trying to get in touch with me. She was saying that she liked my page, liked the design of it, etc. As I read, the excitement was replaced by sadness. To cut it short, this reader was saying that I wasn't posting often enough nor was I producing often and fast enough. And the killer punch was that I shouldn't expect being successful if I continued like this!
To be honest, I felt terrible, really terrible. I felt so discouraged, so disheartened. For days and days I thought about this; whether she was right, whether I should just give up...I shared this on my Facebook page and got some very encouraging comments from those followers.

The thing is; yes, I would love to have thousands of followers like some of those famous quilters. Actually, I am not that greedy; would be happy to only have enough to support me. I would love to be able finish one quilt per week. In fact, I have just finished the baby quilt top I have been working on for the last ten or so days and some quilters I follow and whose work I love a lot finished three quilts and posted twice in the last ten days. The reality is; I have a part-time job. I work three days a week, from 9am till 5pm. And trust me, I would love to resign and just quilt and sew but this is not possible at the moment. I sometimes sell a quilt here and there to be able to continue quilting but it is not a business yet. I have a family; have responsibilities as a wife and a mum to a 20 month-old baby who needs his mummy's attention and care. He is my first priority and comes above everything.

I started this blog because I love quilting and I want to show people that you don't have to be a professional quilter to be able to quilt. No matter what your skill level is, you can quilt. I also want to share my projects with other people and maybe inspire a few to get some fabric and a rotary cutter and just do it.  I want to thank this follower for reminding me one more time of my circumstances and the reasons why I started this blog. I love what I do, just the way it is.

I am sorry for boring you with this long vent but I just wanted to put it out here. I am sure there is someone out there who can relate to this.

P.S I will be posting the photos of my finished baby quilt top tomorrow.

Happy sewing! xxx

And this is my dirty rascal in our yet-to-be-put-into-a shape back yard :)