I've gotten very brave.

As a young teenager I learned to sew many years ago on my mother's treadle sewing machine.  My sister Frankie and I bought our first machine when I was 16.  We worked on week-ends and saved our money so that we could get a new machine.

Over the years I have made many articles of clothing for myself and my children and often think of that first sewing machine.  When my children were young teenagers I gave up on sewing clothes since they was not the in thing to wear.  I did a little mending on the machine and sewed a few things but slowly the machine was put aside. 

Since I took up quilting a few years ago I have gotten braver and this past week I made new curtains for my kitchen.  My window is 6 ft long and very narrow.  Any curtains that I purchase have to be re-made so instead of buying curtains I purchased 4 metres of lace fabric that could be altered to make new curtains.

4 metres of fabric

I was making a cafe style curtain.

The fabric was 24 inches and I only

needed 18" so instead of cutting the eyelets off

where the curtain rod went through,  I folded it back

6" and then folded it back up again, to make

the top.

I then sewed down both sides of this new

top piece.

My new curtains.

I also made a few new placemats.

Christmas Lunch with Thursday Group

Today was our last meeting before Christmas.  There is always so much to do before Christmas that we decided that this would be our last until the new year. 

Joyce did herself proud with a beautiful lunch for us. 

Our beautiful and delicious lunch.

She even used her Christmas teapot.

This was dessert.  Yum...



We also managed to get some quilting done.

Pierina is still working on her tree quilt.

She has completed 18 of 30 trees.

These will be trimmed when she has

them all completed.

Maria was making a gift bag for a friend.

All finished.

She is also trying to complete this

paper-pieced wall hanging.

She just needs borders now.

Joyce started with this today.

And finished the day with 2 borders

sewn on, just one to go.

I was working on my hunter star quilt top (7 rows completed)

and quilting this baby quilt.

Peggy

Schnibbles is finally quilted

I really had a hard time deciding how I was going to quilt this little quilt.  I took it to Thursday's group and we laid out thread onto the quilt and decided that because of the strong colours in the quilt that white was the best one for the job.

I did straight line quilting and used the wobble stitch.  I first used the wobble stitch when I took a class on "Cotton Theory".  It is a zigzag stitch that is very long and narrow.  It is a good stitch to use when you are sewing straight lines because if you go crooked it doesn't look as bad as if you were sewing with a straight stitch.

I quilted only on the white and tried to avoid the coloured stars.

Because it is winter here

YKW held it up indoors,

so it looks a little crooked.

Peggy

Christmas Gift Bags

I have been making Christmas gift bags.  I found some really fancy fabric on one of my travels and thought that it would make some nice gift bags.

I made this one first, and I

thought it was a little small.

This one is a little bigger

A new challenge because this

fabric was directional.

This cute little bag could also

be a lunch bag.

Peggy