The last posting of 2017

While the movers are packing everything in our house, I sit in my son's room and write the last posting of 2017. Tomorrow we leave Sydney - first we go to Canberra where we will be until the 2nd of January, then to Girraween where we will be camping for four nights, and then on to our new home; Benowa on the Gold Coast.

Our one year in Sydney has been quite eventful. Some of us liked it a lot and are sad to move, others did not like it so much and are happy to leave. We are all happy to be close to our old friends in Brisbane again and we all hope that this will be the last move in quite a while! (we will make an exception for a move to a house of our own on the Gold Coast in 1-2 years time)

I am happy and proud that I managed to reach my goal of running 5 km in April of this year, and that I went on to do 10 parkruns (free weekly 5 km runs) - the last one early on Christmas Day!



Looking back at my creative endeavours, it has been quite a productive year. I only made two quilts, but they both did well: Sydney is currently in the USA for the World Quilt Competition...



... and Mondrian's Lone Star was featured in issue 19 of Make Modern:



I did do quite a bit of sewing this year and added some tutorials to the blog (how to make an oven mitt, a denim doorstop and a lined project bag):



Three patterns were added to my pattern shops on Etsy. There are now 18 patterns; the pattern for Mondrian's Lone Star will be added in January.



My love affair with knitting that started last year continued in the first half of 2017. I made my first (and second) pair of socks, lots of gloves, two scarves and a cabled cushion.



And then, in July, my mother-in-law in the Netherlands taught me to crochet... and I haven't looked back since :-)



Looking back at my creative goals for 2017, I said:

I hope to publish more knitting patterns after my first one, the Wine Bottle Cover!

No, that didn't happen!

I would also like to make more art quilts, and add some work to my sports quilts series.

Nah, didn't happen either!

And my final goal for 2017 is to design more patchwork quilts in Adobe Illustrator.

That also did not happen... I may keep my goals for 2018 more general!

I don't think I will be making any more quilts for a while. Maybe at some point in the future I'll get back to quilting, but for now crochet (and maybe a little knitting) is what I want to do. Eventually I would like to write a crochet pattern, but I think I still need a bit more experience and some more 'mileage under my hook'. (does that make sense?)

Most of all I hope that my family will be happy in our new home and that the boys will make friends at their new schools. That we can settle down and grow some roots again.

I hope you will continue to follow this blog and leave the occasional comment. Thank you for coming along on the ride so far!

I would like to wish all my readers a creative and colourful 2018!

Crochet for Christmas

With our move to the Gold Coast coming up (in 2 weeks and 3 days we'll be gone from Sydney!) and a thousand things to do in these last weeks of the year, I am looking for small projects that I can fit in around all the other stuff. I decided to use the yarn that was left over from the Mayan CAL to make some snowflakes.I found a free pattern here and made eight snowflakes - then I ran out of yarn.



They don't look like much when you finish them, but blocking them (on a potholder!) makes all the difference:



I used a 50/50 mix of water and PVA glue to stiffen the flakes:



And then tied them to the last bit of yarn to make a garland. The Christmas tree was already decorated, so I've hung it up in the bookcase. It's a bit silly to have it here now, in the middle of summer, but who cares! I grew up in the Northern hemisphere, so in my mind 'Christmas' will always be linked to 'winter'.



I also made a crocheted Christmas bauble (loosely based on free patterns found here and here) but I'm not sure I really like it...



It's starting to look a lot like Christmas! Last year we moved from Brisbane to Sydney on the 20th of December, so could only put up the tree a few days before Christmas. I'm happy that his year I get to enjoy it a bit longer. We'll have to take it down soon after Christmas of course, for the move is on the 29th, but that's fine. And since the movers will be packing everything this time I am not very stressed about it all. Actually, I can't wait to go back to Queensland. Bring it on!

More Lone Star table toppers

When my father-in-law and his wife visited us in March, they loved my Lone Star table topper, so I promised to make one for them. They chose the fabrics (Dutch Heritage fabrics from Motifs by Hand on Etsy), I ordered them and finished their table topper today. It is pieced and quilted in the ditch with a beige Aurifil 50wt thread (no. 2314). Aren't the colours gorgeous!



I have also made a Christmas table topper with fabrics from the Sparkle range, designed by Amanda Murphy:



This one is quilted in straight lines on each side of every seam with a white Aurifil 40wt thread (no. 2021). I really like the texture the quilting has created:



The table topper for my father-in-law and his wife is going on its way to the Netherlands tomorrow. I hope they will love it! The pattern for this Lone Star table topper is now available in my pattern store on Etsy.

Easter and Christmas

Happy Easter! I hope you are having a lovely long weekend. I am - this morning we had a traditional egg hunt which was great fun. Yesterday we dyed free-range eggs using natural dyes. The red and brown onion skins worked very well, the turmeric and coffee not so much, but we still have a lovely batch of eggs in autumn colours. Which is quite fitting, since it is autum here in the Southern Hemisphere of course. Today was a rainy day, so I stayed indoors and did some quilting.



I thought I was early last year when I made a Christmas project in May, but this year it's March! Can't show it yet, but I can show you the fabrics I am using, from the Sparkle collection designed by Amanda Murphy. So pretty!

Happy holidays!

Christmas tree skirt

Finally I can show you the Christmas project I made back in May! It is a tree skirt - the first one I have ever made. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and looking forward to using it in December. How lucky that we have just moved to a bigger house, and will actually have room for a large tree this year!



The tree skirt is one of the projects in the Christmas issue of Down Under Quilts (#172), which is now available at newsagents and online.



My equilateral triangles quilt is also in this issue - you may remember I made it back in April.



I really like this little quilt! I used six shades of green, plus four brown triangles to make sure you can see the forest through the trees ;-)



Sadly there are no babies expected in my family or among my friends anytime soon, so I have added the quilt to my Etsy shop. You can find it here.



UPDATE 2016: The pattern for this quilt is now available on Etsy.

Melbourne and more

This blog has been neglected for a while as I have been away, to Melbourne, where my eldest son competed in the Australian Gymnastics Championships last week. Sadly he was sick on the day his team flew to Melbourne (Sunday May 17th), so he couldn't go there until Tuesday, on the eve of his first competition. He did compete on Wednesday and Friday, but not surprisingly didn't do as well as he had hoped. However, his team won gold, so that was great, and I am just glad that he did not have to miss out on the whole experience.



Of course I was there to cheer for him and his teammates! And when I wasn't at the Arena I strolled around in Richmond...



and in the City. I love Melbourne! I made lots of photos, you can see some of them on my photo blog.



Back in Brisbane I finally got to go to Reverse Garbage again and scored these fabulous fabric sample books. Stay tuned for what they will turn into...



First I have to finish this project though:



Yes, I know it's only May!

Merry Christmas

Photography by Colin Bushell

Tomorrow we fly to Indonesia where we will spend two days in Jakarta before we travel on to the Netherlands, to celebrate Christmas with our family - for the first time in seven years! I am so looking forward to this trip.

I made the curvy Christmas table runner with matching placemats for my mother-in-law - it is a project in the current issue of Down Under Quilts (168). The wall hanging on the cover was made by Charlotte Scott from New Zealand - isn't it gorgeous?



I'm taking my laptop with me and will try to blog when we are in the Netherlands. I don't think it will happen before Christmas though, so I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas (or happy holidays, if you prefer). Thanks for reading this blog - I hope you will continue to do so in 2015!

Take care,
Linda

Christmas in July

This week I have been making a Christmas table runner which will serve both as a project for the Christmas issue of Down Under Quilts and a present for my mother-in-law - for we will be celebrating Christmas with her and the rest of our family in the Netherlands this year! I am so excited - we will finally meet the two nieces that I have made Aussie baby quilts for in the past 18 months, and even better; another niece or nephew is due in the week before Christmas, when we are there!

The boys can't wait to play in the snow - we have told them that it's quite possible there won't be any snow in the Netherlands in December or January, but they still expect something like a Frozen set ;-). There was snow just before we moved to Australia, in March 2007, but only our eldest can remember that - he had just turned four. Here he is on his sleigh!
(If there is no snow in Holland we will probably drive down to the south of Germany to find some)



The table runner is finished but I can't show more than a sneak peek yet. I am also making matching placemats, using this lovely Poinsettia fabric:



Working on a Christmas project feels kind of appropriate, for it is of course winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. Although there is no snow in Brisbane it does get pretty cold at night in our unheated and badly isolated wooden house! The boys have two weeks of winter holidays at the moment (I always think of it as Christmas holidays) and we are having a lovely relaxed time after the busy first half of the year. I think this weekend is the first since January without any obligations! No gymnastics training, no competitions, no tennis, nothing!

Meanwhile I have started preparations for my next project: the gymnast quilt. I have printed the photo after enlarging it through Block Posters:



I imagine the finished quilt will measure about 1m x 1.5m. Now thinking about which fabrics to use...
To be continued!