A Spot of Sewing

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Food preparation and cooking has been my main focus for the past few days as we prepare to host a birthday lunch for GMan on Sunday. There will be more details about what is on the menu in a future post.

Today I managed to do a bit of sewing in between the cooking. I had noticed that the covers on a couple of the spare pillows were looking a bit stained and generally less than ideal. So, I decided that it could not be too difficult to replace them.

The first step was to carefully slit the end of the cover and remove it. The inside of the pillow is simply no more than a compressed bundle of microfibre filling in the appropriate shape.

I used the old cover to cut a new piece of fabric from some offcuts of sheeting in my stash and stitched 3 sides before carefully replacing the pillow inside.

The end was then pinned.

Finally, I stitched and finished the seam with bias binding.

The 2 revamped pillows in their pillowcases and back on the bed.

Birthday Boy

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Today has been a bit of a mixed bag.

We went to Bendigo after lunch. First up, I had an appointment then we did the shopping. We went to the supermarket, greengrocer, bottle shop and butcher as well as filling the car with fuel. Most of the shopping was for a special lunch I am preparing for Sunday.

You see, today is GMan’s birthday.

Tonight we went out for dinner and on Sunday we will be celebrating at home with a small group of extended family and friends. The festivities look set to continue intermittently over the next 4 months as we catch up with other friends and family who can’t be with us this week.

Finished and Delivered

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I have been working furiously over the past couple of days to finish handsewing the binding on the quilt. I had set myself a deadline as we were going to visit our daughter today. It is no mean feat to hand sew tiny stitches around 8 metres of binding but it is now all done and the quilt is firmly ensconced with its new owner.

Here is the final result.

Apparently, someone else thinks it is pretty good too.

Now that I have completed that job I can turn my attention to a few other jobs around the house that need doing.

Back In Town

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It is 3 days since we arrived back in Australia from our overseas trip. We were away for 4.5 weeks and visited Scandinavia 9Denmark, Sweden and Norway). I know that a lot of you followed our adventures but if you have not seen the blog here is the link. https://mobilecastle.wordpress.com/

Meanwhile, life is beginning to return to normal here. Bags are unpacked and everything mostly put away. One load of washing done and meals prepared. GMan is making bread. Yesterday we did some shopping. The bonus of a comfortably stocked pantry and freezer is that it was really only milk, cheese and fresh fruit and vegetables that we needed.

Yesterday I was occupied dealing with some admin work as a result of some of the mail that arrived while we were away. Today I have been working on hemming the binding on a quilt. I need to have it finished by Saturday and it is a long way around a queen sized quilt with tiny hand stitches. It will be worth it when finished. I hope to show you the finished product in a couple of days.

There is not too much exciting for blog photos so this is our dinner tonight. I made a big pot of bolognese sauce and the remainder will go in the freezer for future meals.

Made to Measure

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I am always open to new ways of preparing or cooking food to simplify the process.

Since buying the airfryer about 18 months ago I have successfully modified my cooking methods for several recipes. One of these was zucchini quiche which I have converted to mini quiches made in the airfryer using muffin rings.

I recently took this a step further and made them in a muffin pan. Of course, a full-sized muffin pan does not fit in my small airfryer so I said to GMan that I needed to get another one so that he could cut it down to size. I had imagined that I might find one in an op shop but I did not even have to go that far. We were walking the dog one day and noticed a pile and goods on the verge to give away. Yes, it included a somewhat rusty muffin pan. GMan clean it up and cut in into some smaller sections that now fit in the airfryer.

I was very pleased with these zucchini muffins I made yesterday.

There will be no stopping me now. It will be so easy to whip up a small quantity of muffins fresh at anytime without having to heat the huge oven.

A Dog’s Day

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During the past few days my time has been consumed by some admin work I am doing for a local community group so it has not really been suitable material for a blog post.

However, today I got back to some serious mending and it was all about our dog. She is now nearly 4 years old and has lost many of her destructive tendencies but a few persist.

We bought her a small foam couch 12 months ago when we moved here and it had remained intact until a couple of days ago. She was in the sewing room in the sun when GMan discovered her latest antics. A significant piece of the fabric had been destroyed and there were several small pieces of foam being chewed off. I was not pleased at this apparent brain snap. Anyway, I have hand-stitched a decent-sized denim patch to cover the damaged area and I hope we do not have a repeat performance any time soon.

The other project was to revamp her bed which was definitely looking much the worse for wear.

That is actually the second version in almost exactly 2 years. You can read about the first one here.

It is just as well that my fabric stash includes a number of quite heavy upholstery fabric pieces so it was a simple matter of finding another suitable piece to make yet another new cover.

Here it is – ready for bedtime.

Winter Winners

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We were out and about today in a town about 40 minutes drive from home. The purpose of our visit was see 2 different exhibitions about nursing and midwifery which were of particular interest to me. One was in the local museum so we also saw other local historical memorabilia. We also caught up with some extended family at a local cafe.

Since we were walking down the street between venues I spotted an op shop so we decided to check it out. They had a lovely selection which was nicely displayed. GMan found a white tshirt which had been on his ‘to buy’ list so I was just idly waiting while he tried it on when I spied a coat. It was red. Be still my beating heart.

This vintage red duffle coat is all I could have hoped for. It is wool/cashmere blend, fully lined, made in Australia from Italian fabric. A perfect fit and cost me $20.

It has definitely been a successful week of op shopping. When we were in Bendigo on Wednesday I bought a red wool blend jumper for $6 which also appears to be a vintage piece as well as a long sleeve shirt which is white with navy spots in a soft cotton fabric for the princely sum of $2.50. It will be more suitable for spring than winter, though.

My other purchase which does not rate a photograph was a king-size doona cover for $8 which I unpicked so that I could use the back of it for the backing of the recently finished patchwork quilt. I took that to be quilted today so I should be able to show you the finished product in a week or so.

Nearly Finished & A New One

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Today I sewed all of the patchwork blocks together.

My next step is to contact a lady who has a longarm machine to do the quilting. Once that is done I will bind the edges and the quilt for our daughter will be complete. I am hoping that I will have it done in the next 2 weeks so that it is finished in time for her birthday.

I am already planning my next project which is a similar quilt for our elder granddaughter. My goal is to have it done for her 18th birthday which is at the end of 2025. I know that sounds a long way away but it does take time to source suitable fabric and cut the squares before you even start sewing the blocks. Of course, I don’t work on them consistently as there is always other sewing to do as well cooking, gardening and simply having a life.

I have made a start by finding the precut pink fabric I had on hand as well as beginning to cut some larger pieces. I need 378 5 inch squares to make a QS quilt.

Do you have any long-term craft projects that you return to from time to time?

Beautiful Bendigo

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The regional city of Bendigo is a little over 30 minutes drive from where we live and we go there regularly to access shopping and other services.

However, our day out yesterday was a much more pleasurable excursion than simply grocery shopping.

We went to the current exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery, ‘Paris: Impressions of Life 1880-1925‘. This exhibition is curated from the collection at the Musee Carnavalet in Paris runs for 4 months in Bendigo until 14th July 2024.

Late autumn in the Arts Precinct of Bendigo is the perfect time and place for a Parisian excursion without a long-haul flight to Europe. Although, I must admit it has whetted my appetite to visit the City of Light again after our brief one day excursion there in 2017.

A spectacular entrance.

A wall mural showing an interior of the Musee Carnavalet. I am putting that one on the travel bucket list.

Back outside – a streetlamp and sunshine.

A late autumn street scene in Bendigo.

Champs Elysees in Paris (taken in 2017).

We enjoy travelling but there is also plenty to do in our local area.

42 Finished

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This morning I completed the last stage of the final seven blocks for the patchwork quilt I am working on for my daughter.

The pile of 42 blocks does not look particularly impressive for the amount of work that went into them

However, the work is more evident once they are all spread out. The next step was to adjust the blocks to get the best balance of colours and patterns.

I think I am happy with this layout.