Butterfly Dreams

Well it was up early yesterday to get to Home Patch at Bathurst to teach a doll workshop.
The doll of the moment was Butterfly Dreams a nice little project to get finished in a day. This butterfly is something to let your imagination run wild. There are so many lovely bright fabrics out there now, that we're spoiled for choice. Anni also has a lovely selection of beautiful felt at the shop and many in lovely bright colours. These butterflies are pretty addictive as well, once you've made one it's hard to stop. They are perfect for little gifts and would look great hanging up "en masse"

This lady was going into mass production, she was making three at once !! She didn't want her photo taken though because she had cropped her hair short, but how lovely of her to do it, as it was in sympathy with her sister who was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

These were two of the finished butterflies don't you just love the colours the ladies have chosen.
If anyone out here in the Central West is interested in joining any of the classes you can check the Home Patch web site for details or give them a call (63 31 5002 ) the girls in the shop are really helpful and will give you any information that you need.
Happy sewing Annie

Hugs and Kisses Angel

For those who haven't got a copy of this months issue of Homespun I thought you might like to see the Hugs and Kisses Angel design of mine (apologies for the photo it's not so good).
She is much easier to make than she looks and don't be frightened off by the free motion quilting, I find it such fun but you do have to do a bit of practise beforehand to get into a rhythm. For anybody that wants to make it, the bun foot was from Bunnings and a bigger hole needs to be drilled for the dowling to fit.
The dolls lovely hair was from Wales in the U.K. very easy to order on line and very cheap too. Its from Wensleydale sheep and is so soft and curly. The web site is www.celtique.biz they have a lovely range of colours.
So hope any of you that are interested will have a go at making her, and just to get you going how about making her in Christmas style fabrics and maybe holding a wreath instead of a heart and on her head you could make a green garland entwined with pip berries. Happy Sewing

Christmas is just around the corner

Well it's been awhile since I last posted anything. Since then I've been pretty busy, although I had a couple of weeks doing nothing travelling up to Queensland to visit my son and his family, it was so lovely to catch up with them, I miss seeing my grandson growing up but they seem to have a better life up there so I suppose we have to let them go at some stage. The beaches up there are incredible, why would anyone want to travel anywhere else in the world when we have all of this on our doorstep.

For all of you that have been enquiring about the pattern for the Christmas fairy, I've finally finished writing it up so she is now available. Her name is 'Wishes do come true "
I haven't worked out how to put links on this thing yet but at the moment she is available from
www.homepatch.com.au  www.stitchingpost.com.au   www.marallycraft.com.au www.sewarmadillo.co.au

Continuing in the Christmas mood which I always get into about this time of year I've also designed a Santa and a Snowman. They are all designed on the same theme, they have a round body and head, which I think is sooo easy, no fiddly legs and arms or dresses and the pieces are easily put together.
The santa's name is "Dear Santa" and he has a fabric body and hat, the jacket is made out of felt. I used the new Christmas range of Lynette Anderson which I just love. I only used the snowflake print as I didn't want anything too busy. He holds a wooden staff which is just a piece of painted dowling with a wooden bead on top, it's wrapped around with some Ming Garland and has rusty bells hanging from the top. He has a little tag hanging off his wrist which says " And I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight. The picture I have posted I used sheeps wool for his beard but you might find that a bit hard to get hold of. I did make another one with boucle knitting wool for a beard and he turned out really nice. I love his hooded eyes which is something different for me and the huge ric rac is great on his jacket.

The snowman who I have called "White Christmas " is made on the same theme, a rounded body and head. I made him out of plain old Osnaburg, get a nice quality one if you can as some of it can be a bit too open in the weave. Although I backed it with weaveline backing fabric to stabilise it as I find with Osnaburg that it pulls and the seams can pull open. He has a battered top hat which is fun and really messy to make but I love getting messy. He holds a Christmas tree which is made of a piece of dowling and branches of pine garland wrapped with sprays of pip berries. The branches hang with rusty bells,stars, little snowflakes and little labels with sentiments written on them. He also has a little tag with a poem on it

I built a snowman round and fat

and on his head I put a hat

he stood out in the sun all day

untill he'd melted all away

But I know just where he sat

because he didn't take his hat

I would just like to thank all of you lovely ladies that have posted such nice comments on my blog, I'm glad that you are all liking my designs, hope I can keep coming up with more that will appeal to you.

Hope not to take as long with my next post.