I'm a winner!

Yes ladies, I'm a winner.
Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict had a giveaway for her birthday, and I'm one of the winners. Her little elf picked my number :-)

Doesn't this pack look fabulous?

You may remember I did not know what to do for the back of my Kokeshi, and Sarah helped me answers my questions.

Go and visit her blog, the quilts she makes are  beautiful and full of energy. Her elf helps quite a lot too :-) The next generation is full of promise, believe me.

Red weekend!

Hello to all!
Although I've been busy this week, I don't have pictures of my work to show you.

At the beginning of the week, the weather was windy, but still nice for a walk. And I learnt that hunters are not allowed on the hill on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So I walked on Monday and Wednesday, over 90 mn each day, meaning I did not have much time left for textiles. On Friday, I walked too, but to do some errands. Hard to believe there were so many people doing just the same! I saw they were hanging the XMas lights in the streets (I like XMas lights, even though I think it is a bit early...)

On the other evenings, I cut the appliqué pieces, and prepared them yesterday. I've learnt a few things from the Kokeshi appliqué, regarding needle turn, and I think the quality of this appliqué will be better. For the moment, they are little pieces of fabrics waiting in a box. I'm glad I did all the preparation, I "just" have to position them and sew them.

I've been selected to test a photo book software on Internet. So I've been sorting pictures, and have started building my book today. For those who are interested, this is a photo book proposed by cewe. My subject for this book: the apples of my eyes, aka my daughters! So far, the creation of the book is fun, the page layouts are nice, with a good choice re the number of photos and their positions and sizes.

You may ask "why is the title of this post Red Weekend?" Because this is the opportunity to report of the event that took place two weeks ago in our little village. One of the main street was red:

This is an older fire rescue truck, announcing the annual gathering of the local firemen

This one is old, with a showel attached in front:

old Jeep, with showels and spare wheel attached wherever possible

again rather old truck, very short one, probably to go in the forests

modern SUV, with a snow device in front

a boat, with a fan, just like in the Everglades

a kind of golf car

small truck with trailer and caterpillars

group photo, the red trucks with the green hill in the background

This one is not of a local fire truck. It was taken in Alice Spring, and is part of a large truck. Unfortunately, I could not take a good picture of the whole. But I was very impressed by all the plugs.

A little part of an Australian fire truck, with many plugs of all sizes and counters.

Fire rescue is important everywhere. I think we live in a very exposed area, with a large population, therefore a lot of traffic by road, rail or air, many high-risk industries, tourism entailing sea and mountain accidents, and wild fires. This weekend was for "traditional" firemen, but the fire rescue airplanes are also based at the local airport.

Let's hope we don't need to call them!

In the meantime, take care, and enjoy the week ahead.

PS: Becky from Cruisin' with Criket mentions she finds captions useful when reading blogs. So I've tried to add some, and will try not to forget in the future. Maybe you will like to do the same. I found the menu "add caption" by right-clicking the picture. 

Autumn is here...

It is official: I've put my summer clothes away and have retrieved the winter ones from the cabinet... There won't be any heating in my office before November 5th... that is, if the men can fix it as scheduled...

Anyway, there are other signs Autumn is here: I'm preparing myself for the hibernation.
I have a hudge stash of yarns from my mother, and a nice way to reduce it is to crochet an afghan. For this year, I found a CAL at Bernat. With my yarns, it will be a bit smaller, but I don't mind, I enjoy the crocheting.

I did not find the time to purchase the batting for the Kokeshi, but have great hopes I will this week. At the same time I found the Kokeshi patterns, I was attracted by  this one, the red one at the bottom left (click on the image to have a better view). It is by Helen Stubbings. I was given some pairs of jeans to be recycled, and they just screamed to be part of this quilt! I've been cutting them last week, and piecing them yesterday and the day before.

I found some more fabrics in my stash to do the appliqué. Hopefully I'll have enough...

I also continued the Stitch embroidery

The small trees were fun, the star at the top right was less fun, all my fault. The vertical and horizontal branches were easy, but I had a hard time figuring out how to do the other ones. After struggling with them, and finishing them, I turned the page of the magazine to find the grid on the other side...

I wish you all a nice week. Take care!

Kokeshi, thank you!

Thank you all for your kind comments, it is such a pleasure to read you!

Vicki, a compliment from you is always welcome! Somehow, you are part of this quilt: I've got a lot of inspiration from visiting your blog, and the links you share with us.
Merci Laurence et Solange. C'était un plaisir d'assembler ce quilt, les couleurs gagnaient en intensité au fil du montage. Devant ou au dos, d'ailleurs.
Sarah, thank you again for your help!
Lisa, those fabrics are so versatile! And flowers are always a hit.

Kerri, you are right, this season is beautiful and very enjoyable. Sorry that you have had your first frost. It is not yet here, but it could change all of sudden...
Thank you Priscilla, Neki and Rosemary!

PS: while I'm trying to write, there is a cat between me and the computer, trying to drink from my glass. Which is totally impossible due to the size of the glass and my disapproval, but still...

I hope you are all well and enjoying a good day.
Take care!

Kokeshi - borders and back

Thank you for the comments on the embroidery! Once I was started, it was easy to go on and quite enjoyable. I think I'll do some more tomorrow.

In the meantime, I found the time to add borders to the Kokeshi. I try to cut borders before anything else, but I forgot this time. Of course, I ended with little fabric left, so I add to do come computation and sewing to add those borders. And an error while cutting was not an option, believe me! But here it is.

I mentioned I was tempted by a pieced back. I still had some doubts, but a visit to Stash Manicure, and the kind answer of Sarah, of Confessions of a  Fabric Addict to my question convinced me that a pieced back was what I needed and wanted to do. I had earned me a free Friday afternoon and was very motivated. I've used the floral leftovers from the front, together with a pale lavender leftover from a previous quilt. And here it is. 

Money saved for a future quilt, and a stash manincure. Isn't it great? I even have quilting thread left from the same pale lavender quilt... Now I need to purchase some batting and find the time to quilt, but that is another story.

I was very motivated indeed: I went to my sewing room at 3 pm, it was almost 8 pm when I reached to my patchwork bag to put my finished work away. Suprise: the bag moved. A very bored cat had found herself a nice place to sleep...Note, this is not the one from last week.

Quiet weekend

Hello to all!

Thank you all for your kind comments on the Kokeshi. If you like it, this is a pattern by Susan Claire, and she has some more!

My plan for the weekend was to continue piecing the this quilt, and starting the back too. But... the temperatures went down suddenly, and my office at work is gray and cold. On Satturday, the weather was gorgeous, and I wznt for a tour in my garden. Started to pull some weeds, and then, fetched the shredder and started shredding the weeds. In short, I spent most of the day outside in the sun.

A few days ago, I'd received the new issue of Stitch from the Guild of Embroiderers, full of nice Xmas projects. I started working on one, presented on a dark even fabric. I tried working on a dark blue one, but I needed more light than I can have in the evening. So this morning, I took all my stuff outside. As you can see or hear, it was rather windy. You can imagine that this cat is a good weight, in fact not really. If you look carefully, she is throwing my stuff away...

 

Until she can sun herself as she likes.

Anyway, even with plenty of light, the fabric did not work, it was not even enough. So I switched to plan B, i.e. to a white, even fabric, and then, I had fun. The fabric looks blueish because I took the picture at the end of the afternoon. In fact, it is really white, with a bit of glitter.

They are going to be XMas cards...

I wish you all a nice week. Take care!