2017 New Quilt Bloggers – My turn!

Hello and welcome to my stop on the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop. I’m Sue and I live in Perth, Western Australia. This is my second time for participating in the New Quilt Bloggers Hop. I came back for seconds because I enjoyed it so much last time. This second time around has been much less nerve wracking and anxiety inducing than last time.

I started blogging just over two years ago so I could join in with the on-line quilt community. It all looked like so much fun! My first post was an entry into the 2015 Pantone Quilt Challenge. Even though the colour of the year really wasn’t my thing, it grew on me and I think this quilt is a keeper! (If you’re interested the 2017 Pantone Quilt Challenge is coming up at the end of the month.)

When the call went out at the end of last year to join the Modern Quilt Guild mini swap, I quickly signed up. This was the mini I put together for my swap partner based on Amy Sinibaldi’s Half -hearted pattern (free!).

Last year I received a Pay It Forward Craft gift from Abigail at Cut and Alter and have paid my three items forward. This Rainbow Rose mini was the one I made for a recipient who lives nearby.

Last year I joined in my first ever Quilt-Along with another fellow hop mate Amanda of This Mom Quilts to make her Facets Plus Quilt.

In my hop post last year I asked the question of readers if they had joined any swaps, quilt alongs, bees (have you? Any favourites?) and through that I found Stash Bee which I signed up for this year. I also joined a bee made up of 11 others also in last year’s hop – Bee Inspired. These bees have been a great experience and have been great in feeding a no-brainer blog post once a month J.

The other recent project I’m most proud of is the mini I designed myself. I call it Somewhat Positive.

My QUILTING TIP is to hold your work up to a mirror. If you’re not sure you’re particularly liking a finish or a block, for some reason holding it up to a mirror seems to give you a different perspective of it. I read an interior decorating tip once that suggested that standing in a corner with your back to a room and holding a hand mirror will give you insights into what’s working home dec-wise in the same way, so it’s a genuine thing, really!

My BLOGGING TIP is to use your best photo first so that it shows in a blog reader. Instead of just marking as read and moving on your audience will be lured in to read the post, maybe even click through for a comment. (Also, claim your blog on Bloglovin. You’ll get all your stats that way. They’re very detailed.)

Thanks so much to our hosts and organisers, Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl, Beth at Cooking Up Quilts and Leanne at She Can Quilt, for all their time and effort. Please visit my fellow hoppers from Better Bloggers Hive for today

Sue of Sevenoaks Street Quilts (me)
Jen of Dizzy Quilter
Tara of Quiltersstash
Paige of Quilted Blooms

Y’all come back now!

My Upcycled and Recycled Sewing Space

Welcome to my sewing space where every piece of furniture has been salvaged from somewhere and then painted to within an inch of its life. While the rest of the house is decorated in whites and off whites with hints of grey and dark navy, in this room my love of colour and pattern has been let off its leash. It’s a small room with a lot in it.

As you can see, in the far corner is my sewing machine, the Brother Dream Creator – I’m sending big love thoughts at it as I write this. It sits on a small dining table I bought second hand. I bought the chair for $5 from an op-shop and painted it several colours before settling on lime green… for now.

The trolley thing next to it is a cheap thing. The plastic boxes were transparent so I painted them with craft paint. I keep things like coloured pencils in there; some of the boxes are empty. It makes a great place to sit the fan on in summer.

The cane chair was bought second hand. I didn’t paint it but I’m thinking about it ;-).

The blanket box has been with me for a long time. An ex-work friend gave it to me. The top is made out of chipboard, so I covered it in paper and painted and decorated it. It has lasted remarkably well. It houses things like cushion covers and tablecloths.

My sister is a lino-cut print artist in her spare time (@jennifernoone) and she sent me this print as a birthday present a few years ago. I have a few of her other prints but, being red, this one seems to go really well in here. You’ve probably noticed I have room for a few mini quilts on the walls as well.

This is my cutting, basting, general craft activities table. It is made from an open Japanese style bedhead someone had on their verge for one of those shire pickups. I brought it home, nailed a few MDF panels to it, added some legs as best I could and painted big sunflowers on it in the style of the time. It’s 63” by 36”, so a very generous size. It barely fits in the room.

Underneath the table I have a small chest of drawers (another roadside find); some A3 paper boxes painted and decorated sitting on some planks on wheels like big skateboards; and my ironing table that I made from timber that was in the shed. The boxes hold sewing notions and yarn. The ironing table is on wheels (almost everything is in this room) and pulls out for quick jobs like seam pressing. If I take some of the furniture out of the room I can have it in an open space for pressing yardage and quilt tops and backs.

This room may not be much if you’re looking for a studio but it works like a dream. What it doesn’t have is a design wall. Usually I use the spare bed or the floor, and if I want to see what a single block looks like I often attach it to the fridge with a magnet and stand back.

Thanks for visiting. I can’t wait to see your space!

One Lovely Blog Award

I was totally delighted when Sharon of Yellow Cat Designs nominated me for the ‘One Lovely Blog Award’. Have a look at Sharon’s blog and meet her beautiful cat, Bella.

The Rules:

• Thank the person who nominated you, and give a link to his/her blog.
• List the rules.
• Display the image of the award on your post.
• List seven facts about yourself.
• Nominate (up to) 15 bloggers for this award, and notify them.

1.    I have 109 roses in my garden, not all are different varieties. A lot are David Austin English roses and I definitely favour varying shades of pink. It would be hard to pick a favourite, but just on sheer numbers I would have to choose David Austin’s “Sharifa Asma”, it performs well and the fragrance is exceptional. Expect to see the odd rose turn up here from time to time.

2.    I am passionate about gardening and I have a sadly neglected garden blog, Yard Tales,  that I ran (note the past tense here, well, maybe) for two years. Garden blogging doesn’t yield anywhere near the same readership as a quilt blog. A popular non-professional (and non-edibles) garden blog will probably have a readership of 50. Without the community support we have, a garden blog relies on google searches for visits. After 2 years I have 5 followers and I know them all personally. I am extremely grateful for the strong on-line quilt community.

3.    Back in the late ‘80s when women’s body boarding was in its infancy my friend and I entered a body boarding contest to pick two people to be sent to Sydney to represent Western Australia. My friend entered because she wanted to go to Sydney, I entered because she wanted support. I came 5^th in the state, or that’s the spin one of my workmates puts on it. My friend was pretty keen and reasonably experienced; I was ill-equipped and had half-heartedly paddled around only a couple of times. To set the scene, the contest was held in a remote section of the beach with all the usual trappings (the marquee, the guy with the bullhorn, a loud hooter thing); it was winter and the surf was sloppy; and the lone spectator was my friend’s mother (unlike the above photo, taken last summer). I headed out into the water for my heat and lost one of my (secondhand and loose) flippers on the first wave. I looked for it for a while and giving up started heading back to the beach. One of the organisers started heading down to the water’s edge waving me to go back out. They needed me to stay in for the duration of the heat otherwise they wouldn’t have enough numbers to qualify as a contest, so I went back out and floundered around for another 20 minutes. There were 5 of us in the contest.

4.    The past is another land they say and the 80s were no exception. Back in the heyday of Reebok high-tops I was a full time gym and aerobics instructor. Nowadays I’m pretty much a slob in comparison.

5.    There’s always a goal attached to taking on a new interest and with the gym stuff it was entering a fitness figure body-building competition. When it was clear that stress injuries were going to finish my athletic career it was a case of now or never. The last couple of days in the lead-up to the contest were the most unhealthiest I have felt (beyond the hangovers of my youth and genuine illness). To get maximum muscle definition you have to dehydrate yourself and manipulate your diet, varying extremes of carbs and protein. I came somewhere in the middle of a pack of 13 this time.

6.    I love a good detective series on TV and I have only just discovered repeats of Poirot. Often the set designers feature Bauhaus style art which makes for a bonus!

7.    I am fascinated by snails, there’s no squishing them and moving on at my house. I love to watch them interact with each other after rain. I’m no David Attenborough but I have seen them mating and one laying its eggs in the sand. Did you know it takes 2 years for a snail to grow to maturity? And that their first original shell is added to as they grow? Also if their shells crack or partially fall off it will repair. Marvellous creatures.

Whew! Did you make it to the end?

My nominations for this award are, in alphabetical order

Anja at Anja Quilts

Fellow Perth quilter Carla at Granny Maud’s Girl

Fellow Miss-Bee Hivin mate and owner of the cutest dog in the world Heide at Heide’s Quilty Hugs

And Sharla at the tongue twisting  Thistle Thicket Studio

2016 New Quilt Bloggers Hop

Hello, and welcome to my corner of the Quilt Blogiverse. I’m Sue and I live in Perth,

Western Australia. I work full-time auditing surveys of new strata plans and I’m trained in Cartography (map making), so yes, I am a maths geek.

I love gardening, walking, swimming, moonlight, animals, time with friends, time alone, and birdsong. And sewing.  I also knit and fancy myself as a bit of a diy-er. I’m never happy unless I have a project to think about and I just love planning. I am the queen of the to-do list. My favourite TV shows are murder mysteries, my favourite movie (currently, they change frequently) is Rango and my favourite books are Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and A Painted House by John Grisham.

I think I started quilting because I have always had a love for fabric and, basically, I needed something to make with it. The quilts hanging in the LQS were beautiful and learning new skills appealed as well. My first couple of quilts were applique projects I found in quilt magazines and they went together simply enough to make me believe that I could conquer this skill mountain (the naïve confidence of the beginner!). I’ve learnt my quilting skills through books, magazines, videos and now on-line classes. I love on-line quilting classes for the ability to learn from the quilting experts we would normally never see here in Australia.

I’ve been quilting for around 15 years but there was a span of a few years where I didn’t  actually sew any quilts but worked on home dec projects and did a bit of garment sewing. During this time I kept my hand in by buying fabric (buying fabric is part of quilting don’t you think?) and sorting it into piles for future projects. None of them ever saw the light of day and by the time I was ready to get back into it I had an overwhelming fabric stash. While I was having a break, the modern quilt movement was born and I found the quilts attracted me a lot more than traditional ones and large-scale blocks and negative space were appealing for my limited sewing time.

I started quilt blogging because I wanted to be part of the on-line quilting community and (I don’t want to start an argument here) blogs appeal to me more than Instagram. My first post was an entry into the 2015 Pantone Color of the Year challenge run by Adrienne at On the Windy Side and Anne from Play Crafts. My goal is to one day publish unique and original quilt patterns that go viral in the quilting community (never set small goals ;-) ) but until then it remains a place where I can show and tell and be part of it all.

My favourite quilt is definitely this up-sized version of Lyn from Lily’s Quilts Double Fat Jack tutorial. It has everything I look for – gorgeous fabric, simple large block(s) that are fast to put together and it turned out – hooray!

My BLOGGING TIP is that you should follow your own blog, that way if there are any problems with your feed you won’t be relying on your readers to come looking for you months later and let you know.

My QUILTING (and second blogging) TIP is compare apples with apples. There are a lot of blogs out there with masses of followers showing beautifully made quilts with a well-developed individual style. You’re wondering how you’re ever going to get to that same place. My exercise for you is to go to your favourite blogs and look for an archive in the sidebar. If they have one showing you can then find their first post. Go to it and read it. Look! They started out in just the same place as you are now. Feel better? Great, my job is done. (I've done this myself, I only found one that this didn’t work for – if you go there you’ll know who I mean. If you press me for initials I’ll tell you.)

Quilt-alongs, bees, swaps, fabric and colour challenges, link-ups, round robins, real-time sew alongs on instagram  -   my QUESTIONS for you are what sort of on-line quilt challenges do you like to participate in? and what would you like to see or see more of?

It’s hard to believe we’ve made it to the final week of the 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Hop and we are packing our bags to leave and returning to our normal lives. We have become as close as strangers thrown together into a Facebook group could be as we struggled to make sense of blogging tech issues. So long and keep in touch *sob*. I’d like to give a big thankyou to Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl, Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs and Stephanie at Late Night Quilter for running the whole shebang. It’s been a great experience and I’ve enjoyed it immensely!

Here’s to the future for all of us!