.: Christmas swapping via hashtag :.

Lovely Ros coordinated the Sweet Pouch Swap (#sweetpouchswap) once again this year, and this time with a Christmas theme.  This was a direct swap, with each partner swapping with the other.  I was partnered with Nic, who said that she loved (amongst others) Tula Pink, Anna Maria Horner and text prints.  Here's what I came up with. 

I followed Anna Noodlehead's Open Wide Pouch tutorial for the zipper (but not for any pouch measurements), which results in a very handy open-wide pouch - surprise! 

And here are the goodies I popped in, for the "sweet" part of the Sweet Pouch Swap.

I've received a very gorgeous pouch + goodies package from Nic, which I will share once I have also received my swap package from the #carecirclechristmasswap - oh, what an awesome segue!

Our Care Circle of doGoodStitches decided to do a little Christmas swap this year.   This time it was anonymous, meaning the person you make for doesn't know you are making for them, and a different person is making for you.   My partner-to-make-for was Merran, and after a little stalking, I went with Ayumi's envelope pattern from her Patchwork Please! book - I made a Christmas envelope and a Liberty envelope, and sewed them into a basic zip pouch.  

My love for Monica's Holiday Happy gnomas is showing no sign of ending.  How sweet does he look with Monica's Winterkist fabric for the envelope!

And I thought Merran would really like this Liberty combo for the other side, I so love that animal print, paired with the gorgeous floral. 

And I popped in a few extra goodies - Aurifil thread and chocolate treats.

I made the lining a Christmas/non-Christmas combo too - with Aneela Hoey's Cherry Christmas and Anna Maria Horner hearts. 

Both my swap packages have safely arrived now, with Nic and Merran.  I'll be back again soon to share what I've received in the swaps.   Enjoy your weekend - we've got out Brisbane MQG Christmas lunch tomorrow - there will be fat quarter swapping and lucky door prizes, as well as a lovely lunch and lots of chat, wahoo!  xoxo cat

.: swap goodies :.

Will this steamy, humid weather ever end?  I know it's February, I know it's summer, I know we live in Brisbane.  But come ON.  Enough already.

In happier, weather-irrelevant news, I'm here to share a couple of gorgeous swap packages I've received.

First up is this beautiful mini-quilt made for me by Rebecca in round 4 of the Down Under Doll Quilt swap (last year!  I posted about the mini I made here).

I really love this little mini - it has my favourite colour combo of pink and orange, and the flowers in the vase are so bright and happy.  The pattern is the Flower Pot from Stitched in Color-Rachel's Penny Sampler quilt. 

And here's a pic of the back, just to show you Rebecca's perfect quilting!

Just today, I picked up this package of gorgeous from the post office.  It's from Jennie of Clover and Violet, and was part of the Sweet Pouch Swap (I blogged about my swap package, made for Jennie, here).

Isn't it fabulous? - I love the sweet pouch, the low volumes are (I think) all from Sweetwater, and the little aqua accent goes perfectly with them.  All the sweet treats are just perfect.  The Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark is the most exciting - I got a little addicted to it when we were staying at the Fairmont in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco last month - there are three different Ghirardelli chocolate shops right on site ... 

Jennie has included a super-fancy recessed zipper.  So impressed, I have never quite managed to sew one.  

That little tube of handcream is inside my handbag already.

So, that's me caught up on my gorgeous swapping news.  Very happy.  Here's to a cooler weekend - maybe even a little rain, our crunchy grass would love that.  'til next time xoxo cat

.: my Sweet Pouch Swap for Jennie :.

Morning everyone, I'm popping in before the school run to share the pouch I made for Jennie in the latest round of the Sweet Pouch Swap, which has been coordinated by the gorgeous Ros.

I did a little stalking of Jennie's blog and instagram, and found she has three beautiful children, so I made a pouch with a little porthole for each of them - using the porthole how-to in Lu Summers' excellent Quilt Improv book.

It's only right this minute, in uploading the pics, that I've realised I forgot to make a little tab for the end of the zipper!  Oh good grief, look at that awful long end-y bit of the zipper dangling down!  I'm so sorry Jennie, I can't even believe I didn't notice that before ... life's been a little chaotic these last few weeks since getting home from the US and getting sorted for school and catching up on life ... but evenstill ... gah!

Are you loving all the treats, there are so many of our favourites! - Natural Confectionary Company lollies, Cadbury creme eggs, Marvellous Creations (my girls' favourites!), mini eggs and Furry Friends.  And I made a couple of quick trips to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for some little koala-y goodies for Jennie's children. 

I added the babushka doll tab, as I noticed Jennie had recently-ish made a gorgeous big churn dash quilt, using lots of babushka doll fabric ... oh the things you notice with a bit of blog stalking!

The gorgeous fabric on the back is from a little swap with the lovely Frances from Miss Matatabi.   And the lining fabrics are the fab PamKittyMorning and Lu Summers' Summersville (link to Lu's blog above).

The pouch + goodies are on their way to the USA - I was a little late in posting them, but they should hopefully arrive in the next week or so.  I love the Sweet Pouch Swap, it's a fun thing to be part of, I've met some really great sewing buddies through it, and it's really well coordinated by Ros and Alyce (they take it in turns). 

Hope you have a happy Wednesday!  'til next time, xoxo cat

.: the sweet pouches have landed :.

Remember the Sweet Pouch Swap sneak peek?  

Just in case you forgot - the Sweet Pouch Swap is a very fun thing to do, where you make a pouch for someone and fill it with sweet treats.  You can choose whether to swap with someone from your own country, or go big and make it international.

Round 1 was hosted by the gorgeous Ros of Sew Delicious - it was a blind swap - meaning you made something for someone, but then someone else made something for you  (this is what I made for Round 1, and this is the gorgeous pouch  + goodies I received from Tammy of Karamat in Texas!).

Round 2 is on now - so sweet pouch packages have been criss-crossing the globe - in fact I'm surprised there hasn't been a news item about the significant increase in sweet-smelling international packages.  Hmmmm.  Anyway.  The lovely Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts hosted this round - a direct swap - and paired me with the fabulous + fun Kara from Me and Elna.  Now that Kara has definitely received my sweet-n-salty package, here are pics. 

The pouch is made from Melody Miller, Denyse Schmidt and Anna Maria Horner fabrics - total favourites of mine too.  I figured Kara needed some koala ears and other little goodies in her life, so popped them in with the Cadbury chocs, lollies and the not-sweet-but-very-salty Vegemite.  Kara has promised a video of her trying Vegemite for the first time.  I told her to spread it on a piece of toast VERY thickly, with no butter ....  No I didn't.  Promise.  I said a little bit of butter and then a very thin smear of Vegemite.  Really. 

I so love this gorgeous face - it's Melody's beautiful grandmother.  The book pattern is 'Books for Baby'  in Ayumi Takahashi's 'Patchwork Please'.

And on the back -

And - all filled up and ready to post.

So - on with the excitement - I received Kara's package last Friday! - and then she received my package the very next day! (which I think was also her Friday, but it was already Saturday here ... such is the global nature of our pouch swapping).  And Kara's already written a blog post about it - click across to see a pic of Kara wearing koala ears!  

Look at what I got!! - the most perfect patchwork pouch, made from Jeni Baker's/In Color Order lined drawstring pouch pattern - which I LOVE.  And a really cute fat quarter of fabric I have never seen before.  And a LOT of chocolate - about half of which no longer exists as it's been eaten.  And .... Cincinnati Chili ... which is definitely not sweet to eat ... and I have promised Kara that I will take a video of me trying it for the first time.  If you are on instagram - take a look at #goldstarchili and #cincychili for some amazing chili pics.  I've already worked out all the different weight measurements (pounds/ounces to grams/kilograms), so just need to find a chili-cooking moment, and work out which of the five different recipes to cook ... and fire up a video ... I'm thinking slo-mo.

I really love the fabrics Kara chose for the patchwork - so many gorgeous prints and colours.  And the yellow measuring-tape twill-drawstring is perfection, I love it, and also the cross-word puzzle fabric on the bottom.  Notice how the Butterfinger wrapper up there is opened and empty ... I ate it before thinking to take a pic ... good willpower and self-discipline on show there.  

See the cute zig-zag detail stitching between the patchwork and the fab texty print?  Took me a little while to notice that as I was too busy looking at all the little patches.  Super-fancy and such a sweet little extra detail.  And see the cute little blue-flower fabric up there?  That's by the super-talented Karen of Blueberry Park. I was so happy that Kara included some of Karen's fabrics, she makes such gorgeous stuff. 

I have never even seen this pink and orange lining fabric before - really can't believe it, as pink and orange are a bit of a favourite colour-combo.  You can see the sweet zig-zag stitching in this pic too, isn't it perfection? 

So - that's Round 2 of the Sweet Pouch Swap done for us!  Thanks so much Alyce for coordinating this round, and thanks so much Kara for such a fun and happy swap experience ... though it's not over til the chili and Vegemite videos are live to the world .... stay tuned .... xoxo cat

.: this week's sewing :.

Just popping in to share a little of this week's sewing.

First up - an absolutely f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s retro sunnies paper-piecing pattern by the super-talented Kerry from verykerryberry - available through the current issue 14 of awesome e-zine, Fat Quarterly.  I love this pattern, it's so happy and fun - and the fabric-possibilities are pretty endless! 

The sunnies are made from (I think) Michael Miller fluro prints - a solid and a spot.  The lenses are Chicopee ladder dot, and the sweet hula girls are from a print I snapped up through an instagram de-stash sale (but I honestly can't remember who from!).

I will definitely be making more - I'd love to make a pair with birds flying across the lenses, like in the pair that Kerry made.  I'm hoping that the birds-in-flight print from Violet Craft's new Waterfront Park line will be the perfect print to use - just need to wait til my order arrives!

Next up - more paper piecing - this time a little origami boat by Rumi of Right Patterns on Etsy.  This was a super-quick little block to sew, and I loooove it so much.  The blue starbursts are Prints Charming and the newsprint is a Spotlight find - I think it looks like a little paper boat sailing along in the stars.  

This block would be so sweet sewn up from different text prints too.  This little boat will be sewn into a zip pouch pressie for a friend from church who just welcomed her first grandchild.  

And today's sewing - one more word block for my younger daughter's quilt.  Both girls have given me a list of words they'd like in their quilts.  One by one, I'm ticking them off.  

The letters are - as always - based on the patterns in Tonya Ricucci's awesome book 'Word Play Quilts'. 

{{do you spy the fish and the turtle?}}

{{more fish, a dog-with-a-bucket-on-his-head, and a glimpse of a starry horse}}

 I am d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-e-d to finish both quilts in time for Christmas.  There's still about 3 words each to sew up, and they've both asked for more wonky stars and churn dashes.  They didn't actually ask for churn dashes - but I've made them one each already and they liked it, and asked for "more of that one".

In other news - I finished my Sweet Pouch Swap for Kara and posted it yesterday.  After all the sneak peeks here and on instagram, we agreed no more til the swaps have been received!! Kara posted hers the day before me, so hopefully we will each receive them at the same time!! Oh.  The.  Excitement.  

And in non-sewing news - we are getting the inside of the house painted in a couple of weeks, so have been busy boxing things up, taking pictures off the wall and generally getting things organised and ready for two weeks of chaos.  It will be so worth it - all white, and we're getting wallpaper in the front hallway, and the girls have each chosen a feature colour for their rooms.

Hope your week has been a good one.  xoxo cat 

.: sweet pouch swapping - making a start :.

I mentioned in our last post, that I'd joined in the second round of the Sweet Pouch Swap and been partnered with Kara.

When I saw Kara's 'fabric loves' list, it really didn't take me long to know what I was going to make.

Kara's fabric-loves are Melody Miller, Denyse Schmidt and Anna Maria Horner - and she looooves zakka.  We are a total match made in fabric-heaven, thank you Alyce!  

From reading Kara's blog and looking through her instagram photos, it's really clear that Kara loves to read, and she loves her Mum!  So I thought that Ayumi's gorgeous books-for-baby pattern from 'Patchwork Please!' would be perfect - and that the front cover had to be Melody Miller's beautiful Ruby Star Polka Dot fabric line, featuring her beautiful grandmother (and by the way, Polka Dot is to be the *last* of Melody's Ruby Star lines! - I can't wait to see what is next for her, her designs are just perfection).

For the back, I used a mix of Denyse Schmidt and Anna Maria Horner prints, to frame a 'K' from an Infinity alphabet print. 

And here they are, front and back together.

Love them, love them, love them.  The fabrics play really well together, and I just really love that gorgeous face looking out from the book.  Kara and I had agreed via email that we were happy to see sneak peeks of each other's pouches along the way - rather than sharing NO sneak peeks and waiting for the other person to get their sweet pouch in the mail.  I LOVE surprises, but I am actually really bad at them.  So - Kara's seen some pics on instagram already, and loves what's happening too - yahoooo!!  Just quietly, the fabulous Melody Miller saw the book too and said "a million likes" on instagram - I was so so excited by that and had to have a quiet sit with a cup of tea ... and I may have shared the news with Ted (the dog ... since everyone else was at school or work). 

So that's my sewing news for today.  How has your day been?  xoxo cat

.: oh hey hi we're still here :.

Oh hello.  It's been a while. 

Lots has been happening - just the usual stuff, life rolling on.  We've been printing orders, sewing, studying, taking part in the World's Biggest Orchestra, celebrating birthdays, baking, reading, driving - just stuff.

We had a custom order request for Finn McTrickster in purple - he's so gorgeous that we thought we'd share.

He's so sweet isn't he.  We'll print more, once our next Essex linen order arrives from the lovely Alice from Fresh Modern Fabric. 

In the odd half hour of time I've found over the last few days, I've been cutting and ironing my little fabric packages to send to the AusModBee girls.  They look so sweet, don't they?

Everyone will receive a fat-quarter-and-a-bit of text-print on a neutral background, and about 20 inches square of coloured scraps.  I am asking everyone to sew one word block - any word.  It's kind of tricky to know how much fabric to send everyone, so I sewed up a test block - I figured a seven-letter word was a good choice as a test run. 

I am so looking forward to what everyone chooses - any word, any size, any pattern.  I use the awesome 'Word Play Quilts' by Tonya Ricucci - but I am happy for everyone to use whatever pattern they feel most comfortable with.  My plan at this stage is to put all my word blocks with my x+ blocks, to make one super-sized-quilt.  I think ... we'll see. 

And in news overnight, I signed up for round 2 of the Sweet Pouch Swap! - I loved being part of it last time, when it was coordinated by the gorgeous Ros of Sew Delicious.  For this round, it's being coordinated by the lovely Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts.  Alyce set a limit of 100 swappers - and registrations hit 100 within five hours!  My swap partner is the fabulous Kara of Me and Elna - which is so awesome - I first met Ros when she was my partner in the Secret Santa Swap that Kara coordinated.  So it feels like things are coming full circle, ready to start all over again, and I am so excited to be sewing up something for Kara.  

Hope your past couple of weeks have been great fun and not too cold.    xoxo cat

.: one more sweet pouch :.

Happy Easter weekend to you all! - how is your consumption of chocolate coming along?  Very steady here - the odd little egg or two with a cup of tea ... several times a day ... 

I'm popping in to share pics of one more sweet pouch for the gorgeous Ros' Sweet Pouch Swap.  The lovely lady this is headed to, indicated that she liked greens, pinks and owls. 

{{front}}

{{Pam Kitty Morning button card}}

{{back}}

And the all-important 'sweets' part of the 'Sweet Pouch Swap' - I've gone with my favourite Green & Black's milk chocolate and The Natural Confectionary Company Party Mix.  And since it's Easter tomorrow, I had to include a couple of Malteaster Bunnies - good grief, I've scoffed my fair share of them in the last month.  And as the 'local area' postcard, I chose one from Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which is a well-known koala / kangaroo / wombat / Australian-animals-a-thon attraction. 

.

{{ready to go}}

Happy Easter to you all, hope the Bunny finds you safe and sound.   xoxo cat