Wordless Wednesday. (What we've been up to.) Words are okay in the title, right?

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file://localhost/Users/mkcleverly/Downloads/pinterest-08f1d.html

Grocery Bag Holder and a GIVEAWAY

Hello to all! Today we have a little show n' tell, a reminder, a question and finally, a giveaway.

Show 'n Tell

I've been getting into the low volume scraps again and used Jeni's tutorial at In Color Order to make a Grocery Bag Holder.

I made the larger size and that sucker can hold some bags, it's great.

Projects like these (which don't take a lot of wear and tear) are ideal opportunities to use up some batting scraps, so I pieced together a few offcuts.

Initially I was going to use a zigzag stitch to join the pieces (which I have done before), but went for using fusible interfacing instead. It was very quick and very easy. (I also find zigzag can give you a bit of a wavy finish, which isn't so great.)

I just squared up my batting offcuts after giving them a light press:

Then I butted the edges together and used some 3 inch wide strips of interfacing to join them together.

*Bonus - as well as using up batting offcuts, you can also use up interfacing offcuts.

I actually used two different types of cotton batting (because they fit the project better) but I wouldn't recommend this generally - I'd only piece the same types of batting offcuts together.

Once it was all ironed down I basted my quilt sandwich as normal, but I faced the fusible toward the quilt back so it wouldn't show through the lighter coloured patchwork.  Quilt as normal, no problemo.

Some pretty 3/4 inch twill tape to hang it up with

A Reminder

It's do or die time. Google Reader dies on 1 July, so all the doing is in your camp! Don't forget to continue your subscription either via email (see upper right) or through another feed aggregator such as Bloglovin' (see buttons right/below) or Feedly (put www.bonjourquilts.com in the add content box).

A Question

I'd like to try some Foundation Paper Piecing but don't know where to start. Do any of you have any good recommendations for learning this technique?

A Giveaway. Yay!

I've just turned in a project for the Australian quilting magazine Down Under Quilts. Thanks to them, I have a copy of the latest issue to give away. Open to everyone, everywhere, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll pull a name out of the hat at the end of the week.

And yes, if you leave me a Foundation Paper Piecing tip you will absolutely get a second entry.
If you let me know you've subscribed, you'll get a third (just leave each as a separate comment).
I reward helpfulness!

Hope you're all having a great week so far, if not - make it one!

Saturated colour and texty prints

I've been playing around with the little Japanese collection I picked up at the Stitches and Craft Show back in March.

Having cut the majority of the low volume triangles for my queen sized quilt, I had a pile of scraps staring at me. So instead of doing the sensible thing and finishing the quilt top, I decided to start some cushion covers. Of course.

I think the black and bone prints pair beautifully with saturated colour, especially red:

This one. Don't ask me what's going on here because it looks crazy but I still like it.

I think it would've looked very different with a solid instead of the blue floral. Might have to try that next time.

Hope you all have a great week!

This and that.

It's the middle of a long weekend* here and the plague has come to our house. Why is it always on long weekends? We have all succumbed, one by one, except for the baby - although there's always tomorrow.

Before we all caught bugs and started throwing up everywhere, I was having a lot of fun.

We spent another weekend in Noosa where I was lucky enough to visit the Noosa Food and Wine Festival with a friend (while our hubbies took the kids to the beach, what dolls).

Lots of lovely wines to buy, not to mention tasty tidbits:

There was a huge samples tent where you could wander around and try all sorts of delicious Australian fare, from hand-milked trout caviar (yes, I had to ask her how they hand-milked them) to quail legs to oysters on the shell.

I discovered something new: spreadable chorizo. It's like the sausage, but in a tube instead of its casing, so you can spread it on panini or pizza or straight onto your tongue. Mmmm.

Also wonderful - the cheese.

These huge rounds were placed on tables and you could dig out your own sample. Sooo good.

Speaking of wine, I have a nice collection of French wine corks from our last three years. I won't tell you how many I have lest you think less of me, but let's just say there's a few.

I wasn't sure what to do with them until I found a large picture frame with its glass broken - so now I'm going to glue them in and make myself a large cork board. Once I find the glue gun.

I've also done a little stash building. I used my Pink Chalk voucher (won in the Handmade with Love Tutorial Contest) and also took advantage of the Sew, Mama, Sew closing down sale to purchase some pretties:

I have a great range of low volume fabrics now and after much aheming have decided on a design. It involves triangles:

I'll be sure to let you know how it works out!

* It's the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Her Maj is 87 years old - what a machine!

Bonjour Quilts

Today it's all about the admin.

Firstly: I changed my name to www.bonjourquilts.com. Well, my URL. You know what I mean.

I've been meaning to change for a while and the demise of Google Reader was the push I needed. So please do update any links that you need to.

Secondly: no more Google Reader come 1st of July. If you're an aggregating type you'll need to find yourself a new platform.

Replacement options are out there - most folks in the crafty sphere are changing to Bloglovin' or Feedly. If you are with Bloglovin' and want to continue following me, click below:

If you're with Feedly, just add www.bonjourquilts.com to your feed.

It's been a bit boring around here, just a whole lot of this since our shipping container arrived from France a few weeks ago:

At least someone enjoys unpacking boxes:

The rest of us, not so much. So I've given myself a very nice incentive to get it done:

This is my NEW MACHINE!! *hyperventilates, pokes self in eye with seam ripper*

I've jumped ship from Bernette to Janome; I hope she lives up to my high expectations. I'll be sure to let you know once I get her out of the box.

A few lovely commenters on my Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show post reminded me that I didn't show you my purchases, so let me correct that.

For some reason Marg and I found ourselves very drawn to the Japanese themed booths - I picked up these various cuts with the idea of making some new lounge room cushion covers.

Happy colours! 

I am also pulling bits and pieces together to make a low value quilt of some sort - these will go towards that collection. (For the non-quilters, by low value I mean low colour value, not that I'm making a cheap and nasty blanket.)

Continuing on with fabric news - I've just ordered some vinyl from the US to re-cover our dining room chairs (see tartan in first photo). Cats, children and fabric-upholstered seating don't play well together.

I found some pictures from last year and realised I hadn't shown you the Christmas gift I made for a lovely French friend who was very good to our family while we were there. She really loved this quilt:



And this one:



So I combined the fabrics from the first with the design of the later, et voilà:

The backing is a print from Dear Stella's Ikebana called Medallion in White (with a thin border of Tiles in Charcoal from the same line). Quilting was a simple grid down the centre of all the sashing lengths.

It's lap sized and my friend seemed quite happy with it.

Hopefully I'll have some more sewing, Janome sewing, to show you in the near future. Until then, have a great weekend!

There's no place like home

Hello from the sunny shores of Australia! Well, it would be sunny if it would stop raining, but that's what you get when you live in a sub-tropical climate.

I hope you've all been keeping well over the past few months (and sewing and eating and travelling). Thank goodness for blogs - I feel like I've been able to stay up to date with the world even though I haven't been participating.

We've come home to the lovely city of Brisbane, Australia. The climate took some adjusting to after a European winter, but we are loving the outdoor lifestyle again.

Brisbane River

Our house is in need of a little TLC after many years of tenants. If we think about what needs doing we get a little overwhelmed, so we're taking it one job at a time.

Weeds are the easy part.

I managed to break a bone in my foot, which has slowed me up a bit. (No funny story there  unfortunately, I just accidentally kicked the doorjamb.)

I caught up with Marg, in real life, and it was wonderful. It even stopped raining while we were together. Behold the power of blogging!

We have been delighted to have two members of our family returned to us, looking as young as the day we left them at Chez Grandparents before our voyage to France.

I read somewhere that a cat's memory only spans 18 months. I don't believe it though, as these two have picked up right where we left off (lots of snuggles and purrs). Not that you'd believe it from the photos.

Nothing says I love you like disdain.

Not impressed. This was what I got after calling his name at least 5 times.

Our household is currently running on the quarter of our belongings we were able to bring by air - the rest arrives by sea sometime this month.

Of course, I could fit the sewing machine in!

I've even managed a bit of sewing - I tried to make a cushion cover to enter in the 2013 Pantone Quilt Challenge: Emerald, over at Ali's blog.

Problem is, I don't really like how it turned out. Will have to try this pattern again on a different scale with different colours.

We haven't had much chance to travel since we've arrived, between working on the house, back to school (kids), back to work 2 days a week (for me) and the record-breaking amount of rain we've had this summer. Hopefully the sun will pop out again soon and we will get to take a day trip.

Until then, you'll just have to put up with sewing posts and a bit of Hong Kong.

Bless my husband, he spotted this one for me.

Yum Cha: no dumpling left unturned.

What?? They ate all the dumplings?

I can't wait to tell you all about it - Hong Kong was fantastic!

Until next time, keep safe and dry.
A bientôt!