How I create a design and the N pincushion...

Elegance. 

Some of us love a touch of elegance in design once in a while, and others would prefer it all the time.

This week my elegant pincushion uses a gentle palette of grey and mustard in the low volume feature fabric, and as is my custom I chose the threads accordingly.

The beautiful vintage lace is sewn either side of the N, overlapping the seams to hide them. 

This is my favourite pinnie so far and I may even stitch it again with a J...mmm.

Just out of interest, what is your favourite style of design? Vintage, shabby chic, 30's, civil war, country, brights, modern? I'd love to know!

The N pattern is free to download until December 6th here or here.

The patterns for J, K, L and M are also still free downloads until December 6th. Scroll through my blog (or check the popular posts in my blog sidebar) for those posts and their relevant links.

The A-E and F-I pattern sets are a $2 purchase here in my shop.

Many of the members in our Gentle Domesticity Facebook group share their pincushion stitch-a-long photos each week and I thought you may like to see how one member is using the alphabet letters in a different setting. Jeanette Inger has bordered each one so far and will sew them all together into a small quilt once the last letter is shared. Isn't that lovely!?

I've mentioned a couple of times recently that there will be changes afoot in Elefantz next year but I've not elaborated on that because there's still much prayer, planning and work to do...but I have also needed time to let all the ideas 'settle' in order to sift the over-exuberance away and focus in on the ideas which truly inspire me, the ones I am confident will be achievable and bring joy.

Next week I'll be able to tell you more but in the meantime if you're of a praying heart, would you mind holding me in prayer please?

Specifically prayers for clarity of purpose (God's purpose), creativity, wisdom, skill, peace and JOY.

((thank you))

Over the weekend Mr E will continue to dig up and remove the compacted road base from our front yard and I will be giving my sewing room a good clean up. It's not messy or anything, but a family of geckos live somewhere in there and each morning I find evidence of their toilet habits on the window sill, behind the two chests of drawers and under my cutting table behind the tubs of lace and other pretty things. 

My sewing/cutting table also needs a wash and tidy (amazing the amount of fluff and thread which hides under the cutting mat) and I'm going to pack up much of the 2018 design work and prepare an area for next year's supplies and sketches.

This vintage inspired framed stitchery is one of my new December patterns for the Stitchery Club and will be on display in my sewing room through 2019 as a reminder to put my heart into everything I make...

Can you tell that I've used real glass head pins and seed beads in the pincushion?

Little pops of reality in a design like this are beautiful...

Like with this week's N pincushion I kept the thread palette simple with only four colours and it was the small scrap of applique fabric I used for the flower/pincushion which directed those choices.

I found the frame at one of those cheap shops most towns have and paid just $4 for it. Actually that's where the idea for this stitchery started! 

I loved the weathered look of the frame and found some solid fabric in my stash which blended perfectly with it. Then I traced a rectangle on paper using the aperture of the frame, and from there I began to sketch ideas until this one came to life. 

Final step was the fabric choice for the applique and that's a very important step, you know, because the applique fabric dictates the colours I stitch with and in this framed design I needed everything to come together as though it were meant to be - the frame, the background fabric, the applique fabric, the buttons and the threads. 

You may be wondering why I chose pins and seed beads that don't blend with the colour palette of my design?

Because my rather pin-full pincushions, which are used every day in the sewing room, do not contain pin heads which are coordinated with the pincushion fabrics. They have pinheads of all colours because that's real life.

So the blue, green and red pins/beads represent real life. Simply.

Info about the Stitchery Club can be found here.

I'm always on the lookout for lovely or unusual frames and have a good supply stored away in my bedroom closet (seriously, storage barely exists in our new home). I often go through them when it's time for a new design to see if inspiration strikes. 

Perhaps you've just bought a pattern and are wondering how to display it, or what colours to stitch with? Why not shop for a frame first and see where that leads? Could be the start of something fun.

Now I know tomorrow is December 1st and that's the day I am supposed to share the final block and quilt finishing pattern for this year's BOM, but as its the weekend I'm going to hold it over to a blog post on Monday 3rd so I can do the year long project justice, okay?

This will also give you an extra two days to download the November block while it's still free.

If you haven't got it yet, run, don't walk, over here to my shop and download the pattern as a gift from me to you and get stitching or save to your computer for another day. 

If you're new here, you can see all eleven "A Year in the Garden" monthly patterns we've stitched so far here on the BOM page.

Righto, I'm off to water the plants at their roots. It's a scorcher outside again and I can see through the back glass sliding door that many in the garden are wilting from the extreme temperatures our town and state are experiencing. The weather bureau predicts this weather event will continue for at least another week before we in the tropics return to our everyday heat and get relief from the extreme scorch.

Please pray for all those towns and families in our state (Queensland) who are being evacuated due to the 140 fires currently blazing. You can read about it here. Unprecedented for late spring, and does not bode well with summer about to arrive. 

Wherever you are, may the good Lord's blessing and favour be upon you, keep you safe, and bring you peace.

hugs

This n that...

Winding down from last week's 'squeeze two years into five days' family time didn't happen as I'd hoped. Life just keeps rolling along, you know? Design work piles up, groceries need to be done, meals to be prepared, an unexpected termite issue in the front yard to be attended to, emails to answer and then one of the worst migraines all year on Monday.

My fault on the migraine though. By Sunday night I was so exhausted I could barely put one foot in front of the other so Mr E said don't worry, we'll go buy some dinner. I suggested this Thai place near where we used to live a couple of years back. It has the most delicious Chili and Basil Fried Rice ever and I had been dreaming about going back there for months. I'd just forgotten why we stopped going there.

Well Mr E said no, that's not a good idea, you always get a bad migraine after we eat their food. I reply (taste buds talking) that it may have been a coincidence. He warns me again, and again...and I  keep pushing. So off we go and the food was as delicious as ever. 

Shame about the subsequent migraine. That was one of the worst ever.

Lesson learned, listen to my husband and not my taste buds.

But let me backtrack to Saturday.

I had some gorgeous fabric to play with and in between sporadic bursts of housework I made this gorgeous churn dash block from the next Tilda range, Apple Butter, due in stores next January.

I am so blessed to receive pre-release fabrics to design with, it's definitely a designer perk and I don't take it for granted.

Being a stitchery designer with a monthly schedule that requires at least five new patterns every month I lose the opportunity to partake of much patchwork but I have to tell you I love the precision of piecing fabric and as I was making this block that desire to indulge more often came flooding back.

And something else happened, I was inspired to use my Apple Butter fat quarter bundle to make a quilt. And not just any quilt. It's vintage inspired applique and patchwork blocks and if all goes to plan I'll release it early next year as a Block of the Month.

But let's take a deep breath and not run away with ourselves, okay? Pacing myself  is not a strong character trait but I'm working on changing that so for now the sketches are drawn and Fiona at 2 Green Zebras (our Australian Tilda distributor) is sending me the background fabric for the applique  blocks so I have no choice but to wait. Or draw the quilt layout, something I find challenging.

In the meantime, back to the sewing room I went and put together a sweet door hanger using one of my new November patterns, Welcome Friends...

I love door hangers and always have a number of them displayed around my home on door handles or cupboard knobs, but when my daughter Anita was here last week I remembered just how much she loves them too (especially ones I've made and used) so into her suitcase went a special one and I'll be sending her some others in the future.

This of course meant that I needed more for our home so I began with the welcome design.

For those who are new to sewing, let me assure you that a nice gathered frill across the bottom isn't as difficult as it looks. In fact a number of years ago I made a tutorial to show how it can be done using leftover quilt binding so if you'd like to try this technique you'll find it here.

The frill on this door hanger is longer than the quilt binding one shown in my tutorial and I think it works well to balance the bold aqua applique on the stitchery.

I left an opening along the side for filling. 

I wish I'd remembered to add some dried lavender to the filling but I can do that with the next one. You don't need to over stuff a door hanger so just a bit of poly toy filling works well. 

This will hang near our front entrance as soon as Mr E attaches a lovely shelf to the wall. I bought it at a garage sale years ago for our 'one day' home and it has four hooks under the shelf for hanging keys, charms or a pretty door hanger. 

Should I have called it a shelf hanger, do you think??

I don't often design 'friend' patterns but focus mostly on home and family. Next year however I'll be writing a series of posts on friendships - nurturing them, investing wisely into them, and learning when to step away or draw closer. My introvert personality is such that I have just a handful of close friends and only one lives in my town, but I sense the Lord is going to teach me about making more friends in the months to come -  just a few more. Close by. 

I've started attending a small craft group on Tuesday mornings and am loving it. The girls are gorgeous, so friendly and kind, and as it's only a small group I'm not overwhelmed. My attendance has been sporadic during this season of looking for/buying/settling in to a new home but now that life has begun to find a nice rhythm again I can enjoy those morning more often.

I still had to add my favourite word. HOME. As I read this back to myself my hand went straight to my heart...yes, home holds my heart for always.

The pattern for this stitchery and the door hanger is in my November Stitchery Club issue but membership for this month closes on Friday 16th at midnight so if you'd like to know more you can read about it here and see the other designs everyone will receive.

Other things at home are the beautiful flowers I find in the garden, like this little stunner which bloomed by the front door and caught me quite by surprise. I'd almost ripped it out weeks earlier but was distracted with the back garden and the building of Mr E's noise/privacy screen.

And the purple-grey-pink in these flowers is simply breathtaking...

My hot pink Kalanchoe has decided to burst forth in a second flush of flowers just as I'd thought it was done for this season...

...and the first of our eight pineapple plants is fruiting!

On the table we're indulging in fresh mangoes every morning at breakfast, a perk of living in the tropics. We can buy buckets full of fresh mangoes on the side of the road for around $9, but some of the teachers at Mr E's school have mango trees and bring bags into the staff room for others to take home. Until March we shall be enjoying them daily...

Still eating a 90 - 95% plant based diet has definitely been good for us and I'm finding it much easier than planning meals with meat. With so much vegetable variety to choose from, and wonderful recipe books and bloggers who share their recipes freely, I am finding this style of life a delight.

Of course I'm still baking. How can I not?

As the postmistress Dorcas Lane (from Lark Rise to Candleford) would say, "It's my one weakness!"

Blossom and the girls have come down with a nasty head cold this week so tomorrow I will head over there and take some love, some baking, and more vitamin C.

Ghastly things those summer head colds. You just want to wallow in your favourite flannie pjs and wrap a snuggly quilt around your shoulders while you drink hot lemon and honey tea and watch Pride and Prejudice...but it's so darn hot this time of year so you just yearn for a winter cold and curse the summer one.

Bloss would appreciate your prayers.

And really, you must be quite ready to close your web browser about now. 

What a chat we've had! Thanks for listening, looking, leaving a comment, being my sounding board on life. I am very grateful that you visit me here and hope you know that.

((hugs))

Now to go trace Friday's alphabet letter and make a pincushion...I'm so behind.

Bless you heaps,

Well look here - the I pincushion after all!

We still have no actual home internet due to a big Telstra bungle but hubby showed me how to hotspot my phone to my laptop so I could at least give you the new Alphabet Pincushion - and it's only a day late.

Yes, I know most of you will say "Jenny, you needn't do that, we could wait." and that's because you're all wonderfully kind and caring - ((thank you)) - but I don't like 'collecting' projects and then having to share a few all at once (it's only a few days until the next of this year's BOM blocks is shared) so let's just rejoice that now you can download "I" and stitch it over the weekend after all. 

For this pinnie I've used a simple two colour fabric palette of grey and red, and then followed through with the embroidery in grey and red as well.

In the ditch between the border print and the embroidery block I've sewn a line of red backstitch to give a clear definition between the two seas of predominantly grey fabrics. Must admit I made that decision with the help of two lovely Tuesday sewing group friends.

(thank you Lynelle and Karyn!)

Download the free "I" pattern here or here before November 2nd.

Scroll through my blog posts for the links to F, G and H which will be free until November 2nd only.

The pattern set for A-E is here in my shop as a $2 purchase.

Mr E is out front working on our sound barrier garden wall this weekend and I've got loads of sewing to do so hopefully I'll be ahead by three pincushions come Monday, but at the moment I'm still adding finishing touches to J. 

Sneak peek at the back, which is very different to the front...

My middle daughter Anita and her own precious daughter, 4yo Aminah, will be arriving the week after next so my plan is to quickly get ahead with pincushions and the end of year Stitchery Club designs so I can enjoy her visit with no other commitments. 

Anita will be staying with Blossom while she's here and we're all very excited because it's been two years since we were together so I'm sure you can imagine how much we girls have to catch up on.

Now, if you haven't checked out the November Club patterns yet, here they are...

The November patterns will be emailed out to all members on the 17th so if you're not yet a member you still have time to join if you'd like to!

Visit the Club page here

Before I go here's one of my older tutorials you may like to work on for a Christmas gift.

I have collected doilies for years and when Blossom left home I inherited all her beautiful beads from a hobby she lost interest in...so I began to make beaded doily jug covers.

They are simple, useful and quite lovely...

Visit the tutorial here.

God bless you always and may your heart lighten each day as you seek His presence for He is the giver of true peace and the lover of your very precious soul.

hugs

The weekend...

We had a wonderful day celebrating Ross's birthday on Saturday. He, Blossom and the girls came by late in the morning and after cool drinks and the opening of presents we settled down to his favourite mother-in-law birthday meal - chicken pasta salad. Ross requests it every year and I have to tell you my heart swells with joy about that.

I had made a huge amount so they could take the leftovers home, as well as raspberry coconut slice and a banana cake with passionfruit icing. I don't think anyone leaves my kitchen with a hungry tummy because there's always plenty to go around and usually more to take home...

At first Cully May patiently waited for us to take her into the pool, but then she impatiently reminded us over and over again as it became obvious to her that lunch was drawing to a close. Gotta love a persistent 2yo! 

We ended the day with a good long swim followed by coffee and cake, then bade our fond farewells as the little girls yawned and our precious daughter and her beloved took them home.

Next morning Mr E and I headed out early to visit a few garage sales our council had organised. We'd gone to a few the previous morning but returned home with nothing so next morning we traveled further afield and came home with some lovely plants, a brand new electric hedge trimmer ($10!) and a book on growing cactus and succulents. 

Mr E trimmed the hedges later that afternoon and was very pleased his purchase did such a good job...

...and I am still deciding where to plant the dwarf bougainvillea and the cordyline negra.

Quite possibly they'll become part of the front garden.

I may not have mentioned this before but we live on a main road and though the back of the house is beautiful and peaceful, the front is very loud from traffic and it does hinder one's desire for a restful night's sleep as the main bedroom is right near the front door. 

So my beloved is working on a noise barrier, but instead of something ugly we shall be creating a rock garden on the road side of it, and put lily pily shrubs in pots on the bedroom window side. (we cannot plant on the bedroom side as there's a pump under the ground for removing excess water during the wet season)

It will have a slight V in the centre when complete but at the moment hubby has just begun painting all the wood so it may be another couple of weeks before we're ready to add rocks, soil and plants - all depends on how much time he has as this is a busy term at school.

We'll also close off the gaps in the front fence, but one thing at a time as we must save first - our purpose is not to create extra debt but to pay off the mortgage as quickly as we can and save for everything else we need.

My rescued lemon tree is thriving but a few unwanted visitors had to be removed the other day...

Fortunately welcome visitors took their place.

The cuttings I took a couple of weeks ago from the Elephant Bush (Jade) were ready to plant yesterday so I've got quite a few prepared and hopefully they'll all take root as Blossom would like some for her backyard as well. 

SEWING...

Well, I am behind which is no surprise after the house move and all that's gone on around the garden and unpacking and the settling in during the past month...but it was definitely time to take a breath and get back to work because we do have a mortgage after all.

The check print is from Bonnie & Camille whilst that vibrant floral is by Tilda.

I was looking for a few fabric duos to make more alphabet pincushions when the idea to use these two in a design for November took over my thought process so out came the sketch pad and by the following afternoon I had a design traced and stitching was underway!

Once the household chores were done this morning, and all emails had been answered, the coffee machine delivered me a steaming soy cappuccino and I was ready to let my stitching fingers get back to work. 

Of course I did make a mistake first up. I chose to watch the movie 'Florence Foster Jenkins' and as I'd not seen it before I hardly got any stitching done at all! 

It was obvious I need to pull out my Marple and Poirot and Jane Austen DVDs if I am going to get work done. Fortunately, tomorrow is a new day and I shall be staying home and hopefully catching up with work at last.

I can hear hubby calling me for an evening cuppa so I'd best say "Bye!" for tonight and finish my thoughts in the next blog post. 

What thoughts, you ask?

Plans for 2019...

Big hugs