Scrub Stitching 2025

It's hard to believe that this time last week I was busy sewing away at Scrub Stitching; and spending my time chatting to and enjoying the company of 31 other like minded ladies.

I arrived home late on Thursday night and spent yesterday washing and sorting. Mostly I put my 'sewing' suitcase aside and I thought that today as I unpack it, I would make sure I had photos etc, and write this blogpost at the same time.

But, before I get any further, I'd just like to say I had a FABULOUS time in Australia!!! 

Kiwikid Sue and I were at Baradine for retreat for four nights and spent 4 nights getting there and 4 nights leaving there. Sue is all up to date with her posts but I, of course, am not😔.

I didn't take many photos of the surroundings this time. I guess, as a fourth time attendee, some of the sights are now not quite as novel - I'm one of those old hands!

Scrub Stitching is at Camp Cypress in the Baradine Showgrounds in rural NSW. There are cabins, the large (work) room, kitchen and different amenities and all the sorts of buildings you find in a showground. For example we had the opportunity to book a massage - which was held in the wool sorting building, I understand! (The massage was wonderful!!)

 We didn't spend as much time outside this time as there had been recent rain meaning an abundance of veracious mossies!

The view from the ironing board - not bad —

You'll see in the top photo that we all received goodie bags - a treat we always look forward to.

And here are the contents.

Sharmayne made the lip balm, Brenda made the coconut ice and Jo made the grippy pads. We always look forward to the cup and this year's one was a real beauty.

We weren't allowed to open our paper bag (kit) until Jo arrived.....We each received a charm pack, a FQ, thread and needles. 

A bit puzzling until Jo explained and showed us the bag she had made Kawandi style.

And then she did a demo —

(Kawandi is an African-Indian method of 'quiltmaking' that involves stitching down layers of fabric; working from the outside towards the centre. All the fabric has turned under edges, differing to the Japanese Boro which tends to have the raw edges exposed. And there's obviously more to it than that too!)

By the end of the weekend Kate had completed hers, and was contemplating what to turn it into. I was pleased to see her version as I had been given the same charm pack.

In this photo she has nearly finished —

Anyway, what did I get up to? I took numerous projects and worked a little on them all except for one which didn't even make it out of my suitcase.

In retrospect I feel like I didn't achieve that much but I made sure I took pre-cut projects this year to help me get ahead.

First up, I pulled out my Bears Paw quilt. This has been on my to-do list for such a long time (I was shocked just now to see that I was working on it back in 2016!!!).

All that has needed doing has been the outer border...sounds easy huh? 

Making a start. Sewing the 1 inch squares on —

— and forming a paw —

— forming a strip —

— I made 21 out of the 33 needed for one  side!!!

Even though a lot of the sewing of these blocks is done in long strips and cross-cut to form small units, I decided I could only work on these for a limited period of time so switched projects.

Next up was a project that deserves a full post on its own.

And then I worked on a jellyroll quilt; again pre-cut and prepped —

I seemed to spend a reasonable sized chunk of time on it but still only made a couple of blocks.

One block doesn't look very impressive —

Nor do two!

But I know that as I make more blocks that it will make more sense (see photo of pattern)!! Each block is 22" so I only need 9 for a lap sized quilt.

A big thank you to Chooky for lending me her spare machine for the weekend.

There will be more sharing soon 😊

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Finishing bits and pieces

Some heavy rain over the weekend granted me my wish of a quiet, inside, sew-day. I had a few bits and pieces I really needed to finish up.

I had got to the binding stage of a wall hanging by The Birdhouse which I started and shared a couple of posts ago. 

I made a couple of corner triangles to insert a dowel for hanging, and then machine sewed the binding down.

Santa's Workshop by The Birdhouse

I know some people don't worry too much about quilting these little hangings but I like the finish that a little bit of quilting gives. The photo doesn't show it well but I used the walking foot to stitching in the ditch of the border seams and a couple of straight lines in the outside border.

Then I used the hopping foot to quilt around the outside of the stitchery.

Next on the agenda for the day was to complete a wee bag using this stitchery —

Some straight forward sewing and the bag was complete —

Alphabet Birds by Fig N Berry

Finally, I made the finishing touches to my Bear quilt. I shared copious amounts of photos of this in my last post. I machine sewed the binding on —

I also remembered to include a corner triangle (in the pink) to use as my label. The photo below also shows the scrappy backing. It's all brushed cotton, which I like to use for my young people quilts.

The background fabric I used is a light pink grunge - I'm really happy with how well it worked. 

I've seen other people share fun photos showing the threads they used. I'm pleased I have a 'comprehensive' collection of Aurifil - being able to match the threads well helps to hide the wonky stitches!!!

The quilt pattern is from Sew Fresh Quilts.

So that was a pretty good sew-day!

Since then, I have completed one more project. It's a small pouch for storing threads in —

Country Garden by Marg Low Designs.

It was nice to finally have three finishes for OPAM (the final pouch is a November finish). Although with all my galivanting about this month, I have only made 10 blocks for the 350 block project - and that includes the three stitcheries I've shown above! Swings and Roundabouts.

The flurry of wee finishes is just in time - they are samples to showcase patterns for The Country Yard. Today we are packing up the shop and going down to Auckland for Festival of Quilts. This is the first time this has been held for a couple of years so it will be nice to be there! I'm looking forward to being there and seeing everything :-)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Binding time

Once again I can't believe how quickly the days have gone by since my last post! It feels like not a lot has been happening in The Palace, BUT something has happened, and that something is some quilting!

I recently came across a linky party for Free Motion Mavericks and WOW! that is exactly how I feel about the quilting I have done on the Bears quilt for my great-niece. Very maverick-ic, if that is a word!

When I was piecing the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

"Quicker and all that is necessary on a child's quilt."

When I was basting the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

However once I sat down, the bears told me they needed proper faces —

The Bear Paw blocks told me they wanted a bit of fanciness and to look like claws —

And then I decided a feather fill would be perfect for this quilt.

I think I've broken every feather rule in the quilting world. I have small feathers, large feathers, long feathers, short feathers, wonky feathers, beautiful feathers, all side-by-side.

And to add insult to injury, I have small spirals, large spirals, spikey spirals, loopy spirals —

And because the border fabric is busy, I just did a diagonal checkerboard there  - I did try to measure to get it all even but didn't get it quite right; however it's barely visible and a wee lass won't be bothered by it!

Binding will happen over the next few days and then I will have a long awaited finish!

Thank you to Andree at Quilting and Learning -What a combo! for encouraging me to join the linky. If you want to see other Maverick Free Motion Quilting, or join in just go *here*.

And binding of a different type. Over the weekend we attended the wedding of one of ED's best friends. ED was in the bridal party, and YD and  I travelled down south (to the Waikato) together for it.

It was a great 36 hours away; the wedding was held at an Alpaca Farm which added an extra bit of fun and personality to the proceedings! 

We were told by one official-type person that we were allowed in with the Alpacas, but were quickly shooed out by another!

The bride's family and ours (well, me and my girls) spent a lot of time together when they were teenagers. The girls attended a lot of horse competitions so we travelled together, camped together and the girls rode together. Here are the girls with their 'other mummies' —

(YD in the red and ED on the right.) (The bride in her Dancing Dress!)

Such a fun night. I'm slowly catching up on my sleep (!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,