Where has the time gone?

I can't believe that it is February.  It seems like only yesterday that it was November and I was enjoying a visit from my Dad and Mum who live in NZ.  Obviously life has been busy since then because it is the 3rd of February now.

Needless to say the shop has been busy, firstly with Christmas and then more recently with the Fabric Frolic. I spent many hours before the Frolic organising a website and mobile phone app.  The Frolic went well, and now there is just a little book work to complete, and we need to have the Grand Prize draw which is scheduled for tomorrow night. 

I sewed madly over Christmas making a lovely Mariner's compass quilt, and a sample quilt using the Twisted Hearts Flip la K templates.  These templates are great fun, as are the templates for making the Mariners Compass quilt.  I also finished a Butterfly cushion using a new template.  All these were samples for the shop, and while my "ordinary" sewing machine was powering through these projects my Pfaff Creative Sensation was stitching up a storm getting blocks for one of the two BOM's sewn.  There is still much to be done, but I'm over the "hump" of it.

One of the Machine Embroidery BOM Blocks

The pieced Butterfly Cushion

One of the Embroidery BOM blocks.

Owning a shop can take some of the pleasure out of sewing, since there is always something more urgent that the thing I might want to sew.  I have an ever increasing pile of dressmaking fabric begging to be made into garments, and absolutely no time to get it done! 

Over the past week I've been working on the lessons for the Digitizing Extravaganza I'm organising for April (just before the AQC) here in Melbourne.  I've still got nine more lessons to write, but I'm making great progress on it all.  I thought I'd give you a sneak look ....

This is a cutwork design to be embroidered onto a table cloth.

This is a great project, it uses a technique for making Insertion Lace, without actually using any lace at all, and will be used on a hostess towel and pillow case.

This design looks a little weird as a picture because it is a Thread Velvet design that is stitched onto a pair of slippers.

Over the next two weeks I will finish writing all the lessons, and get my test and final stitch out's sewn.  Hopefully I'll have some time to post the photos as I complete them.

This was a fun project.  I copied pages from vintage women's magazines and printed them onto  fabric.  Then I crazy pieced them to make sleeves for the tins that were used to collect entry forms in during the Fabric Frolic.

For now I'm about to become a domestic goddess and cook some biscuits before I get dinner.

A belated happy new year ...