"Around the World Blog Hop."

Hello,

Welcome to my turn in the "Around the World Blog Hop" I was invited to be part of this by Julie who blogs from a lovely blog in New Zealand called My Threadbear Life.

Julie from My Threadbare Life makes lovely tea towels like this.

 Have you read Julie's blog, its divine. The one thing I love about reading a blog from New Zealand is that their gardens are green all year long. Julie has a little cottage full of her home made goodies. Lots of them. I would love to visit and have a cup of tea in Julie's garden.

To be a part of this blog hop I have just 4 questions to answer. The first one being.

How does my creative process work.

I enjoy lots of different crafts, so each week I can be working on something different. It maybe some cross stitch or some sewing or whatever takes my fancy. I don't always follow the pattern, in fact I wonder why everyone does make a designers pattern exactly as it is in the instructions. My first port of call for supplies is the local op shops. I have been able to find some wonderful brand new in the packet crafty goodness. Recently I purchased several patterns and kits from a craft shop that had closed down in South Australia at the local Good Sammy's.

I like to include machine embroidery in some of my work. It is interesting watching a design stitch out to see how it has been made up and what the final picture will look like.

 I sometimes come to a complete standstill with a project. I may not be sure of a colour or if the fabrics look right together. If this happens I first try different layouts etc if this fails I will leave it overnight and come back to it the next day. I have found that lighting at night time can play havoc on colours, what I thought was good was certainly not good!

Why do I create what I do.

I love working with my hands, I could sit and stitch all day. Most of the things I make are for our home or gifts for family.
 This year we have been blessed with our first Grandchild so lots of sewing for Jacob. I recently made up two cloth books for him.

.It is lovely to walk into the different rooms of our home Kainga and see home made goodness in each room. I have been sewing or crafting for as long as I can remember. I was blessed to have a lovely teacher in Year 5 called Mrs Gibson who taught the girls embroidery while the boys played sport. At about this time I remember my girlfriends and I crocheting rugs at playtime and lunchtime. Over the years I have gone to different types of craft classes like Ceramics, Paper Tole, Crochet and Stretch Sewing as well as patchwork and sewing.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I like add my own personal touch to things I make it could be a special button or thread. I have a stash of items that belonged to my Nana and Aunt and using these in something I make adds to the history of the project. I prefer to hand quilt, though I don't hand quilt like everyone else. I do it like cross stitch one stitch at a time. So anyone who gets a hand quilted quilt from me is special.


What I am working on.

Believe it or not I don't really like having lots of projects on the go.

 My main project this year and last is my hexagon quilt.  The original pattern I found in a book called "Everything Flowers, Quilts from the Garden" by Jean and Valori Wells.This has grown from what was supposed to be a 18 by 22 inch hanging into something that will be more like a single bed size. I have based this loosely on our home and garden here at Kainga. I made the hexagons a little larger than in the book. I found a  hexagon shape on line and photocopied pages and pages of them and cut each out. I don't use the modern glue method of making hexagons. I much prefer hand stitching on the fabric.I made some bigger hexagons to go across the top of the quilt on the embroidery machine. At the bottom of the quilt I will be adding the longitude and latitude measurements of Kainga.

The other project I have started recently is the "Tis the Season" Christmas quilt.

 Once again I am doing it a little different. I won't be using Christmas fabric but instead I am using a charm pack from a blogging friend and have cut the charms in half which will be used in a Brickwork pattern with the stitcheries amongst them.

I have found over time that my style of patchwork that I enjoy hasn't changed. I love applique and do it all by hand this is a wall hanging I did back in May 1997.

This was a design by Australian designer Tita Leach.

The fun thing about blog hops is that you get to meet different blogger's. Just google the words "Around the World Blog Hop" and pages of blogs will come up. Now I would like you to meet some new blogger's. Please visit the blogs in my sidebar. Through these blogs I have learnt so much about gardening ,interesting books to read, recipes, fabric dyeing etc.

I will leave you with a photo of one of about 5 different Bobtail Goanna's that I found in different parts of the garden last week. This one was just outside one of our front windows.

Don't worry they are completely harmless and love eating snails so they are most welcome here at Kainga.

We have a public holiday here in Western Australia, the Queen's Birthday. Happy Birthday Elizabeth !

Happy Monday
Bev C