Lessons from the Pinwheel

I've so enjoyed playing with pinwheels this week! The slow, precise cutting and sewing and ironing and sewing, without a time limit, feels so good. As a pinwheel newbie, I thought I'd share with you some of the things I picked up along the way.


1. Chain piecing is super fast and fun. I picked this method up from my lovely sewing buddy Helen from Corduroy Corner. Simply sew down both sides on the squares, making a chain like this one, then snip, and go down the last 2 sides.

2. Two 4.5" squares, turned into pinwheels (or any pattern made from the resulting 4 little squares) makes a 5" square finished. What!!? Tim has explained the maths to me (something about surface area and square inches) but it still blows my mind. I was expecting 6 or 7 inch pinwheels.

3. Always check bobbin thread before chain piecing your entire lot of pinwheels. Especially when it's the last seam! Oh the frustration of realising you haven't just finished 20 quilt blocks!

4. A new roller cutter blade is just the 'spoonful of sugar' needed for trimming all those pinwheels. Bliss!

5. And after all that cutting and pressing and piecing, you will still only have the smallest quilt top. Repeat above steps. And even then, consider throwing in a good dose of 5" squares.

6. I like my pinwheels turned to make diamonds. I like the smaller, more saturated prints the most. I like using prints from all the same line (This one is from the fat quarter pack of Seaside by Riley Blake that I won from Maureen's blog. Thank you Maureen!). I think it's my first time I've stuck to the one line! And it's meant I've enjoyed the time thinking about line (the other kind!) and white space and design. Though thinking about colour definitely is fun too!

A skirt in sleep time.

I promised Tim I would have a week off this week. I haven't really stopped since way before the market and my brain is feeling a little fried. So I'm limiting my online time to an hour at lunch time (no checking my phone the moment I wake up!), going to bed early, and spending more time outside. I can already start to feel the life coming back. :)

I made this skirt yesterday in rest time and wanted to show it to you before my hour is up!
A while ago I made this long strip of patchwork with skirts in mind. But those of you who know me will know I don't often work with pastels. And it soon got shelved while I moved on to richer colours.

But yesterday I felt like a project I could finish in rest time. I used the reversible skirt tutorial by Whimsy Couture and changed it a little to fit my new Map print by Sarah Jane.

I fussy cut a line of anchors (gosh I love these!) and added them as a border.

Then sewed the 2 sides together, unpicking it about 100 times due to silly mistakes, and finally, voila!

 

A reversible skirt, size 3 yrs. Quite sweet, I think!
It now awaits the next verdict: in the shop or gifted?

Sparkle

Field Study is making me happy. 

I have even been tempted to write a song. I have been stitching faster, staying up later.

 I had been so uninspired by the colours I had chosen for my Modern Medallion quilt. I was happy, but that was back in Autumn, where colours are supposed to be rich and broody. In Spring, they should sparkle.

As soon as my package arrived, I knew I should add some to my little pile of colours. I was so please to have purple that wasn't maroon, and aqua that wasn't grey.

 And they do sparkle, don't you think?

Ooh! And a winner! Congratulations #53, Jennet! I will email you shortly! Thank you so much to everyone who entered my giveaway. Every time I got a message, I thought, "Oh, I hope you win!"
Jodi. xx

A Birthday Giveaway and a Pinny Launch!

A year ago today, with great trepidation, I opened my Tickle & Hide Etsy shop! For someone who's always liked to flitter between creative interests, never committing to one, opening a shop was a bit like getting married! I felt like I had a big fat sign on my head saying, "Hello? Will you like me?" And I was so incredibly thankful for dear friends who brought around balloons and flowers and champaigne that day. Their gifts spoke right to me, "You are not silly! And you can do this!"

One year later, I'm still here. Still dreaming about quilts and pinnies in my sleep, still getting those exciting notifications that I've sold another favourite dress and thinking, "Oh, you love it too!" I've been encouraged in the true sense of the word - filled with courage, by new friends from across the sea, my best friend in my own home and Tully begging me to let him wear his rocket shorts to bed. :)

So I wanted to do something to celebrate, actually, a few things. Can I share them with you?

Firstly, I'm having a giveaway! These photos are of a little activity bag put together by me and old and new friends. It includes one of my signature drawstring quilts, these cuter than cute foam "paper" dolls (I've been having so much fun with these, can you tell?!)...

a Surprise Puzzle, sponsored by my good friends over at Schloss, makers of amazing wooden toys...

And this funky Russian couple from Monkeys in the Kitchen (the two on the right), Igor and Sasha! (Tully snatched Capt'n Jack the second he emerged from the bag and I didn't have the heart to tell him it was for a giveaway! ;))

This activity bag is perfect for taking to restaurants, church, old Aunt Maud's...all the places you wish you had something to engage them so that you could have long conversations, or child 'unfriendly' places where they need to sit still way too long.

To enter:

• Leave a comment under this post! Maybe tell me what you would add to it? 

• Followers of my blog or Facebook page get an extra entry. Leave a second comment to say so.

• For another entry, share this giveaway with your friends! Then come back and leave another comment to let me know.

• And for 2 extra entries, go say thank you to Schloss and Monkeys in the Kitchen by liking them on Facebook, then come back and tell me, one for each. 

Wow! 5 chances! International entries welcome.
Make sure I have a way of contacting you! Either through your google account or leaving your email address in your entry. Thanks! I'll draw the winner Tuesday 8:30pm, Sydney time.

Then, pop over to my Facebook Page for the launch of my new line of pinafores, "Paper Dolls". My friend Anneliese and I have been working tirelessly to create a collection of pinnies that are both art and functional. I'm sure you'll love Anneliese's Paper Doll illustrations! They evoke for me, memories of playing with paper dolls as a child, a fun feeling I still get, now having a little girl!
As an extra thank you, I'm offering 20% off everything in the shop for 24 hours till 8pm Sunday night Sydney time, with the code 'birthday20'. (There are things for boys there too!)

Ok! Thank you again dear friends! Enter away!
Jodi. xxx

Home again

And here I am on the other side! I've buried myself in fabric and card and coat hangers for the last two weeks, getting ready for market and my new pinny launch this weekend and I have just come up for air.

The market day was a beautiful, sunny winter day, the people were friendly and fun, and I didn't sell as much as I hoped. And in all the rush and chatter, you know I didn't take one photo of my stall, of the other beautiful handmade goods. Not one. 

And so today during naptime, in the quiet and sunshine, I took photos of my wares. And I felt quiet happy with all I'd made and I'm looking forward to sharing more here and in the shop. And I felt more ideas start to creep in again for new pinnies and quilts. Maybe even the sewing machine will be switched on again before the week is out.

Hexie Lady Tree Quilt

It's been a while since I made a quilt without a plan. And it's always fun to combine two unfinished projects that were started for the fun of it, rather than with an end in mind.
I drew this woman tree a little while ago while we were driving out through the middle of NSW. I love the time Tim and I get to think when we're on the road (at least, when the kids allow us to!) I left for holidays with all kinds of questions buzzing around in my head. Actually, there were three main ones: Would we have any more children, would we homeschool, what do I hope for Tickle & Hide. They're questions that have been around for a while, all unable to be answered without one going first.
I felt at the mercy of the seasons. How can you plan even what you're doing next year, or at Christmas, when you can't imagine life without a baby? We stayed with a family who's youngest was 6. I remember watching them getting their own breakfast and reading to themselves and thinking, "I have not even fathomed a life beyond their utter dependence."

And then I thought of the tree, also at the whim of the seasons, but we consider that her beauty, not her weakness. So I drew a pregnant woman tree, reflecting how we often think of a new mother's life changing forever, though not just once, but all the time. And I was encouraged when I looked at her, feeling it was ok for now to wait and just be in today.



So when, as part of Rachel's Handstitched Summer Camp, we were invited to make an appliqué hexie tree, I decided to try stitching my tree lady. I figured I would stretch it over a timber frame to hang in our house somewhere.

And then I remembered this hexie quilt top I'd been working on for some time. because I'd been adding to it here and there, without much pattern, it was a really funny shape and I'd lost any vision for it.
Then, the night before I was about to leave on a spiritual retreat with an amazing bunch of women, I took the plunge, laid the hexies on my cutting mat, and started to roll my rotary cutter through it.

After making all those pinnies, it was such a different, creative experience, cutting by sight and not measurement, not being sure how the finished quilt would look. I enjoyed the risk, knowing full well I might not even like the finished product.

On the retreat, I hand-quilted it, while listening to women speak, not only of the unsettled seasons of young kids and married life, but of sickness, depression, and other circumstances they wouldn't have chosen. They spoke of how creativity had played such an important roll in expressing and discovering who they were in those times. It was a good reminder that it's not just my children that keep my life out of my control, and that control isn't the goal.

And now the next risk is to give it away. I realised, making this quilt with someone in mind, how easy it has become to make things for sale. It was scary at first, but there was comfort knowing that someone would only buy it if they really loved it. But to give a quilt...What if they feel a bit overwhelmed, or they don't really like naked pregnant women on their quilts? and so it went as I stitched it all together. And I guess in the end all we really have is knowing how we would feel if we were made a quilt, and that little acts of kindness and thought make the seasons light and colourful.