Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I must say I’m impressed with the laptop bag I made. When I was going through security at Perth and Melbourne airports, it made it really simple to take the laptop out. And on the flight from Melbourne to LA, I just slid the bag out with the laptop and the bits and pieces, put it into the seat pocket in front of me until I needed to use it, and it was all ready and waiting for me without having to deal with the heavy roll-on laptop case in the overhead locker.

So it’s ‘fit for purpose’, works exactly as I wanted it to, and will get quite a bit of use in the coming years, I expect!

My friend Bobbie forward me the link to this fun site! The Quilters of South Carolina created one-of-a kind bras for Breast Cancer awareness; the exhibition is touring South Carolina until October 2009. Details and all pictures (and clever names) of these fabulous bras are available from:
http://www.quiltersofsc.org/artfullbras/artfullbras.htm

Here are just a couple of these gorgeous creations copied from the website:

'Fall Festival'

'Look at them melons!'

'Boo-bies!'

Problem: My new laptop is a big one — 17″ I think — so my old laptop bag was too small and I had to get a new one. It’s like a mini-suitcase so is quite bulky and heavy. The old laptop bag had an inner sleeve which was very handy in aircraft — you just pulled out the sleeve and you were ready to go without having to pull down the whole laptop bag from the overhead compartment. Not so the new one. No sleeve. And pulling this mini-suitcase down from the overhead locker is not a viable option.

Solution: I created a quilted laptop bag using some really nice Celtic fabric I had! Problem solved — I can now grab this bag out of the larger carry-on bag, and have ready the power supply, mouse, and even space for a notebook and pen… all without disturbing others and without ending up with the big bag on my head!

I adapted a pattern for a Tote Bag I already had from Michelle Pearson at Raggedy Stitches. I made it smaller, and didn’t do all the fancy piecing, though I did quilt the fabric. It’s fully lined and I adapted the front (lined) pocket so that I had room for the power supply, an A4 notepad, and a shorter and narrower pocket for my mini-mouse and a pen or two.

Here’s the finished laptop bag — click on each thumbnail to get a larger picture:

One of the ladies on an email discussion list I’m one was chatting the other day about how her mother made fancy dress costumes for her and her sister when they were kids. Nothing unusual about that for those of my vintage. And then she said this:

She also made us matching bathing suits out of orange plaid seersucker. Her sewing machine was a weapon of mass humiliation.

I’ve never thought of a sewing machine like that, but I can see how for some people home-made clothes were more than an embarrassment. Orange plaid seersucker bathers? Wow.

An American quilter based with the US military in Alice Springs (Australia) decided to do something for the families left homeless and without possessions as a result of the devastating bushfires in Victoria.

So she put out an appeal to all her quilting friends for blocks, and it has spread far and wide (see http://campfollowerbags.blogspot.com/2009/02/bushfire-quilt-project.html).

Her suggestion was for 12.5 inch maverick or wonky star blocks, and someone else put up a tutorial on how to create a wonky star. She has a team of quilters who will put the blocks together in a ‘quilt-a-thon’, but she must receive them by the end of March 2009 as she’s due to return to the US soon.

I did two blocks, and will post them on Monday. Here are the photos:

Wonky Star 1: Peppers

Wonky Star 2: Chillis

It’s finished!

Well, it’s been finished since mid-January for a few weeks, but the day I was due to collect it from Judy (the quilter) was the day we had a bushfire come close to town and Judy was exhausted from helping feed the firefighters and we were packing up essentials in case we had to evacuate.

Once I got it back from Judy, I had to make and add the binding, and hand stitch it down. Not something you want to do in hot weather! I finished that a couple of weeks back, but until today, I hadn’t done the final clean up of loose threads, fluff etc. nor put it on the bed and taken photos of it. But today was the day!

Judy did a fabulous job of the quilting — she used a variegated thread on the top and black in the bobbin (my choice) and she lined the back up really well so it’s square with the border. This allows me to flip the quilt over and display the back if I feel like coffee colours for a change.

Here are some pics of the finished quilt.

Log cabin quilt on bed

Judy's great quilting (front)

Back of quilt (disappearing 9-patch)

Back of quilt showing quilting

See also:

• Log Cabin Quilt: 1
• Log Cabin Quilt: 2
• Log Cabin Quilt: 3 (mini quilts—side project)
• Log Cabin Quilt: 4 (sewing the blocks)
• Log Cabin Quilt: 5 (putting the top together)
• Log Cabin Quilt: 6 (making the back)
• Log Cabin Quilt: 7 (the completed back)
• Log Cabin Quilt: 8 (finished — this post)

Ever wanted a fabric design or colour, but you just can’t find what you’re looking for in the fabric stores? (yes, I know… all those fabrics and not ONE matches what’s in your head!)

Then try creating your own design (or getting a copyright-free antique image from the internet), uploading the image to Spoonflower, and getting it printed on Moda cotton in just the size you want — fat quarters, half a yard, yardage, etc. Even a swatch so you can see what it looks like before you go ahead and by yards of it.

You can see a short (4 min) video on the process here: http://blog.spoonflower.com/FAQ-Index.html

The prices are a little more than you’d pay in a store, but you get EXACTLY what you want. They ship to international destinations too, and take orders by credit card or PayPal.

[Thanks to Suzanne who alerted me to this cool site! First you could make your own books — now you can make your own fabric…]

With this ‘rush of creative blood‘, I’ve made some more fabric art works in the past few weeks – mostly over the Christmas/New Year break. Here they are (ignore the slightly askew photos — I was trying to take them by holding the camera above them with me on the side, so the perspective is a little out…):

Solid Rock - Uluru

Uluru (previously known as Ayers Rock) — one of Australia’s most icon landmarks. I wanted to get a sense of the Aboriginal connection with the rock so I used an Aboriginal print fabric for the earth. I added some footprints (emu? human?), and a blazing sun, and even though you probably can’t see it, I did some ‘thread painting’ to create some gullies in this massive rock.

Solid Rock - Uluru 2

Next, I did Uluru more in spring/winter, when the sky is a bit greyer and cloudier and the flowers have shot up after the rains. It rarely rains at Uluru, but when it does, the desert comes to life within hours.

Beach blanket

Another beach scene reminiscent of childhood holidays at Busselton.

Beach Blanket - close-up

Close-up of the beach scene, showing the seagulls and seagull tracks, as well as the stitching I used for the sea and the beach towel and the satin stitching on the edges.

Southwest coast bay

Between Busselton and Yallingup, there are a series of bays within the larger Geographe Bay. This reminds me of them.

Tequila Sunrise coaster

Then I wanted to try some American southwest imagery, so I created a long strip of sunset fabrics, added cacti, then cut them up into 6 coasters. I call this the Tequila Sunrise series! This is the front of one coaster…

Back of Tequila Sunrise coaster

And here’s the back… And following is the set of 6 Tequila Sunrise coasters.

Tequila Sunrise coasters

I had some little bits left over at the end of the strip, so I created some more ‘inchies’ from them. No cacti this time.

Tequila Sunrise

And the back of the inchies looks a bit like this…

Back of Tequila Sunrise

Oh, and somewhere in there I also created some Christmas coasters with bits and pieces of red, green and off white fabric.

Christmas coasters

And I have decided to set up an Etsy store to see if I can sell these little pieces of fabric art… Details to come…