Tuesday, October 11, 2011

School holidays

So the school holidays have finally started.  It has been a long, long term.


Last school holidays we bunked our two kids in the same room with bunk beds to free up the small bedroom as a sewing/office/overflow space.  This worked really well as far as the new room went, however the behavioural issues we started having with our son have plagued us all term long.  So the first weekend of the holidays was shifting the kids and the sewing room around again.  Something I was not looking forward to as over the course of the term I have become quite settled in my small space, and had succeeded in making quite a mess.  All of which would need to be moved.  Including the rather newly installed design wall.

But we did it.  Design wall and all.  Dylan has moved into the small bedroom:


 and Nadia and I share the larger bedroom.  She has kept the bunk bed, and we share shelves.



So far I have already had to tell her that I do not want my little ponies on my quilting shelves, but on the up side, she did sort out some of my fabric scraps into colours and started putting them away in their plastic bags - not sure if this counts as child labour - but she enjoyed being "a helper" and might do a bit more tomorrow.  Well, there are plenty of scraps for her to "help" with.

I have started my row for the row by row round robin - the theme this month is "traditional triangles" (please let me know if I have remembered this incorrectly).  So I've been pouring over books looking at different triangle patterns and trying to work out what they will look like as a 8" block set in a row of 5 blocks.  Most of the ones I liked would need more than one row to get the effect, or they were asymetrical/had a diagonal pattern and it bothered me that 5 blocks were uneven and made the pattern irregular across the row.  After browsing through the blocks on the EQ6 block library, I stumbled across a pattern I made a table runner out of, and quite enjoyed the construction of - so that was the winner. 

The standing on a chair photo shoot including optional feet.

As far as relating to the theme, well, it has triangles and is pieced - so as far as I'm concerned - that's traditional. 
The red pohutukawa flower print and the one with maori icons
were included with a varied assortment of other fabrics.  However
these two had not been used by any other row maker, so I decided
to see if I could make something that would bring these two together.

The fabrics included with the round robin were an interesting mix, so quite some time... and sorry Nadia but quite a mess was made deciding what colour scheme to go with.  Decision made I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting out all the pieces and adhering them to my design wall - not the normal flow of things as I usually start sewing things as I go, before they are all cut out.  This really goes against the grain, but after the unpicking required on my Baby Billboard quilt because I kept sewing it up, when really I should have cut things out and viewed them on the design wall, BEFORE sewing them together.  However, I shall get there, and after a few small changes, I'm happy with how the row is now progressing.


My Sew Happy Me stitch along is also progressing.  A little bit every few nights means that while I'm still a week behind - I shouldn't fall any further behind, and just quietly, I may even catch up!
Week Two
I had a bit of a weak moment after a Thousands of Bolts email arrived to say the Moda Bella solids were on special (NB this was several weeks ago), and when I went for a browse, these were the lovely colours that appeared on the first screen.  I never got to any of the other screens...


Now, I'm not a solids girls.  Give me prints anytime.  But these intrigue me, and I'm thinking along the lines of something of very traditional design, but where the colour placement is, well, lets just say not.  Sounds interesting doesn't it?

1 comment:

Linda in Calif. said...

Your sewing project is really coming along nicely. Very pretty. And as for the Moda fabrics. I love them. No wonder you never got off that page. I would want some of each solid. Oh and I'm not a solid kind of gal either. Well, I am solid - but not a solid fabric kind of gal. hehehe!