The Last Day of October

One of the books I have on order is a sampler book of japanese taupe blocks.  After a quick squiz of a friends, I was (a) inspired to order the book and (b) reminded of how I love the subtleness of these fabrics and my grand plans of yet another quilt.  It was also time to do my last row for the round robin.  Stars aligned and I found a great grouping of fabric to match the existing rows, and made me realise that actually I had quite a few of the japanese taupes fabrics, certainly enough to get started with the block of the month pattern I bought ages ago, anyway.

So the little stem I started to illustrate the bias stem tutorial (part of block one) got pulled out again, and after a bit of ferriting, ironing, messing around... I started to accumulate the components for the first block.

The stem with some new leaves and berries

The bluebird block... not sure if the bird fabric is quite right, but
we'll see how it goes...

The rest of the block components... still need to finish
the blanket stitch fusible applique, and join them together.

A lot of this quilt has been pieced from scraps so far - and I really mean scraps.  Strange little triangles, odd strips remaining from other projects... it's really fun remembering why you bought it in the first place, and what quilt it has been in already.  Of course, I will need to buy more fabric...

And this led me to pull out one of my other hairbrained schemes to use up scraps... an applique quilt using invisible machine applique and using a mix of scraps that fit into a completely different colour scheme.

A couple of blocks from My whimsical Quilt Garden pattern

I've decided that I am going to do one block from each pattern each month.  We shall see how longs this committment lasts!  After the experience I have gained from round robins this year, that is: deciding you are going to complete a small portion of a larger quilt with a monthly deadline; I have great confidence that I should at least get some of them done.

Now, back to the round robin row.  I have to be very discrete because this month I've been working on Ms Lottie's, so I can't give too much away.  If you've been keeping track of her blog too, you'll remember her original row:

And this months theme was birds and bees...

You'll just have to use your imagination!  There is not however
any nudity (although are the birds wearing clothes??)

And my great pride in being almost caught up with my stitch-along has returned to the plodding along stage - situation normal.  Week Four almost finished:

Just a few more letters, a star and a heart... very cute!

Are you any closer to finishing any projects?

Maybe I should call this blog "An ongoing list of projects and ideas that are started and never finished".

The Adventures of A Bali Pop Cushion

Ages ago I weakened and puchased a Bali Pop - sort of a batik version of a Jelly Roll.  Up until yesterday, it was still in it's packet.  It seemed a waste to open it up without a purpose.  I have however been planning a cushion out of it... and so it started.  The instructions called for 4" x 2 1/4" rectangles, so I figured I'd just resize it to fit the 2 1/2" strips - forgetting of course the Bali Pops are hand cut - which means the strips tend to wave up and down... not good if you want things to match up.  So I stuck with the instructions and trimmed my little rectangles down to even little-er rectangles.

Then it was on to placing, sewing (only two rectangles sewn the wrong way...), quilting...

and voila!

A bit of an action shot - some imagination still required!

Because it's going inside a cushion never to see the light
of day again, I used the opportunity to get rid of this insanely
ugly piece of fabric - but look what happened with the quilting...
again lucky it is going to disappear inside.  Very frustrating!

I also got my row by row round robin row (that's a lot of "row"s) finished and it is all safely tucked away in it's bag now.  The row on top was the starter, and the row below a different makers row.

Sorry it's a bit dark.

I've also put some borders on my Sew Happy Me stitchalong week 1, and had a play with some different placements for alternate blocks using my charm squares.

We've been having grotty holiday weather - so the kids have been in the sandpit while the rain has been holding off, but it doesn't last all that long.  Nadia spent about an hour organising and reorganising these unused blocks...

This is a really interesting setting, and has two of the small
squares together.

So that's been our my day - I still have some washing to fold... and tomorrow I think I'm gonna have to buy some cushion inners...

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?

Weekend progress

I have been being good and I have spent the bulk of my crafting time doing my blocks for the back of my log cabin stars quilt.  Honest!  But a bit of forward planning was required to ensure that I had my row finished for my guild's row by row round robin as I will be otherwise occupied next weekend.  More about that a bit later on... so I have finished my reuseable bag:

Inside my bag at the moment is a collection of fat quarters that I have put together to turn into a stack and slash type of quilt that I'm going to do next weekend as part of a workshop run by The Country Yard.  Should be good :)

I've had this jelly roll for ages and have finally decided to turn it into cushions
for the lounge.  The FQers were chosen to blend - to make a throw for the sofa.  Mostly Japanese
Taupes, they were destined for another quilt, but that's the way it goes isn't it.

This was the inspiration row for the round robin.  Would you believe it is made from just two fabrics?  The yellow, orange, pink, blue and purple are all a sort of blendy blendy fabric.  Just lovely.  And hasn't Sheryl done a good job?

This month our theme was "Home is where the heart is".  I had heaps of ideas, then yesterday when I went hunting for fabric found a pattern (that I've also had for ages, and was actually going to use those Japanese Taupes for it - so is that fate or what?) with the applique hearts/flower blocks and thought PERFECT.  The background of these blocks are log cabin - so that is the home part, then the central block has a heart behind the flower.  The alternating block is a "Chimneys and Cornerstones" block - which seems a good reference to the home also.  So good all round.  I think it looks lovely as well and woohoo, it is finished.  So all packaged back into it's bag and ready for our next meeting.

Back to the Log Cabin stars quilt next week.