WIP Wednesday, Friday - tomato, tomatoe...

As we rock along with another holiday day, could be Wednesday, could be Thursday, but I'm pretty sure it's Friday today.

Progress in the sewing shed.

Avalon Quilt - ran out of backing fabric.   As the pattern says you need over 3 yards, it was unlikely I would have been able to squeeze by with 1 metre.

On to project number Two.

Made In Cherry quilt - currently being quilted.   You know, I probably started this top sometime about a year ago.

Following Leeann's inspiration, I have quilted the orange peel pattern around the squares using a khaki/cream variegated Gunnold thread - I love the secondary pattern you get from this design.

Unlike Leeann, I have begun quilting feathery and swirly designs in the background areas - a good chance to practice my feather quilting and work out how to use a feather to fill an area.

From the front

From the back

For the backing, I used a selection of metre and half metre pieces of these related floral fabrics from one of Robyn Pandolph's lines, then threw in a piece of a khaki heath fabric I had picked up as an oddment to fill a little gap.  I couldn't really get a photo that I was happy with.

Love this quilty texture

Bluebirds & berries...

Finally, it is all one piece!

Now I need to decide whether to add some extra borders to make it more of a bed size.  Why is it that I find it impossible to make quilts that are small??

Some of my favourite little snippets.

Mysteriously the box of scraps that I accumulated to create this masterpiece is just as full as when I started.

The fabric play I had earlier this week has resulted in the following blocks.  The Avalon Quilt repeats these four blocks... I went with donkey as the clear winner in the voting poll... and matched it with a black and white Spotlight print for the feature strips.

I'm really enjoying the process of cutting each block... and following a complicated set of simple steps to get it constructed.  I added a few extra grey prints to the mix and left out some of the full on florals... hopefully making an interesting as opposed to manic collection.  I just need to decide now whether to repeat the blocks with the same fabrics, or attempt to mix it up a bit.

Wishing all my friends a very Merry Xmas, and I look forward to catching up, whether in person or online, in the new year.

Week One - Wednesday WIP

 After a pretty promising start to the holidays our weather decided to pack a sad on Sunday, and we've had dreary rain ever since.  It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't also humid beyond belief - so hot, sticky rain + two kids =  lots of lego creations.  This is a jail... don't ask me what they watch on TV??

Today I used the get out of jail free card and we disappeared into town for the morning.  A visit to the library has restocked my reading material because shock/horror - the library is closed over the entire two week Xmas break!  Unheard of!

And then we had the icing sugar incident - lets just say Dylan, icing sugar, big mess.  Connect the dots.  I needed to clean that drawer out anyway.

On the crafting front, I have been making progress.  Woohoo!  Block Seven of Gail Pan's Bluebirds and Berries BOM is coming along nicely - I've got the applique done and just need to piece together the bits.  Block Eight is also slowly appearing from the scraps.  I love watching applique blocks appear:



Taking the lead from Charlotte I reassessed my sewing space - and decided that the only thing that really twisted my undies was the bookshelf in front of the design wall - it limited my access and just blocked up that wall.  The books have been reinstated in the house, and look at all the space I've gained!  Enough room to swing maybe two cats and a guinea pig!

After all that progress, I just felt the need to have a bit of a fabric play.  This quilt has always been on my list of One Days.

It's an Elizabeth Hartman pattern from this magazine:

 There are also some other projects in there that I gaze at longingly...

Except I have a bag phobia

Wouldn't this be great out of Xmas fabrics?? 

So out came my fat quarter bin, and I pulled this delicious selection of fabrics, now to decide on a background fabric - we have light grey solid, a darker slightly khaki sort of grey solid (I just want to call it donkey OK?), and then a white on white print.  Do you have a favourite?

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced, and Lyn at What a Hoot

Day One of the holidays

Yay, school is finally finished for the year.  All week long I have been awaiting Friday much like kids wait for Christmas... I could finally sleep in!  Well, not so much sleep in, but get up when I wanted to.  It was worth the wait.  I checked emails and blogs and had a leisurely cup of coffee in bed... it was GREAT!

The rest of the morning was spent chatting and stitching  with Charlotte (more chatting, not so much stitching), then I did shit loads of washing... the weather has been stunning.  On the Holiday Survival Scale - I managed a safe 7.  It can only get worse.  The solution may be to retreat to my sewing shed.  I'll keep you posted.

Introducing the L.U.C.Y Bag

Perfect for a medium sized girl having a birthday whose name happens to be Lucy.  All ready for her party next weekend.

Here we have Nadia graciously modelling the bag which is plenty big enough for trips to the beach... shops... overnight sleepovers etc.

This is about the only gracious thing Nadia has done this weekend... talk about grouchy!!

I used a cotton batting and straight line quilted the panels before sewing it all together... the straight line sewing (plus conferring with Nadia regarding design and colour placement) took longer than any other part of the construction.
 
Also on the agenda this week was getting a little something organised for my work secret santa gift exchange on Tuesday.  Noodlehead's zippered pouch tutorial click here seemed like a sensible match for the QAYG log cabin block I had prepared earlier...

As my zip was the exact same length as the pouch measurements, I wasn't able to experiment with the zip hanging out the side like the tutorial describes... will have to give this a go another time.  As an aside, I basically modified the instructions to create the Lucy bag above... great basic bag/pouch instructions.

Did anybody notice that I did a little link thing... all by myself... first time ever :-)  Aren't I getting good?

Hometown Wagon Wheels keep on turning...

My Denyse Schmidt Wagon Wheel quilt made from my Hometown layer cake is finally all in one piece.

I had some of the grey Heath crosshatch which I'd decided pretty early on to sash it with.  This has a soft white background... a bit different from the more buttery cream tones in the layer cake.  By choosing a light toned cream for the background pieces it all sits together nicely (or at least I hope it does - please don't tell me it doesn't, I don't want to know).

All together!

Cutting the circle from the pre-pieced nine patch left me with these shaped pieces left over.

 Too big to throw away - but it took me a while to work out what I wanted to do with them.

Cut triangles... this left the funny shaped sliver to go into the scrap bin.

And what better  use for a triangle than a chevron formation.  Perfect as the jumping point for the backing.

As the backing starts to come together, I am now thinking about my quilting options.

 * I could FMQ each segment with a different design.
 * I could straight line quilt over the entire surface.
 * I could handquilt echoing around the shapes.
 * I could handquilt large circular shapes similar to those in the fabric below randomly across the quilt surface.

So what would you do?

 On a different note - the Wonderfill thread I purchased had a KNOT in it... right in the middle. And not a tangle sort of knot - but a consciously tied knot.

 I know, the cheek of it.  Needless to say, it didn't go through the needle - although thankfully it didn't cause any more problems than having to stop, rethread and start again.  Have you ever come across this before?