One step closer

Part of my reorganisation over Xmas was deciding how to proceed with different WIPs and what was required to finish them. 

My Sugar Club sampler was almost a finished top... it just needed a plain 3" border then ready for quilting.  I even had the fabric put aside and all ready to go.  When I picked up the quilt top... I realised what had been subconsciously holding me back... this quilt top literally weighed a ton already! 

I finished the piecing.... but decided these 100 inches square of awesomeness was going to be long arm quilted!

And over the weekend I got my quilt back from my friendly almost neighbourhood quilter Leeanne from Quilt Me Kiwi - and I am beyond happy.

We decided on an all over floral pattern...

I love how it softens the piecing...

Leeanne also supplied a wide backing fabric and batting.

Luckily I still have some of the plain contrast fabric I used in the quilt top to use as binding...

But I think I'll use it as a peeper flange and use some leftover florals as the main binding.

I will need to add this to next months list!

It's A Cross Tile Finish

Woohoo!  The Cross Tile quilt is all finished and the last thing to do is add a blog post before it can be forever ticked off my list.

Having a terribly lit, as well as small bedroom means you just can't get far enough away from the subject to fit it all into frame, but you'll get the idea.

These fabrics started life as a Designer Bundle of fat quarters from Stash Fabrics, curated by @misterdomestic.  There were a lot of prints that I never would have chosen (those deer heads!), but obviously the bundle intrigued me enough to buy it!  I love the challenge of finding a pattern to suit an eclectic mix of fabrics.  Adding new fabrics from my LQS The Country Yard and some from stash, I made a between size quilt with a 5x5 setting from 25 fat quarters.

The Cross Tile pattern is by Emily Dennis from Quilty Love.  I did a mix of walking foot, free motion with rulers, freehand free motion and big stitch hand quilting.

This is also the first quilt that I have hand stitched around the circumference to echo the binding.  I really like it!

I love the somewhat retro vibe of this quilt and the way the pattern encourages each different fabric to shine.

New month New goals

The last day of January saw me finally finishing that last pesky task... the one that I had sort of started, but then just put off, and put off... and you guessed it... put off!

I had the goal of joining the first three rows of my Patchwork City quilt which has been run as a QAL on IG by Joe from @manhandledthreads

There are three main things I am calling triggers that encourage me to procrastinate on these sorts of projects.

First up, I hate dealing with long lengths of yardage.  This project called for 4 yards of background, and the Essex Linen is wider than standard width (double the stress).  I find folding the long lengths, then trying to keep it straight on my cutting mat, all while trying to cut accurate silly little measurements... I feel like I need to be an octopus.  And I put those cuts off like crazy!

It doesn't help that my cutting surface butts up to the wall, so you don't know how many times I have got everything perfectly aligned to find that my ruler doesn't have enough space to measure the required cut.

The solution was ridiculously easy... make a generous cut divisible by the required cut... as generous as my 16.5" ruler will allow, then move the subcut into the middle of the mat and cut into smaller strips.

Here's one I prepared earlier!

The second trigger is cutting long lengths of sashing... even though its really not that bad (repeat after me... it's not that bad), and I haven't magically found a way of getting around this, but cutting all the lengths at one time does help progress.

The third trigger is actually sewing all those long lengths of sashing.  Long rows of patchwork are not my favourite thing and I will often choose to change the construction to be able to sew the blocks together in chunks.  Because of the nature of these bulky blocks, I chose not to do this so that I could always press towards the sashing.  So my solution is to sew each row with its length of sashing, and in the case of the top row it's length of border fabric, so that there are really only two seams where I am dealing with cumbersome length and bulk simultaneously.

All that to say, I finally have the top three rows all attached!

And don't they look pretty?  They go so nicely with the multicolor drawers that used to be in Nadias room.  And only two more rows to go!

And onto February goals... First up is Block 16.  I'm hoping for 5 blocks this month so getting this first block out of the way nice and early can only mean good things.

With the weather being too hot to allow much afternoon or even evening sewing... I have been fitting in odd little moments throughout the cooler mornings.  With this in mind I have made some of my February goals relatively simple, and have covered a range of projects and tasks, including choosing fabric from the stash... always a fun task!

I want to extend this Courthouse Stars deconstructed quilt by adding new borders

Roll on February!