Progress on this and that... plus what happened to all those little bits??

I enjoy reading my own writing too much to have a wordless post... so I will bore you with all the little details of my minor accomplishments over the past few days.  I'm also linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for her Wednesday WIP thingee.  My entire blog is 99% work in progress - it would be brief if it was only finished projects (snort, snort).

Firstly, with the guild's Xmas lunch pending, the need to make a handmade gift for the santa exchange had been hovering over my head.  Over the weekend I played with a little grab bag of leftover fabrics from "my local" (the lovely ladies at The Country Yard) containing fabrics covered with quilting related words. 

Now I can't reveal all at this stage, however... a small, sneak peak.

I have also started piecing the sashing strips on a charm square quilt.  I'm starting to get the hang of these solid fabrics... and they are definately growing on me.

OK these are really just pieced straight, but don't they look
so much more interesting on an angle?

My Sew Happy Me stitch along is progressing nicely... still behind but who's counting??

And just incase you were wondering about the freezer paper templates I gave you a little tutorial on cutting a few posts ago... well they've blossomed into a wee block.

Freezer paper ironed onto the reverse of the chosen fabrics waiting
for the seam allowances to be glued down.

Little bird still needs a black bit on his eye, and whole thing
needs to be invisible machine stitched down.

After a bit of a vague email, those same lovely ladies from The Country Yard sent me a package containing my favourite thread for everything "Seralene" by Mettler in a mid grey.  I think it is meant to be used as a bobbin fill - but I use it for just about everything.  And also a little selection of Japanese Taupe fat quarters to add to my rapidly diminishing pile of scraps which will ultimately end up pieces in Gail Pan's Bluebirds and Berries BOM quilt.  Don't you love it when they wrap them up to look like presents?

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 Last Day of the Holidays

The last two weeks have actually gone kind of quick.  For a change the kids have semi-behaved, I've done some sewing... enjoyed time with friends... chilled out and relaxed... all the things you are supposed to do over the holidays but don't always get the chance to do.  Anyway...

I woke this morning to find two more projects attached to my design wall...

wonder how that happened??? (technically this is attached to the carpet... the
design wall ran out of room!)

This is the problem with buying new books and looking at peoples blogs... it just puts new ideas into your head and before you know it your brain explodes and you know what comes next - new projects!

This one started it's life as a charm pack from The Country Yard

and this was the original project which was a sample in the shop
and after a bit of measuring and figuring, was definitely do-able...

but then "A Few Scraps" gave a tutorial on doing a double disappearing
nine patch block, whereby I first discovered that the original project was in fact
a "disappearing nine patch" block... and has somehow now become a double.  I'm really
proud of the fact that the white on white is something from my stash... and I bought
a few metres of some solids from Spotlight which have really come in handy for several
projects so far.

And you know the cover of one of those jelly roll books I was telling you about the other day... well, on the cover of one is a handbag quilt made from Layer Cakes (10" square packs), and when my mum went on her big trip to England, I asked her to buy some fabric that she liked, that even if it wasn't really english, would remind us of her trip.

This is one of the layer cake packs she bought back.  If you haven't ogled
any French General fabric yet - you need to see it in person.  Hard to describe, it
has a very elegant depth to the designs...

Couldn't help it - couldn't stop - just had to do one... I know I'm an addict and they should set up help groups...

Although I like the handbag quilt too, I'm thinking of turning
them into vases - and putting a few modern flowers into the top. Can you
see it??

And just to show that I have been trying to be good, some nice progress on my Xmas stitch along blocks, with week 3 finished:

and week four is almost done too!  I'm sure I'll be on Santa's good list this year - perhaps he'll bring me fabric... or at least the postman will when my order from fabricworm.com arrives... then again - maybe I'll be on Santa's naughty list when the visa bill comes??

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?

Starting to feel a bit better about this one

So, I wasn't overly impressed with how my Baby Billboard Quilt was progressing.  Ms Lottie asking whether it was the front or back didn't help (best friends can tell you anything), but reaffirmed what I already felt, it just wasn't quite right.

A bit of tweaking later... success.  Well, I hope you can now tell that this is the front?

I pieced the row along the bottom with the alternating bright squares, and fused the strips.  I wanted something a little bit funky, a little bit different, asymetrical, modern, but meaningful at the same time - I think I achieved it.

Now, if you want to see something quite funny, you must check out Ms Lottie's chicken flower appliques.  You'll find her at The Slightly Mad Chicken Quilt Lady.  Her latest posting had me reminiscing about my floral basket quilt (still in the WIP stage) which also had a bit of an identity crisis with basket blocks in the centre...

And little floral sprigs scattered around the border.  Funny how a flower with four leaves looks undeniably like a flower, but the same flower with two leaves all of a sudden looks like Piglet?  Now, even I agree that it looks like Piglet, he just needs some little eyes...

And finally Santa has had his coat stitched... slowly getting better at the french knots... so just his boots and surrounding stars to finish.  And the next one to start...

Stitch-along with Sew Happy Me

OK, so I'm a stitchery virgin no longer.  Not that I really know what I'm doing, and the stitching leaves a little bit to be desired (I won't blow the picture up any larger - it's one of those smaller, further away, eyes slightly squinted, the better sort of things) - but I can see what the attraction is, and now that we've installed better task lighting in our lounge, I can actually see at night to do things like this.  Maybe not hooked yet, but I'll continue with the stitch along patterns hmmm each week (or so) - reminder to self that I am already a week behind... but that's the great thing about doing things online, no mean teacher growling that you haven't completed your homework!

The instructions make a square sort of hanging bunting... there is probably a proper word for it, but it seems to be escaping me at the moment (OK, OK - I read the instructions... big words at the top say it is a BANNER).  I postponed the starting of the project because, well, I didn't really want to make a bunting thing banner.. and it sort of distracted the important bit, actually starting.  After mulling it over for a week or so, in my head I could see the stitching completed on a solid grey/stone that I have also used for the words on my Baby Billboard quilt, with a teal thread, and using some of the Figgy Pudding fat quarters that have been sitting in my drawer since that last Regional Day (thank you The country yard)... which was probably quite some time ago, and a pile of charm squares that were on special almost as long ago (courtesy of The Powerquilter).  The problem being that when I put them together in real life (as opposed to being in my head) - the colours didn't quite mesh together as well as I had expected.  Another reason for postponement.  Well, I just decided to go ahead with it in the end.  It is really only the cream background designs that don't "go" with the grey, I think it looks OK with most of the other ones... decision made... and I've done Santa in a dark khaki sort of colour, which I thought helped to blend it back to the Figgy Pudding fabrics.

The instructions for the bunting complete the stitching through the top layer and a layer of batting.  As I want to add quilted blocks, I didn't want to do that... and after discussing it with my Friday group, the consensus was that either I try using a hoop, or use some sort of stabiliser.  If anybody has any thoughts about this... I'd really like some expert input.  The hoop seems to be working well enough at this stage.  Now I'm not going to take a photo of the back - let's just say I'm sure my technique will improve over time and that the back will probably reflect this - fingers crossed - and is there a trick to getting french knots the same size??  Santa looks a bit squinty.

Courthouse Stars

Saturday was day two of The Country Yard's Courthouse Steps workshop.  It was now time to start on the courthouse steps blocks - which was interesting because they were really log cabin blocks, but with the colouring of courthouse steps with the dark logs on alternative sides, then the light logs on the opposing sides.  Anyway... great progress was made although it did put more strain on my brain requirements than the stars had... but got there in the end.

This was my pile of partially completed log cabins... all
joined up in a long chain.

These were the remaining logs required to add to the above
blocks.

This is the pieces for the second lot of blocks that are as yet unstarted.

And this was the little princess butterfly that greated me at the end
of my day.

You may have noticed the sew along button on my left hand side bar.  This is for a Xmas stitchery project with Sew Happy Me.  Thought I'd give it a whirl... after all, how bad could it be?