More hexies and another block finished.

 Another finish for 2014. Originally this was going to be a big quilt, a large wall hanging, but after sewing this many 1 inch hexagons and becoming very very bored with it, it's now more the size of a large table runner.   You will find this a recurring theme with me, I don't enjoy making big quilts especially one that is very repetitive. I have a very short attention span.

The fabric and pattern is very busy, so I decided on minimal quilting. I divided the quilt into four sectors and each area is quilted in a different colour thread. I used 50wt Aurifil thread in #1147  #2479  #5002 and #5005.

 For the binding I used a Kaffe fabric which I'm really happy with as it seems to blend into each of the different colours around the quilt.

The backing

I incorporated a couple of corner hanging sleeves into the back so I can hang it on the wall.

Quilt stats

1 inch hexies

Variety of fabrics from my stash including Kaffe, AMH, Amy Butler, Sketch and more.

Binding Kaffe Roman Glass

Another Circle Game block has been finished. 

I haven't pressed it properly yet, as somebody (cough cough) may have used a Frixxion pen when tracing some of the pieces. Frixxion marks  of course disappear when you iron them. Until this is sewn into the outer ring there is no way I'm pressing it with an iron.  It has been finger pressed in the mean time.

Catch up Wednesday

It's Wednesday again.  Something special happened today, my baby came back and it's working like new. No tension issues and it's been purring it's way through some quilting. YAY!!!!!

I quilted the hexagon chevrons this evening, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it. In the meantime I've been playing with waterlogue thanks to Liz at Broderie who put some beautiful photos on Instagram. I just had to jump in and get the app too. Here's a photo of my hexies as I was trying to decide how to quilt it.

As it's Wednesday it's also cocktail time. Last week I was away and forgot to make it beforehand, better late than never, I say!

Thea's pick was a Cucumber Cosmo.

Here's the ingredients, including the cucumber water in the bowl at the front.

Here's the result.

It looks like that because I could only find standard cranberry juice not white cranberry. I'm sure it tasted the same, just looked a bit, umm, dirty. It was good, and I will make it again if and when I can get my hands on some white cranberry juice.  A 4.5 out of 5 for this one.

I'm loving this weekly cocktail education. I very rarely drink these days, and I don't drink when I go out, I have to drive as there is no public transport around here. It's a nice way to be introduced to something that I possibly wouldn't order or try if I was out, but making them at home once a week has been a real hoot. It's nice to try just one, and I'm not really tempted to have more as it's mid week, and I don't want to be feeling the after effects the next day.

This week's cocktail - I have no idea what it's called as I deleted the email that had the info. However Shay face timed me and gave me the recipe, and I still forgot to ask her what it's called.

I didn't take a photo of the ingredients this week, but it involved a copious quantity of Kahlua, some ice, milk and chocolate syrup.  Instead of having it before dinner I deemed it perfect for dessert, and I finished it off pretty quickly. It was a little bit sweet for my taste, I'd probably reduce the chocolate syrup next time, and there will be a next time because it was very yummy. 4.5 out of 5 for this one too.

I think I need to invest in some different shaped glasses, the martini glasses are lovely but it's getting a bit boring using the same type of glass each week.

I'm off on vacay this weekend. I hope I will still have time to do a blog post or two while I'm away.  I might post some clues, so you can guess where I am. I will definitely be posting photos on Instagram.   My fur babies are going to be very happy, they won't be going to the kennels or cattery as they will be looked after by a wonderful friend who has offered to house and fur baby sit for me. I hope she knows what she's in for!!!!!

Best laid plans

Lots of sewing happening at Chez Sunshine until Tuesday when my machine started having issues with the tension.  After playing around, trying to fix it, with no positive results, it's now gone in to sewing machine hospital. It was well overdue for a service and it's going to take two weeks, sigh. So after finally having my mojo back after misplacing it for most of last year, I now have to put my sewing plans on the back burner. Fortunately I have a few hand stitching projects to work on in the meantime.

I've finished 10 of the 38 orange peel/petal blocks. Lucky, I really love making these and I can concentrate on making a few more over the next few weeks. I'm doing the needle turn appliqué method so they are not fast but it's satisfying making these.

9 of the 10 I've finished

The Starflowers top is finally finished, full photos to come later. I really need to think of a new name for it.   I've also made the backing, lucky me, that was the last thing I sewed before the sewing machine called in sick. I still have to get down on the floor and baste this baby, my favourite job, NOT.  I was thinking about sending it out to be quilted but I would really like to hand quilt it. I could get a start on it while my machine is in hospital, although I'm not sure how easy or pleasant hand quilting is going to be with temps in the 30's and high humidity, yuck.

I've also been working on the hexies, slowly, very slowly, I sewed two today!

 Up until the last couple of days, the weather has been really lovely and I've been walking a lot and taking Karma for a walk each day too.

 There's always something to see on our daily walks.

Stand up paddle boarders.

Not aiming for any gold medals (or even bronze or plastic)

You may have noticed by now that I'm a total slacker. I've done very little on the quilting front for the last couple of months. Unlike others who shall remain nameless, who are trying to be the equivalent of the teachers pet and get as many finishes as possible before the end of the year, I've preferred sitting in the naughty corner and playing up. It's been fun but not what you would call productive.
I kind of felt a teensy weensy bit guilty that I had lots of WIP's and hadn't really tried to finish any of them, and also the whole of the universe was making Christmas presents except for me. So last week, I got my A into G and made the First Aid bag for my dad. Saturday morning I went to the LQS and picked up some cord and ta dah, it's all finished.

First Aid Bag

I've also had another go at the "OMG, what on earth was she thinking quilt".  Remember this, hideous block.

I was determined to make it work so after a bit of a re-think and some help from the  goody two shoes "teacher's pet" (hint - starts with Sh and is a four letter word) who was very helpful, even though she's trying to win the award for  the most finishes in the universe for 2011, I came up with this.

This pile sat on my dining table for a very long time, was then stuffed placed gently and lovingly into a project bag when Julie my organising fairy came to stay.
I finally pulled them out and cut all the bits.
Last week I finally started sewing the bits together.

There are another 46 of these.

So far I've sewn up about 18 blocks.

Here's two, I'm really happy with these. I've still left a little of the browns in the mix but all in all I think it's much more harmonious. I also didn't choose eight of the wildest coloured and patterned prints to put in a block together. That was a smart move.


Also, should I say,

minor miracle,

I finished another WIP, the first hexagons I attempted and was going to make into a cushion, which would probably never be used, so made it into a mini quilt to hang on the wall.

It looks really wonky, especially the first border, it's not. In fact the first border is straight. Next time I should probably flatten it out before I snap some pics.
It's made with some scraps of Rural Jardin left over from the quilt I made earlier this year. A really yummy stripe that I had in my stash, unfortunately I only had a fat quarter and have no idea what it is. I had to raid my jelly roll of Rouenneries that I have been saving, for the binding. It matched perfectly the two Rural Jardin charm squares that I could use for the corners, win!  The backing is a fat quarter of Hometown left over from the Urban Stars quilt.
I've hand quilted around the inner row of hexies in pale blue, which you can't see in this pic, then burgundy around the outside of the hexies. Finally another round of hand quilting in the first border.

I used this tutorial from A Girl In Paradise blog for an idea on how to hang it using corner pockets. How could I not use it with a blog name like that!

Today the Floral Bouquet went to my other fairy friend, Fiona The Quilting Fairy. It won't be finished until next year, but that's ok, I'll just go back and sit and have a drink in the naughty corner.

Pyjama Party Sunday

It's a long weekend here, so I have three days of being able to stay in my pj's. I think if I do that though you may have to call someone as I'll be turning into one of those hoarding cat ladies that never go out of their house.
I did actually shower and get dressed and went out unto the wide world yesterday. Not for very long as it was cold and wet and yucky (technical weather term).

Friday night and yesterday I cut the pieces for my Floral Bouquet quilt. I did a sample block ages ago, and decided to start on the rest of the blocks.



I should have been doing one of these:

1. The pinwheel quilt - I need to finish the applique, embroider the stems, and sew it together.
2. The French Roses quilt.
3. The raw edge applique that I made a month ago needs to be quilted.
4. Spice Boxes- I need to finish the quilting.
There are more UFO's WIP's that I should be working on too.

All week those projects have been sitting there taunting me.  It's driving me crazy that I have all these things still sitting there without a finish, but I couldn't find even an ounce of motivation to pick up and work on any of them. That's why I started the Floral Bouquet blocks, now I have another WIP.

After spending a couple of a few hours today sewing the blocks and then cutting more of the 40 white jelly roll strips into tiny pieces, yuck, I had had enough and wandered around looking for something else to do.

I travelled from the 21st century back to the 19th century and found this


I had added an extra round of hexies a couple of weeks ago,

and turned it into this

Sorry the lighting is terrible on this photo. I only took it a few minutes ago.
It should look like the one above. Oh and I just noticed it's upside down too.  I was going to make it into a pillow, but as usual I think I'm going to change my mind and make it into a wall hanging. The rest of my evening will be spent hand sewing the hexies to the background.

As it's Sunday, it's time to join in Pyjama Party Sunday. Whether you're in your pj's or not, join in the fun and link up to share in the love of lazy pj weekends.
I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, especially everyone in Australia, with Queen's Birthday holiday tomorrow.  Yay for a long weekend.

Tuesday

Not really tidbits today as not an awful lot of interesting stuff has been happening at Chez Sunshine, but as I posted Pyjama Party Sunday so early, I wasn't able to show you what I actually did on Sunday.

Thanks to everyone who has been linking to Pyjama Party Sunday.

I stayed in my pj's all day, yay.

It was so nice not to have to go out. I made myself a really yummy haloumi salad for lunch (sorry no pics) and sat out on the verandah in the sun enjoying the sunshine. It really was Sunshine Paradise.

So Sunday and yesterday I did a bit of this and a bit of that.  I have too many things on the go at once, I'm pretty sure I have crafting ADD and have the attention span of a gnat.

I finished trimming all the pinwheels, there are 30 all together, it's just going to be a small quilt.

I then applied Steam A Seam 2 and cut out all the pieces for the appliques (plural) that are a part of the pinwheel quilt.  I took ages attaching each piece with a tiny bit of glue as a temporary measure.  I didn't want to lose them before I was ready to attach them permanently to the backing as I still needed to press the bias binding properly and attach that before the final pressing. 

One teeny tiny problem, 

I forgot

and as soon as I finished glueing them

I pressed the whole thing BEFORE placing the bias binding which was going to be the flower stalks.  

Plan B:  Thanks to a very clever suggestion from one of the girls at Patchwork Angel today. I'm now going to embroider the stalks. It was way too hard to try and peel off the applique pieces, this time I did a really good job of making sure they were attached after my misadventures with applique attachment in Adelaide.

A very crappy pic of some of the pinwheels.

Do you think I'm ever going to get through a project from beginning to end without making a reasonably big mistake?

At least it makes life interesting and proves that I am quite good at adapting and open to alternate ideas.

On Sunday I also went with Plan D (or was it E?) on the Spice Boxes quilt and started machine quilting. Not exactly what I was hoping for originally, but I think it will look good when it's all finished. I used Gutermann Top Stitch thread and it worked really well in the machine, just a little bit of playing around with the tension to get it right. My stitching still has a couple of wobbles here and there, but then the above photo is an extreme close up!

I'm finding at the moment that sometimes my skill level isn't as good as it needs to be to produce what is in my head.  I did think about putting the quilt away until I had practiced enough to be able to hand quilt the design I was planning, but I don't absolutely love the quilt and I was afraid that if I put it aside I might never get back to it, and I like it enough that I want to finish it.

Last night I sat down and spent a lovely evening sewing these together.

My very first hexie flower. 

I LOVE IT.

I think I'm hooked. For someone who really doesn't like hand sewing, I find these very easy, relaxing  and therapeutic. I can understand why English paper piecing is becoming so popular again.

You may also notice that my blog has changed again. I spent way too long playing around with it. 

See how long the current style lasts. 

I also made myself a little Award Free Blog button, it's up there on the right hand side, just above the Pyjama Party Sunday button and the clock which tells you what time it is here at Chez Sunshine. It's lovely to receive awards, and I don't mind telling you 101 things that you don't know about me, but I really don't enjoy having to "pick" x number of people to send them on to.  It makes me uncomfortable, who do I choose, who don't I choose who would like it, who would be really annoyed that they have been given one.  To make my life easier and less anxiety filled, I have decided to make my blog an Award Free blog. I love comments and they mean so much more to me than an award, as that means that you are reading my blog and interacting with me and enjoying what I write and the pics I show, and occasionally you may just think, and comment that I'm stark raving bonkers. Either way, a comment letting me know that you read and (hopefully) enjoy my blog or the things I create, means the world to me.