Hopscotch

Update on the house.

I have a contract on the house, and a building and pest inspection will be done tomorrow. It "should" be just a formality and then the contract will go unconditional next Monday, fingers crossed and touch wood.


Today has been a day of sewing in my pj's, oh I've missed being able to stay in my pj's most of the day. It actually feels weird as it's been so long.

I started cutting out the pieces for this quilt, last night. I needed to make something bright and cheerful and a Tradewind jelly roll was the perfect antidote for feeling blah.  Lots of colour.

I made a couple of blocks first before I cut all the pieces. I'm glad I did, as one of my templates was not exactly accurate.


Today I cut out the rest of the pieces and started sewing blocks.


25 blocks so far,  52 to go.

Lots of pink and lime green coming up next.


I'm not sure why I started this,  call me crazy, as I'm going to have to start packing and sorting my things in the next few days. I should have picked a hand piecing project instead, that I can take with me.

WIP Wednesday

Last week I totally amazed myself and quite a few other people too!  I made the jelly roll race quilt top as the backing for a quilt top that I had made almost two years ago.

I finished the quilt in a day.  Yay!  It had been bothering me that the quilt top had been sitting there for so long, so it was good to finally finish it.


and the back

I quilted through the middle of the chocolate squares on the front horizontally and vertically.
Front

Back - and sometimes the quilting crossed through the chocolate squares on the back!

Pure for the binding.

It's not very big but it's the perfect size as a small lap quilt while sitting in a chair or wheel chair. I have someone in mind for this quilt, but I'm going to wait and see how the next quilt pans out before I make a decision.

Part of the pile of squares from last week has been made into HST's and trimmed to size. It's time consuming trimming them down, but at least I know they are all perfect 3 inch squares now. I much prefer making them a little bit bigger, and knowing I can trim them down, rather than hoping that my piecing is perfect and then finding it isn't and I have to make more because I wasn't accurate enough.  This is coming from a LOT of experience in my not so accurate piecing. The  #@!* snowballs especially, come to mind.  I'm slowly piecing the rows but I'm not 100% sure how it's going to turn out, as I think I may have stuffed up the value. I wasn't looking at the colour value when I started, more concentrating on the use of colour.  I'm reserving my judgement until I have more of it sewn together. I'm hoping that the fabrics and colours will produce a subtle pattern on the quilt top which will be great for a masculine quilt. Rather than a dogs breakfast of random grey and aqua blocks with a few HST's thrown in for good measure. Fingers crossed. I'm using a wonderful pattern from a fabulous person but I'm not going to say who or what yet, as I don't want to give her "credit" for a really crappy quilt top that is all my fault. If, however it turns out as beautifully as the original by ________ I will be shouting about it from the rooftops.

I'm going to need another burst of colour in my sewing soon, all these neutrals are pretty but you can't beat lots and lots of vibrant colour.  That reminds me, most of my hand sewing and quilting projects have lots of colour,  and I forgot to show the finished circle from a couple of weeks ago. It's not as colourful as some of the other BOM blocks but I really really love this one. I swapped out a couple of the fabrics from Amitie and slipped in my own. I'm really starting to enjoy the process of making the templates and then hand sewing these blocks.

I also forgot to show the Grey Skies and Sunshine quilt in it's new home.

I was relieved to see, the greys, taupes and browns worked perfectly in T's new home. Look at the fabulous coloured glass on the kitchen wall in the background.

Finally, a tiny bit of hand quilting has started on this.



Worked On This Week
Pure Quilt
Modern Chevrons
Charm Pack Mini Quilt


Sitting On The Sidelines
Material Obsession BOM
Amitie BOM
Starflowers
Paper Piecing For The Terrified

Ignoring/Possibly Given Up
McFlurry
Mystery Quilt

Statistics
Finished - 1 and it wash't even a WIP it had been a UFO
Worked On - 2
Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Interest -  still 7
New - 1

Pop on over to Lee's blog, Freshly Pieced to see all the lovely talented people who are working on WIP's this week.

WIP Wednesday

I'm back on the proverbial bike. It's been almost 5 weeks since I last used my sewing machine. I completely lost my sewing mojo. Yesterday I made the big decision to do something, anything to try and get back into sewing again. It worked, yay.
First off I cut up some Hope Valley, Hometown  and some solids into eleventy million 3 inch and 3 1/2 inch squares for a scrappy chevron quilt. It seemed like that many!

Sorry it was very dull here today and I'm not used to taking photos in such poor light, so the colours in some of the photos aren't great.

Thanks goes to Shay who suggested making a Jelly Roll 1600 or Race quilt with her. As usual I procrastinated and took forever to decide which jelly roll to use. Shay had already finished her top, before I even picked out the roll.

I found the remnants of this Pure jelly roll in the bottom of a drawer and had a lightbulb moment.


I made this quilt top back in July 2010, it has been a UFO ever since. The jelly roll race would be perfect to make as the backing for it, and I'll have a two sided quilt.
Of course I can't do something without tweaking it a little. I saw this on flickr and came up with my own version.

Annoying spots and diamond print near the bottom where the fabric cut and the prints don't line up, grrr.

It didn't take long to sew it together and today I've basted, quilted it and I'm about to sew on the binding.

What a comeback after 5 weeks of nothing! I sure hope it lasts.

Worked On This Week
Pure quilt
Modern Chevron Quilt

Sitting On The Sidelines
Material Obsession BOM
Starflowers
Amitie BOM
Charm Pack Mini Quilt

Ignoring/Possibly Given Up
McFlurry
Mystery Quilt
Paper Piecing For The Terrified

Statistics
Finished - 0
Worked On - 2
Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Interest - 7
New - 2 (technically one was a UFO)

Check out all the other wonderful WIP's this week over at Lee's at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday

This week a couple of projects are one step closer to being finished.
I finished all 39 of the flower blocks in the jelly roll quilt. I still need to cut the setting triangles and then sew it together. To sew it together I need to put up my temporary design wall, which fell down last week. Painters masking tape just doesn't hold for long enough and is not necessarily cat proof!

A pic that I took when I was half way through. I'm really happy with these, such pretty colours. I started off with a Leanika roll and added other fabrics, some from other Dena Design ranges and also a couple of Joel Dewberry's, a Kaffe print and some other scraps in my stash.
I would like some ideas on how to quilt this one. I don't want to do stippling/meandering and I haven't been quilting long enough to do any fancy patterns. If I was to straight line quilt, where should I quilt? The alternative is to hand quilt around each block in perle thread, or I could do a combination of the two. Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

Yay, I finished sewing in the ends of the Spice Boxes quilting threads, despite my cat trying to stop me ( see last post). It's now all squared up and ready for binding.  Not a great pic.

I also pieced the boxes in the Flurry quilt, not without problems. I cut two of the box pieces and a couple of pieces for the ribbon too small. Fortunately I had lots of left over fabric so I was able to make a couple more boxes to replace those. It was a little frustrating as the pieces that I cut too small were two of the prettier fabrics, sigh!

Lastly I finished two more star blocks for Sheila's Mystery Quilt QAL. I'm slowly catching up, which isn't bad as I started roughly a month after every one else.

These are all the blocks I've made so far and I'm very pleased with them. Very bright and tropical and I still haven't been struck by lightning for mixing batik and Kaffe prints.    I'm not going overboard with the batik as the Kaffe prints need to stand out, but I think they are really working well together.

I haven't started the block for The Circle Game BOM yet. I'm psyching myself up to do it, lol!

Linking up again with Lee at Freshly Pieced, click on the button below,  for WIP Wednesday.

Worked On This Week
Floral bouquet blocks - finished piecing
Spice Boxes - finished quilting
Xmas Flurry Quilt - boxes pieced
Mystery Quilt - 2 blocks
Picked out the fabrics for the blue Monochromatic block this month.

Sitting on the Sidelines
English paper piecing
Circle Game  BOM block 1

Still Procrastinating
Tiggly Winks - applique
Plume Quilt - make backing
Jacobean Flower mini quilt - quilt
Don't Look Now cushion/mini quilt - quilt this is getting close to being a UFO

Weeks Statistics
New Project - 0
Completed - 0
Working On - (or pretending to work on but really ignoring them) - 10ish
Really Worked On - 5

Pyjama Party Sunday

Another fun weekend almost over.

Yesterday I had to go out during the day so didn't get very crafty, and in the evening I had a fabulous time out with friends. We went out for pre-dinner drinks and dinner. The temperature was milder than last week, so we sat at an outdoor bar and listened to a very talented singer/musician and then had a fabulous meal. No photos as it was really dark, we even had to use the table candles to try and read the menu!

I spent almost all day in my pyjamas today, I love sewing when I'm in my pj's, they are so comfortable.

On Friday night I started some raw edge applique and the machine went really well, but when I went back to it Fanny Pfaff had a phit, and made it abundantly clear she didn't want to sew free motion any more.

This is a sneak peek at what I was doing before Fanny stopped playing nice. The button hole stitching is  one of the programmed stitches in the machine.

I've finished 21 of these blocks now, so put them up on my design wall to see how they look. I love them, but I'm not jumping at the chance to finish the last 18.  I might try doing them later in the week.

Anther pieced flower that I made one evening.

Block 3 in the Mystery Quilt I chickened out of doing the paper pieced one, I might try it during the week.
I haven't been struck by lightning yet for mixing Kaffe and batiks. I'm not normally a fan of batiks but I really love the way these combine.




Join in on Pyjama Party Sunday and show what you have been doing this weekend,  you can link your post below.

WIP Wednesday

For the first time ever I'm linking to Lee of Freshly Pieced

These are soooooo not my preferred colours, I love bright tropical saturated colours, and it doesn't go with my decor.

BUT

I love everything about this piece, the colours, the fussy cut hexies, the striped background, the borders.
I originally saw some hexies in Rural Jardin on the net, but for the life of me I can't find it now to give them credit, which gave me the inspiration for this.

I'm debating whether to leave it as a cushion sized piece or to make it bigger and use this as the central medallion for a larger quilt.




I've also been plodding along on these.

Four more almost finished, that will make it 11 finished blocks, 21 28  (hmm my math is not so good is it) to go, these are going to take me a little longer than I thought.


It doesn't help when I start playing with something else.

Not quite sure whether this is going to turn out like the picture in my head. Time and more playing will tell.

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.

Pyjama Party Sunday

It's Mothers Day today and it's also Sunday so it's time for the weekly Pyjama Party.

Happy Mothers Day to all mums.

We are not doing anything exciting this year, just a nice quiet day. It's Bitchypoo's 18th birthday soon so that has been taking priority.  We'll catch up with my parents later this afternoon.

Feel free to have your own arty pyjama party and link up to this post. As usual, you don't really need to have been, or be in, your pj's to be arty or crafty, I'm definitely not coming over to check up on you. Thank you to everyone for joining in last week.

This week.




I've sewn together and added the binding to all the French Rose blocks, now I have to make the borders.  The pattern calls for a pieced border and then a solid border. I will get around to it eventually, but in the meantime this morning I've been playing with a jelly roll or two and made this block.


It's out of the Jelly Roll Quilts book that the lovely Shay gave me for my birthday last year.  The pattern is Floral Bouquet. It's really cute and after completing this one I'll be cutting up the rest of the fabric I auditioned to complete the quilt top.  It will definitely be easier to chain piece all the same block parts together. I will also have to remember which way to sew the diagonal lines, after sewing the first one and cutting and pressing before realising it was on the wrong way!!!!!!!

I finished this yesterday morning whilst in my pj's. I had  lots of people asking me what I'm going to do with it. I was thinking about making it into a cushion, but a) I have so many cushions already, and b) I am very lazy and it seems like a lot more work and effort to make it into a cushion than into a wall hanging.  So I think it's going to be a mini quilt wall hanging, even though I'll have to bind it.  For now it's been put to one side as I don't have matching thread for the quilting. I'm also scared witless to quilt it and ruin it.

I have so many projects in my head, that I want to try and I just don't seem to have enough hours in the day and more importantly I'm seriously lacking in time management skills. So even when I do have the time, I waste it. I'm also a champion at procrastination.
Enough of me, lets see what arty parties have been happening since last Sunday's party. Join in to the pyjama party fun by linking below.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.

1.1.11

I frankly don't have much to post about today, I just really wanted to have that as a title. Small things amuse small minds.

After two very lovely days, finally, of sunshine and blue skies, we are back to "showers" which seem to mean at least an inch of rain, we have had anything but showers today.

Last night I welcomed in the New Year, by going to the Sheraton at Noosa Heads. An interesting night.

My first new project for 2011. I've started working on this, 200 x 2 1/2" squares.

Why is it that I always buy really bright fabric and then I make pale, pastel things, very strange. Where does the pale fabric come from?   Questions that will need to be answered this year.

A photo of my kitchen bench, at least one day in 2011 it is clutter free.