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.

Sewing and keeping dry

 It's raining here, which seems to be more often than not these days. Now I think I know what it must be like to live in the UK with endless days of rain, grey skies and blah weather. The only upside with all this crappy weather is that with nothing better to do, I sat and hand sewed the binding on South Pacific Stars aka Hopscotch quilt.  I was determined to finish this before the end of the month. At least it was nice to work on something bright and cheerful instead of looking at the rain pelting against the windows.

Until the weather improves I won't be able to take some decent photos of the full quilt.

A close up of the front and my minimal quilting I used Aurifil thread for the first time and I'm very impressed with it. I will be purchasing more, I much prefer it to Rasant thread.

The back with a stray thread that I didn't see when I took the photo, sigh.

The binding, it just had to be stripey.

In  my ongoing quest to become more organised, (something that is highly unlikely to happen),  I found these containers, 12 inches square and about 1 1/2 inches deep.

They are the perfect size to store blocks I'm working on, especially the blocks for the Circle Game.

The A4 page pattern directions for the block doesn't quite fit flat in the container, but it does fit and  I can place all the pieces, the pattern, thread, needles and scissors together in there and it keeps the pieces nice and flat. Great for transporting hand piecing projects.

Last week in Brisbane I went to The Quilters Store and found some lovely flannel for the backing for the scooter baby quilt. I had already started to piece together a backing but when I saw this I just had to have it. I love flannel backing on baby quilts.

I like The Quilters Store, they have a huge range of fabric and they sell Aurifil thread too, yay.

On a final note, I mentioned the rain at the top of this post. As of today, since the 1st January we have had 1150mm (over 45 inches) of rain. That's over 1 metre in less than 2 months.  I live on the Sunshine Coast, ha, I think it should be renamed the Very Wet and Not Very Much Sunshine Coast. That's why I  originally named my blog Sunshine? Paradise? both words are questionable, especially this summer.

Edited to add: Can someone please tell me how facebook is the main referring website for this post? Can you let me know how by leaving a comment how you found this post please?  I have had more than triple the usual number of readers for this post.

Yep, it's me, I'm still here

I think I need to keep that title for every post these days as they are few and far between.

The house has been on the market for a couple of weeks. There has been lots and lots of interest and as of tomorrow I will have had almost 20 inspections. That's 20 separate inspections, not 20 people coming through in an open for inspection time slot.  As you can imagine that means that just about every day I've had to have the house spotless and I've had to leave the house for an hour or two and take the dog with me while prospective buyers come and look see.
I really haven't had a lot of time for anything lately. One evening I thought I would take time out to read some blog posts, when I opened google reader I had over 400 posts to read. I hope you will understand I've tried to keep up with as many posts as possible but it's just not possible to read in full that many posts. I've attempted to comment on a few posts too. I am really sorry if I haven't commented on your post, but I haven't hit the delete button yet and have skimmed through all the posts so far.
In between constant cleaning and tidying and having to leave the house, I haven't had much time to sew either. I really really want to work on a couple of projects that I started recently, but the thought of getting all my fabric out, playing with it, cutting it up and then having to put it away each day, has stopped me.  However I've found that it's been nice to pick up some hand sewing in the evening. It's been good to get back to that while watching tv and unwinding.


I've finished another Amitie Circle Game block. Not bad, not great. The centre could be better, but hopefully by the time I'm up to block eleventy hundred I should have perfected all the techniques I need to make a perfect block!

I've been working away at the starflowers too.  I've had a change of plan with them. Basically, because I couldn't face doing a whole quilt of them. The new plan is to square them up and use them as a centre panel for a quilt. I'm aiming to put a plain border and then a wider border in the same background fabric but with hexies or some other shapes appliquéd on to it.  This is Plan B, stay tuned, because there could be a Plan C or D, we'll just have to wait and see what eventuates.

Lots more to come.

I was able to finish a quilt before the mayhem of inspections started.

This pile of fabric, minus the cat paws,

turned into this, it's the backing.

Unfortunately I've misplaced my camera. I've been using my phone but I keep on taking really crap photos so hopefully I can take some decent ones to show you the rest of it.

I started on a VIQ Very Important Quilt as soon as the above quilt was finished. This one was to be a present for someone for a very special birthday which is only a couple of weeks away. I had every intention of having this finished in the next couple of weeks. I'm a slacker, and I'm annoyed with myself because if I ever get to finish it I think it will look awesome. The idea for this quilt started in September last year, and sat in a bag until the end of May when I suddenly realised I had very little time left to make it. I've thrown in the towel on this one. When will I learn that procrastination is stupid! It will be finished, but probably not until people stop wanting to look at my house or I move.

A tiny peek.

Despite everything I still found some time to quickly surf the net and let my finger slip and purchase these beautiful books from Quiltmania.

Worth every cent, lots more wonderful inspiration for hand piecing and quilting.

Waving madly - I'm still here

My blogging/sewing/quilting mojo has left me. I still have the will to live but that's about it.
I've contemplated a number of times about writing a blog post but just couldn't think of anything exciting enough. I've been lurking and reading blog posts but haven't had time to comment.  Thank you to my wonderful blog friends who sent emails wondering whether I was still alive. I am. Sorry Shay you'll have to wait  a bit longer for my fabric stash.

I had every intention of sewing madly over the last two weeks but it didn't eventuate.


I've been hanging out and socialising in Brisbane. I planned out my sewing before I left home. I brought down my baby sewing machine just in case, and put together a couple of bags of hand sewing projects to work on while away. It would have helped if I'd remembered to pack one very important bag in the car. The one that had the mat, rulers, rotary cutter, templates, the pattern that I was working on etc. Finding out that I had left all the important stuff at home, put me in a sewing funk. To pull me out of the funk I planned a trip to Spotlight to enhance my quilting paraphernalia and grab the tools I needed to work on my projects, that was fun and they had a sale at the time too! I only doubled up on one thing, which was another small rotary cutter. Everything else I bought including a mat and rulers, were different sizes to the ones I had at home. I even found this fabulous tool.

A doo wacky that you attach to the rotary cutter and allows you to add a seam allowance to your traced template pattern. It was really easy to use once you fiddle about to set the right distance from the blade. It made cutting out the pieces for the Circle Game BOM blocks so much easier and quicker as I didn't have to draw a seam allowance and then cut. I just had to follow the drawn line on the fabric from the template  and voila a 1/4" seam allowance was cut. I'm sorry I don't know what it's called and I've searched on the Olfa site and can't find it to add a link to it.

My spending spree should have motivated me, but life kind of took over and despite having all the stuff I still didn't sew much, at least the pieces I need have been cut out.

Last week I took a trip back home to see if the house was still there, secretly wishing it wasn't so that I didn't have to keep on getting rid of stuff so that it will be clutter free for the sale. Also to see whether the work had finished on the outdoor decking. It was and doesn't it look spectacular, sorry not the best photo as I just took a quick one with my iPhone.

While I was there I picked up my bag that I had left behind.

I'm slowly working away on anther Amitie BOM block, almost finished.


I'm enjoying the process of these blocks although it's slow going and I don't have much to show for the hours of work I put into them. I've almost finished the outer ring on this one, which I'll show in a later post.

The weather has been fabulous here. Blue skies and sunshine.




Lovely sunrises.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't had a chance to link up with WIP Wednesday for a couple of weeks.
This week I've been hand sewing as my sewing room has been out of action for almost 10 days.  See my previous post.
Before I had to surrender my sewing room, I played some more with the A Stitch In Color charm squares.

The centre was made using Elizabeth's stamp collection tutorial, the rest developed with improv piecing.
I thought it needed a little something to cover up the wonky but not wonky enough points on the triangles, so these will be added, along with some hand quilting.

I was hoping to baste it and start hand quilting but unfortunately all my stash was under drop sheets and surrounded by furniture etc so I couldn't access it to find a suitable backing. Hopefully I'll be able to start on that this week.


I finally finished another Circle Game block!

After ignoring them for months because I thought they were difficult, I really enjoyed putting this one together. Straight seams...easy. I've already cut out the pieces for the next one.


A little more progress on the starflowers.  I'm kind of falling out of love with these and  not sure whether I will keep interested long enough to make a full quilt with them. I like making the starflowers but loathe sewing it all together. Here's hoping I will hang in there long enough to make it big enough for a lap size quilt. So far it measures approx 24" x 35" It does look better in real life, I think it looks very busy in this photo.

I'm not sure whether I should/could make this a centre panel and put a wide border around the outside. Any suggestions? The original idea was for no borders.

Worked On This Week
Amitie - Circle Game BOM
Starflowers

Sitting On The Sidelines
Material Obsession BOM
Paper Piecing For The Terrified - no sewing machine
Charm Pack Squares

Ignoring/Possibly Given Up
McFlurry
Mystery Quilt

Statistics
Finished - 0
Worked On - 2
Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Interest - 5
New - 0

Hop on over to Lee's and look at all the other WIPs happening this week.

Renovating

This week hasn't been the funnest week.  We've had the weather from hell. Well that's assuming that the weather in hell when it isn't hot, is grey and very very humid and has buckets and buckets of water raining down on you incessantly. So much so that everything starts smelling suspect, mouldy and damp. Not pleasant. To top off this lovely weather I've had painters in to paint part of the outside of the house and the bedrooms so that it will be all nice and lovely when I put the house on the market to sell. Because the weather has been so bad, it's taken twice as long as it should have so far.

This is my sewing room and it will be like this until probably Wednesday, hopefully no longer than that.

My sewing table and sewing machine are somewhere under there. It's lucky that I enjoy hand sewing and have a number of projects I can work on while my sewing room is out of action.

This is Bithcypoo's room.  Fortunately she is in Brisbane, she doesn't need to sleep in her bed.
My bedroom was tackled first, it's not finished but I can sleep in my bed and have access to my chest of drawers.

This is was my dining table, now it's a makeshift cutting table. It's also covered in lots of other stuff as well, so I can only work in one corner.

I'd show you photos of the rest of the house but it's too embarrassing, there's piles of stuff everywhere. If I showed photos, The Hoarders would be on to me and want me to star in a new show!
I started working on the next block of the Circle Game BOM and remembered to get everything out of the room that was needed for the week.  Except for this.

See that tiny metal circle with the hole in it. I use that to add a quarter inch seam to the templates curved edges when I'm tracing onto the fabric. When I started to trace the templates I remembered after I used it last time I'd put it back in the drawer of the table my sewing machine sits on. Arrrgggghhhhhh.

Fortunately, I found the table, and the drawer was accessible under all the drop sheets, phew. Crisis averted.

So I had a nice time cutting out and sewing together this block, which I finished last night. I'm really enjoying making these now. I've already started cutting out, the next block this morning. I'm swapping out an occasional scrap from the BOM and adding the odd scrap from my stash here and there in these blocks.

The starflowers have come out of hiding too, and I work on them when I need a break from concentrating hard on which bit to add where.