Churn Dash

It's been a beautiful long weekend here. The weather has been perfect, not too hot, not too humid and lots of sunshine, and what did I do? I spent most of the weekend sewing.  You gotta do what you gotta do when your sewing mojo comes back. I did go out and enjoy the sunshine in between sewing stints.

I procrastinated for ages on what to do for the last border of the medallion quilt I have been working on since the beginning of the year. The orange peel blocks were finished and I don't think I showed a photo of them once they were added.

 My quilt holder upper isn't here so it's floor shots for now.

The original plan was for churn dash blocks. As usual, my unwillingness to commit kicked in and I spent ages trawling through books and the internet looking for alternate block ideas. I drove Shay insane, coming up with the perfect block then ditching the idea.  I even made a couple of churn dash blocks in the meantime to see whether they would work. Didn't think much of them at the time. Eventually it was just too hard, I needed to make 40 x 6inch blocks, and I already had 2 churn dash blocks, so I took the easy option and went with it.

40 blocks = 160 HST's that needed to be sewn, cut and trimmed. My Bloc Loc HST ruler came to the rescue, and if it wasn't for that ruler, I would have given up.

Twelve made, only 28 to go!

28 blocks finished.

I'm almost at the end now, I have 12 blocks left to sew.

These are the last 6, laid out on an old cutting board covered with batting,  I can take blocks to the sewing machine to sew, and not sew them in the wrong order. It's been very handy, my stuff up rate has been reduced considerably.

Meanwhile my trusty assistant found a nice place for a cat nap or two.

Surprise! It's me again and it's not three months later or 2015.

We have another finish at Chez Sunshine. 

Speaking of sunshine, we have had THE most amazing weather here. We have had days and days of beautiful sunshine, although some of the days and a lot of the nights have been freezing cold.  Down to 3 or 4 deg C at night. That's cold, really cold.  It has been good for my sewing productivity though. Cold enough for me to be quite happy to hand quilt with a quilt on my lap. None of that horrible humid, sweaty OMG I'm going to die from heat exhaustion stuff happening here at this time of year. Yay.

I digress, I was talking about a finish. I've finally finished the Red Letter Day quilt top. Unfortunately it's not exactly an award winning photo, but I've realised that if I wait for the perfect light etc to take a photo, the photo never happens. Then the blog post never happens either. So for the rest of this year, you get to see photos, good or bad, and I. will. be. blogging, even if it kills me!

 All 9 blocks completed. Like I said, not a great photo, but you get the idea.  If you follow me on Instagram you know I had a bit of a problem with the lack of grey background fabric. Fortunately with a bit of creative unpicking and re sewing, I had enough to finish the middle block. It is supposed to be the reverse of the rest of the blocks but as usual, I had to do my own thing, so I played around with the fabric in the middle block, and came up with something  a little different. I just noticed the middle block looks like it has measles or chicken pox. Great!  At least it doesn't (I hope) look like that in real life.  I used a variety of fabrics from lots of different lines. Not one piece of fabric was bought for this quilt, it all came from my stash. 

I'm pretty happy with this quilt top even though it hasn't exactly turned out how it was in my mind. Don't you hate that! I always have these visions of amazing quilts, but when I start putting it together, it's often not quite as awesome as I thought it would be.

Here's a close up of the centre block, with some AMH Innocent Crush.

Not my finest sewing skills, but I'm pretty happy with how it's come together.  Don't hold your breath for a complete finish on this one any time soon, as I have a lot of WIP's that I really want to finish first, including the one below.  Gee, hand quilting takes a looooong time, so I'm very slowly quilting Starflowers.

The hand quilting thread is a variegated perle 12 cotton. I love the subtle colours and they work really well with the colours in the blocks. I'm slowly perfecting, ha ha, or at least improving, my stitch length and the ability to quilt in a straight line. Who knew that could be so difficult on such a short distance.

A lot of socialising and enjoying the Noosa weather has been on the agenda too.

This steak was as good as it looks, from Little Humid, Noosaville

We spent a couple of hours at Hasting St in Noosa last week and had lunch in the Sheraton bar. I love the decor in this bar. Even though it was cold enough to be wearing boots, and a cardigan, it was nice to soak up the tropical ambience.

BP and I went to Lake Weyba in the late afternoon last week, just before sunset. How beautiful is this view?  I sometimes take this piece of paradise for granted, I need to get out and about more.

Streamlining

I was pretty bummed on hearing Google Reader was closing, but after a teeny tiny bit of research, I found Bloglovin. I'm liking it so far, in fact I will go so far as to say after only one day of using it I like it better than Google Reader. So Google Reader can disappear and I don't care!!!!! because I think Bloglovin is the bomb (at the moment).  The positives so far - I receive an email each day letting me know who has posted in the last 24 hours.  I find it a nicer layout than Google Reader. The blogs I've subscribed too are in alphabetical order. (They were all over the place in Google Reader.) It's easier to check back through posts I've already read.  It's just as easy to go to the actual blog website. It's easy to comment.  The only negative so far - I can't find how to delete a feed from Bloglovin, but I've asked the question and I'm hoping for an answer soon.

I've added a linky thingy on my side bar and you can also use the link below to add my blog to your Bloglovin feed, if you wish.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin     

Most of the rest of my spare time has been taken up with socialising, and possibly a lot more drinking than normal, which I must say, has been lots of fun.  Not sure whether my time management skills have improved at all though.



I'm making the most of my visitor who helped me rearrange my sewing room. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a before photo. I'm kind of glad in a way because it was bad, really bad. Really really bad.
Now however, I walk into my room and feel like bursting into song. It's not perfect, all the little things have to still find a permanent home, but the layout is much better than before, and it works. The fabric has just been jammed back into the shelves to get it out of the way. The next job will be to sort it and fold it nicely. The photos are not great, as they were taken very late afternoon as it was starting to get dark.







Today I've made the backing for McFlurry, hallelujah, that's only taken 20 months to get around to making the backing, after finishing the quilt top.

Not the best and most interesting backing I've ever made, but I wanted it to be quick and painless.

In other news. I quilted Scooter last week, I made the binding today and machine sewed it to the front.  I just have to hand sew it to the back. Lots of photos in my next post.


Now I need to cut out triangles for the next quilt, I can't wait to get back into my "brand new" sewing room.

A big thank you to Julie for helping me move everything around, and sorting through the huge pile of crap that was on the floor. I think we need to go out and celebrate..........again!

Plan B

Do you remember this bundle I put together the other day? I was thinking about making a baby quilt for a boy.

BP had other ideas. She is waaaaaaaaay closer in age to the mother-to-be than I am, and thought that frankly, my idea sucked.  So after far too long faffing around with more ideas, I came up with Plan B.

Which involved some of these

When I showed BP the result of Plan B,  I was underwhelmed by the lack of enthusiasm from her, and now I'm not convinced Plan B was any better than Plan A.

It's not quite as bright as in the photo above. At this stage the grey will be the binding, I think it needs a "frame".




Why do I second guess myself?????????????????????? AND why do I listen to a 19 year old?

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.

Pink, orange and elephants

My oldest friend, as in I've known her the longest, not she's really really old, is going to become a grandmother, snigger. I love when my friends become grandmothers. It makes me laugh because I still imagine them as being 20 something, hardly old enough to be a mother let alone a grandmother.


Her youngest son is about to become a father, so it was a good excuse to make a baby quilt.

I was thinking about doing some fancy piecing, but couldn't find a pattern that I wanted to make that wouldn't be too time comsuming.  Bitchypoo suggested simple squares, so I went with that.  I found the oh sooo cute elephant flannel for the backing on a recent trip to Brisbane.  Searched through my stash for some lovely pink and orange co-ordinating girly fabrics and voila, a girly baby quilt using 3 inch finished squares, measuring 36" x 36".

Nice and quick, started Friday afternoon, finished this morning.

Not without it's dramas. I had to unpick the first 4 quilting lines. I spray basted and used a few pins, but the spray basting didn't hold this time. I had lots of puckering. So lots of pins and a walking foot later, success.



I was in two minds whether to use the white, not a very baby friendly colour, but I love the crisp look it gives to the quilt.

That's out of my system now, back to my WIP's and BOM blocks.

Keeping it simple

I've been slaving over WIP's on and off for weeks.  Working hard on two swaps, which I've finished, yay, and I just needed to make something that wouldn't take too long and didn't need much brain power. A change of pace to quick and easy.

Sorry, bad lighting, it's much brighter in real life.

The change of pace involves 1 metre (just over a yard) of this seriously cute flannel by Valori Wells for Free Spirit, some luscious baby pink Heath binding and a search through my stash.

Stay tuned.

Ta dah!

I've been making the most of some quiet time between Boxing Day and New Years Eve.

Initial layout on my design table!!!

I've finished another quilt top. I've ordered some flannel for the backing, so I won't be able to do any more with this until it arrives.

I was so worried about how this would look, hoping it wouldn't be too busy. I shouldn't have doubted myself, I think it turned out great. I would, wouldn't I! I did have a little hiccup at the beginning, you can read about it here, however it was all sorted with help from the lovely Shay.

This is destined as a house warming gift for friends, I'm pretty sure they don't read my blog. I wanted to make something that wasn't too feminine that they could use on the sofa in the living room. Her favourite colour is orange, specifically burnt orange. 

There are lots of different fabrics in this quilt top. Including Hope Valley, Castle Peeps, Hometown, Zen Garden, Anna Maria Horner, Kaffe, Lakehouse, batiks, a 30s repro, text fabric, spots, checks and so many more. This is my idea of scrappy, I just can't do random scrappy it has to be controlled, so the circles are either a shade of orange or cream and the background is either light through to dark grey or an occasional brown, sometimes with a hint of colour.

Almost final selection, I took out some of the darker purple/greys and the lighter green/greys

I used the Raw Edge Circle tutorial by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew.

This is the second time I've used this pattern. I love it and I'm sure I'll use it again.

Strawberries and Champagne, my first Raw Edge Circle Quilt

Favourite Things Friday

It's late Friday evening here, and I've just finished making something with the help of BP, so this is my final favourite for 2011.
I decided at about 5.30 this evening that I'd attempt to make something for my father for Christmas.
After finding this tutorial at Ayumi's blog and seeing this idea on Oh Fransson! I thought I would make dad a First Aid bag.

The front

I combined the two ideas and came up with this.

AND woo hoo I actually used some of my scraps. Some of them are from charm squares I acquired about 10 years ago. I knew I'd use them for something..........eventually!! Some of the red squares are from scraps Melissa at Clothwork kindly sent me earlier in the year.

The back

The lining, hmm, just noticed a thread on the red casing.

I love it, I hope he'll love it too. He loves bushwalking, birdwatching and the great outdoors. All it needs now is some cord to finish the drawstring closure. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

BP helped me choose the fabrics, piece the back and sewed the lining for me. I love that she wanted to help and enjoyed it. She's even started sewing up some blocks left over from her Paradise quilt to make a small quilt.

So this week, my favourite is sewing with BP and starting and finishing something that I'm really pleased with, in a couple of hours.

Linking with Shay for the final FTF for 2011. I love FTF's and have really enjoyed reading everyone's posts each week. Thanks so much Shay, looking forward to next year's.

Seam Ripper Sunday

After weeks of no sewing, today was THE day to get back into it.
I decided to start with the backing for the HST quilt, which needs a name but I think it's destined to be the HST quilt. Or that F^@#!^% quilt.
I had already made one strip with the left over HST's and decided to make two more for the backing.  Three strips of HST's later and some 2 1/2 inch sashing sewn between them, I put it on the floor to bask in the glory of my fabulous sewing. WTF, I had taken six straight strips of fabric and sewn them into a very curved piece that would have probably worked really well on a lampshade. Unfortunately no photos because I was so annoyed, I picked it up straight away and pulled out the seam ripper.
It looks like this now.

Not too bad but that was a total waste of an hour of my time. After that little setback it was time to try something else.

I shouldn't have bothered.

I want to make a quilt for some friends. The colours they like are grey/browns and orange. I used some Design Seed colour swatches as inspiration. I thought this would help because these are really not my go to colours.  This one below was one of the colour swatches I used.

Design Seeds

For the design I decided on another raw edge circle quilt as I really enjoyed making the last one.

I raided my stash and found some fabrics. I wanted to try popping a few batiks in there as I quite like the odd batik in amongst other fabrics. 

These are the background fabrics I chose. I liked the batiks but didn't like many of the other prints. The lighter browns are especially blech, way too light and shouldn't be in there at all. One teeny tiny problem I don't have enough fabric in the good colours to make the quilt and I really don't want to buy any more in these colours. 

Added in lots of oranges and then added the creams to help with more contrast for the foreground. By this stage I was thinking, either I'm a genius and this is going to be so freaking good, or I've totally lost my mind and I'm going to make the world's ugliest quilt. 

Time to make a test block. I could have picked all the nicest fabrics to make the first block to see how nice it could be or I could have picked the worst fabrics to see how bad it could be.  Which did I choose?  A sensible person would have said let's see how nice it could look. 

I'm not sensible. 

I really dislike it.

This was after I had measured to make sure one of the circles was dead centre of the square, sewed it up, took one look at it and pulled out the seam ripper again and promptly pulled it apart. Sorry no photos of my disasters. I really need to be more prepared with my camera to prove that I'm really crap at sewing sometimes a lot of the time. 

I wonder whether they would like a nice pink and aqua quilt instead.

That was my day, my sewing mojo returned but was missing some vital parts, common sense and accuracy.  I'm hoping they will turn up soon.

The only bright part of my day was that I wasn't the only one with a seam ripper as a constant companion.  Shay and I complained all day by email about our disastrous sewing attempts! It was nice to be able to swear (a lot) and know that Shay knew exactly how I felt.  I think we may have broken our own unofficial swear count today. We may have also invented some extra words too. It's amazing what spell checker will let through! Auto correct is not my best friend either, at one point, apparently I called her something very rude and very politically incorrect when I didn't check my email before I sent it. Fortunately, Shay is still talking to me. At least I think she is, hmm, I haven't heard from her in the last couple of hours!