Stitcher's keeper finished

The pattern for this is by Leanne Beasley the author of Vignette magazine. Most of the flowers and the threads are the same as Vignette so this has been a good practice piece.



I particularly like the turquoise dotted moda which is the lining fabric for the piece. I may have to buy some more of it. It goes well with the fabrics I've chosen for the Vignette Block of the Month and also the Bliss scrap bag I purchase earlier in the week.

Led astray

I have a number of blogs that I read regularly, many of them in Australia as I'm following the progress and other work by other Vignette sewers. Yesterday I read that Dilly Dimple had ordered some Moda scrap bags from Hulu I clicked through to be surprised to find it's a Uk store, a few clicks later and I ordered two bags. They arrived today in their kraft bags.

The bags are similar to a jelly roll in that they are the ends left over from a jelly roll being cut and are therefore all from one range, but the strips are various widths. The ranges are bliss by Bonnie and Camille (left) and Clermont Farms by Polly Minick and Lauri Simpson.




And yes I do already have loads of fabric but I actually have a project planned for the strips - the hexagon quilt from Leanne Beasley's Vignette magazine issue 2.



And no I haven't lost my marbles. I thought this would be a great summer sewing project and that I could perhaps encourage some other quilting ladies to join me and work it out of my system. Also Sizzix have some dies from their Westminster range which cut 1" hexagons for the papers and 1.25" for the fabric. So that makes it a demo for Caesarea Quilters too. Also Leanne uses a glue pen to save tacking which I will be exploring and Fiona sells the pens so I can pick one up next week.

Finished block 1

And six weeks until magazine 3 comes out with blocks 4 and 5. I don't cope with pressure well and even self inflicted pressure. I know I can do these blocks at my own speed and take more than the two years that this project is released over, but I know that if I take it easy at the beginning, it will get put to the side. A point in case are the two 2009 block of the month quilts, one of which was previewed in the last post. Both still unfinished 18 months after the last block was published and I did keep up right until then end, but the Thimbleberries quilt lies half quilted. The TQS quilt needs the last border adding and then it needs to be pinned and quilted.

I wrote an updated projects in progress list earlier this week which grew to 11 projects. I need to finish at least eight of them this year to regain some control!! In case you're wondering here they are in no particular order:
1. TQS BOM border needs to be added and then quilted
2. Garden angel small project which would take half a day to finish
3. Vignette blocks - ongoing
4. Thimbleberries BOM - needs to be quilted and binding finished this month
5. Dear Jane - needs quilting - do you see a pattern developing
6. Blue and cream - half quilted but rucked on the back so some unpicking needs to be done followed by some quilting
7. Stitchers keeper - a recent start which I will take to Chez Soi on a Wednesday to progress.
8. Pinwheel party - with Mavis for quilting then all I need to do is trim and bind
9. Hug cushion - ongoing
10. Jelly roll quilt - border needed but not yet bought
11. Jan Krentz - loads of foundation pieced blocks need to be sewn so my biggest UFO.

Here's my first block, the second and third blocks are already pieced and the stitchery traced. I am waiting until it's all finished before stitching the grass line to try and keep the size of stitches uniform all the way around as I haven't yet got my stitch size consistent yet.




And here's some lovely Moda spotty goodness to go with my Just a Hoot fabrics for the Vignette BOM and also for the interior of the Stitchers Keeper. The only one I won't be using is the green as it's too bright for these projects.

April progress

Yesterday was our April crop. It was beautiful weather outside and inside was a hive of activity, that is except for me as I seemed to fiddle with lots and only got a couple of layouts finished from the Gogogetaway. Photos next week of those layouts.

I have been busy sewing my Vignette block 1, which is nearly but not quite finished. I finished my Pinwheel Party quilt at least a week ago, made a label from a spare block and only yesterday pieced together the backing. Today I took it to a machine quilter to do a lovely modern feather pattern on it. Then it will just need trimming and binding. This quilt is a pattern I've written for a workshop in September and I decided to ask Mavis to quilt it so that it's ready for the May CQ meeting as a sample. Less stressful for me.




This week I've been working on quilting the border of my 2009 Thimbleberries Block of the Month. I thought a sample was needed to bind for our guild meeting on 18th April, but in the end it wasn't needed. I applied the binding I cut at least six months ago and then added two more strips in accordance with the pattern. Unfortunately I had cut the original strips half an inch bigger, which I didn't discover until the binding was almost finished. Not enough fabric to cut two more strips, so this morning I took apart the binding and this afternoon, I've sewn it back. It's now finished and will need to be hand sewn to the back of the quilt. A perfect job for taking to the Mill every Wednesday. Not that I've finished the quilting of the quilt, but that will be completed after our trip to Liverpool.

Gogogetaway

Another successful event. I liked six out of the seven classes I chose and here's some of what I completed. The rest will follow when finished.

The first layout was by Lorraine and I loved the idea of stripping off the top layer of the die cut and putting chipboard shapes underneath and embossing them. Several classes over the weekend had embossed details.



Probably my favourite layout of the weekend because it involved sewing!! Though the embroidery floss was rubbish and the eye of the needles provided were too large, but I had some sewing in my suitcase so not a problem. Also my photos were right and I was able to finish it all in class and bought myself a new signo white pen to highlight the alphabet stickers.



Kirsty's hybrid class suited my Egypt pictures perfectly and the plane moves across the page. I still need to fire up the A3 printer and get into hybrids more.



And finally the only photo I took all weekend. Fortunately however there is a group photo taken by Kirsty, who we hope will visit Jersey very soon.