Orbit - ALYOF - March 2015

Why do I always wait until the last minute to finish a project. I have done that so many times and then found that the linky party has closed. So here is my Orbit quilt - finished. I love all of the fabrics bought from the Village Haberdashery. Comma by Zen Chic is the basis of the quilt with some Summerville, Pearl Bracelets, Architexture by Carolyn Friedlander and more. This is definitely not my usual colour palette, but I love it. So much so that a picture overload follows.

 

Can you see how I've quilted it in straight lines on my Bernina spaced about 1/2" apart (ie the width of my walking foot). I had planned to do something fancy but inspiration never struck but it's a finish and I'm pleased with its simple lines.

The backing and binding are both an extra wide Architexture print bought on sale at Fat Quarter Shop. The colour is perfect for this quilt and co-ordinates with several of the Architexture prints in the quilt top.

Here's a closer look at each quarter. The orange ring is Comma as is the grey floral with an Architextures text print - I wish I'd bought more of the text print.  The surrounding prints are almost all Comma by Zen Chic apart from the grey bike tracks which was from Village Haberdashery's scrap basket.

The three rings are all from Comma. I saw online that anyone who liked Zen Chic's Comma line, will like their newest line, which I need to investigate.

The orange is Architextures by Caroline Friedlander with a Summerville centre some more bike tracks and an orange Pearl Bracelet.

This block is a little different as only the cream centre is by Zen Chic and is surrounded by a lime plain from the Village Haberdashery's scrap basket and a yellow Pearl Bracelet.

Now to work on April's goal. I'm debating whether to take an hour out and walk to the bank and the food store. It is so tempting to drive, but a walk would do me good. Looking out of the window it's a sunny day, but I know it's deceptive as it's also very windy.

Linking to:

My quilt model is home

And after a trip to the gym, he was happy to model some quilts, but unfortunately it was a bit windy. never mind, you'll get the idea.

 

 

I'm sure you're already nodding as you recognise the backing - Ikea's Bitten which Jenny kindly picked up for me in France (again)

 



 

You might even recognise the pattern which is a granny square made up of 6 by 6 - 2.5" squares. It's the same design as the first quilt I made for this year's Siblings Together camp. And it's quilted exactly the same as the first quilt too, however the backing is different and the frame is only 2" wide as I'd run out of the bike track fabric. 

Nautical quilt ST2 March 2015

It seems ludicrous but I have avoided making these simple blocks for March's bee mama, because I was full of cold and didn't want to have to think about the maths for these blocks as they were to be 9.5" finished (10" square finished). I don't know why they were to be such an odd measurement, possibly to fit four across to fit the backing fabric which inspired the quilt.

 

 

 

The first two blocks were finished at the start of the month and I started with two 12" squares which gives you two quick blocks whilst waiting for confirmation of the finished size of the blocks. We were given the link to a great resource for blocks. So I selected a couple and there the printout has sat for over three weeks.

 

 

Until this morning when I am in my usual avoidance mode and don't want to get down to quilting my Orbit quilt, so I pulled out my piece of paper and some red, white and blue fabrics.

 

And hey presto, I soon had two more completed blocks. I have also pieced a little more of one of the two large blocks from the Moda Building Blocks quilt.

 

 

They are simple but striking blocks. I think Susy is going to have to make sure she doesn't spell out any unsuitable words. My blocks are C and F.

 

 

I will post them later when I'm at our afternoon canasta session as there is a Post Office within one hundred feet of the venue.

 

 

 

Rocky Mountain Puzzle

My most willing quilt model returns on Saturday, so I will have photos of my most recent finish at the weekend. Not that it's the quilt I chose to finish for ALYOF, but it's another finish.

 

With one quilt finished, I wanted a quick sew for yesterday afternoon and evening so I started prepping some blocks to sew for April's Bumbling Honeys bee mama, Sue Blake. Sue chose Rocky Mountain Puzzle using these instructions.  Our instructions for colours were: "Please use low volume/text for the background and colours of your choice for the rest! I am hoping for a rich scrappy quilt and look forward to seeing large scale prints in the centres of these blocks." 

 

 

First of all I looked in my stash and picked out two focus fabrics from Cotton + Steel. as Sue had used Cotton + Steel for her test block, I thought I was safe there. I also picked a bold floral from my table which hadn't been put away from another project. This I Want Her Stash bundle was also on my desk so I decided to cut into the bundle and plan to put it away today. This is either the January or February bundle.

 

 

Whilst retrieving my best rotary cutter from beside my long arm, I retrieved this rose spot trimmed from my last quilt backing. I think the rose spot is by Tanya Whelan. The big floral is by Lori Holt and may be from her Bake Sale collection.

 

A Cotton + Steel insect combined with fabrics from I Want Her Stash bundle. I love a good spot.

A fussy cut Cotton +Steel centre from Village Haberdashery paired with green left over from my binding for my Wishes quilt.

I'm pleased with how these blocks turned out and I'll pass these to Jane to add to her blocks which will then be sent to Sue. I will have to wait another three weeks for my next I Want Her Stash bundles as they send out two months at once for International subscribers - very sensible.

 

What to do today? Work on my Orbit quilting or go for a walk in the wilds of St Ouen in drizzle? Difficult choice.

That was fun

You know by now that I'm easily distracted and yesterday a photo of April's Siblings Together block popped up on Instagram. Carol requested a 20" finished block using Quilt Dad's instructions for a quarter log cabin block - oh and it has to have a wonk. Now that is a challenge for me. Fortunately I had sat in on John's class at the first Fat Quarterly Retreat when he was teaching wonky log cabins.

 

 

Carol's colour scheme is  pink, aqua, purple, white and a hint of yellow. Firstly I raided my box of 2.5" scrap strips from to retreat swaps. A nice haul from there and I cut five centres and off I went. Great fun. In the end I only needed to cut one strip from yardage so a successful use of the scrap strips.

You're right, I only need four smaller blocks to make a larger block, but as we are a few sewers down, I think, I thought one extra block would help Carol.

 

As I was getting everything ready to photograph and parcel up to post, I spotted a large piece of pink and purple fabric, so I have added that to my parcel for binding.

Where have I been?

Nowhere is the boring answer, but in truth I've been mainly sofa surfing trying to get over the cold I picked up in Guernsey 10 days ago. My head is so screwed up that I thought we had a Guild UFO day yesterday, and no that would be next week. So having decided that I would work on my Wishes quilt at the UFO day, I broke it out and worked on it yesterday.

 

 

I had some 2.5" strips already cut to piece the border, but as I've decided to donate the finished quilt to Siblings Together, I decided to go for a scrappy strip border. This made finishing the top a quick finish as I just needed to add three white borders and two rounds of scrappy strips.

 

I even pieced the backing ready to quilt. When I say piece, I mean fold the length in half and sew one seam and press. :) I had even made a note in Outlook reminding me that this Tanya Whelan spot is for the Wishes backing, which I bought in a sale in John Lewis last July.

 

I think the spot isn't a bad match and having loaded it onto my long arm frame ready to quilt tomorrow, there's going to be plenty of backing left. I can see this pink spot being paired with other Bonnie & Camille fabrics in the future.

CQ Jersey bee - March 2015

My friend Jane has just started a bee for our local guild. For the first month, Jane is bee mama and has chosen the weather vane block with these instructions from McCalls.

 

Jane asked us to make a block that looks like a flower. So green leaves, coloured petals a different centre and a light back ground - any light colour will do, white, cream, ... anything plain and pale.

 

I soon regretted my choice of printed cream fabric as at night it's difficult to differentiate the right side from the wrong side.

  

In the full light of day, as I finished the blocks this morning, it looks like all of the background fabrics are the right way around. Jane is using these blocks to make a quilt for Siblings Together.

Happy Mother's Day

My daughter, Lizzie is feeding my addiction for Nordicware with this addition.

 

I really can't justify making cake today as we have scones, carrot cake and courgette cake left from yesterday's baking competition. I was so chuffed to win first prize for my scones, though I did have to bake two batches as the first batch was wonky, but tasty. I can recommend just out of the oven scones for breakfast.

 

I'm suffering from a cough and cold that started as a tickly throat on Thursday evening after a lovely day spent in Guernsey. as a result this customer quilt is still waiting for collection.

I love the delectable mountains border paired with the string blocks from a class with Carolyn Forster.

Fiesta block

 

About a month ago I treated myself to EQ7 along with two books of exercises to guide me through the process of drawing blocks. I am definitely getting to grips with it, apart from my mouse control where I end up with random lines. Does anyone know if you can use a drawing tablet with EQ7?

 

Jane is the lucky recipient of my EQ5 software which I never got to grips with, but this time I plan on doing the monthly challenges on the website and work through the exercises.

 

This is the block I submitted for the competition which closes today. I've drawn inspiration from the fabric design. The fabric is colourful and out of my comfort zone but I'm pleased that I've entered and learnt how to add fabric to the library and import jpgs of fabric too.

Stunning Seminole

 

I apologise for the appalling photographs. You can't even see my quilting. I used an all over star edge to edge pantograph in a bold autumn King Tut thread. Although last week was busy with Eisteddfod adjudication (photos of the exhibition to follow), I loaded this quilt on Monday and completed a couple of rows every day. It was soon ready for Jane to collect on Thursday.

Siblings Together

Here are four blocks I whipped up in less than an hour for RoseDahlia. we were asked to provide 9" finished churn dashes using the tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew The colour choices were defined by this sorbet selection by Rose Dahlia.

 

As there is no Fat Quarterly Retreat this year, Jane and I plan to post our contributions in the next month. I think I'll send the two I've completed and then if I make any more than can go at a later date. The goal is to make 100 quilts for this year's camps and just like vintage Bleu Peter, here's the group progress to date. If you have a spare hour, do rustle up some churn dash blocks.

Provided byFund-Raising-Ideas-Center.com

Bumbling Honeys - March 2015

 

On Saturday evening Lizzie and her friends monopolised the lounge, eating homemade pizza and watching movies. I retreated to my girl cave to make these blocks for Claire. Fortunately Claire had given us the instructions early so I have one out of three commitments for March already completed.

 

The instructions for the cross block are here. Our instructions were low volume background and solid or tone on tone for the crosses. Tick, done.

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to March

 

March is the last month of this quarter, so I'll need to look back and see what I thought I'd finish this quarter.

First up is my ALYOF goal for March, to finish my Orbit quilt. This is so nearly done. I have about 1 metre of binding to hand stitch down. I will take this with me to the Eisteddfod this week in case we have any quiet moments. Then I have one square and five octagons to quilt which I'm planning to start today.

I also have my Wishes quilt to finish. Two Jersey friends have finished theirs, my blocks are sewn together and need a border, I think. Having dug the project out of my cupboard, I need to do one length of sashing on the longest sides and then the border. I also want to finish a few Moda Building blocks this month but that's not a official goal just a step towards finishing the project.

My smaller project to complete is a bag of teddies which has sat here for two years and need to be turned into Beau Bears. As well as these I have three bees to complete blocks for, I like to get these finished early on in the month so wait enthusiastically for the instructions  to be released.