Q3 finish along

My list is no longer than Q2, however some new items have been added and some oldies have been completed.

1. Jan Krentz star from 2010

2. TQS BOM Sedona Star from Jan 2012 - I have been working on this for my #100daysofufosewing so progress is being made.

3. Lion from 2017

4. Tula Pink butterfly from October 2017. I need to move a few blocks and then quilt it.

5. Christmas on Gingerbread Lane

6. It's a small world from 2016 2/3 pieced

7.  Five impossible things

I was briefly under ten UFOs again but I need to add:

8. Test quilt for Abigail

9. Elizabeth Hartman quilt along which I am probably going to leave at the number of blocks I already have made.

10. I want to make a project from Gnomeangel's new book and I have made some fussy cutting templates to use to make the we are all connected mini quilt.

June UFO is complete

I am waiting for Pom Pom trim to make it into a cushion but the cross stitch is finished.

I have now moved on to my Christmas on Gingerbread lane cross stitch. More excitingly it is the last cross stitch pattern that I have in progress. 

Retreat plans - Lisa the Unicorn

I made one fatal flaw in my retreat planning, I didn't print off page 21 of the pattern which contained the template for the horn. Fortunately Pippa came to the rescue and emailed me the relevant page which the hotel printed.

I also miscut two strips but Liz had lots of Blueberry Park in her stash and came to my aid too. I finished the quilt top at retreat and packed it in my hand luggage so I could quilt it on my return from retreat.

This project hadn't stopped throwing me curve balls as a couple of my background pieces now look like they don't match. In the end I decided to quilt it as it is as it is to be a baby quilt for humanitarian aid to Rumania.

I hope to finish this project before the end of June

Jet set sewing station

I made this as a gift for the recent Simply Solids retreat. My first small gift was a needle keeper which was purchased at our Jersey MQG meeting as a number had been made to raise funds in memory of a member, Karen, by a friend of her Mum, Rosalie. Day two I purchased the 8" rotary cutting mat for the jet set sewing station and also slipped in a mini rotary cutter. On the Friday, my swap partner Helen, looked at the same rotary cutter during a trip to the Simply Solids shop and was told by her daughter not to buy it. Imagine her delight on day 2!!

I used Kaffe Fasset fabrics which are Helen's favourites and chose this pattern as Helen loves to do EPP. The present was a hit, I am relieved to say.

Pretty London finish

I have no idea why I haven't shared this earlier as I finished this week's ago and it is framed and put away to gift.

I am pleased with the progress that I made on this project once I actually applied myself to just one project. Half an hour a day does make a difference.

Retreat plans -Flora supply case

I have made the flora supply case before, so took it with me to the Simply Solids retreat as a visual aid. I precut and quilted they outside panel using a graffiti digital pattern by Karlee Porter. And I was ready to roll at retreat.

I also packed my corner rounding template (available from my Etsy store). Several people at retreat were having a destash so I picked up a piece of Tabby Road by Tula Pink from Katy Jones to make the pocket. Today some silver zipper ends were delivered so I have finished my project.

I also put a zipper end on my slalom pouch so that is also finished and it's one of my Q2 UFOs.

Retreat plans Trip around the World

The first finish of last weekend was a Trip around the World quilt top using my pre prepped strips. It is only four foot square but it's a good  lap quilt size.

My aim was to have a dark blue cross with low volume strips either side. The strips came together quickly and I finished the quilt top early on Saturday morning.

I packed my three finished projects in my hand luggage, leaving my sewing machine and goody bag with purchases to come home on the ferry on Wednesday evening with Kim.

That meant that I could quilt the quilt top today using Superior Thread's King Tut in De Nile. I will trim the quilt tomorrow and cut the binding so it's ready to bind on Thursday. This afternoon I am going to see Book Club at the cinema. I might try and load another project to quilt this evening,

June 2018 UFO - working on the G

Having finished the letter U ten days ago, I can see the end is in sight. I can fit the remaining stitching area into the working area of my frame and have stitched several of the borders up to the end. I was one stitch short, and I have used all of the tiny scraps of turquoise to make the bottom border he correct length. The kit was full of yarn at the start, but it is now running low. I have no turquoise left and the deep yellow is running out too. 

I was away on retreat from last Thursday, so I worked hard on this before I went. Having worked in this over the last week, I can see the end is in sight. Will it be finished by the end of June?

Retreat plans 3 and 4

My third retreat project is the Lisa the Unicorn pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. All of the pieces have been cut and bagged up with the pattern. The fabrics are all by Karen Lewis from her Blueberry Park ranges except for the Kona grey. 

Kim has my sewing machine in her car along with one design board to keep my pieces in some sort of order. I may piece this on the Saturday with the Trip around the world blocks as a leader and ended project.

I have one more project which is my improv quilt from Poppyprint's class for the London Modern Wuilt Guild which may remain untouched, we'll see.

Retreat plans 2

@pommesdeterre is organising a scrappy trip around the world sewalong on Instagram. So I have jumped down that rabbit hole. I selected green, turquoise, low volume  and navy scraps and fat quarters from my stash. I then cut strips for sixteen blocks and organised them by colour into IKEA ziplock bags.

The plan was to pack these for retreat in the bags but I soon realised that the sewalong timetable meant that I should have put my strips into block sets.

So I drew one strip from each bag at random and put them into 16 bundles ready to sew. You know that it was too tempting, so I did sew a couple of strip sets together and have two finished blocks as well. They are now ready to pack along with thread and my 2.5" wide ruler and the instructions from the Quiltville blog. Two more projects still to prep along with my sewing machine. 

Retreat plans 1

I am going to the Simply Solids retreat with two friends next week. Kim is taking her car whereas I don't use the cross channel ferry and prefer flying. Today we are taking our sewing machines to Kim, so I have been focussing on getting projects together to work on over the two and a half days of retreat.

I had originally planned to work on the Everything in its place bag by Annie Unrein but I finished that project last month as a reward for finishing the appliqué elements of another UFO. so I am going to make a Flora supply case in matching fabrics. I have pulled together a kit for myself in a ziplock bag with the pattern ready to go. I quilted the exterior fabric on my long arm with an area of a graffiti pattern. The only item that I needed to purchase was the folded elastic.

I have also added my rounding template to my kit which is available in my Etsy store. 

June 2018 UFO progress

My plan for this month was to have H and U finished by 8 June. It's the 9 June today and I have just finished the cream around U. I find cream or white backgrounds tedious and slow going. I have to force myself to do one strand of cream, one of the brown and then reward myself with one strand of colour. This is a kit by Emily Peacock.

I have been distracted this week with laser cutting acrylic at our local library. More on that tomorrow. I have opened a little Etsy store. Also our local WI entered a group competition and I spent a day or more making a tablecloth, napkins etc to pull the entry together. I am glad that's now finished.

I can now see the end in sight, literally. I have stitched right to the end of the pattern on the top border as well as working on the final letter - G. I am away for five days this month, but I will also be without my sewing machine from tomorrow so won't be able to sew and will focus on either this project or a shawl which I'm knitting.

June 2018 UFO challenge with APQS

I saw this morning that number 11 had been chosen for June's project by APQS. You can join in on Facebook. I quickly retrieved my Quilyer's Planner to look up my list. And hooray, I am already working on it as part of the #100days challenge.

Here's how it looked on 7 May. Lots of cream to do and H and U have been worked on but to the right of U, nothing.

Here's how it looked earlier today with the folk art hand complete. Mentally I have divided the panel into five areas - two hands and H, U and G.

To complete this by the end of June, allowing for five days at the Simply Solids retreat, I need to get the H and U finished by 8 June. Today I am going to focus on the cream, turquoise and brown around the first two letters, but first I need to wind on the canvas in the frame to the first bullseye in the H. 

At least I have a plan, let's see how I progress before I start getting bored with it.

Everything in its place bag

I have completed my Everything in its place bag this morning. I have used two Tula Pink fabrics from Sewhot.co.uk with an Alison Glas fabric for the lining. I followed the Crafsty class with Annie Unrein which I bought when it was on sale with a 50% discount. It come with the pattern too. You can watch and rewatch the videos as many times as you need. 

My tips are to do exactly as Annie says as otherwise your zipper tags will come off. I used Bosal as my wadding and quilted it on my Handiquilter mid arm. I have some small pieces left so I must use them. 

I ran out of the vinyl so had to wait for an order to complete the project. Do use busy prints so the multiple rows of stitching are less noticeable.

I had the grey mesh left from the makeup bag that I made for my daughter and it matched perfectly with the Alison Glass fabric.

I love how the stripe looks gut straight and on the bias. You can never go wrong with a striped binding.

QP BOM Christmas quilt finished

I may have been quiet recently, but that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting. Today I finished the binding on the Quilter's Planner block of the month. Although the sewalong doesn't finish until the end of the year, I decided to finish my blocks and quilt.

Whilst trying to rest up my foot which I injured on the foot of our sofa, I set my HQ18 to quilt this very Christmassy quilt. I have a basket of Christmas fabrics so picked out different combinations to reach block. The holly leaf background fabric came from stash.

This is a different setting than that given in the planner, but I am pleased with my design.

Craftsy offer for US Mother's Day

Despite it not being Mother's Day in the UK, it might be worth checking out this offer of free classes this weekend. I have just been watching one of the classes for the Everything in Its Place bag by Annie Unrein.

Slalom pouch

The bias tape curves technique was taught at our JMQG rainbow retreat in March 2018 by Jenny Haynes (IG Pappersaxsten). Once I got down to unpicking one side of the zip, which was sewn in according to noodlehead's open wide pouch tutorial on her blog, it only took me an hour to finish the project. I wish all UFOs were that easy.

The lining is by Aneela Hoey for Moda, so some vintage stash has been used.

#100days of UFOs pretty Little London

Happy dance. My cross stitch is finished. I stopped working on it for a few days as I had a trip to the UK at the end of last week, for which I needed some hand sewing, but I finished this on Saturday, steamed it to remove the wrinkles and took it straight to the framers.

The yellow and blue of the road was the last part to be finished and I have picked out the pale blue for a mount with a silver frame. 

Round peg square hole cushion

I have finished the class project from the Krista Hennebury class I attended ten days ago with Oxfordshire Modern Quilt Guild. Having decided on the binding fabric, I was able to also pull out the piece that was in my scrap bags which had been pressed a few days earlier. I had just enough fabric for the binding which I cut at 3.25" wide so I could machine stitch the binding.

This is ready to join my Christmas cross stitch for next year's Eisteddfod.

I used snaps to finish the back, but prefer the Kam snaps to these Prym snaps.

Three weeks into #100daysofufosewing

I havehad to pack my Pretty Little London cross stitch four our trip later his week to France otherwise I would have finished it before our trip. Three weeks ago I had barely done a quarter of this pattern, but by stitching for at least 30 minutes a day, in three weeks I gave progressed to three quarters complete.

We are away for four days so I hope to finish at least Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral. The end is in sight.

Even though we are taking the car, I am still packing light with my small suitcase and this project in a plastic bag.

JMQG inspiration

Here are all of our Jersey MQG entries for the Jersey Eisteddfod needlework section including the group trophy that we won for the second time. It is inspiring to see the work done by members over the previous year displayed in one place. Though pulling together the display by myself almost killed me.

The room was very hot yesterday and three of us sat chatting about scrap management. Sue had taken my system of zip lick bags for each colour a step further and pressed the scraps at one of our meetings. Gisele decided to do the same yesterday evening and payed the results on Instagram.

This morning I did the same whilst starting a new bag for linen scraps and Sweetwater HSTs which I am sure could be made into a quilt. Once pressed the scraps take about a third of the room than before pressing. I need to take this system further and add your Bonnie and Camille scraps which occupy one basket with only a small amount of FQs and yardage.

Pretty little London progress

Today is my first day in London and I am meeting up with friends to go to some craft shops and lunch, before heading to Gatwick airport to go home. I brought along my #100DayProject to work on as it is very portable. I am pleased with the progress I have made in two weeks on this project and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I may even finish this one this month.

Each day I have worked on one element of the picture. Yesterday I finished the clouds and the Sun and progress to working on St Paul's Cathedral in the bottom right hand corner. I have only realised recently that the building in the left-hand corner must be Buckingham Palace.