Happy mail

Not much mail waiting for us on our return from Spain. I am impatiently waiting for my copy of Zakka style.

As well as the bank statements and hospital appointments, I received a pattern from Jean Kester all the way from Oz. a simple but striking pattern with very detailed instructions for binding. A great way to use up some scraps for a fun quilt for project Linus.




I also received three pretty fat quarters to enable me to participate in the designer's challenge in the next issue of Fat Quarterly The fabric is from Sugar Hill by Tanya Whelan for Westminster Fibres.

I guess the washing is calling my name as is the empty fridge. Better get to it as I'm off to the quilt show in Nantes later this week.

Sewing kits

I was reading about the sewing kits Pat Sloan keeps to go travelling with etc. I have a completely different approach and add supplies to my project to travel or go to class. Here are the two kits I took to Spain.

The first is a hexagon block ready to hand piece with the bare essentials of the pieces ready prepared, a needle and thimble in a tin. This then goes in the plastic bag with the lock and thread. The nail scissors don't go on the plane with me.




The second kit is some embroidery. The hoop, pattern (not shown), thread and thimble go in the embroidered pouch with threads cut ready to use and the embroidery goes in a separate bag to keep it clean.





Of course when we take the car to France I pack my sewing machine and tools together with a project or two to work on!

I have just downloaded Blogpress to blog when I'm away from home. I wonder if this will wor.

2012 Finish a long second quarter

What to choose for this quarter? Like last quarter I'll choose five items including the April project for the 2012 UFO challenge.

1. Rose star which I started yesterday which will be two blocks made into a bag



2. Swoon for which seven blocks are made and I now have extra fabric for the last two blocks



3. Feathered wreath applique from the Accuquilt workshop which is also the April project for Patchwork Times' 2012 UFO challenge. This is what it should ressemble once finished.



4. Hope Love and Friendship by Rosalie Quinlan as I'm taking this on holiday with me next week.



5. Hopscotch Quilt a long which is all cut and needs a lot of work.



Perhaps I'll add in one more for this quarter:
6. Christmas stars for which I need to make some spacer blocks


A bit hopeful perhaps, but my swoon top is almost finished and the Christmas stars setting pieces are simple. We'll see in three months time.

Finish along - First quarter 2012

Where did March go? I have achieved not a lot in March but fortunately I was working hard towards the Eisteddfod so have all of my commitments finished. I committed to:

1. disappearing nine patch - finished and donated to Project Linus




2. Cream and blue stars finished and I won a trophy for it in the local Eisteddfod



3. 1930s table runner - finished




4. Tilda doll - finished



5. 2 from 1 finished



Now to think what I'm going to complete for the next quarter instead of starting more projects.

I blame Wendy

At the Gogogetaway Wendy showed me all of her prepared pieces for some Star Rose blocks and laid a few out on her small cropping space. I could instantly see the appeal. Wendy shared the website address of summer fete and I was keen to start some on my return.

If I could use some of the techniques employed in the Vignette hexagon blocks along with an Accuquilt die, the pieces would be ready in no time at all. However the die I borrowed had been misshapen either by the wrong machine or too many layers of fabric. Never mind, having decided to only make two blocks and make them into a bag, I ploughed ahead and printed off some shapes from http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/ onto freezer paper. The next job was to cut them into the smaller shapes and choose some fabric.

I got lucky and Lizzie offered to cook chicken fajitas for dinner, so I got out my Sewline glue pen and tacked down the edges. This is how far I got. I now need to find a thimble so I can sew some pieces together.

Getaway challenges

Prior to the event there were three challenges announced. fortunately we had until 2 pm Sunday to complete these for entry into randowm draws.
#1 Badge with octagon base - I didn't do this one.
#2 Sketch layout based on 8
#3 Layout with eight requirements

Pre crop challenge #2

I used product I'd taken with me along with the wooden letters from the Friday class.

Pre crop challenge #3


I used a layout from Liz's Chinese Whispers group to do this layout. I won a prize from the random drawing for this. The tickets were pinned to the layout, so Katie called out the title. Or not in this case!!

Prize


A lovely selection of Basic Grey So Sophie and My Minds Eye Stella Rose. This may appear as a challenge at the forthcoming Hen Party crop.

There were also three more challenges from the weekend:
mini book make and take - not sure where it is but I did finish it
Group photo challenge using a sheet of kraft and white cardstock provided with anything left over from your classes. A challenge indeed.
Eight sketch challenges - well done to Lisa and Katie who completed all eight. deserved winners in the random drawing.

Group photo challenge



Thanks to rubina for the loan of her MS punch.

Sketch challenge


This is the photo I had originally chosen for the how tweet class.

Last but not least, the one other layout I finished over the weekend which only needed journalling and the word strips. Pathetic but finished.



Whilst I travelled pretty light this time, I could have left behind my swimming costume (I was convinced there was a pool I'd never used) and the Sketch Support half finished layouts which filled half an art bin.

I loved this weekend for all seven of the classes which I loved from the start and had no need to alter, the group photo and the portfolio of all the class handouts.

I was also pleased to meet Wendy who follows my blog for sewing stuff and who I hope to have persuaded to come to London in June. However she has started me on a new project which I will post about later in the week.

Gogo Getaway 8

I'm just back from the eighth Getaway and my fourth. Here are my class layouts. I have finished all but one layout which requires machine stitching and there was only one class where my photo was not suitable and I had one which I was going to use for a challenge so swapped them over.

#1 And did those feet ...




Someone didn't read the full photo requirements and had a lovely photo of some killer heels. I need to do some machine stitching to complete this and add the title which is bagged and ready to add.

#2 I can paint a rainbow



#3 Patchwork paperie



This one had my name on it. :)

#4 tattered and torn



My photo was perdominantly blue so I didn't add the mauve accents provided.

#5 wishi washi



Great technique which I think will be used over and over again.

#6 How tweet, can you resist




Yet another messy class. :) This is the class my photo was wrong for. However the B is for beach and birthday certainly worked.

#7 Tagged to transfer



A great class and layout to finish the weekend. The papers picked out the turquoise in Jessica's dress and the roses in Katie's dress.

And tomorrow I'll share the pre crop challenges and getaway challenges. And the prize I won from the random draw.

Granny squares

And not the crocheted kind. It was the Caesarea Quilters UFO day today where you have six hours to sew on whatever you like. After a late night last night with the clocks going forward too, I was a bit of a zombie this morning, so I packed my sewing machine and tools, the two remaining swoon blocks and my Hopscotch project wallet. I also printed off the instructions for granny squares.

I need some more fabric for my last two swoon blocks due to cutting mistakes. I have ordered some more background fabric and then I needed to find some elusive Hometown. I contacted the designer, Sweetwater, and they have come up trumps and are sending me the one square of one fabric and the four rectangles of another fabric to enable me to finish the project. Today I got the blocks as far as I could without the extra fabric.



At the same time, I dug out my Ruby jelly roll scraps and cut them into 2.5" squares, enough for two granny squares and almost enough for a third block. I know I have a bag of Sandy Gervais scraps from my pinwheel quilt, so I will find those and put them ready for our all day sewing session at Chez Soi on Wednesday.



I think this block would make a great demo at our monthly meeting as so may of us have leftovers from the jelly rolls we've used.

Tomorrow I need to focus on project instructions and photos for a project for Fat Quarterly. The deadline is looming fast and I haven't made a start on it yet.

FNSI March 2012

Here is my FNSI for March 2012. All I managed was the lettering on the left hand side and the hand of the angel on the right hand side. This was my Christmas present from Claire and is destined to be the piece I take on trips and to our quilting group over the next few months to work on. The pattern is Hope Love and Friendship by Rosalie Quinlan - with a donation for each pattern going to support breast cancer sufferers.

And here is how the finished article should look like. :) Photo taken from Rosalie's blog



On Saturday I went to the local scrapbooking crop for six hours (organised by me). I have lost my scrapbooking mojo as my photo printer is playing up and I haven't got around to uploading some photos to snapfish and ordering some prints. That is a priority job for this week or when I get to the Gogogetaway at the end of the month I'll have nothing to work on. I also need to order two prints from the local newspaper. As well as taking my scrapbooking stuff, I also took a jelly roll and yardage to cut my pieces for the Hopscotch quiltalong. Hopscotch is a pattern by Camille Roskelly and I am using her Ruby range, some Moda red dotty and a white on white with a small star for the quilt.



Although I got all of the pieces cut on Saturday, I only sewed a few pieces yesterday as I concentrated on quilting a quilt for a customer and then later in the day we spent two hours helping take down the needlework section of the Eisteddfod. With Nick, Matthew and Lizzie also helping, it went quite quickly and all but two of the 600+ entries were returned to their owners.

It is Mother's Day in the UK today and I have been spoilt with a card, semi circle rulers for my quilting machine and my car has been cleaned and waxed. My car is now filled with the Eisteddfod entries for Caesarea Quilters which will be displayed at our meeting this evening and members will vote for their favourites and the Chez Soi entries will be returned at our meeting on Wednesday after they have been made into a display for our annual photograph.

Swoon 7

I made this seventh of nine blocks in the company of Jenny and Lorraine on Thursday. On Friday I completed the quilting of Liz's interesting quilt (jelly roll race pattern) and Saturday I taught fourteen ladies the Building Blocks pattern. There was a diverse range of abilities which makes for an interesting workshop. All of the blocks were lovely. Sunday I rested!!



This week sees the judging of Eisteddfod entries and I have offered to go up all day Wednesday to help and I may go today too. It'll be interesting to see behind the scenes and hope that I'm not asked to scribe the comments for one of my own entries.

March 2012 UFO challenge

I finished my cream and blue stars for the February challenge. It has been packed off to go to our local Eisteddfod so I will have a better photo later.



Judy has chosen No 8 as the March UFO which is my stitchery table runner. That is very doable. The stitcheries are done and there are fabrics I received in the Chez Soi Christmas secret santa, ready in the bag to go.



However today I'm going to continue working on my swoon blocks as they are all cut out and I have six out of nine complete and I'm keen to finish them.

2012 UFO challenge update

In January I posted a list of twelve projects to be finished in 2012 for the UFO challenge hosted by Judy at Patchwork Times The list was:

1. Jan Krentz difficult quilt - Summer salsa lone star. This was chosen for February but with all the Eisteddfod pieces to be finished I'll swap number 1 for something else.
2. blue and cream stars - finished
3. rainbow squares
4. 2 from 1 - finished
5. Disappearing nine patch - finished for January
6. TB BOM - finished
7. Modern V meets Thimbleberries scraps
8. Christmas table runner
9. Love laugh live stitchery
10. accuquilt feathered applique
11. Disappearing nine patch runner - finished
12. TQS BOM

So I need to swap some projects and add others, so my new list is:

1. blue and cream stars - finished for February
2. Jan Krentz difficult quilt - Summer salsa lone star
3. rainbow squares
4. Heart stitchery - not even started but I'm going on a few trips over the next few months so this will be my take along project
5. Disappearing nine patch - finished for January
6. Swoon - three more blocks to make
7. Modern V meets Thimbleberries scraps
8. Christmas table runner
9. Love laugh live stitchery
10. accuquilt feathered applique
11. Fat Quarter stars - just one more block to make which is released on Thursday, I think
12. TQS BOM

I think that leaves not on the list :
TQS 2012 BOM
Hugs cushion
Dreamcatcher cross stitch
Cowl which must be finished today
Vignette
Elephantz
Tree skirt

I've also bought fabric and a pattern from Thimbleblossoms for Hopscotch which is the next quilt along organised by I'm a ginger monkey I guess I'm my own worst enemy and it's no wonder my daughter gets exasperated with me. I may have finished six projects already this year, but I've also started three more and another is kitted up and ready to go.

2012 Eisteddfod project 5

Five down one to go and in theory number six is easy - sewing in the ends on a knitted cowl. However I'm not a knitter so will have to do some serious googling and Youtubing for some help.

This was fiddly to put the bits together but at last I've finished Tilda the Garden Angel.

Successful UFO day

Eleven of us at Caesarea Quilters UFO day. I'm glad I arrived early as I had loads of random questions thrown at me and plenty of miscellaneous quilting stuff to get out of the car, so it was ten before I was ready to start. I also picked up two quilts to long arm, probably after Wednesday, the deadline for getting my Eisteddfod entries to Astra. My Thimbleberries block of the month is now at the laundrette, so just my Tilda doll and sewing in the ends on my knitted cowl to complete. Very doable.

I achieved quite a lot during the six hours as well as quite a bit of morbid chatter. I completed three Farmer's Wife blocks from scratch and finished another swoon block making six so far.

85 square dance



42 fruit basket



40 friendship block




I've just updated my Farmer's Wife progress spreadsheet which tells me I have just 22 blocks to sew. I recently doubled checked my list and put all the blcoks in numerical order as some seemed very familiar and I thought I'd already done them. however there are several blocks which are almost identical to other blocks in the book. Of course most of the remaining blocks have 50 pieces in a 6" block, but there are a couple of simpler blocks which should be a quickish finish. I also have just three swoon blocks left to make which I will probably take to Chez Soi's all day session on Wednesday.

Fractured star

I'm loving this block. Another quilter on the Fat Quarter stars Flickr group replaced the inner background pieces with an extra fabric. I loved her subtle change and changed the background white for the icy blue. Whilst there is none of the icy blue in the other fabrics of this block, it is from the same range (Flurry by Kate Sain) and it will tie in with the other blocks.

Swoon 5

Progress will start to slow now as I concentrate on my Eisteddfod pieces. I also cut a few too many half square triangles and not enough squares for the remaining blocks so I need to work out a fix. I hope to get back to these blocks at Sunday's CQ UFO day along with some Farmer's Wife blocks



I think this is my favourite block so far. Lizzie pointed out it was like the fabric in Lorraine's green quilt. She's right, the quilt I made for Lorraine also uses a Sweetwater range.

FNSI results

Since planning what I wanted to do last night, I had a minor accident at the beach and slipped coming down some rocks and over extended my little finger on my left hand. Hooray I'm right handed. However my left hand has been very uncomfortable and then I went and had a wart frozen on the right hand. You get the picture. Not condusive to getting as much done as I wanted, but I still managed to:

Finish final of five Solstice star blocks. I changed the cutting instructions to eliminate the half square triangles as follows:

Fabric 1 four 2.5" by 4.5" rectangles
Fabric 2 four 2.5" by 6.5" rectangles
Background four 4.5" squares and twelve 2.5" squares
I then used the 2.5" squares and the double half square triangle method on each rectangle and then pieced the fabric 1 rectangle and background square. Then after pressing added the fabric 2 rectangle.



Finish the binding on my building blocks quilt, ready for our guild meeting on Monday where I hope to get two more ladies to sign up for our WI workshop.




Finish one more swoon block. I was concerned there might not be enough contrast between the pale blue and the grey background but now it's together it looks great.




I have block 11 of the 12 fat quarter stars cut and ready to sew with some more swoon blocks for tomorrow. Then I do need to finish my four Eisteddfod pieces as the replacement table for my Bernina has arrived. I will work on the table runner first as I can sew the binding on this piece at quilting on Monday night and Wednesday morning.