Vintage hexagons

I took some hexagons this morning to our quilt group. These are only 5/8 of an inch in size. I had left behind my stitchery at home so didn't have much to do this morning.




While stitching my hexagons Gladys pulled out a box which at one time had held ivory postcards from Harrods of London.




Imagine my surprise when she opened the box to find that the hexagons in the box were exactly the same size as I was working on.





These hexagons were prepared by a lady who has gone into a home and her daughter was clearing out the house. I am now the proud owner of a box of vintage hexagons some of which have already been sewn into hexagon flowers.

The fat quarterly retreat is being held in July next year in London. Last year we exchanged handmade items. I thought other ladies might like the small wall hanging from the pattern that I picked up at the knitting and stitching show last week. So I plan to make up some wallhangings from the small hexagons. Astra also had a small token hanging from her scissors to identify them and I thought I would make some using the hexagons too.

Does anyone know how to get that musty smell out of the fabrics without washing them?

Vintage holiday finish

I couldn't find more of the red and white Vintage Modern border fabric to do the binding and the Pin It and Stitch ladies we met at Ally Pally matched up some Kona light red which has worked well. Thanks too to Anne for helping hand sew the binding whilst I did our guild announcements last night.




Pattern and Fabric by Camille Roskelley.

Massive hexagon quilt

This quilt was hand stitched by Sue in creams and autumnal colours. Sue had fallen out of love with the quilt and asked me to stipple the borders. The challenge was that this quilt was already finished and bound so losing any fullness wasn't possible. For this reason I did a big freehand stipple in a variegated cream and brown thread.

Perkoimen Valley blocks

Tuesday was the third of five workshops with Carolyn Forster and the blocks were based on a split nine patch. A great variety of fabrics and different positioning from the seven attendees. With the class not being at full capacity there was much more room for us.

Sarah's blocks with Lynette Anderson fabrics

Joy's subtle blocks

Janet couldn't decide which way she wanted to position her accent fabric

Lorraine's zingy yellow and blacks and greys

My neutrals are from Sunkissed by Sweetwater, hot pink is my hand dyed fabric from some time ago mixed with a variety of greys for contrast

Jenny's stiking black, white and cream blocks. Not a blue in sight.

Jill's purple and blue batiks. Beautiful.

And Lizzie provided some lovely peanut butter cupcakes topped with homemade peanut brittle to use up two of the three pots of peanut butter in the larder.

Fourth quarter 2012 projects

What shall I commit to do this quarter? So many projects to choose from.

I'll start with two which are nearly finished:
1. Vintage holiday quilt. This is quilted and trimmed but I don't have enough fabric for the binding. I will try and pick it up at Alexandra Palace next week.

2. Hopscotch. Another Camille Roskelley pattern. The quilt top is put together but is in the process of being quilted on my domestic machine. I think I'll work on it at our UFO day tomorrow.

Now what else?

3. I have two blocks from yesterday's class which need to be made into a carrying bag for my lamp. With some wadding in between my lamp should be better protected.

4. Heart stitchery which is getting there as I worked on it on the cruise.

5. Sew laugh love stitchery as that doesn't have too much to do to complete it either

6. Hexy MF which I'm making with Jenny and Lorraine.

Third Quarter finish along report

Two successes only this quarter:
1. July Schnibble -Reveille

2. Rainbow squares which Jenny and Lorraine finished over a year ago.



Now what to focus on for the last quarter of 2012?

A sneak preview

I agreed to make an item from some fabrics from Fluffy Sheep Quilting to be included in a newsletter this month. The project has been finished and the instructions written. They have now been sent to Cindy for her approval (I hope). Here is a sneak peek of what I created. For the full instructions sign up for Cindy's newsletters.



Strips and strings

Day one of Carolyn Forster's classes in Jersey. We all completed two blocks and made a 10 minute Japanese bag. Thank you to Joy for providing everyone with fabric to make them and line them.  A few photos of the blocks. Carolyn's car was stuffed to the gills with sample quilts, books, vintage quilt blocks, Valdani threads.  The class was a mini quilt show with about six variations of blocks with strings demonstrated. Good value for money and no matter how long you've been quilting, there's always something to learn.



Tomorrow's class is Hidden Stars but Lizzie would be left at home alone so I won't be going but I will be at the UFO day on Monday and Perkiomen on Tuesday.

October UFO

September's UFO didn't even come out of the cupboard, however my TQS BOM has come on well during September and my rainbow squares is now bound. As I have already finished number 6 I am going to complete my Vintage Christmas Quilt instead.





1. blue and cream stars - finished for February
2. Jan Krentz difficult quilt - Summer salsa lone star
3. rainbow squares - finished in Septeber
4. Heart stitchery
5. Disappearing nine patch - finished for January
6. Swoon finished in May
7. Modern V meets Thimbleberries scraps
8. Christmas table runner
9. Love laugh live stitchery
10. accuquilt feathered applique
11. Fat Quarter stars - just making some setting blocks
12. TQS BOM

BOM rehab TQS September

I have been working hard on foundation pieced units for the Sedona Star quilt alongside other projects such as my FQR kinky bee blocks. September's task is to foundation piece six strips of 24 triangles to make a circular border. It's when you see them laid out that you remember what a big quilt it's destined to be. I will join these together once I'm ready to add the border to the middle which won't be for a while.

Today I'm going to the printers to get photocopies of the June to August appliqué blocks as I don't want to work with the originals which are glued together. Then I will need to start cutting the appliqué shapes on the Accuquilt machine. I am also waiting for a delivery of freezer paper from Ebay to complete the centres of the March to May mariner's compass blocks.

FNSI Finish

Friday night didn't go quite as planned. I had been out on Friday morning with Jane caching and we hadn't read the instructions for one of the caches, so Jane suggested we go out on Friday evening. We found the cache as the light was going and I returned home too tired to contemplate sewing. So here are the FQR Kinky blocks for Ann which I have finished along with her siggie block (love the elephant fabric) together with some for the Bumble Bee group.




These blocks are made using the converging corners block tutorial at Film in the Fridge. In October Amy is going to have us make one wonky log cabin blocks. Another challenge for me as I don't do wonky, well not intentionally.

I have been working on a foundation pieced TQS BOM border along with my Bee blocks which I should finish today as Lizzie is out all day on a Duke of Edinburgh hike prep day. Fortunately the rain has stopped for the moment.

It's FNSI time

Nick will be at air cadets and Lizzie will be at JACY so time to sew. Do sew along with us.

If you like crafting with others, Jenny and Joanne have taken over the running of our monhtly scrapbooking group - Caesarea Scrappers which is now Caesarea Crafters. More details on the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/302980413142215/



BOM rehab TQS month 5

Pink Pincushion organises the Year of Schnibbles as well as the BOm rehab. I've been meaning to jump on the rehab wagon with my TQS BOM for 2012 but first of all I had to fin all of my fabrics and progress so far. That was done late last week and I started on one of the foundation pieced blocks for month 3. Unfortunately those compasses are pieced in long strips of 32 pieces whereas these blocks are 4 piece units sewn together.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that I was somewhere near to getting to September which is the small pieced border in the finished quilt:

This is more like where I'm at apart from the fact that I haven't appliqued the circles to the border or sewn the pieces together.

 Why not? The February instructions look like another peiced unit but they turned out to be appliqued points which I didn't like. I had this idea of making it foundation pieced which of course never happened and so it got left to one side. With the help of BOM rehab I'm hoping to get the March, April and May foundation pieced compasses done. Then I'll prep the hand applique of the compass centres for sewing at our Wedesday sewing group before thinking of cutting all of the applique shapes for the remaining months.

No sewing today as the schools are closed for Battle of Britain so we are heading to France for a cheap day trip with plans to gorge on macarons.



Vintage holiday quilt top finished

I'm not sure what block I should be on for the quilt along but I have now finished the quilt top. I used a combination of Bonnie & Camille's Bliss, Ruby and Vintage Modern ranges. The border is from Vintage Modern.



It's now ready to quilt. However I have a customer quilt on the frame. I downloaded the updated Prostitcher software earlier in the week in advance of a webinar tomorrow. I only discovered after installing it that there are some major changes. Whereas I could crop a pattern in about two clicks, it now takes more stages. Nick was kind enough to print off the new 120 page manual, so this weekend I need to sit down and study the manual and get Jennifer's quilt done. Then I can quilt my quilt top.



I have also been participating in BOM rehab. I needed to find all of the bits of my TQS2012 BOM. More about that tomorrow.

More progress

August was my month for the Fat Quarterly Retreat Kinky bee. I underestimated the amount of white on white background needed to make two 12" blocks. I bought some more of the muslin mates falling snow on Saturday. Packets were sent yesterday of another fat quarter to most of my bee friends. This is the second block that I made and I have seen two other versions of this block from the bee. The second block was participant's own choice.

Farming stage one finished

All 111 blocks finished. I finished the last three blocks before heading to the airport.

September UFO

Once again I'm planning to participate in Judy's UFO finishalong. I hope to at least get the project out of the cupboard this month. Judy chose number 11 for September from this list:

1. blue and cream stars - finished for February

2. Jan Krentz difficult quilt - Summer salsa lone star

3. rainbow squares

4. Heart stitchery

5. Disappearing nine patch - finished for January

6. Swoon - three more blocks to make finished in May

7. Modern V meets Thimbleberries scraps

8. Christmas table runner

9. Love laugh live stitchery

10. accuquilt feathered applique

11. Fat Quarter stars - just making some setting blocks

12. TQS BOM

I have started making my spacer blocks and I know where the project is and I glanced at it earlier in the week. I hope that bodes well for getting it finished this month.

WIP Wednesday 29 August 2012

Not much change this week or should I say month.

New projects
I have made the ET block for my month of the FQR kinky bee and am waiting for the rest of the blocks to return to me, but everyone including me is waiting for my delivery of white on white. This block took much more background fabric than I had estimated.

Oh dear, I've just realised the Vintage holiday quilt along is another new project started since the beginning of the month. I have done eight out of the twelve blocks and am again waiting for more white on white to finish the blocks along with some Vintage Modern fabric.

Finished projects
None


Ongoing Projects:

The rainbow squares just needs the remainder of the binding sewn on. This should be a priority over the next few days / evenings.
Hope Love and Friendship by Rosalie Quinlan is over three quarters completed. Mainly done whilst I was on our cruise and I'm itching to finish it and embellish it with crystals.


I have completed seven Farmer's wife blocks this week including four today. Only three more to complete - 37 Flower pot, 67 pine tree and 43 garden path. I hope to get all of the blocks done and perhaps work on it at our UFO day at the end of September.

Back-Burner:

Christmas stars

Hexy MF - I'm getting together with Jenny tomorrow to layout our blocks and use the basting gun to baste them together ready for each of us to sew three rows each.

This week's stats:

New projects - 2

Completed projects - 0

Currently in progress - 8

More farming

Getting closer to finishing. Only seven blocks left to complete the whole 111 blocks in the book. I realised that I sewed the majority last August in France which shows how slow progress has been. Whilst waiting for some more white on white and Vintage Modern to complete two other WIPs, I finished three blocks today.

65 Peaceful Hours

I'm not a big fan of green but I think this works well.

79 Silver Lane
I incorporated a few scraps of Vintage Modern by Bonnie & Camille along with the Bliss and Ruby collections. In this case the red and grey.

82 Spider legs
Too much white for my taste but finished.

I have also started finding the fabrics for the 2012 TQS BOM for which I think I've only done two months, to sew alongside the remaining farmer's Wife blocks.Somewhere I have my masterlist of fabrics which are different from the ones in the official quilt and also the first two blocks. I need to find those first before I can start the three compass blocks for month 3.

Back for a while

It's only a week since we returned from our Baltic cruise, but it feels longer as we have been very busy for the last few days. Matthew's GCSE results were available for him to collect on Thursday morning, then they had to be sent to Welbeck sixth form college by 2pm the same day. He need 40 points and got 46, so we were fairly certain he would be accepted, but it's good to have confirmation. Friday we worked on filling out all the other forms and Matthew took those to the PO, we just need one form from his ATC Officer Commanding and he's done. We eventually received confirmation late Friday afternoon. Flights are now booked for us all to accompany him in a week's time and also for his exeat at the end of September. One Saturday we took his packing list to town and bought almost everything he needs. Now the labelling and packing starts. We can send his suitcases by post for about £12 for a 30 kilo suitcase so they will go on Wednesday to arrive in plenty of time.

In between the activity, I have fitted in a little bit of sewing. I did some hand sewing on my Live, Laugh, Love   stitchery on the cruise and I'm itching to try some crystals on the stitchery to replace the French knots and flower centres, but I must finish the stitching first. At home I've been working on four items at once:

ET star from Lily's Quilts for my Kinky Bee month in August. I vastly underestimated the background sent to each of the other members in the group so I have ordered even more of the Moda Marble Mates falling snow in white. I have finished my version of the block and am pleased with it.

Another star which is foundation pieced for the Kinky Bee. I just need to locate some more background fabric if I have it otherwise it should arrive by next Friday from the Fat Quarter Shop. I used a lovely 20% off voucher from Fat Quarterly ezine which covered the shipping costs.

Spiders Legs block for my Farmer's Wife quilt. I plan to finish this one tomorrow.

Vintage Holiday Quilt Along, I am up to date with blocks 1 to 8 but I need more white on white and patterned fabric. Again this will come with the order from Fat Quarter Shop.