July UFO

Once again I'm participating in Judy's UFO finishalong. I don't know why I'm saying again as I failed to finish the March, April May and June projects. June's choice of the TQS BOM is loaded on the long arm but that's as far as I've got as I'm going to custom quilt it and I'm nervous of making a mistake.

Judy chose number 3 for July 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

The rainbow squares needs the quilting I did on my home machine unpicking and then loading on the long arm, quilted and bound. Not difficult in theory.

Hexy MF has been started

The Hexy MF sew along was posted on the Fat Quarterly blog and Jenny, Lorraine and I are doing this together. The benefit is only 25 flowers to sew each. Perfect for evenings and Wednesday mornings at the Mill. Very portable.





We are going with a jubilee red, blue and cream colour way. I have fussy cut the guards in their busbys and the I heart London fabrics. I have done us a swatch chart so we can see at a glance how the fabrics look together.

For once I have prepped all of the hexagons before starting to sew them together. I have run out of the freezer paper hexagons so will reuse some of the papers. One flower done, twenty four to go.

FQR Kinky bee button

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/fqr_kinky_bee_/" title="FQR Kinky Bee" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBeuMsnZYBGvmSfoTpLkAsLZeihe1YXbmn6SAYilPtiHkEDRveYzFmqwf_TDS4wYtxqDzsxQZTy_uNuIgQ8b-wazjhpgia3B8SnUotdPaGP21_hLOaMfibQUrtDmKdl3HTKCc/s200/KINKY+BEE+BUTTON.jpg" alt="FQR Kinky Bee" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

And it's called Kinky Bee because I mistyped linky party as kinky party and it's stuck - thanks Lynne.

Trying to make a button

On my to do list for a few weeks has been to make a button for our FQR kinky bee from the FQR Bus mini quilt made by Lu Summers.

I am going to use this gadget to make it work (I hope)

Farmer's Wife - fewer than 20 blocks remain

And still progress is slow. As I get to the last 20 blocks, needless to say the blocks are more difficult and have many more pieces. Rather than the first blocks which have less than 10 pieces, the remaining blocks have over 40 pieces in many cases. Here are three that I've made this week.

105 wild goose chase

57 morning star

105 wild rose and square

So that makes over 90 blocks so far. I plan to use the scraps in a forthcoming bee I'm participating in and as my month is August, I need to get sewing on these blocks. However I'm being distracted by the Hexy MF Quiltalong which I'm planning to do in patriotic colours with Jenny and Lorraine. Having found that the Accuquilt hexagon die has the right size for cutting the papers, I'm planning to cut lots of freezer paper templates asap as I love doing hexagon flowers. They're also great for evenings, travelling and Wednesday quilting group. We only need to make 74 flowers (25 each). I can't wait to get started. I'm hoping Matthew will help me cut out the templates.

Quick arrowhead block

I spotted this pattern from Quilt Maker magazine from 2010 on someone's blog this morning. I thought it had the potential to be another lottery block so I headed to my sewing room grabbed some blue and yellow scraps from the floor, turned the speed of my machine right down so as not to annoy Lizzie. Result one arrowhead block and a few more pieces on some Farmers' wife blocks and it's only 8.36am.





You can find the pattern at quiltmaker.com. There are no pressing instructions so I did the pinwheel centre on the four patch and everywhere else I pressed to the arrowhead. I think a blue white and yellow theme for these blocks would work well for our guild. What do you think?

Leap Year Schnibble

 Not New Year as I have referred to it a couple of times. A simple quilt that I made simpler by using  two10" strips from a jelly roll that I won at the Fat Quarterly retreat and instead of cutting the squares down to 2 1/4" I left them at 2 1/2" squares. I then used two creams for the sashing as I didn't have enough of either fabric. The wadding was a scrap from my scrap pile and the backing was a remnant still loaded on my long arm from the Siblings Together quilt. The wadding had about 2 inches left once I'd quilted the quilt and the backing about 5 inches. That's what I call economical. :)

I bought a club pack of quilting designs from Anne Bright's website and I used one of them on this quilt and I love it. It's like filigree iron work.

The fabric is Santorini by Moda.

Union Jack cushion finished

When I went to put the back on I found I had added the final blue strips on the wrong sides, but I just went with it. I even put a zipper on the back on the pillow. Most of the fabrics are by Makower. I think the only one that isn't is the royal blue which we were given at the Fat Quarterly retreat which is by Robert Kaufmann.

The next project to be worked on is my Leap Year Schnibble and I'm going to work on some more of my Farmer's Wife blocks. I have bagged up three foundation patterns with fabric ready to sew today.

241 bag finished

I started and finished this bag at the UFO day yesterday. Thank you to Janet for organising the UFO days and to Sim for collecting the keys.












You may just be able to see the tab of ribbon on the pocket. I wanted to add a tab to hang keys from etc but all I had was alphabet ribbon, so Jane cleverly suggested using my initial.

Details:
Pattern: 241 bag by Noodlehead
Supplies: Retro clocks by Melody Miller and Kona bone from Fluffy Sheep and Red wessex linen, stone chevron by Joel Dewberry, magnetic clasp and alphabet ribbon from Tikki Patchwork

FNSI June 2012

Here's my progress on my new year's Schnibble. I got the sashing and borders on and pinned to the frame.




I was at Joanne's hen party until five so will start quilting it tomorrow and hopefully finish it on Monday. At the UFO day tomorrow I'll work on my 241 bag and union jack cushion. Should I take my hopscotch quilt blocks to put together too? Just in case I finish the other two?

Friday Night Sew In is here again

And where did the month go? It's already time for another Friday Night Sew in and Caesarea Quilter's UFO day is slightly earlier this month and is this Sunday. My Father's Day present to Nick is to let him do whatever he likes on Sunday as I'll be out sewing!!




There are three items to choose from tonight and whatever I don't finish will be packed up and taken to the UFO day:
1. Union Jack pillow taught by Lynne at the recent retreat. The front is finished and quilted, I just need to do a zip back and bind it.
2. 241 bag to be started from a Noodlehead pattern with fabric from Fluffy Sheep Quilting which was delivered to me at the retreat. Roz also like the look of it but wants me to try it first.

3. Leap year Schnibble for June. Blocks are made and I just need to sash, quilt and bind!!  Looking for some cream in my stash to do the sashing, the binding is some stripes from the jelly roll I used and the backing is leftover from another charity quilt and already loaded on the frame.

I know I won't be sewing much tomorrow as it's Joanne's official hen party but I will be back with photographic evidence of what went on over drinks at the Boat house and lunch at Danny's.

Back from fat quarterly retreat

So much happened, so many new friends. Those who were there know what went on and those who didn't go, perhaps would get bored by a post that's too long, so I'll try and keep it to the point.

This is how I will be remembered from the weekend. Thanks Teresa. Team Windsor who won the pub quiz without the help from those on the back row, were also victorious in the Iron Man challenge, more later.

Photo courtesy of Lindakl - with the lovely long legs in the front of the photo

On Friday night a group of us met in the lobby of the Radisson and went on the Tube to Tikki Patchwork in Kew where we had scummy sausage rolls, Pimms and fabric. A good chance to get to know a few of the ladies as I only knew Wendy who was a Saturday only retreater.

Trashalou of Scary Mary fame organised a fun sample swap. I ended up with more than four items as I had spares. I swapped with Amy, Diane, Lizzie, Pennie, Helen and  Patchwork Queen. I loved all the items and am pleased to have the lunch bag as the Ayumi pattern is one I wanted to try but it's been done for me.


These are all my freebies and other swaps. from left to right - ugly fabric swap, Liberty bag from the Liberty lady, jelly rolls for winning the iron man challenge and the other was for the Jelly roll race but I had 5 1/2 hours of classes on Sunday so it got put on the back burner but John kindly said we could keep the jelly rolls, miscellaneous haby, petit four of Kate Spain fabric, London fabric and Oakshot fabric from the goody bag when we arrived, Liberty packet of fabric when we were watching Lizzie and Diane do a mini  necklace demo, fat quarter swaps, I almost forgot the Aurifil thread in the goody bag, CD of the 2010 issues of Fat Quarterly which I must load on my ipad today and last but not least I took the leftover owls fabric from our Iron Man challenge.


 

My purchase over the three days, not including the Tilda, real Simple and Martha Stewart magazines.
* Fluffy Sheep delivered the Michael Miller clock fabric to my hotel for me to match some fabrics from Tikki to make the popular 241 bag.
* Incoco nails from Selfridges - lady recognised me from our visit in October.
* glasses for Chris
* Tape and summersville charm packs from Lu.
* Joelberry chevrons, alphabet ribbon and linen from Tikki.
Quite restrained really.




Here's what I made in class:
Quarter of a union jack with Lynne - annoyed that's all I achieved in three hours apart from another quarter which is half made.
Port hole sample with class with Lu whom we are inviting to come to teach in Jersey in 2013.
Pouch made with Claudia - once again i wasn't listening due in part to the background noise in the main hall. And I'm sticking to that excuse!! However Claudia gave me pointers for future zipped projects.
The fourth class was the Designers Challenge and I plan to make some blocks from my sketches but not this week.



The weekend ended with ten of us going out to dinner and chatting some more and looking forward to the next event. The sponsors were very generous with the products given away in the draw and the goody bags which include Aurifil, Moda, Robert Kaufmann, Pfaff and Oakshott.
Plans for this week are to finish the Union Jack cushion and make the 241 bag.

Swoon

Is finished. This isn't a good photo as it was blowing and at 80" square was more than Matthew could do by his self, but it's proof that it's done. :)

I'm hoping there's WiFi at Baden Powell House otherwise you'll have to wait for details of the weekend until Tuesday.

Granny's Garden

Hooked by the granny squares trend on the web, I decided to make a quilt from my scraps for the Siblings Together project as quilts are being handed over at the Fat Quarterly retreat so no postage cost. I found a piece of wide navy fabric in my pile and that worked well for the backing showing off the rose pantograph and bright thread choice. again the binding was in the pile and matched the colour of two of the fabrics in the blocks and the white on white was offcuts from the backing of my Swoon quilt.

The quilt looks good from the back too as the bold thread contrasts with the navy fabric.

Tomorrow I'm going on the WI walk, into town for a mystery shop and then I need to do some serious packing. Cutting board, ruler, rotary cutter etc. I hadn't even thought about having to take thread. And Nick though I could take just carry on luggage as I'm only going for a couple of nights!!

Fat Quarterly retreat

In a week's time I'll be getting ready to head to the Fat Quarterly retreat on 2 and 3 April. I decided to go for both days meaning I get to do four of the ten classes on offer. Today there is a linky party on the Fat Quarterly blog to introduce each other and get to know others better. I only know one person going to the retreat, Wendy, who I met at the recent Gogogetaway and twisted her arm into condiering going. And she's booked for Wednesday. I suggested a blog hop to get to know each other, but Lynne is organising a linky party which is a much simpler method to achieve the same objective. I can't wait to meet you all.


My name is Sue (libertyjsy on flickr) and I live in Jersey. I am an experienced sewer and almost a year ago I invested in a mid arm machine - the HQ18 from Handiquilter. So what am I doing whilst at the retreat?


Classes:
Sat AM:
The Fat Quarterly Design Challenge - all in need for this is coloured pencils which are packed


Sat PM:
Zippered Pouch - I have nothing prepared for this. Hmm, I need to think about this one very soon


Sun AM:
Paper Pieced Pillows - I'm planning to do the union jack pillow and I have my patriotic fabrics ready

Sun PM:
Portholes  - I'm thinking of mixed yellows for the background and blues and novelty printed for the circles then I can turn it into a baby quilt. And I may just have ordered some Summersville charm packs and tape from Lu. 


Swaps
Sample swaps - done and wrapped

Badge - done and I have received my badge

Ugly swap - that was easy to find

Challenges
Jelly Roll race
Iron Man Challenge group 2
Siblings together charity quilt - ready to be quilted 

Show & Tell - I'm taking my Swoon quilt once I've sewn on the binding which I've messed up big time.

I'm also looking forward to an evening at Tikki Patchwork in Kew followed by dinner with some of the other girls who are there on Friday. My Monday shopping has been curtailed due to my In Laws diamond anniversary lunch on the Monday. However I'm sure I can get plenty of shopping done on Friday.

Siblings together

As night falls, I have just finished putting together some scrap granny squares for the charity quilt to take to the Fat Quarterly retreat next weekend.


I have a white on white backing ready. However as it's destined for a child, I am thinking that white isn't a serviceable colour, so I am going see what Fiona has for sale or what I have in my cupboard. Or perhaps I should die the white on white yellow or pink. What do you think?

Making some progress

Yesterday I felt that I needed to finish my swoon quilt and make some more granny squares for a quilt for Siblings Together, both for the Fat Quarterly in nine days time.



Whilst I didn't do any more quilting of Swoon yesterday, I have done one row this morning and I am almost have finished. After all the small jobs I need to do today, this will be my priority. Once it's quilted, I will sew on the binding whilst the granny square quilt is on the machine.



I thought I had completed all of the blocks I needed for the charity quilt. Despite counting three times and getting two different numbers, the camera does not lie and I need to piece one more block. Fortunately I do have one cut out ready. However the dark blue is dominating the quilt and if this fabric is in the last block, I will substitute it for something less strong.

But first I need to do lots of small jobs on my to do list. It's almost nine, so time to get started.

Schnibbles for May

A quick finish with a little help from my friends. A quilting life have a monthly sew along using a Schnibbles pattern. The creator of the patterns which use charm packs and layer cakes, Carrie is now selling pdf versions of her Schnibbles patterns which will make it so much easier for the likes of me to participate. The pattern for June will be posted on 1 June. I now have a little stash of charm packs courtesy of a 20% off coupon from Fat Quarterly magazine for the Fat Quarter shop and I'm picking up some summersville from Lu Summers herself at the Fat Quarterly retreat on 2 June, so I am set for a few months.

This pattern is called Doc and uses two charm packs ( in this case Basic Grey's Blitzen) and some yardage. I started it last week and got lots done during FNSI. Having fixed the glitch on my long arm, I finished two customer quilts on Sunday so I quilted this yesterday morning. I quickly applied the binding, sewed up one side at home and took it to our guild meeting last night. Jenny and Lorraine kindly took over where I'd stopped whilst I ran the busy meeting. By the end of the meeting they'd sewn on the binding.

Another finished project. Now what to work on next? I have my Swoon quilt to quilt. I'm thinking of the baptist fan pattern which I'd like to finish to take with me to the Fat Quarterly retreat. Have I mentioned I'll be in London for the retreat on 2 June? The weekend starts with some retail therapy at Tikki Patchwork and dinner in Kew. I'd also like to have a quilt - possibly granny squares - finished to donate to Lily's Siblings Together project. And then there's my Hopscotch quilt which just needs the blocks to be laid out and sewn together. Decisions, decisions. Fortunately I have two UFO days to attend this week and I can sew on one binding at next week's Chez Soi quilt group. Thinking about it, it would be nice to have a binding to sew on this evening whilst sat in the car whilst Lizzie does her first sea swim with the Long Distance Swimming Club.

Pattern - Doc by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company

Fabric: Blitzen by Basic Grey for Moda

Thread:White linen King Tut by Superior Threads

Pantograph: Feather Delightful

Bloggers Quilt Festival

For the first time I am participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival organised by Amy of Amy's Creative Side from May 18 to June 1, 2012.  The Blogger's Quilt Festival is an online quilt festival where bloggers from around the world showcase a quilt.  Once you have had a look here, head on over and take some time viewing the other wonderful quilts. 

I have chosen to show my pinwheel party quilt which is a single quilt of my own design. It uses two jelly rolls and two different blocks to make the overall design. Leftover jelly roll strips have been joined on the diagonal to make a pieced binding. This was my first attempt to draft my own pattern and I was pleased with the results. I love jelly rolls and wanted to see if I could design something as nice as the examples seen in many books, the best of which are written by the Lintotts.

An extra block has been turned into a label with some embroidery and mixed with some more leftover jelly roll blocks. This also makes a feature of the join in the fabric to make the backing.

This was also the first quilt I quilted for myself on the longarm I bought in 2011 using a digital pantograph called "Blustery Breeze" This panto is a favourite with me and my customers.

FNSI May 2012

I was lucky for this FNSI, everyone else was out and Moyra offered to bring Lizzie back from JACY, so three hours to myself.  I managed to complete:
*  My ironing
* One more granny square. I think that makes ten in all
* Doc Schnibble up to the last border.

The granny squares are for two things:
1. Block lottery at our Quilting group - Caesarea Quilters on Monday evening. These squares are seriously addictive.
2. a quick quilt for Siblings Together to deliver at the Fat Quarterly Retreat in two weeks time. There's nothing like an unattainable deadline.

This is Doc, a pattern from La Vie en Rosie's Schnibbles range which uses two charm packs and some of my half bolt of White on White. I think I may need to order some more very soon. I just need to finish piecing the half square triangle borders, two of which are done. If I can get my long arm working properly again, I plan to quilt this one and the one already on the machine for Monday evening. Another ludicrous self imposed deadline. I have use Basic Grey's Blitzen line for this project.

Right, a busy day today with a cupcake workshop this afternoon and a daughter to be delivered here there and everywhere for dancing at 1.30 and a walk in aid of Seamen along St Catherine's breakwater at 10. Cakes are ready for the cupcake class so no panics at the moment. What to do next?