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.