Monday Make - Fraction

I won this pattern at the Modern Quilt Club July retreat, and it is currently on sale at Lou's website This is one of two projects that Lizzie and I have to work on together over the Christmas break. We have been very busy with family commitments so have not had a full day sewing, so progress has been slower than anticipated.

Lizzie is using a blue / green palette, and I am using Kona Cottons from stash in approximately the same colours as the pattern. However today we need to work on Christmas gifts for the men.

Friday finish - Hot water bottle cover

 

When a friend, whose birthday is next week, complained that she couldn't find a cover for her new hot water bottle, of course I offered to make one. And of course I left it until the last minute! Wednesday was my deadline as I would see her on Thursday. 

Our most important job on Wednesday was to get a price from a local garage for Lizzie's car so we could sell it privately. Fortuitously Steve is looking for a first car for his niece so we are waiting to hear from him if he wants to buy the car which he has serviced for many years.

Next, I made the hot water bottle cover and a rice bag whilst Lizzie cut the squares for our first Christmas project. I added a Kylie and the Machine label to the seam, and it came up in my memories on Facebook that it was from my advent calendar, a year ago.

WIP Wednesday - deadline quilting

 

Our daughter arrived home last night after a long ferry crossing. The food offering on board was poor and they changed the schedule to go via Guernsey which mean the trip took over ten hours. Her car is going to be sold over the next few weeks, so today's priority is to find out how much it's worth and I also need to make a gift for a friend for tomorrow.

I was pleased to get one more customer quilt completed yesterday amongst family commitments with my father and aunt which I find draining. This is a beautiful Liberty quilt, and the backing is also Liberty which is so soft. We chose a simple butterfly design for the quilting which picked out the butterfly motifs from the central panel.

That just leaves me one more customer quilt made from a beloved family member's shirts which is loaded but not basted. A simple pattern has been chosen so it should be straight forward. I've already had to remove one button from the quilt top and once the quilting is underway, I will double check that there are no more buttons as they could spell disaster to my machine.

So my priorities today are:

Make a birthday present for a friend;

Start quilting this customer quilt; and

Get Lizzie's car listed for sale.

Monday make - two more customer quilts completed

Our daughter, Lizzie, arrives home for Christmas tomorrow afternoon - weather and ferry permitting. I had six customer quits to finish and four are now done. I will load one later this morning and I hope to finish at least a few rows today. It's a fun packed day with a Zoom call, then I will take my father to the library to change his books, canasta and cake this afternoon and Wicked this evening.

Perhaps a few rows is being optimistic!!

A customer brought me two quilts made from stash leaving choices to my discretion! For this one it had a definite floral theme, so I used dancing vines by Anne Bright with Glide in the colour bone. The backing was a pretty floral.

 

I love how, in both quilts, the colours are pulled from the centre fabric. Not colours you might naturally put together but they work.

I used Malachite by urban elementz and I love how it picks up the stripes from the tabby cat.

Another pretty pieced back. My next job is to arrange collection.

Sunday stash

 

I purchased some new Tula Pink fabrics in the Sew Hot black Friday sale. I went for the geometrics rather than the big florals. I also purchased some zippers to make Aneela Hoey's booklet pouch and more Ruby Star creams for my foundation pieced long term project.

Less impressive was a cross stitch order from Peakside which arrived very quickly. Unfortunately, when looking for this month's UFO piece, I found that I already had the pattern and flosses which made up the majority of the order. Sue was happy for me to return my order, but I will pass the pattern on and add the flosses to my stash instead.

Friday Finish - Go Big Baby Bear

 

This pattern was originally published in Make Modern but I will be making it available to everyone in January via my Payhip shop.  If you'd like to be notified when the pattern is available, do sign up to my newsletter.

The original was made in Moda Fabric designed by April Rosenthal. I have made another version in scrappy pinks ready for gifting next week, but it incorporates two of the fabrics from the original version. All sewn rom stash including an Alison Gass fabric bought from the discount bin in Gathered Here in Boston. 

I used a digital design called Fast Feather from Urban Elementz stitched in a pinky red variegated thread from Superior Threads. I even remembered to add a label!

WIP Wednesday - customer quilts

 

On Monday I expected to have five customer quilts to work on this week. I decided to start with the smallest of two quilts delivered on Sunday. I chose the pantograph Splash of Love by Anne Bright. There were hearts in several of the blocks which I spotted when choosing the design. Also it is designed to be  gifted as a baby quilt.

Next was a larger hexagon quilt which was quilted with a classic Baptist fan. It has turned out beautifully and both are now ready for collection.

Two quilts were delivered yesterday even though I was only expecting one quilt. No deadline for these but I’d like to have finished at least once before two more quilts are delivered on Friday. I also needed to find my December UFO. It was at the bottom of a storage box and surprisingly finished. I have bought a frame which I hope to paint before our group meeting on Saturday.

Monday make - Christmas quaker

 

It's so nice to have a finished project at last but I now need to decide how to mount it. This is Christmas Quaker by Primrose cottage stitched in Weeks Dye works Candy Apple.

My December UFO is Autumn Squirrel by Barbara Ana Designs. My first job today is to locate the project. I know I have worked on the dress and face of this project so it may not take as long to complete as it looks.

I have finished a long outstanding customer quilt which is being collected this afternoon. Two customer quilts were dropped off yesterday, the smaller of which I plan to work on today. In all I will have three more quilts being dropped off this week to work on before Lizzie arrives in just over a week. No pressure!

Sunday stash

 

Last Wednesday we spent in Leamington spa and Warwick with our son Matthew who was celebrating his 29th birthday. Not sure taking his parents shopping was top of his birthday list, but he did receive an advent calendar from us.

Matthew was excited to share a new discovery with us - Sostrene Green which he thought I'd love. He's not wrong as when I'm in London and Liverpool I usually find my way there for a quick mooch. I bought these illuminated mushrooms and house which survived the journey home.

Driving through Warwick on the way to Leamington Spa, I spotted the shop front of Quilter' Den who I have followed on Instagram for some time. We returned there later as it would be rude to not support local businesses! I also bought some more cute heat erasable pens from Ryman.

I use a lot of red and white spotted fabrics in my Christmas quilts so that was a quick choice, and the stripe was a bargain from the sale shelf. You can never have too many striped fabrics.

We left England on Thursday afternoon and now we're home we are so grateful that we didn't stay any longer as flights both yesterday and today are all cancelled due to storm Darragh.

I persuaded my husband to make a smallish detour via Guthrie and Ghani on the outskirts of Birmingham and picked up the dark blue version of Chicacheetah, I already have a metre of the same design in pink. Also, The Edit fabic by Nerissa is in the same colourway as another design of hers that I have in stash so I thought I could combine the two.

Friday progress

 

We have just returned from a flying visit to the UK to see Lizzie in Leeds and Matt in Warwick. The Leeds Armories weren't open on Monday, which was our only full day in Leeds, but we decided to visit on Tuesday on the way to Warwick. The Japanese exhibits were fantastic, but I let my husband roam around the exhibit and attend a talk, whilst I sat myself down in the cafe an enjoyed some carrot cake and stitched on my Primrose Cottage Christmas Quaker. 

I am using Candy Apple red and have almost finished the second of three skeins. Though there has been some unpicking, so fingers crossed, I have sufficient to finish the piece.

My December UFO is Barbara Ana's Autumn Squirrel which I will recommence after this piece is finished.

Friday progress

 

On the Friday of last week's retreat, I started by making two Ohio star blocks in the prescribed colours. Making two meant I could make sure the candy stripes would all be going in the same direction.

I then made two of my scrappy woven star blocks and completed most of three further blocks on the Saturday.

I now have ten blocks made but I definitely need to order some more background fabric in today's Black Friday sales. I also put them on point on my design wall and I think I prefer that setting.

Lessons learnt

Last weekend was our local retreat. I woke up on Friday morning full of a cough and cold but decided to go anyway but not sleep over. One of the projects I took to work on was the boy raglan sweater by Wardrobe by Me Patterns. I had won the fabric and pattern at the recent Modern Quilt Club retreat. My big mistake as you can see was not to check the finished body measurements of the top before choosing the size!! I could easily have made the top two sizes smaller. My daughter has described it as cosy and will be great to wear around the house.

In the end I left the retreat early on the Saturday and didn't return on the Sunday. My husband was kind enough to retrieve all of my equipment on the Sunday. I have done nothing since other than admin and keeping warm. I am starting to see a slow improvement but need to be well to visit our children in England on Sunday.

WIP Wednesday - woven star

I have been gently sewing some of these foundation paper pieced blocks using a Ruby Star Society fat quarter bundle. I won the 6" and 4" paper pads at a recent Modern Quilt Club retreat and it's the perfect project for when you have 20 minutes to spare.

My first block was matching quadrants, not very scrappy.

My second block is woven with four different fabrics. There were eight different fabrics in the first block.

Finally, I went totally scrappy and cut 2.5" strips from each fat quarter. These are the first project for this weekend's Jersey Rainbow Retreat. We are making a group quilt for a local children's charity using red, turquoise and pink so that is my next project to prep and I plan to contribute two Ohio stars.

Christmas quaker

 

I am definitely in avoidance mode and to avoid what I should be doing; I started another project! I purchased the Christmas Quaker from Peakside Needleworks along with three skeins of Candy Apple. The called for thread is Cherry Cobbler, which looks more like a burgundy so I switched it for a more Christmassy red.

I started off centre with the big star motif. I'm sure this isn't a standard cross stitching plan but I then like to work to the four edges, so I went to the left, then the top, down to the star motif on the bottom left and across the bottom to the right edge. I have motifs still to fill in, but it gives me more points of reference for making sure I've counted properly!! I have finished one skein of thread so I must be at least a third done.

Friday finish - Go big baby bear

 

Go Big Baby Bear was originally published in Make Modern. The sample used a rainbow of fabric by April Rosenthal. I plan to release the pattern later this year, so prepped a kit to make the quilt top at the Modern Quilt Club retreat at the beginning of November.

It would have been a quick make if I had cut all the correct pieces, but I hadn't! Once home it took me less than 90 minutes to find the fabrics, cut the missing pieces and piece the quilt together.

In order to quilt this project, I need to finish a customer quilt, so that needs to be my next priority. Also this is to be gifted so I'd like to finish it and pass it on before Christmas.

WIP Wednesday - Jingle all the way

I caught up with the sewalong last weekend by stitching blocks 1 to 3 together and making the four chenille tree blocks. This pattern is by Kimberbell Designs and is machine embroidery combined with traditional patchwork.

This project is great fun split into small manageable chunks over several months. Cristin also suggests setting a separate goal and over the weekend I changed my goal to spending ten minutes each day tidying paperwork. I have become totally overwhelmed with my own stuff as well as that of elderly relatives. I have however decided that I am going to give my father a box with his files and paperwork and he can file it at his own leisure. Once done, I'll take away the box until next month.

Sections 1 to 3 are complete and I have two tree blocks for section 4. I also have the following blocks ready for later sections:

1 x jingle all the way

4 x peppermint twists

1 x candy cane

1 x Le Moyne star

1 x nine patch

1 x chenille stocking

1 x large flying geese

2 x chenille trees

November 2024 plans

It feels like we are already halfway through November as I lost three days last week due to fog at Jersey airport when I was trying to get back from Liverpool after the Modern Quilt Club retreat. Fortunately, my next retreat in two week's time is just a few miles away, but I still need to plan what I'm going to take.

I had two prizes from our retreat raffle as Lizzie didn't want her prize, so I have a sweatshirt pattern and fabric to make up as well as some foundation paper patterns from Fat Quarter Shop. The woven star will be a fun quick stitch between projects and if I only have a short amount of time in the day.

Today is the last day of the Thimble SAL with happy sew lucky, so I'd like to get a couple of the week 6 thimbles sewn up today.

I am keeping up with the Jingle all the way sewalong in the Cristin Creates Facebook group. The sewalong won't be finished this month but I plan to keep up with the schedule. The pattern is by Kimberbell.

This is my own pattern Go Big Baby Bear published in Make Modern Magazine. I kitted it up and thought it would be an easy finish at retreat. You can see I didn't cut the right amount of strips, I was so near and yet so far away from a finish.

There seem to be a lot of half finished projects around my work room at the moment and that probably reflects on my mental state at the moment. Hopefully everything will be a little more oredered by the end of the month.