Mojo Monday

Well I went on retreat taking several projects with me. I had a great time and made progress on al of the projects except one whilst I was away.

1. I prepped lots of reusable make up wipes which I finished when I got home. I stitched all of the squares together whilst on retreat and then what I hadn't finished, I turned and pined at my hotel on the Sunday night. I no longer have any worn or coloured towels, so this project is complete.

2. The retreat project by Jeliquilts was a fun make and I finished the top at the retreat but quilted it at home on my longarm. I love this zig zag quilting pattern which gives great texture. This is the last of this rainbow stripe that I used for the binding.

  I used a rainbow of poppers for the closure of this cushion cover.

3. I put together the four blocks for this mini quilt - pattern by Fat Quarter Shop and added the border, so it was ready to quilt when I was home. Another striped binding finished this project.

4. Lastly I worked on the Snowflake sewalong and I soon had six blocks done and ready to continue this week. I have been home alone sine I returned from the retreat as my husband has been away and left the car at the airport for me to collect as he flew out on the same day as I returned.

I have a plan for tackling my UFOs and WIPs as I go forward. I will share my plan with you on Wednesday.

Snowflake SAL

As the #100days100blocks sew along comes to an end, I have joined in with the Snowflake QAL by ModernHandcraft I am planning to do scrappy turquoise background with low volume scraps for the snowflake. I also plan to cut all of the blocks with my Accuquilt as I need 3" finished squares and HSTs. First I am going to start with my scraps and then move onto FQs in my stash. I can even stash dive for the backing.

The Modern Quilt Club Retreat is coming up in two weeks time, and I think this is the perfect project. There is also a foundation pieced retreat project / cushion and I have all of my fabrics for that project packed and ready to go including wadding and backing. I will probably make up the cushion when I'm home unless I prep the backing of the cushion as I probably don't want to pack my tools for setting the poppers.

Q4 Finish along 2019

1. TQS BOM Sedona Star from Jan 2012. Not yet pieced together but progress was made in 2018.

2. Tula Pink butterfly from October 2017. I need to move a few blocks and then quilt it.

3. My small world from 2016 which is pieced and partly quilted. This was the April project to finish for the APQS UFO challenge

4. Five impossible things

5. La Fin du Monde which I started as a quiltalong late 2018, but the background fabric got lost in the post, so progress stopped.

6. Tate Modern quilt which I need to start drafting again. I had made some templates but some were wrong and I might be able to use a circle ruler instead.

7. HST BOM  - I want to keep up with the blocks each month and finish it in December

8. Tula Pink Hex on the beach - this is the project I was working on for the #the100dayproject so I should make good progress on this during the third quarter.

9. Quietplay BOM 2019. 

10. Hoffman Dream Big Panel - I need to load this and practise my free motion quilting.

11. Snowflake QAL

12. The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Squad Ghouls.

13. Grey hat 1

14. Grey hat 2.

Can I get down to single figures in 2019? I think so but my big and oldest UFOs won't, I think, get any attention.

Make & take Monday - Retreat swap

I am going to the Modern Quilt Club retreat again in October. Swaps were recently released so I decided to break out some of the faric I bought at Gather Here in Boston and make another slim line pencil cae for the pouch swap.

Gather Here had a Labor Day sale so I preordered some Ruby Star Society in the sale and collected it when I was in boston.

I used a small amount of Soda Pop and a pink zip I also bought at Gather Here to make another of these useful pencil cases from a tutorial by Sotak Handmade.

Work in progress Wednesday

 I was away at the beginning of the month in Boston, so on my return, catching up my BOM blocks was my first objective. Today I have caught up with the Quiet Play BOM.  A happy word in a happy colour:

And here is the shape block:

Finally here are the first three rows, partly sewn together. I now realise that I forgot to put the bottom border on the "happy" block, so I think that's three blocks to correct in October - bobbin, happy and another word block. I also plan to sew the first thee rows together next month too.

I do like the Essex linen in silver for the bee body.

UFO Friday #100dats100blocks

My quilt is finished and ready to donate to a local breast cancer charity. You may even be able to see that I embroidered my name in the heart block at the bottom right of the quilt. The quilt is called Kinship Sampler by Gnome angel. The sew along is still continuing but I wanted to get it finished.

The backing is by Carolyn Friedlander and I used some of the offcuts to line our holiday bags. Just laziness really as the large scraps hadn't yet been put away and went nicely with the black and grey outside of the bags.

I just need to decide what to work on when we return from Boston. I should probably finish quilting my It's a small world by Jen Kingwell but I will realistically start a small magazine project first.

WIP Wednesday - holiday preparations

When we recently went to the UK for my son's graduation, we were delayed for over 3 hours at Liverpool airport and I had no knitting with me. What a travesty. I did have my iPad with some free books on it to read but I did feel it was three hours wasted.

So I have been busy finishing my Crazy Zauberball socks and kitting up a new pair of socks for our trip to Boston. I am going to knit the newly released pattern from the Swish and flick collative by Kay Jones of The Bakery Bears. I found this lovely sock blank that was in a destash bundle that I purchased. The bag of yarn has sat on a table for at least six months unloved. It is now all put away apart from five skeins that I destashed locally along with my first swift which is surplus to requirements as I received a new one for my birthday.

I have unwound the sock blank into two cakes with the dark pink to go at the cuff. The cuffs are knit on both socks and in this lovely bag by Liberty Rocks. I think next I should pack clothes for our trip.

Make & take Monday - travel bags

When I should have been packing, I decided to make some bags to put our smalls in on the outward journey to the US and to use as laundry bags on the return journey. I am a terrible procrastinator but have found that using Todoist on my phone, I am scheduling when things should be done and I am for the most part doing them on the allocated date.

The pattern is from the blog The Polka Dot Chair I made two each for myself and my daughter, hers are the black ones from half yards we bought five years ago for her going to Uni quilt, but not used for that purpose. And I love a bit of purple. A good pattern.

I have received some new fabric today and I really want to cut into it but I must pack. Watch this space. :)

UFO Friday - Quietplay BOM

I am so excited to be up to date for both shapes and words for the Quietplay 2019 BOM. I particularly like the silver linen that I used for the body of the bee.

Here is a group photo and I bet you're counting and saying to yourself August is the eighth month and there are only seven blocks. And you would be correct, one of the later blocks is duplicated to make a rainbow. Once again I realise that I need to put a frame around the spool block and I think I will replace the grey spool ends with silver.

Work in Progress Wednesday - Perfect HST BOM

I am loving the 2019 Perfect HST BOM Block-of-the-Month program with Freshly Pieced. This is released on the first Monday of each month and I have completed all of the blocks up to and including August.  They are looking good and each month you make extra units for following months. 

I have run out of the butterfly fabric so have added another fabric from the same line which you can see in the picture of all eight blocks so far.

My only feedback on this BOM would be that it would have been better to have the large block for the centre of the quilt, in the first few months as the pieces are larger. I have endeavoured to use my Accuquilt to cut the HSTs which has been successful so far and in a few place I have eliminated extra seams.

Make Modern issue 30

Just a little preview of my design in issue 30 of Make Modern and there is a little giveaway of a 6 month subscription over on my Instgram account - Just Sew Sue lick on the link and the giveaway should be live on 3 September.