Friday finish - Christmas Tree

 

I have finished another branch on Christmas Tree by Barbara Anna from Nitka Moscow. I have three deep branches to finish but I think it will be finished for Xmas 2022. 

Now that both of my July cross stitch projects have been completed, I started a new project also by Barbara Ana from the current issue of Punch Needle and Primitive Stitcher magazine. I subscribe to the digital version and print only the patterns that I want to stitch. You can see the project on the cover of the magazine.

WIP Wednesday - Havana again

 

Last week I completed all of the HSTs for this precut kit - kit from Modern Quilt Club and pattern by Paula Steel. All of the HSTs along with some squares are made up into four blocks and then there are flying geese units to make. I have been working on this every morning for no more than an hour and so far, I have achieved:

* All of the HST blocks have been laid out on my design boards

* I have stitched all of the HST blocks together

* There are eight permutations of flying geese and I have paired all of the combinations together and put them into individual bags.

* I have stitched five of the flying geese units

Somewhere on the internet I picked up the idea of making a decision once. The idea was illustrated with the example of those with children buying ten of the same present at the beginning of each year. I have utilised this idea with my Prairie Schooler Santas and I am now stitching them in chronological order. I have now decided to stitch the flying geese and block in the order they're shown in the pattern. Much simpler.

I have realised another benefit of the precut kit is no leftovers or scraps. I have also started a scrap project (more about that quilt next week) and the mess is phenomenal as I don't like to cut out all of the pieces before starting to sew.

Monday make - Coco Dress

When we visited Rosenbergs in London last December, Lizzie spent so much money that we were offered a free gift and I have about three yard of this jersey by John Kaldor. I also found the perfect Aurifil thread to do the top stitching which picks out the purple in the fabric.

I picked up a brand new copy of Coco by Tilly and the Buttons at a local charity shop for £1. I lengthened the dress by four inches so it was below the knee. No one needs to see my tree trunks legs!! I am pleased with how it's turned out but need to alter the neck slightly on my next version as it gapes a little. However it's a perfect summer dress for me.

 

Friday finish - 1991 Santa

 

The 1991 Prairie Schooler Santa was more complicated than most of the other Santas as there's a design on the coat, so no large areas of red to stitch. I am pleased to have another finished and my next Santa is kitted up and ready to pick up once I have finished one branch of the Christmas Tree by Barbara Ana.

Once I get loser to having them all stitched I will need to source some fabric and ribbonsto turn them into hanging ornaments.

WIP Wednesday - Havana

 

The pattern for this quilt is from Paula Steele and I love the modernity and navy background.

I bought a kit for this quilt from Modern Quilt Club and all of the pieces are precut and come in labelled sweet bags. I am sewing on this project for 15 to 30 minutes each morning and I have already finished all of the HSTs and no trimming necessary.

The flying geese are next and I may start sewing some of the sub blocks together using the HSTs.

June 2022 achievements

I did well at retreat and bound the Just My Type quilt, pieced the Happy Stripes quilt top and the rows of the Freebie Friday quilt top.

1. 1989 Prairie Schooler Santa. I am now completing these in date order to keep me on the straight and narrow, no need to decide each month which to work on.

2. One more branch on Christmas Tree by Barbara Ana.

3. Free block Friday completed.

4. A new start and finish - scrappy Happy Stripes Quilt Along with Emily Dennis. 

5. Just My Type by Pen + Paper Patterns is complete. I completed it at the retreat on the Friday as planned with a machine stitched binding.

6. Twice as Nice pouch by Aneela Hoey.

7. UFO challenge - improv fish 

July 2022 plans

No trips planned this month, so I should be productive but I have been more realistic about what I can achieve this month

1. 1990 Prairie Schooler Santa.

2. One more branch on Christmas Tree by Barbara Ana. It feels achievable now to complete this in 2022.

3. Summer dress in some John Kaldor fabric and I'm going to try the Coco dress by Tilly and the Buttons. 

4. Group challenge UFO. Could I be lucky and one I've already completed is chosen? I hope so.

WIP Wednesday - UFO Challenge

This was my UFO challenge chosen for June and I have dithered about it as I didn't really want another quilt. Yesterday was my daughter's birthday and she had requested that I make her two storage baskets 12" by 6". A light bulb moment, I can finish my challenge and make the requested baskets.

 

I originally had grandiose plans to embroider some fish too but that soon went to by the wayside and I filled in my gaps with Kona solids and screenprinted fish from Helen Steele I machine quilted the iece on my Janome Atelier 7 using Aurifil threads in wool, 28 weight and 40 weight.

The blocks were originally made in an online Crafty Monkeys course with Nicholas Ball.

Monday make - 1989 Prairie Schooler Santa

 

I am pleased to have finished another Santa. This was trickier than others I’ve stitched as there is a fancy border and the wreath meant there were no large areas of red to stitch quickly.

Next is the 1991 Santa which looks even more complicated as Santa’s cloak has a pattern on it.

Friday finish - freebie Friday quilt

I have been procrastinating about quilting this project as I wasn’t sure what to use for backing. On Wednesday I decided to use this leftover Ruby Star Society wide sateen backing.

The blocks are from Freebie Friday by @gnomeangel on Instagram. The fabrics are Kona and Libs Elliott.

 

WIP Wednesday - Prairie Schooler Santa

Yesterday evening we had a school reunion to celebrate our 60th birthdays. Given that Jersey is so small it is surprising that we don’t accidentally bum into each other more often. We had a lovely evening with a tour of the school and then followed with tapas in town. My head was spinning and I didn’t get to sleep until after 2am this morning.

I have been working on Prairie Schooler 1989 Santa. I’ve worked my way up to the top of the design and am now working towards his feet.

Monday make - strawberry dreams FFO

 

Sorry this is such a poor photo but a mirrored frame is not very photogenic. I mounted a piece of Libs Elliott red on the back of the frame on a piece of mount board. Then I mounted the stitched piece onto a mount board fabric and stitched piece sandwich. The pattern is by Barbara Ana and is available for free from her Instagram link tree.

The linen is Blush by Picture this Plus from The Homemakery and as it is very pale I put more of the red fabric behind the linen to make it look pinker.

It would have looked a little more professional if I could have found my hot glue gun to pinch the corners. I should add the glue gun to the list of items to search for at the end of the month.

Friday finish - Christmas Tree

 

This project is Christmas Tree by Barbara Ana Designs purchased from Nitka Moscow. As planned, I have finished one more branch for June. It's so good to see some progress on this project each month and I will eventually have a finished project. I have another of Barbara Ana's kits from Nitka Moscow.

Time now to work on my Prairie Schooler Santa.

Wip Wednesday - Strawberry Dreams

 

 This is a free pattern called Strawberry Dreams by Barbara Ana. Started and finished during the week. I'm loving my new floss drops from Pip & Chip. A worthwhile investment. 

I need to work out a system for putting a card in the slot in the Ikea boxes when the colour is being used in a project. It will take some time to move to this new system which I can do as I finish a project or start a new one.

The linen i leftover from The Frosted Pumpkin Christmas wreath and is from The Homemakery. It's by Picture This Plus and I think it's called blush. It is a very very pale pink and I plan to put a deep pink cotton fabric behind the piece when I frame it.

Monday Make - happy stripes

 

I had another trip to Liverpool last weekend for the NFWI Annual Meeting. We also did some shopping, sightseeing and dining out. I met Gill on Thursday and was delighted to be able to return her Modern Quilt Club mystery quilt, all quilted and ready for binding.

I also finished the Happy Stripes quilt - pattern by Emily Dennis of Quilty Love. I took this project to the Modern Quilt Club retreat as a pile of 2.5" strips and 4.5" squares. I should have taken some extra fabric as some of my strips weren't usable. I spent a whole £2 on a lime green fat quarter to complete the quilt. I wish I'd used a bolder fabric for the star points but I'm happy that I managed to make the quilt from scratch, used up a lot of my scraps and destashed a whole bag of scraps, I even found a small piece of backing for the quilt. I had to overlap some wadding to make a piece big enough but it is fairly densely quilted so you can't feel where the overlap falls.

Then what to use for binding? Another leftover peice of fabric from the backing from another quilt and a quick machine binding for the win. All in all a great stash buster.

Quilting pattern - Malachite by Urban Elementz

Backing - fabric by Elizabeth Hartman

Friday finish - twice as nice pouch

 

Several of these pouches were made at the retreat last weekend and I was inspired to purchase this pattern by Aneela Hoey.

I used foot S on my Janome set at a needle position of 7 to do the top stitching around the vinyl pocket. The finished pouch is a good size for travelling and even fits my IPad mini.

WIP Wednesday - happy stripes

 

This project went from a pile of strips and squares to a finished quilt top on the Saturday of MQC retreat last weekend.

It’s a simple but effective pattern by Emily Dennis called happy stripes I could have used a bolder colour for the triangles, navy would have looked nice but this was sewn from stash. The only exception was the line green fabric as I was a couple of strips short.

I have a quilt for a friend to go on my long arm and then this will be next.

Monday Make - Just My type

I have thoroughly enjoyed this sewalong and have taken away a few learning points:

1. Cutting the letter blocks whilst on holiday worked very well and on my return I stitched one letter block per day.

2. Check the height of your digital pantograph before starting to stitch. Malachite by Urban Elementz took up all of the throat space on my machine so after the first pass I just reduced the height of the pantograph by 10%

3. I was disappointed to run out of the pink border fabric but my substitution of the purple from the typewriter block works for me and means I haven't introduced another fabric into the quilt.

 

I have not kept to the timetable as you can see, but I am pleased to have finished the quilt on my timetable and one block a day was very achievable and on some days was my only stitching. I found only one error on the pattern which I passed on to the designer.

I love the typewriter block but I wish I'd introduced more contrast between the two dark fabrics but I chose fabrics in colourways suggested by the pattern. 

I used the Urban Elementz digital pantograph called Malachite which has been suggested many times for quilts I've seen discussed on Facebook groups so I purchased the design. I used a white Superior Thread on the top and Glide prewound bobbins also on white on the back.

I purchased this backing from Sew Hot when they were running a 20% off coupon and have enough for another backing and a Blazingstar cross body bag. I also used it for the binding. All fabrics are by Ruby Star society and apart from the backing were purchased from Olive & Flo Handcraft.

May 2022 achievements

Well June was a busy month with trips to the Netherlands and Denmark and the project I've made most progress on is my Just My Type sewalong. I've also prepped three projects or is it four for the MQC retreat this weekend.

Just My Type needs to be bound, it's quilted, trimmed and ready to go to retreat

One more branch of Christmas Tree by Barbara Ana is complete but the depth of the branches is increasing as the number of snowflakes decreases.

1986 Prairie Schooler Santa - I've chosen this one to take on holiday again as it's simpler than many in the series. It is also the next one in date order to be done. 

UFO challenge - a quick make this month with a tub (pattern by Rosie Taylor) from Ugly Sweater blocks by Kid Giddy.

Free block Friday - I've made one setting test block with nine more to stitch and the cutting of the background is complete. Packed and ready for MQC retreat.