Ploughing on

Being an earlier riser than the rest of the family, means doing only quiet jobs early in the morning. Having pinned a few pieces for sewing later, I pulled out the group Farmer's Wife quilt to work out if I had enough fabric for the borders and binding and which fabric I'd bought for which job? That was easier than I thought and the borders and binding were soon cut to size. I had just 1/4" left of the border fabric so that was either lucky or well planned.

So by yesterday evening I had the borders sewn on, pressed and the binding mitred together and ready to go. I now need to buy the backing in the sale of our local quilting shop on Thursday. I then have until 20 January to get it quilted and the binding applied ready for Guild members to help hand stitch the binding down.

Linking to:

 

 

Wake up to Kona blog hop

You may already have spotted the Kona button in my side bar, but I am participating in the wake Up to Kona blog hop, starting 7 January (yesterday). Having been away for two days, I'm a bit out of sync, but that's okay as I'm not scheduled to post until 21 January, so I have almost two weeks to finish my project to share.

+ TWO extra days!

January 7

Just Let Me Quilt

Sparrow in Flight

Geta’s Quilting Studio

How ART You

Desertsky Quilts

January 8

Stitchin’ By The Lake

That’s Sew Julie

Living With Purpose

Nini’s Patchwork Blog

Quilts My Way

Jane’s Quilting

Quilt Matters

January 9

Ridge Top Quilts

Marjorie’s Busy Corner

A Stitch In Time

Freemotion by the River

Everyone Deserves A Quilt

January 10

Life in the Scrapatch

Vroomans Quilts

Bumbleberry Stitches

Upstairs Hobby Room

Sew Many Yarns

Easy Patchwork

Beaquilter

January 13

Creatin’ In The Sticks

Meadowbrook

Cathy’s Chatter

Selina Quilts

Sew Fresh Quilts

The Sassy Quilter

January 14

Sew Me Something Good

Sew Peace to Peace

Quilting Prolifically

Linda D. (shown on Just Let Me Quilt)

In The Boon Docks

The Cosmic Quilter

January 15

Thimblemouse& Spouse

Daisy Days

My Addiction to Quilting

Mountain Mist Designs

Hill Valley Quilter

Malini’s Quilts

Englating

January 16

I Piece 2-Mary

A Reformed Heath’n

From This To That

A Quilting Sheep

CeLynn’s Sunflower Patch

Robin’s Fabric Nest

Quilted Delights

January 17

Why-Knot-Kwilt

Words & Stitches

Marla’s Crafts

Lisa In Port Hope

Transitions for Meee

One English Teacher

Debby Kratovil Quilts

January 20

More Stars in Comanche

Buzzing and Bumbling

Quilting Quietly

Grammie Q’s

The Quilted Cat

The Quilting Queen Online

Lauraluvsloons

Sew Incredibly Crazy

January 21

Just Sew Sue

Pigtales and Quilts

Miss Priss Quilts

Charlottes Creation

Childlike Fascination

Renee Luvs Quilting

Cherry Blossoms

Sew We Quilt

Guernsey quilt

I was contacted a few months ago about long arm quilting a quilt for a group in Guernsey, our neighbouring island. I met Leila when she came to Jersey with some friends for a workshop with Philippa Naylor a few years ago. It's funny how things come around as Philippa is back in Jersey in March teaching again.

 

 

The Guernsey group were lucky that a geocaching friend, Terry agreed to bring the quilt to Jersey in December and I had a visit planned to Guernsey so they have no postage to pay. It was delivered in person on Sunday.

 

I love the Kaffe Fasset millefiori backing they chose as it brings out all of the colours from the top and the busy print disguises the seam on the back.

Thread: Cleopatra

Pantograph: Alex

 

The Sewing Room Swap

Searching for some photos for a e-zine article yesterday, I realised that I'd never shared with you the items that I sent Cindy as part of The Sewing Room Swap.

 

The large item was a social tote (above) and the small item was the matching pin cushion. I am itching to make another for myself. The extra pink strip you see in the photo is because of a typo in the pattern. I have amended my copy of the pattern for future reference.

 

 

I included a few extra goodies, including a big bar of Dairy Milk, a tag I made at FQR with some sewing themed fabric, a lint roller, needles, thread and fabric.

 

 

I also included a pack of alphabet pins which I made with some pins, diamond glaze and alphabet beads. I have one more set to share with someone which I'll post next week.

 

 

Do pop over to the Flickr group and see the delightful goodies that were sent around the world. Linda is now looking for swappers for the second round of swaps. Do sign up.

Flying geese border

Having purchased the 2012 block of the month from the Fat Quarter Shop, I subsequently realised I didn't have the pattern for finishing the quilt. Hmm. So each row of three is separated by a row of flying geese. Now I see this pattern again, I realise that each flying geese column is 4 inches by 12 inches not the six inches wide I first thought.

 

I found the pattern for the six inch wide geese here and for the four inch wide geese here. I printed them off on Carol Doak's foundation piecing paper and then used a glue stick to add two more rows to each pattern.

 

Here are two sashing units and the first two blocks together.

 



I now have to wait until March to send out the rest of the blocks to the FQR bee participants.

 

 

A Lovely Year of Finishes 2014

 

A new year and a fresh start. Let's see if I can make it to the end of 2014 with 12 finishes at least? from the projects I've already posted for January, I've chosen to focus on the Bee in My Bonnet Row along. I mostly kept up with the rows, but the finishing instructions were taken down before I finished and all of the instructions were included in the book "Quilty Fun" by Lori Holt.

 

Having purchased a copy of the book before Christmas, I just need to put the ends on each row, sash the rows and add the border. The rows of blocks are already completed, the blocks for the border are mostly sewn together and the bee label is even made and embroidered.

Having bust the bag of blocks out of the cupboard and onto my design wall, I'm now ready to go. Having put the blocks on my design wall I now realise that the flying geese units are missing (in my Quilty Fun bag of blocks, I hope, I haven't sashed the butterflies and I have two many four patches, the extras of which I hope I can use for the Quilty Fun Sew along. I have pinned two of the outside borders ready to sew together this afternoon, so I'm already making progress.

 

UFOs and WIPs to work on

I'm not brave enough to list all of my UFOs and WIPs so I'm just going to list five each month that I hope to work on during the month. So my list for January includes:

• Bee in my Bonnet Row Along
• Farmer's Wife group quilt which I've promised to take along to the January meeting for members to help hand stitch the binding. So it's not officially my WIP!!
• Scrappy scrap baskets which I've worked on and completed today, but I can only show you a hint at the moment.
• London Embroidery
• Japanese X and Os  which needs to be completed for a blog hop in two weeks time

I think I'll be brave and add one more for which I've made sufficient blocks over the last few days:

• Sweetwater Scrappy Trip Around the World

 

 

Fabriholics Anonymous

I need to curb my enthusiasm for starting new projects and therefore, I am going to join in with Fabriholics Anonymous!

 

Hello my name is Sue and I am a Fabriholic!  The 12-step Fabric Fast program is outlined over at Making Rebecca Lynn

 

GOALS:

- To use the Stash I already have!

- Finish UFOs without the distraction of new beautiful fabric.

- Stop the insanity of constantly buying the latest and greatest fabric.

- Save the £s I spend on fabric.

- Destash the fabrics that I realize I am never going to use.

- Tidy the stash I have so I can see what I have and have a comfortable work space to work in.

 

FABRIC FAST RULES:
 

1) No fabric purchases for 6 months beginning January 9, 2014.   Not 1 January like others as Treadles have their sale on 9 January!! And I need some fabric for a specific project.

2) At 6 months re-evaluate progress and decide whether to keep going for full year.  Evaluation July 1, 2014.

3) Create a UFO list and complete them!

4) Exceptions

Backing: purchasing a backing to finish a quilt top is permissible.  However, attempting to use fabric in your possession for a backing is preferable.

Books and Magazine purchases are allowed as they are not fabric.  Notions acceptable too.

 

By controlling new fabric in, I hope I can focus on finishing the ever growing UFO list.