Looking forward, looking back

First of all, apologies for disappearing from the blogosphere for so many weeks: I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't been well, and I have continued to be not well until just now.  Today it is exactly 2 months since I stopped taking the pills which made me ill, and it has taken this long to get back to something approaching normal.  Two months: that's a sixth of a year feeling horrible and unable to sit to sew or use the computer or sleep properly.  Yuck, I really don't want to look back on any of that.

So I haven't had anything to post about or share that you would want to hear (my nearest and dearest have had to hear quite a lot more than they wanted to over the past few weeks!), though, on reflection, I did have a good eleven months in 2014 when I managed to get quite a lot done, including resurrecting and finishing, or all-bar-the-quilting finishing, several quite ancient UFO's.

Looking back through the blog, however, I can see that I also started a few new projects which have now acquired UFO status and I am resolved to tackle these before too much of this newish year has elapsed.

Looking forward, therefore, my challenge for 2015 will be to finish the year with fewer uncompleted projects rolled up in bags at the bottom of the cupboard, and a lot less fabric in my stash; scrappy string-y quilts will feature, I hope.  I want to keep up with my Quartet BOM, even the applique circles (not my strong suit...) and finish several old projects where I have got stuck on the hand quilting/distracted by the lure of lovely new fabric.







Here are some of my Quartet blocks in progress.


I also want to challenge myself to spend 10 minutes every day in February practising free-motion machine quilting.  I am looking on it as equivalent to piano practice: having nagged the kids for years to do their music practice I am going to give myself the same talking to, with the added incentive that I will have to admit to you all whether I have kept to the task.  Anyone fancy joining me?

For now, I have a small finish, which is a cushion I made before I got ill.  It is made from a bit of piecing I did in a workshop with Janice Gunner when I was still relatively new to patchwork and quilting, back in 2001(!!!), so don't look too closely at the seam intersections.

I found the bag of bits when looking for something else (as you do) and realised that the piece was big enough to make a 20 inch/50 cm cushion, so I quilted in the ditch, made an envelope back and finally stuffed it today.
 

I have given it to my youngest who is of a scientific turn of mind and appreciates the optical illusion of the 3-dimensional hollow cubes (squint and you'll see them - the design slightly reminds me of M.C.Escher drawings).

I am claiming this as a finish to link up to Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts as today was the first day I could go out and buy the cushion pad to go inside.

Close up to show the construction: basically you cut 60 degree triangles and border them on two sides with a contrasting coloured strip, then set them together in rows.  The tricky part is getting your head around the order for the colours so the hollow cubes appear and it doesn't just look like an unusual star block!  I guess it is a variant on Tumbling Blocks.

And here's a tip for you (though you may know this one already): when I have finished a quilt or other project like this cushion, before I use it, give it away or photograph it, I like to get rid of the tiny threads and lint fibres which I always find have migrated from the wadding on to the top of the quilt during the quilting.  I don't get on with proprietary lint rollers so I use a length of Post Office parcel tape which I wind round my hand, sticky side out, to make a sort of lint-removing mitt.  Stroke it over the surface of your project and pick up all the little bits of fluff - very satisfying!

Have a great weekend where you are, and stay warm and well.

Chandelier QAL

I haven't been terribly well the past few weeks which isn't at all like me.  I had a severe allergic reaction to some medication, which is taking ages to clear up.  It has made me appreciate how great it is NOT to be ill most of the time.

So my progress has gone in fits and starts, but mostly stops!  However I can report that I have finished making my Chandelier QAL blocks.  As you will see from the photo, I ran out of the Bella Solid background and am waiting for a fabric delivery before I can complete the top.

 I am really pleased with it, however: fabrics all pulled from stash and I love the way the clear colours sparkle against the off-white.  They remind me of Christmas baubles, appropriate given the time of year.

I also finished making my Thimbleberries Mark 2 star/flower blocks, blogged about here.  I had to buy three more plains for the flower centres, but everything else came from stash, so I am feeling good about that.

I ended up making 35 twelve inch blocks and, set 5 x 7, this will make a reasonably big quilt.  Not quite finished joining the blocks together but you can see the layout here.

Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday - thanks, Lee, for the Chandelier QAL: I hope you'll agree it's better I'm late than never!

Wishing you all good health and good progress both with your projects and with your Christmas preparations over the next couple of weeks.

Quartet BOM progress

Pleased to report progress on this new project:  I have finished the blocks for Month 3 (still putting off the applique circles...) and here they are in all their delicious variety.
[Apologies for the colour cast - it has been grey and rainy all day today so the photos were taken under fluorescent light].

I had such fun making these little darlings: like the mini-Log Cabin blocks I showed you last post, these Square in Square beauties are trimmed to 2 3/8" and will be joined together 7 blocks x 7 to make one big block.

The process of choosing little scraps of fabric from the selection provided was all about looking at colour; some of the taupes are so subtle, I found I only really appreciated their delicate beauty when placing one in opposition to another.  So I started REALLY looking: is this grey a brown grey or a green grey?  Let's try it against a blue or a reddish brown and find out.



Some blocks I tried to blend/co-ordinate, with others I deliberately went for contrast/clash for a bit of piquancy.  After stitching and trimming, the individual pieces you can see are tiny; this has made it quite a different experience compared with piecing a bigger, ie normal sized, block where you can see a much larger amount of each fabric.  The centre square in half the blocks finishes at 7/8", and the even smaller centre square on point in the other blocks measures 5/8".

I also managed to lay out my EPP 'lozenges' and number the rows (which are going to be pieced together on the diagonal), so that means I will have plenty of hand sewing to do in quiet moments....

I hope you have managed to make progress on at least some of your projects this week?
I am going to have to pack away my sewing machine for the Christmas holidays so the race is on to get one or two things finished by the end of next week...
Good luck if you have similar ambitions, and Happy Thanksgiving for tomorrow to any American visitors.

I am linking today to Lee at Freshly Pieced: WIP Wednesday.

Pressing on

Oh, the difference a new iron can make to a girl!  I am happy, happy, happy - I have got rid of my four foot high pile of ironing (you think I exaggerate?) and I have cleared my piecing-pressing backlog ie all the things waiting to be pressed that have been causing a log jam in various projects. Progress is about to be made (once I've done all the other jobs on tomorrow's list).

What I did manage to start after my last post, and which is my WIP for today's link to Freshly Pieced, was the first month of the Quartet BOM, mentioned here.  I had such a good time piecing these little blocks, and yes, I did chain piece them.  Trimmed they measure 2 3/8": thank you whoever invented foundation piecing!

So that's the first month trimmed and roughly laid out, ready to stitch together into one big block. I need to tweak the order though - that could take some time...

I have started on Month 3, skipping the applique just for now, and will show you more next week.

Meanwhile, I had a lovely day on Saturday teaching at my LQS: I had three great students, Lynn, Alison and Pat, learning to make the Stardancer variation of the sawtooth star block with a chevron border.  I blogged about this quilt here and here.

The girls worked so hard and pieced so precisely - you could cut yourself on the blocks and border the points are so sharp!  As always in a class the colour choices make the work so individual and I loved all of these quilts-in-the-making.

Alison also came up with an alternative layout which will make the stars float on her dark background: I look forward to seeing just how different this quilt will look from its neighbours.

One of the many great things about patchwork is that the same basic pattern is re-imagined by each one of us and made our own; even with the BOM, when the same fabric is sent out to each maker, my quilt and my friend Sylvia's will be subtly, or maybe not so subtly, different because of our piecing choices.  Delightful diversity.

Tiny Finish - Macaron

A succession of dreary wet days since November began reminds me that it will be hard to take decent outdoor photos for the next few months, so apologies for the poor light.

Too many other things going on for much actual sewing to report, but I did make a tiny hand sewn gift for a friend from a kit I bought at NEC in August.  This is my finish for Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts today.

Maria from Pinwheels visits us here in England for the Festival of Quilts and I have bought lovely kits from her several times over the past few years.  This time I bought her little kit, Macaron, and I have managed, even with my clumsy fingers, to make up both macarons, one for me and one for my new friend Helen, who so kindly recently showed me and my quilting buddies all of her treasured antique Japanese textiles (including some wonderful, worn and ancient Boro).

I thought that something in the Japanese style might suit her, though I am very sure that Japanese ladies with their nimble fingers would make a much better finished product.  The macarons are so tiny I don't think you could get much inside - maybe a £1 piece - but they are very cute and they really do look extraordinarily like posh French patisserie!



I also treated myself in August to Pinwheels' BOM, Quartet, but haven't started yet....  It will be fabulous and I promise to show you when I have made at least one block.  My clever friend Sylvia is storming through hers and I was green with envy when I saw what she had accomplished.

Sorry for the blurry image from the Pinwheels website but it will give you an idea of the lovely fabrics and miniature piecing that is in store for me!









My latest excuse however is that my tank steam iron has broken (I think I have worn it out these past two years), and I find that I don't like to use an ordinary steam iron any more, I do miss the fantastic crisp seams and flat blocks you get with the wonderful shot of steam.  So not only is the household laundry piling up but the piecing waiting to be pressed is holding back my progress on a variety of fronts.

However, the one and only advantage of having so many things on the go is that there is always something to do: I dug out this old UFO and have managed some hand piecing over the past couple of days.  It is called Rose Chain and I started it in a class with Sharon Chambers back in March 2004. Most of the time since then it has been gently resting in a cupboard; as with so many of my undertakings, it actually doesn't take all that long to make the blocks - I just got distracted by other projects.

I guess I am now about half way through the piecing of the blocks as it will only be 60" square when finished, but there is an applique border - and applique is not my strong suit.  It will need hand quilting too, I anticipate, so likely to be a work in progress for quite a while longer.

• Tasks for next week: to get a new iron is top of the list.
• Finish blocks for Thimbleberries 2 flower/star
• Assemble Chandelier QAL (yes, I know that ship has long sailed, but I do like the blocks so will finish it in my own time).
• any number of other things, too many to list

I have had lots of quilty fun without much actual sewing machine time since I last posted, so don't feel too sorry for me: I have taught one class  and am teaching again tomorrow, which I love, and I have done a demo/talk for a local quilt group which was also great fun.

I showed the group how to make really accurate HST's in bulk using papers (Easy Triangles on a Roll is my favourite product for this, though I also use Thangles).

I have always loved the 18th century Dutch Chintz quilts made entirely from HST's (all hand sewn of course) and I am gradually accumulating 2" HST's so that I can make my own one day.

I keep the HST's in a box and when I demo I get a few out and just start pinning them on a board.  One day I will stitch them together, but for now it is great fun to play with them.











I also demo'd how to square up HST's using Bloc_loc's brilliant rulers.  I actually enjoy trimming now that I have these rulers, and they are especially useful if you have a pile of bonus triangles after making flying geese by the stitch and flip method (I hate to throw away fabric, as you may have guessed).  If you don't know the rulers then visit the website where there is a helpful video.  

We are so lucky as quilters to have the benefit of really great products out there to make our lives easier and our work better.  What is your favourite tool/notion at the moment?

Resolutions - partly achieved

Well, I have tried really hard since my last post to fit in some sewing, having made myself accountable to you.  And I can report progress:

I have made 13 flower blocks for the Thimbleberries Mark 2.  I now need to buy a few more plains to be able to complete the remainder.  Not enough variety among my plain scraps in the muted, greyed palette.

I have made 15 Chandelier blocks out of a total of 18 plus two half blocks needed for the QAL with Lee - I know I am behind but at least I have managed something!





I have worked on a small quilt which I can't show you as it is for a magazine - but that had ground to a halt too, so it's good to be moving again.

My Remembrance quilt is stuck as I hate the quilting I have done so far; it is a pain to rip out as the Aurifil thread has sunk into the 80:20 wadding and I don't want to damage the fabric.  I need really good light to see the stitches properly but have had no spare daytime recently.  But I have set a deadline of 11 Nov which I had thought would be a breeze - huh, not looking so likely now.  Quilting gods out to humble me again.

Looking back at the last month, I guess the only proper finish was the Whirly Windmills quilt posted here so I'll claim that for my link to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day.

October has been a difficult month; I have been trying to provide some practical support for a dear friend who has been bereaved.  Sewing has been a blessing, even the small amount I have managed to fit in, and I am especially grateful at the moment to be able to unwind at my machine at the end of the day.

I hope your time spent sewing brings you joy and peace too.

Thimbleberries Mark 2 WIP

Two weeks gone without posting - apologies: just too much other stuff going on and no time for proper sewing, just a few minutes scratched here and there.  Hence I have no finishes to report, and not a huge amount of progress on anything.

I have done what I often end up doing when stressed, and that is getting out things, doing a bit, and then next time picking up something else...  It makes for a very messy house and general confusion. Next week won't be much better but after that I am hoping for some space, mental and physical!

I did stitch together a few pairs of 'picket fence' units left over from the first Thimbleberries WIP, to make star/flower blocks, using plains from the stash for the middles.  I thought I had a photo of the block on the camera (such old technology in our house) but all I seem to have taken is a joyful jumble of stitch and flip waiting to be pressed.

So, my first resolution must be to let you see at least one finished block of the Mark 2 version next week.  I am finding it slightly scary mixing in the plains, but I haven't enough of any other suitable fabric, and I think it maybe gives the traditional block and fabric a slightly more contemporary spin. We'll see when it's finished... but good, I suppose, to try something a bit different.

I hoped to join the Chandelier Quilt-along on Lee's Bernina blog and got as far as sorting out and cutting some fabrics from the stash.  I really don't need to start another quilt right now with everything else that's going on but I do like the block and I've never done a QAL before, plus I have committed to use only stash.  Enough of trying to justify this - I should 'save my breath to cool my porridge' as my Scottish relatives used to say!

Anyway in my enthusiasm (aka haste) to cut the pieces I managed to cut through a tape measure I had carelessly left too near my cutting board.  Even I can't salvage that one!

Second resolution: to show you at least one finished Chandelier block next post.

Finally, a little bit of peace for hand sewing in the middle of the week and I made progress on my EPP WIP.  I am fairly happy with the way this is going now.  If I make three more 'lozenges' to complete the bottom row, then half 'lozenges' for the sides and top and bottom, that will give me a centre measuring about 36", which I think will be big enough.  This is my take-along project at the moment, and it won't be finished in a hurry, so no resolutions/deadlines for this one.

I hope you are managing to make better progress on your projects than I am.  Have a happy weekend.  Next week is our school half-term, but it is shaping up to be even busier at home than this week.  I will try to stick to my resolutions...