Mid August

Hi there lovelies - it's time for me to check in again, though I'd like to do so more often - I always think there's just nothing interesting to share. But to be honest, it's all the small things that make up a bunch of wonderful, so I'll grab a few photos from the camera so you can see what I've been up to.

My own life has gotten a little busier as things are slowly getting back to normal here. We still have many restrictions in place, and so many people are still struggling, but in my little corner of the world, quilting classes have been able to resume in a limited way, and tennis is back in full swing.

I've been hand quilting away on the Phebe project, but photos of that are so very same same. My Rajah-ish quilt has also grown a bit, and here's where it's at right now:

I haven't laid it out on the floor very well, so the centre area is all wonky and wrinkled, but you can see how busy I've been with all the piecing in the borders. Those red and cream half square triangles are one inch finished - I had all those prepped and ready but needed to finish two sides of the purple and tan border.

Also under the needle - an odd project of sorts. I have a steam mop and for whatever reason I only have one cleaning pad that goes with it. I had a brainwave that I could make some more with some old towels and the leftover velcro from the sofa protector project:

These are going to get seriously grimy - it will be good to have a number of them in rotation.

Another thing I did recently was make cupcakes for my wonderful Dad's 70th birthday - I definitely don't bake them as often as I used to ... and I have no idea why?

My sweet friend Bridget made dehydrated oranges and gifted me some, so I thought they'd make a pretty decoration on the orange flavoured cakes. Yum!

Last of all, a couple of weeks ago, I had a call from my darling daughter. She was at Spotlight and wanted to know what kind of fabric was best for making cushions. Well obvs there are many, but she'd found a cotton drill that she liked and was happy to know it would be great. She grabbed all the supplies that she needed and came over for a play date to learn how to sew.

Can I tell you that my heart was so full it was ready to burst! Amy has never been that terribly interested in sewing or quilting, but I knew if the time came, I'd be so ready to help her.

Anyway, she quilted the top of the cushion, and this is the result:

And here is one of the two cushions that she made:

Isn't it just so great? And what a fun quirky fabric. Honestly, it makes my heart just sing that she wants to spend time in my sewing room. Here's hoping I don't get all territorial about my stash lol! Apologies for the quality of these last photos, I think I've messed something up with my settings?!?

I loved the fabric that Amy bought so much that I went out and got some for myself, and also found this sweet peacock fabric, and then one for some bindings. I think I'll make her some matching placemats when I have a chance, and maybe some peacock placemats for us.

Well, that's it from me for now - I hope you're all well and doing okay in these strange times. Big love and hugs from me.

Well helloooooo ...

It's amazing how good I can be at setting up some routines in my life, and yet in others I fail completely. Apparently blogging falls into the latter category :-|

But onwards ... let me share some of the things I've been doing ...

I got all the pesky 1" finished HST's trimmed and stitched all the upcoming borders for the Rajah-ish quilt that I'm slowly working on. I'm not quite finished all the border that comes before it, so there is still a bunch of piecing in my future. The trimming was TEDIOUS and I don't mind if I don't do any more for a little while ... I always say that, and then I end up doing more :-)

The days have been a little brighter, so I've tried to get a picture that showcases the sweet feathery quilting on the HOQH project - Lizzy did such a lovely job. It's actually really hard - the thread is such a perfect match and the piecing is so busy. You'll have to simply trust me that this quilt has such a pretty texture, and I'm beyond thrilled.

And here is the back of the quilt where it shows up a little better - but I have to say I'm in love with this toile. Wouldn't it make lovely setting squares in a blue and white quilt. I have enough left that I could consider doing something like that.

The final step - the binding - is complete now. The plaid binding is a slightly unexpected choice - but so were the checked sashing strips, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out - so that's the way I went. It's actually kind of a modern print so it's another addition to the mismatch of eras in this quilt. I'm so glad to have finished something that has been in progress for about five years now!

Last of all for today - here is something I very rarely introduce to my stash - a layer cake! This particular one is going to be super useful for my next project. I actually can't wait to tell you what I'm going to work on - but I'm going to wait until I finish one of the two projects I'm currently working on - and the reason for that is because I've already changed my mind once so it's not out of the realms of possibility that I may change my mind again!

Well, that's it from me for now. I hope you're all staying safe and having time to do things you love. Chatter soon! xox

Piecing, and quilted!

Hiya, just wanted to check in and let you know that things are still moving along in my sewing room. It's my happy place, so I spend as much time as I possibly can in there ...

Since I last posted, I began cutting out what I thought was the next border for my Rajah-ish quilt, only to find that I'd gotten ahead of myself, and what I was preparing was for two borders time. It's not a big deal - I'll still use it, but I popped that aside and started on what was the actual next border:

So that's it there around the outside - the purple and tan hourglass border. It has been super fast to put together - and the next border will be a mirror of the one inch red triangles. There are so many seams, it's quite tricky to get all the points to line up - I'm trying to be okay with it when they're not perfect.

In other news, my lovely friend Lizzy has finished quilting on the HOQH top, and I'm entirely thrilled with how it came out:

It has been a super grey weekend, so I haven't been able to take any pictures that do the quilting justice, but when I can find some more light I'll show you the quilting from the back side of the quilt.

And speaking of the back, I promised to share the toile fabric I selected:

I have no clue when I got it or from where, but isn't it fun when you find something in your stash that you know you want to use.

The binding I've chosen is a blue and tan plaid - it'll bounce really well off of the setting triangles - I just have to wait for it to get here. I can be patient, I promise!

It's getting a little late here, and I still have to do my French lessons for the day, and a little hand quilting, then I can head to bed and rest easy. Chatter soon!

Next UFO ...

Though hand quilting is still my priority, sometimes I just itch to spend quality time with the Bernina, so I've picked up another (recent) UFO - My Rajah-ish project.

I had already sort of prepped all the 1" finished triangles for the next border (and a subsequent border) but I still had to cut most of them apart and trim them to size. Do you remember a while back I said I would leave them on the cutting table and work a few at a time so it wouldn't seem like such a chore? Well ... never happened!

Sometimes you just have to get your head in gear and commit yourself to something until it's done, so that's what I did - and because I've used five different red fabrics, I organised them into groups for each border:

Doesn't really look that interesting does it? But it makes sense to me and that's what matters :-) I like scrappy, but it has to be controlled scrappy, so I don't want any of the same reds abutting each other and sorting the fabrics out appeals to my sense of order.

After a few machine piecing sessions, I got four of the borders together and they're stitched in place:

Next up is another pieced border - without checking the pattern I think it's in the same style as the green pieced border - so if I can find enough fabrics I'm happy with, I might make it green again. And then there's another border with the red triangles. I think I made 340 or so of the triangles for this quilt - and there were a lot of them in the HOQH project too - so I really don't mind if I don't see any 1" finished HST's for a good long time.

It's predicted to be rainy here for a bit, so I see lots more quilting and piecing in my future - I'll be sure to keep you updated. Chatter soon! xox

Trimming ... and then some ...

This past week I've been lucky enough to see the Rajah quilts belonging to a couple of my sweet Thursday ladies grow some more. Betty is just finishing up her pieced borders, and Jean has started working on the final applique border. This reminded me that I haven't picked up mine in a while, and I know exactly why.

The next row on my project is the first of two rows of about a bazillion one inch finished half square triangles. I've gotten the ball rolling on them, but the next step is cutting them into individual HST's and trimming them to size. And I don't mind confessing to you that I find this part ... tedious ...

So, I'm going to do what Betty did for hers ... I'm going to leave it out on the cutting table, and set myself a goal of doing a few here and there between other things until they're all done. It won't be so onerous that way, and hopefully they'll be done before I know it!

And for a little extra eye candy, here's where Betty's Rajah quilt is at right now. Isn't it fabulous?

It never ceases to amaze me how a group of people can all have the same pattern, and using their own interpretations and different fabric, end up with such different looking quilts. It's one of my favourite things about this creative process.

After I finish my allocation of HST's for this evening, I'm going to get myself set up with my hand quilting again and I'll put a few stitches in while I am distracted by the French Open tennis final. I've been riveted by it this year, and it has been keeping me up very late at night. So lucky I'm a night owl.

And speaking of things TV related, I was watching an old episode of Modern Family this past week, and in the background I noticed something very familiar. Please forgive this terrible photo  I took while I hurriedly paused the TV:

In Gloria's home, they have the very same dumb-waiter in use as a shelving unit that I have in my sewing room. It it silly that I was super excited?

This is mine in use:

It's one of my favourite things I bought at auction. By brother and I picked it up after I was the successful bidder and we tossed it in the back of his ute. I waited until we'd got it home before I told him is was an antique from the late 1800's, because I knew he'd be worrying about it all the way home!

Last of all, I had a comment from Quilt Granma on my last post asking about the pointy border on my Phebe quilt. I would have loved to reply to you personally, but your email address isn't enabled on your comments. But in response to your question, I'm sure that the tri-recs ruler would make a great job of your pointy border, the angles wouldn't be as sharp, but they'd still be wonderful. I foundation pieced mine, mostly due to my laziness about not wanting to worry about cutting out fabric super accurately. I hope this helps!

Well, that's it from me - I'll check in soon - hopefully with all my one inch HST's trimmed :-)

Fun things ...

In honour of St. Valentine's Day this week, I thought it would be fun to make up a block that I've admired for some time - it's an applique block, so I've been able to do everything apart from actually stitching the applique shapes down (they're glued down for now) - stitching will happen when I'm able to hand sew for a length of time.

This block is called Tangled Hearts - it was designed by the lovely Teresa Rawson from Fabric Therapy and was featured in Quiltmakers 100 Blocks #10. Isn't it just so much fun? I can imagine a whole quilt made from this block, and that might be exactly what I do some day.

Marty and I don't really do a whole lot on Valentines Day, but yesterday he surprised me with something really interesting. He found a pattern for a thread stand for Featherweights  and 3D printed me one - isn't it neat?

In the background a picture to show how it works, and in the foreground is the one he printed. I can't wait to give it a try!

Speaking of featherweights, I found one at auction during the Christmas holidays and absolutely had to purchase it, the machine and it's box were in such lovely shape - I knew I could give it a good home. I'm thinking that I might sell one of my featherweights though, it really does seem greedy to have four of them when they're so sought after. I'll have to think on it, I love each of them as they're all slightly different, and a couple of them I have an sentimental attachment to.

Also yesterday was the day for the lovely ladies of my quilt class to gather, and as promised I took pictures of the other two Rajah quilts in progress to share with you:

This one belongs to Betty, she chose a William Morris block by Michele Hill for her applique centre. And from that point she's following along with the pattern more closely. It's just so pretty, and inspires me to get out my William Morris patterns and start working on some more applique. Though it doesn't show well in the picture, there are lovely hints of gold in the fabric, and it all looks so luxe!

And this one belongs to Jean. As you can see, Jean is following the pattern as it was written, and it's coming along so well. I love the bright colours and the bling of the fabric. Jean and I are at the same point with our tops, and our two projects could not look more different.

I can't wait to see how all our quilts come along going forward. Very exciting!

Well, that's it from me for now - I hope you're all having a great week. Chatter soon xox

Busy, busy!

My goodness, the past week has been super busy! Today however, I have been able to catch my breath a little and put the next borders on my version of the Rajah quilt. Here's where I'm up to:

Wow, is this quilt busy or what? I really should have taken the time to press it a little better, but I've folded it and put it aside for now - let's see if I can do better for the next picture. I think there are three more pieced borders and a final applique one, and then I can call this top done. It has come together quite quickly really!

So, the thing that really had me occupied over the past week was the final organisation and then the actual happening of my sweet girl's bridal shower and then hen's night. The bridal shower was here, and we had the perfect day for it to be out under the pergola. Amy had lots of lovely friends and family attend, it really was such a fun afternoon:

And then after a short break, the evening celebration was at Amy's house, also a super fun time, but more for the young girls than us oldies. I won't share any pictures of that party, but be assured a great time was had by all, and it was a very late night!

That's all I have to share for now - I have to get busy in the sewing room putting a little Valentine project for my Thursday girls, and then a few chores are beckoning. A girl can never get bored! Chatter soon :-)

So many pieces!

I didn't have much time for piecing on the weekend, but I managed to find enough time to put two sides of the next row on my quilt:

The next row after the one I'm working on is simply a strip of fabric, which makes me so happy, there are so many seams jumping around between the rows that it makes it so hard to press my work neatly. All those seams and lumps and bumps are going to make it challenging to quilt, that's for sure.

Yesterday I only stitched for a short time, and Saturday wasn't that much better, but I do try and sew a little each day. A few years back at a quilters guild meeting we had a guest speaker - the lovely Irene Blanck. In addition to sharing her lovely quilts and talking about her quilting journey with us, she shared a pearl of wisdom that really resonated with me. Irene shared that despite her full time job and other significant commitments, she always makes time to stitch for 15 minutes each day. No matter what is going on for her, she could always find a 15 minute bite of time, and so her quilt projects are always moving forward. Now there are times when I haven't been disciplined enough to do the same, but I try really hard to put in a few stitches even on the busiest of days. I'll see how that works for me as Amy's wedding draws closer - I can't even believe it as I say the words out loud ... it's next month!

Lastly, in my previous post I mentioned that some email comments hadn't come to me - well imagine my surprise when I found them in my junk mail folder! I can't even imagine why that would happen all of a sudden. Anyway, I'll get busy answering comments as soon as I hit publish here - if you don't hear from me, please check that your email address is enabled so that I can get back to you.

Chatter soon! xox

This project has me gripped!

I'm really gripped by this quilt, as is often the case when things are going well. I'm able to piece away at my machine with little trouble, and so that's what I'm doing - in every moment that I can!

Some of the fun in this quilt is choosing the fabrics, and I knew I wanted greens with the florals for the next border. This is my favourite green tone, and I was thrilled that it played nicely with the other fabrics. The photo above is a bit crookedy, sorry about that - and I'm too lazy to fix it!

Those two green triangles in the middle - the fabrics I've used in them are from DEEP stash. The bottom one is all gone now, there's not a skerrick left - the top one I stumbled across at the bottom of a green pile while auditioning fabric from my stash. They're both from the Smithsonian Collection which is a line of reproductions from way back when I was very much a beginner quilter. The Smithsonian collections were released in 1995 and 1996 I understand. For my stash, 23-24 years old is practically antique! The print in the top triangle I had in pale blue as well as the green, and the bottom triangle I also had in pale blue and a cream colour. I wonder if there are any shards of those left in my scrap boxes?

And this is where I'm at as of last night. I've placed two sides of the hourglass borders. All the hourglass blocks are made for the other sides, I just need to get them into strips and sewn in place. How fun!

Next is another border using the same shapes as the green border, I just need to decide if I'm going to make it with a different colour theme, or attempt to emulate the green border with a few different fabric additions.

Thursday classes begin again tomorrow, and two of the ladies are also working on this project. I'll snap some pictures to share with you so you can see how entirely different our quilts are. I'm always amazed how quilters can take a pattern and make such different and beautiful pieces of art.

Before I close, I just wanted to let you know that all but the last one of the comments from my last post weren't emailed to me. Fortunately, because it's happened before I knew how to fix it - but it means that I can't respond to those messages. But please know that I love hearing from you, and always respond when I can. Chatter soon! xox

A little progress ...

Just a quickie post today to share that I've added a little more to my version of the Rajah quilt:

The applique has been a little hard on my arm (as is the case with hand quilting) so it happens in small doses, and there is still just a tiny bit to finish stitching down.

Beyond this narrow border are a bunch of pieced borders, so hopefully by the time I need to do a whole lot more hand sewing I'll be fully healed. So next up there's plenty of cutting to do, and lots of time spent at my sewing machine.

Well, that's it for now, chatter soon! xox

Rajah-ish

Hi there friends :-) Not a huge amount of news, but thought that I'd share ... last week I was working on some secret squirrel stuff, I popped it all in the mail on Monday so it could get to its destination in the USA on time ... and realised that I forgot to take pictures so I could share the results of my labours with you later on. Oops! One of the items was a Christmas block for the Quilt Batts annual exchange, so hopefully one of the sweet ladies over there will share a picture with me, and I can in turn share with you. I really need to better taking picture of happenings here!

I can share that after the 'have to do' work was done, I was able to do some more 'nice to do' work too. Rather than the applique designs used on the Rajah pattern, I was inspired to do something a little 'Pendle Hill' like, from the pattern by Di Ford-Hall:

The little pentagon units are so cute - this picture was taken while I was testing to see if they'd all fit along the border, and also making sure I was happy with the placement of the colours. You can see a couple of the other ones scattered around. One destined for another side of the quilt, and the one just out of shot on the left will be for another project - not this one. Nothing is stitched or glued down at this point, and I still had to remove the papers.

And in this picture the pentagon units have been stitched together, the papers removed and I've glued everything in place. I still have to stitch it all down, but it was getting late last night, and I needed some zzz's. The hot weather we're experiencing is quite draining and I find myself very lethargic. I keep telling myself that this happens every year, and it will pass ... it's perfect weather for staying indoors and stitching!

I'm looking forward to the next borders which are very busily machine pieced - it'll be fun to choose lots of lovely fabrics from my scraps.

Well, that's it from me for now - I'll check back in soon with more progress :-)

Happy New Year 2019

Happy New Year to all my lovely readers. I hope you've eased into 2019 doing some things that you love. As I mention each year, it is thought that what you do on January 1st you'll continue doing all year. So to that end I always try and do some things that I love, as well as some things that keep my home running along happily.

I did some sewing, so that's good news for my stitching prospects each day - but I started a new project, and I don't need to be working on a new project each day. 

Anyway, here's what I've begun:

This is  where I'm at with my interpretation of the Rajah quilt that I mentioned in my last post. I'm using the lovely pattern by Lessa as a guide, and I'm changing things up here and there to suit myself. I didn't feel like doing the applique block in the centre of the quilt, so I used this lovely printed block and a border print from the Windermere collection by Di Ford Hall.

It's strange for me to be working on a new project when I'm still working on the quilting of the Phebe quilt, but I really felt like having some machine work when I'm not feeling like hand quilting. I don't think I mentioned it, but I injured my right arm playing tennis a little while back, and hand quilting is hard on it while I recuperate.

I'll keep you posted as I progress with the Rajah quilt - though it might be slow - there are so many things going on right now, not least the planning and preparation for my sweet girl's wedding!

Something I'd meant to share with you in the last post were some little gifts I made for the sweet girls that come to my class:

I enjoyed making the trees from Marcie's sweet pattern so much, and I thought they'd make pretty little Christmas mats, so I made a bunch of them, and I'm fairly sure I'll make more. They were great for using up random strips of fabric, and I'm always thrilled to find ways to use up my scraps!

And in my post from before Christmas, I promised to share a picture of my Nutcrackers, and then promptly forgot ... but here's a quick piccy, because I'll have to put them away soon:

These are just the ones that live on my china cabinet, there are some larger ones on the floor too. I have some favourites, the one with the cloak is really neat, and the music box is a special favourite too.

I just noticed I've made a new years ooops, and I'm too lazy to change it right now - I've neglected to change the date on my photo watermark. I'll have to make sure to do it before the next post. I'm sure it won't be causing any international incidents, but clearly my attention to detail is lacking - I'm still in holiday mode :-)

Thank you to my commenters from my last post - some were set to no-reply so if you didn't hear from me, that's the reason. Equal numbers encouraging blogging and Instagram, so I'll waddle along as best I can. Chatter soon! xox