How annoying is this?

BonnieHunter releases the first clue of her new mystery, Celtic Solstice, and I have to go out and run errands this morning. I've made a couple of the tri-recs units, but the rest will have to wait till I get back.

I'm not mad enough to do a king-size quilt, so I'll be making a quarter of all the units, and then decide how big my finished quilt will be. This is such a fun time each year, thanks to Bonnie's generosity. Happy sewing to everyone who is doing the mystery too.

Goldilocks rides again

One morning this week I got up early and decided to start cutting out a triple Irish Chain that I'd been wanting to do for ages.  It was all in red, blue and white, with a touch of grey and pink; wonderful colours, against a green background.

I'd worked out a cutting plan, knew roughly how many blocks I wanted to make, so I dragged out material and cut up a mountain of strips.  It was great fun.  I even made a few test nine-patches, and that's when it occurred to me that I had intended to make it with 2" strips, not 1.5" ones. Doh! The blocks were just too tiny for the prints I wanted to use.

The material hadn't been put away yet, so I cut out a few 2"strips, and made a nine-patch from them, and thought, 'You know, that looks a little bit Big to me'. 

 So I did the only sensible thing and made a block out of 1.75" strips.  And they were juuuust right.  So now I have enough wrong sized strips to make a whole other project, but that's OK.  I'm sure I'll make quite a few red, white and blue quilts, it's a lovely colour scheme.

I cut madly for a couple of days, and sewed four complete blocks. just to make sure I was happy. 

I AM happy. Isn't it amazing what that extra quarter inch per square does?  The 1" squares look so cramped and dark, and the 1.25" ones seem a lot happier and brighter. 

Then it occurred to me that I wasn't supposed to start anything new, until I'd finished two old projects.  Failed big time there.  So I went through the drawers of almost finished tops, and found two that just needed borders.

This Jacks On Six only needed a border on one side, so I cut the needed strips and joined them and now they are ready to sew on. 

This pretty apricot, blue and rust top stalled at the border stage too.   It took about an hour to choose the fabrics for two borders ; I've cut and sew them into strips and I'll add them later today.  So now I don't have to feel bad about starting that Irish Chain quilt.

I'm devestated. I did something really stupid yesterday.  I needed to do some mending, and I was too lazy to get out the Janome 6500.  I patched some work pants, and I BROKE my beloved Singer 538.

That bottom gear should measure another half inch; what's left of it is in pieces all through the bottom case.  I'm as shattered as the gear; I have so many other machines, but I've never had such perfect patchwork with any of them.

I should have known not to try heavy duty sewing on such an aged machine with nylon gears.  Metal gears would have coped fine, but these were just waiting to break, they are so brittle.  I hastened the end though.

God bless Ebay, help is at hand.

 

It will take a while to get my darling fixed, but I will sew on her again.

 Until then, I will have to use my 631, which is a lovely machine; it's a slant shank, and it's very nice to sew on.  I'm still fine-tuning the quarter inch seam, I haven't found the perfect spot to guide the fabric yet, but I'll just keep working on it.

I do like the little fold-up table at the side, it makes for a very nice work surface.

 But I still miss my 538. Sob.....