Back again

Where was I? Last time I posted I was busy rummaging in my scraps, then I had a flurry of quilting at the shop, then I had to go to Adelaide to help Seonaid's family before the school holidays. Seonaid organises the school sports day, all the fundraising and catering. It's not something I'd ever volunteer for, but she's been in Events Management for a decade or more, so it's something she's more than qualified for. I was just there to babysit kids while she did the work, and I'm still qualified to do that 😀.

I brought Isla home for 5 days, so we could sew and visit with family here. We made a pillowcase, and microwave heat bags, and a nightie, so Isla gained some more experience with the sewing machine. I had to ask her to thread the needle on more than one occasion, my eyesight being what it is. 

Then we went back to Adelaide, and I stayed a few days longer, so I could babysit the kids while Seonaid went to some meetings and a dinner. It's so much easier to look after older kids, thank heavens; they help get dinner, help clean up, shower themselves. Isla even reads to the younger two, so I'm just there to break up fights and make them brush their teeth, basically. And hold their hands while they go to sleep.....

I came back exhausted anyway, with yet another cold picked up from Finn. It takes me ages to get over a cold, so it's been very slow progress in the sewing room since then.

I'd left a stack of pieces for Log Cabin and Disappearing 4-patch blocks by the machine, so I sewed all them together when I felt up to it. Eventually I had 56 blocks up on the design wall, and I'm slowly sewing them in groups of 4. I considered just putting them in a container and going on to something else, but I would not look forward to arranging them all on the design wall again, so I'll just spend a bit more time on it and get it ready for borders.

The 1.25" Log Cabin blocks now number 80, and I think I might just put them aside for now. The blocks are 6.75" finished ,so they would only make a 54 x 67" top. I don't know if I'd be happy with that size, I usually like to make tops a bit bigger than that. I need more pieces if I'm going to make more blocks, I've done a good job of cleaning out the strip box; I will amass some more scraps and see how I feel then.

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I do love Log Cabins!

And I made a sample block with 1" strips, but I'm not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole just yet.

I had a bundle of rejected strips that I kept moving from place to place, so I sewed most of them into this 20"paper-pieced star. It's not something I want to make more of, so I'm going to border it with HSTs and a few more reject fabrics and call it a wallhanging.

And now that I'm in the process of finishing one project, and shelving another, I'm looking at concentrating on the tiny 9-patches.

I'm going to set them together with 1.5" strips, so they have a bit more breathing room. This makes a 12" block, and I'm really happy with how it looks. It's going to be hard to find a suitable sashing fabric, but I'll deal with that later on. 

Miss Isla is 8 years old now, and allowed to be in charge of the knife for the cutting of her birthday cake.

She's quite the young lady now; I miss baby Isla, but I've always loved spending time with her at any stage. Here's hoping she turns into my quilting buddy.