Home Again

Back home again, but I've had to dive right into quilting 2 quilts for a friend. One was a Bluey cot quilt, very cute, but the other is a King Size one and it's taxing my reserves. The backing had to be pieced out of three lengths of fabric and it was so heavy I could barely manage it. It took forever to iron too, but at last it was loaded on the frame. 

I ironed the top and put the batting in place, set up the panto and it's ready to quilt tomorrow. Unfortunately I have to bind bind both quilts, but once that's done I don't have any more jobs until after Christmas. Thank heavens.

I was 2 clues behind in Bonnie's mystery, so I have been cutting pieces for that whenever I have a spare moment. I decided that I was going to use some of my oldest fabrics and get them out of the stash drawers at last. I was also going to raid my scraps first, and try to use the ironed fabric hanging on the racks and in the scrap drawers. 

For the HSTs in Clue 3 I decided to use the 8-at-a-time method so that I would have 2 sets from every pair of squares. It was so fast; I know they need to be trimmed, but I choose to trim them no matter what method I use. At least this method doesn't have bias edges, and the initial cutting was really quick.

I'm only making a quarter of the units because I know I won't have time to do them all. But I'll probably catch up after Christmas. I'm wanting to add green into the mix of colours, but I'll need to see the overall design before I choose what I want to replace with green. It's certainly taken the pressure off, with the smaller amount of units to piece.

Trimming, trimming, trimming.....

I was having withdrawal symptoms in Adelaide without my sewing. The closest I got was helping Seonaid with the costumes for Thomas's class for the school concert.

40 pirate bandanas and cumberbunds, all torn because we couldn't find the fabric scissors or the acrylic ruler. Oh well, we had a good afternoon chatting and ripping and clipping all the threads.

I found graph books for the boys, so they could draw up Minecraft figures. Thomas presented me with this.

He's going to be some sort of engineer in later life, he has such a methodical mind. Before he could play with his book he had to map out some colour theory on the first page.  Actually I think he could make a very pedantic lecturer or professor; I can't count how many times I've thought, 'Don't tell your grandmother how to suck eggs' as he explains to me how to butter bread, or make a taco, or peel a boiled egg, or turn a tap on.  But he does it to share what he knows, to process it logically, and organise all the steps needed. He's a very thoughtful child.

And, he's the one who can use the TV remote when Nan is mystified by it; I'm humbled by his superior knowledge.

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I'm away from home again, in Adelaide to babysit while some end-of-school-year events take place.  I deliberately didn't bring any handwork, so that I would be forced to work on loading software onto my new laptop. It's not my favourite past-time, so many usernames and passwords to remember or retrieve.

Before I left home I reworked the measurements of my block so that I had more room at the edges to trim the block without losing my points. It's all much neater now, Im looking forward to kitting quite a few when I get back.

I do like the blocks with more than one fabric, I'll throw in a few of those. The plan was for 42 blocks, so there will be lots of fabric choices to make along the way.

I have 12 on the design wall now, and several kitted. I'm looking forward to using up some of my pink repros; I have a large collection of them and a lot of them are untouched FQs. It will be fun to finally cut into them.

And we've started on the jigsaws a bit early this year, just to keep the kids occupied. There's too much yellow in this image, even the rhino and elephant were yellow. Very confusing for the kids. They enjoyed the zebra; at least that was easy to do😄

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More Kitting Preparation

While I was hunting out my strange, stripey fabric I unearthed another unrecorded UFO. 

At least I had an EQ8 printout, and a status card, but no list of sizes I was cutting. I'm sure when I packed this away all I cared about was getting it out of my sight, and I was confident that I would remember all the sizes and strips I needed. I measured everything, including a lot of strips that were included in the project box, and wrote it all down on the back of that card.

I also made up one of the kitted blocks to make sure that everything really did fit together, and yay, it did. So now I want to fully prepare a lot of kits for these 9" blocks so that over summer when I'm confined to the AC I can just open this box and sew.

I have 32 of the Sawtooth Stars for the Annette Gero quilt prepared, and a stack of 6.5" squares, so all that can sit in it's box until I want to sew on it. It's no different to buying a pre-cut kit from a quilt shop really, and I'm relishing the thought of playing with these little stars.

Oh dear, looks like I've succumbed to the latest Quiltville mystery. I'm making one quarter of the units needed, and if I feel like it later on I'll make more. I certainly have enough of these colours in the stash.

This ice blue fabric is so prone to fading; it's a loss of colour everywhere it's folded, and it's happened to most of the early material in my stash. It looks like a grubby yellow line, but it doesn't wash out. I'm cutting the faded bits out and using the good bits, and I'll just enjoy the quilt until it fades too. And if I don't use this stuff then I might as well throw it out right now.

This is another very old piece that I got in a scrap bag. I had a pink and brown version of this and I treasured every scrap, but it's long gone. The colours are perfect for Lupine and Laughter, so I'll be using this as my neutral. 

Seeing as 2 of my fabrics are ancient I'm digging out some old pinks to include too. The above pink is at least 40 years old, and I bought it because it reminded me of our baby blankets.

Pink on one side, yellow on the other. I wrapped my babies in this blanket too, it's so soft and cuddly and full of memories.

It even has the label intact.

I like the emphasis on all new materials, because a lot of bedding was stuffed with old army blankets after the war years, or shredded cotton clothing. One cushion that I unpicked was full of old stockings and underwear; double yuk!

 I hope the finished design has a vintage vibe, because my fabrics are vintage 😁.

When in Queensland DIL Naomi schooled Isla on how to cut out a pattern using a projector system and a rotary cutter, and then Isla sewed it on the coverstitch machine. 

She is justifiably proud of the result. It should be roomy enough to fit her next year; we are leaving long sleeved weather behind here, and moving into summer mode.  Naomi put a lettuce edging around the edges, which Isla was very impressed with. Her Dad was a bit mystified by how enthused we were about it, but he's a guy. He doesn't understand these things.

(I spend more time fighting with Blogger about the formatting and the position of the photos than I do writing the post. It's strange how it used to work perfectly until they 'improved' it. 😠)

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I continued working on The Annette Gero Star quilt yesterday, ferreting through drawers and boxes and pulling out any fabric that I thought would work in this. 

I didn't want the stars to be too much darker than the alternate blocks, so I'll add a few muted pinks like the ones in the original quilt. Those stars probably started out red and faded to pink; I'm going with pink so I can use some of my old favourites.

Look at that, I dated the photos and the negatives. This was a few years before I could afford my first digital camera (it cost $1000 and I could only afford it because it was a business expense). Back then, once the film was used up there were no more photos, and then it was a wait of 2 weeks for developing.

It's sort of appropriate to use this fabric from the same year. An oldie, but a goodie.

I was good and cut a 6.5" strip from all my fabrics and then put the remainder away so it wasn't cluttering up my surfaces. Then I ironed the strips and cut squares from the ones that I'd earmarked for the alternate blocks.

I think I'm going to like this!

I also cut up all the background fabric I had, and there was enough for 36 blocks. I might want the quilt to be bigger, so I'll need to investigate another off-white for that. I'm strenuously resisting the Connecting Threads Black Friday emails, but I'm tempted ....

This is another of Annette's quilts, so beautiful, the amount of tiny stitching was incredible.

Oh my goodness, the trapunto, and the background quilting, and the perfect applique.

The pink was probably red once, and those white dots are where the iron based mordant destroyed the fabric over time. The close quilting preserved the integrity of the piece; such a beautiful, beautiful quilt.

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A rough week.

Last week I didn't feel the best, not sure why. I could blame the weather I suppose. It's been hot and cold and rainy and stormy and generally unsettled. I had a couple of quilting jobs to do for a friend, and I'd come home so wiped out all I could do was have a nap and try to recover. When I have a late afternoon nap I'm usually up later than I intend, so I sleep in, and I'm tired all day, and then I have another nap and perpetuate the bad routine.

When I'm up late I often do some last minute sewing, trying to make the last bit of the day productive. For some reason I fixated on these black and cream chain blocks from February 24.

They'd been kitted up waiting since May 24, and I had no interest in finishing them, but they jumped to the head of the queue for some reason. Mereth hates it when I get stuck on my duty sewing, she says it's so boring to come visit and there's no change to my design wall. But I persevered and now I have 26 blocks ready to sell. 

I think they'd be great to frame machine embroidered blocks, or hand embroidery in black or red. Or applique. Must not get involved on any of that, my saner self tells my Inner Squirrel.

I could pat myself on the back for taking another thing off the WIP list, except that I started another one immediately. I was sorting through some orphan blocks and found these 2 from 2012. 

I made a quilt I  called This And That from my scraps, and these 2 were spares. 

I remembered that they were so much fun to make, they solved my 2.5" scrap overflow and the quilt they made was one of my favourites. I had just weeded all the small strips out of the 2.5" drawer, so I cut piles of them into squares and triangles for this. So I had 37 WIPs, down to 36, and now back up to 37. I'm starting to think it's just not humanly possible to eliminate all the UFOs.

Working my way through the archive of tops that I've completed and sold:

Ladder Star, another of Bonnie's patterns. This was made entirely from my plaid stash, and unfortunately it only dented it, not eliminated it as I'd hoped. I overcut of course, so now I have a kit with enough squares and triangles for a Sawtooth Star top. Must try harder not to overcut.....

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Where was I?

I've been in Adelaide with the family. I could have blogged from there, but I forgot the cord for my laptop, and the tablet was not co-operating with Blogger, so I just gave up.

Before I left I got these blocks put together into a top, and I still haven't decided if it needs a border. Maybe a narrow one? 

Don't know what I want to do next; I found some scraps that looked nice together and make a 9" block. It's pretty, but I don't think I have more of those fabrics. I'll put it in the box with my other blocks that size, and I might be able to find some co-ordinating fabrics to make more.

Quilt tops from the archives:

This one used up a lot of 2" squares, left over from a Trip Around The World. It's based on a Quiltedtwins pattern but I chose not to do the triple sashing. It was a great scrap buster, I'd like to do another one when my scraps have built up again.

This one was to whittle down my grey fabrics.

I seem to have collected far too many, so a simple triangle pattern helped thin them out. I threw in a few aqua and apricot triangles to lighten it up. It was fun to make, but I still have a lot of grey fabric.

This top was just 2.5 and 1.5" strips.

It went together really easily, just some fun piecing for a quick top.

My daughter Seonaid and family went up to visit my son Rhys and family in Brisbane, right in the middle of some horrendous storm activity. It was bad timing, so many lightning storms that it wasn't safe to be outside for a lot of the time. There was a lot of reading and playing inside instead.

Isla was very good with her small cousins, she read them so many books, and carried Charli everywhere. And Freddy whenever possible.

They ventured out on Halloween for a spot of trick or treating, which is not huge in Australia. I love how Finn and Theo hold hands when they walk.

This photo is of the same pair last year. I can't believe they have both grown so much. It seems to happen so quickly.

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I made a few Sawtooth Stars yesterday,and it was fun, so it looks like the Annette Gero Star quilt is underway.

I have some very odd stripes and repro fabrics that don't lend themselves to cutting into bitty pieces, so they will find a use here. I'm not going to be strict about using fabric only once, but I am going to scour the cupboards tracking down all those weird pieces. It would be a shame not to use them with all the others.

I'm pressing the stars like this. I hate turning up the point of the geese unit, it tend to blunt even perfect points, so I'm hoping this will help everything look crisp. I'm getting fussier as I age.

Just for fun I've started mucking around with a new projects. Flourishing Palms blog had instructions for a strip quilt using 1.5" strips, encircling a centre strip. She has complete instructions here Filmstrip quilt

I don't have strips of modern fabric that narrow, but when I cut up those FQs I will definitely cut strips for this.  It will make a nice baby quilt one  day.

So 2 new projects are underway, but I did terminate 3 projects. I sold these blocks on Facebook recently; I had no interest in seeing them to completion.

Box Kite, another Bonny Hunter block. Fun to make, but 68 was enough

Scrap Bear Paw. I loved making these, and they obligingly used up a heap of charm squares, but I didn't need to put them together. It's quite tiring for me to wrangle a whole quilt these days, and other people are thrilled to get blocks like this for a quick finish.

and some blue/green/aqua blocks. I have more of these cut out, but a lady made a special request, so these are off to make her happy, and I will fill the project box up with more of them.

So I've been busy, even if there's not a lot to show for it.

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My stash Needs Sorting

 I'm still wandering around the sewing room, opening boxes and being bemused with what I've squirreled away. I'm finding fabric I have no memory of, and remnants of old projects, and little collections that I might have meant to start new projects with. But it's all a bit of a mystery.

This fabric is not something I ever would have bought in a quilt shop, and there's so much of each that it's unlikely I found it in an op-shop 😕. I would remember that.

The fabric is probably from a huge haul we got from a garage sale earlier in the year. A crafty lady had passed on and her family were trying to get rid of her stash, which wasn't just fabric. She had enormous tubs full of feathers, or sequins, or modelling clay, or buttons or paper or paint.  It was mind-blowing. We took about 10% of the fabric, but it was all prepacked in bags, with a lot of rubbish packed in with the good stuff, and it was priced way too high. We haggled over the bits we did want, and didn't pay too much, but the bulk of it all was still there when we went back in the evening of the second day. (Just to check there was nothing there we missed.) I'm actually glad we didn't get any more, because it's been difficult for our spaces to absorb the amount we did buy.

Going through my boxes and drawers has made me realise that the things that are giving me grief are the bits and pieces that I didn't want, didn't buy, and have no idea what to do with. We accumulate a lot from the quilts we finish for other people; they don't want the backing scraps, and we can't bring ourselves to throw it away.  It's mostly narrow strips and strings of really nice fabric, Tilda and William Morris to name a couple. Hence my foray into String piecing earlier this year, in an attempt to use some of it up. I was moderately successful, but the baskets of strings are still overflowing.

I did finish a string pieced top made from Kaffe offcuts from the patchwork shop in Jamestown. 

I really enjoyed working with those prints, but I didn't need to keep the top.

So I did what I usually do and sold it. And no, I don't make a lot of money from that, but this top was constructed from a small part of a $15 scrap bag, and fabric from the deep stash. I'm not in it for the money, I want to use my stash. The hours and hours of enjoyable sewing is an extra bonus.

We've been watching The Quilted Forest on You-tube, and her attempts to clear out her 2.5" bucket of strips. It's fascinating to watch, she's up to 24 videos in that series, and sometimes she makes 2 quilts per video. Very inspiring. Maybe if I could commit to a string pieced project every month I'd see progress.  Even 5 blocks a month would dent that pile of strings.

What I really need to do is start donating fabric back to the charity shops.  If it's not my cup of tea, get rid of it instead of trying to incorporate it into a scrap quilt.

Polyester. That's an instant No. 

Technically not ugly, but not my style at all. Back to the charity shop to make someone else happy.

I don't like Debbie Mum fabric, or 90s fabric with geese and straw hats and teddies. I don't like black backgrounds and dreary greyed-out colours. It can all go straight back. I think I will start a donation box right away. I'd better show Mereth, otherwise she might find it in the shop and bring it back again. We've done that before. What are we like?

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