No time for blogging lately, too busy with babies and grandchildren and visiting relatives.  Mereth's No.2 son and family came to visit from New South Wales, and we spent every moment we could with them.  Logan absolutely loved Izzy, and sat cuddling her on the couch whenever he could.  That's the start of a wonderful relationship there I think.

Alas, they brought nasty colds with them, so now Mereth and I are sneezing and coughing and feeling dreary; it was worth it though.  Logan has started calling us The Nannas, as in 'Where are the Nannas?'  We are Plural!.   It would be lovely if they all lived closer, there's nothing quite like having family around, especially when the babies start arriving.

So where was I in the sewing room?  I've almost finished the Wild Goose Chase quilt, will have photos of it completed tomorrow.  Just needs a border; I changed the setting a bit, I just can't leave things alone it seems.

There are so many bits and pieces floating around on every surface, I need to spend this weekend excavating the piles and drifts of fabric, leftovers and scraps, until I'm down to bare surfaces and neatly catalogued boxes.  I need Order!

I threw all the blocks I came across up onto the empty design wall, so I could see what I had to deal with.

I have four leftover pink blocks, I think they will end up in the Orphan box because I don't want two quilts like this.  Lovely blocks, but they were a bit too dark for the quilt I had in mind.

Then there were four blue WGC blocks that I made as a distraction; I love these, and will put them into a quilt one day, but not right now.  So they will get a project box of their own, and I'll start putting aside fabric that I want to use in them.
I am still cutting for my blue and brown quilt, that small block in the photo, so I'll cut pieces for the WGC at the same time.

But good golly gosh!  Look at what is leftover, after making enough blocks for one quilt and 8 spare blocks.  It's my old overcutting-syndrome, I haven't been able to get that under control.  So I wondered what would happen if I took one set of Flying Geese units out of the block, and this is what I came up with.

It's a lot quicker to piece, and awfully cute, so I will cut up the leftovers and kit up the blue WGC and a heap of these blocks at the same time.  I can't find a name for it in Blockbase, but I'm sure I've seen it in an old magazine, so I'll try and hunt that down.

So instead of crossing one UFO off the list, I get to add two more.  Oh well, that's the way it goes, and technically they are Works In Progress, not UFOs.  I feel better about that now.

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Yet another work project seemed to take over my life for the last three weeks, and there was not a lot to blog about, and not enough time to spare anyway.  It seems to happen like that a lot, so the thing to do now is make sure I get plenty of sewing and garden time in before the next big work-related chore.

As far as my own sewing goes, I'm working on two projects right now; my Wild Goose Chase in pinks and browns, and the King's Crown blocks that are a longtime UFO from 2010 .  I'm using the uncomplicated King's Crown blocks as leader-enders while I work on the blocks I kitted up for the WGC.  Neither of them is a speedy project, but I'm making headway at last, after a lot of dithering about colours and settings.

I really don't like making a set of blocks without knowing how I'm going to put them together.  The times I've done that, I ended up wishing I'd not used some fabrics on the outer edges of the blocks, because it complicated choosing sashing or alternate block fabric.  I really like to have at least a mud-map of what's going to happen next.  So I wasn't going full steam ahead on the WGC blocks because I hadn't decided on what to do with them next.

I also realied that there was something I didn't like about the blocks, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Finally it occurrred to me that I didn't like the pink triangles being so much lighter than the browns I was using. 

I want the value of all the prints to be similar, and the light pink and dark brown is off-putting.  Nice, but not the effect I really wanted.

Now I have to make a decision; make a whole other set of blocks using lighter browns with these pinks, or add in some lighter browns with the locks arlready finished,

 or change that dark corner square to something that matches the value of the pink triangles.
I have 15 blocks already finished, and lots more of the dark flying geese units made. 

In any case, I've decided that this is a good setting for the blocks I've already made; I'll make a few lighter brown blocks and throw them into the mix and see if I want to keep all the dark ones. 

This sort of block looks so much better though....

If I truly don't like the ones I"ve made, I'll set them aside and start on ones with the colour values I want. I'm determined not to let this project stall, so I will keep making units and trying different things.  I was going to say , it's not the way I usually work, but it is, really.  It's just not the way I LIKE to work.

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This is how I attached the border print and made the design flow uninterrupted around the ecge.  This works for patterns that are symmetrical, but would have to be modified for a border that didn't have mirror-image symmetry, like a floral vine or something.


I cut the printed border from both sides of the yardage, giving me two long strips.  I left a couple of repeats of the pattern and then formed the first corner, just pinning it at this stage.  ( Ideally there should be the same amount of fabric on either side, but I didn't have enough to do it that way.)

 I pinned the corner in place on the quilt, and measured the strip along the side of the quilt until I got to the next corner.  I made sure I had more fabric than I needed along the side , which meant going to the next repeat, and made the next  mitred corner.
I did this with both strips, so I had all the mitres pinned roughly. 

I didn't take proper pictures of the corners when I did the border, so I made a simple mitre from scraps to show how it's done.

To get a perfect mitre I marked a 45° line on the fabric, using an easily recognisable part of the pattern as my guide, so I could do all four corners the same.  In this case I used the centrre of the sunflower motif as an easy point of reference.

 I then marked a quarter inch line on the inner edge of the border, so I would know to stop my seam short of the seam allowance, which is the key to a successful mitre..

 I made sure the pattern on the underneath strip was lined up exactly with the one on top, and pinned in several places on the mitre line. I stitched all four mitres (backstitching at the inner edge to keep the stitching from coming undone later).  The extra fabric was trimmed off to give a quarter inch seam allowance.

That mitre looks pretty good to me..

To join it to the quilt, I made a dot a quarter inch in from both sides of the corner of the quilt.

I pinned the start of the mitre seam to this dot, and sewed the seam for a few inches.

 Then I sewed the other side, for a few inches only, again matching the start of the mitre seam to the dot.

 The reason I do this is because I want those corners joined correctly before I do anything else.  If I need to unpick and reposition, it's only a few inches that I have to rip out.

This is what it looks like on the back;

and from the front.

Once I had both corners joined, I pinned the first strip to the quilt working from each corner in towards the centre; as I got closer to the centre the excess fabric became apparent. 

Then I kept pinning carefully, until a pleat could be formed to take up the extra fabric.  I did this carefully to make sure the pattern was symmetrical either side of the pleat.

I unpinned it from the quilt, for about 10" either side of the pleat, and pressed the pleat to one side, so there was a  crease to follow as I stitched the seam.  The extra fabric is trimmed away and the seam pressed open.

 And there you have a border print that is perfect in the corners, and meets halfway forming a little joining pattern.
Add the other strip to the other long side, and then join the side borders in exactly the same way.  You'll be working with two strips on the side borders, instead of making a pleat you'll be forming a seam between the two strips, but the process is the same.

It's a simple thing to do, but awkward because you're working with all the quilt bundled in your lap or on the table, but the key is to take it slowly and carefully and the result is well worth it.

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After a full night's work I finished the blue crosses quilt.  It would have been a whole lot easier if I hadn't chosen to use the border fabric, but I do love the effect of it.

Just lately I seem to be giving myself a lot of design challenges with my UFOs, and it must be because I enjoy it.  Otherwise why would I keep doing it?

The corners are wonderful, I love the way the pattern continues; I enjoyed making these mitre seams, they weren't hard at all.  The same can't be said for the rest of the border.  I had serious doubts if I could finish it without adding another fabric, there just wasn't enough to do it easily.  But I pieced in every last scrap, including the bits discarded from the mitred corners, and there was enough.

7 extra seams on that bottom piece to make it long enough.  The border was printed on both edges of the coverlet fabric, but they didn't match exactly, which made joining the pieces harder than it should have been.  There was fudging and a lot of fiddling, but I'm happy with the way it ended up.  Once it's quilted the extra seams in the border will be less noticeable.

My design wall is empty again!!  What a lovely feeling.  Now I'm going back to working on the Wild Goose Chase blocks, while I decide what to do next.  The UFO list is getting smaller, only 25 left to go, but all of them are not easy finishes.  Whatever I choose to work on will take a bit of effort but that's OK too.

These King's Crown blocks are one possiblilty, there are 30 of them and plenty more cut out; I'm absolutely determined to set them together simply, and just put a border or two on them.  Nothing complicated.

I can't believe that I'm still obsessed with finishing old projects instead of starting new ones.  I don't think this has ever happened to me before :)

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I've fiddled and fudged and tried everything I can think of, and I'm this much short of the border print.  

I do have a plan though, so I'm going to sew all these borders on, and scrimp and save every last piece, and hopefully it will work out just fine.  Matching the print in the corners takes up so much extra fabric, but it looks really good so the extra work will be worth it.  I hope.

We're off for lunch with the family, if we get back early enough I may be able to finish this tonight!

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I've been sewing HSTs for my Flying Geese units for the last week;

 I could have finished this little border in a day, but the bagged roses came in to  the shops, so I've been working madly in the garden.  The weather is glorious, warm and dry and perfect for gardening.  I added 14 roses to the ones I already have;  it sounds extravagant, but I lost 10, so I'm just replacing those.  I can justify it to myself.   Nearly all the new ones are pink or white; most of my current roses are red or yellow, so I Needed some pink.....

Of course I had to juggle the units to get the Flying Geese border to fit.  In one direction the length of the small pink border was 72", so I needed 24 Flying Geese.  In the other direction, the border measured 52.5", which was 17.5 units.  I wanted the corners to be the same, so I needed to have 18, or 17, not a half unit.  I know I could have altered the pink border to make the overall measurement correct, but I didn't want to do that either.  So I made the seams on the Flying Geese smaller, and the overall length of the pieced strip grew the extra 1.5" I needed.  There were over 30 seams in that one border, so I didn't need to make a drastic change in the seam width, just a tad narrower did the trick.

There will be a narrow indigo border next, and then the coverlet print.  I'll have to work out a whole lot of problems on that as I go along.

There's a border print along the edge of the fabric, so I'm going to try and use that along the outer edge. 

 To do that I need to cut the strips along the length of the fabric.  I'll need to use all the fabric I've got in that case, but I'm willing to do that because this border print also cuts down what I can use if I cut the strips widthways.  I'd have to use three strips for the longer side, and that's a lot of joining and fudging to make it look good.

I'd like to use the light motif as a corner; it has good symmetry and I'll be able to make it meet in a pleasing way.

These are the strips I've already cut, not the strips I'll be using, but I'll be able to get the same effect.  Now that I've decided what I want, I have to cut the four strips I need and mitre those corners.  That's my mission for this morning

 My vintage rosettes are now in rows, and I need to make two extra rosettes to finish the last row.  Then I can cut out a lot of blue diamonds and triangles, and package each row into a ziplock bag with the right number of joining pieces.  I'll work on them as I get time; I'll be able to take them with me to family dinners and get-togethers, and if I just keep at it then it will get done, one inch-long seam at a time.

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These blocks first appeared on the blog here,  in 2008; then I lost enthusiasm for them and they languished in a basket.  I had another go at finishing them in 2011, but that didn't take either.  It took another 3 years of 'maturing', packed away on the shelf, before I decided what to do with them.  I love making this block, it's so easy and effective, and great for scraps.  I must love it, as I have a set of multi-coloured ones as well.

I sewed all the pieces together quite happily, but now the border is being difficult.  I know I want it done quickly, but something in me just loves to fuss with options and details and maybes.  Nothing is ever simple once I get in this mood, but instead of fighting it I should just power through it, choose one thing and then get it DONE!

It's a long narrow quilt, 50 x 70", which I don't like, but I want it to actually fit a single bed, so I'm not going to make it too wide.  It needs a border to finish it off and bring it to a useable size, but the question is whether to make it a dark border, or a light border, or something in between.  Pieced?  A single fabric?  Long scraps of different blues?

I remembered a zigzag border I made for another quilt;

being me, I cut out a whole border, sewed most of it together and then decided it was too dark for the quilt.  Then I bought a more suitable blue, and used that to make a whole other border. 

The rejected bits are still waiting for the right quilt, and I thought this one might be it.  However, I think it's a bit heavy, and a bit too spiky. 

All those zigzags seem to fight with the centre blocks.  I love the border, just not on this set of blocks; I think it will look good on another indigo quilt I've started, so I'll put those two together and see if it's a match made in heaven.

I tried various  blue and white prints, but they didn't appeal.

 There is an equal amount of dark blue and light neutral fabrics in the blocks, so I started thinking about fabrics that have the same mix of light and dark.  This coverlet print seems to work;

it's not blue and it's not neutral, and I like the large scale of the print.

Hmmmm, what to do with the dozens of triangles left over from the blocks?

Maybe turn them into scrappy Flying Geese and make a little border?

I like this, even though I'll have to make a lot more of them to go all the way round the quilt.  But whatever happened to my quick-fix UFO finish?  I'll be making HSTs for the rest of the weekend, and puzzling over how I'll get that border print to go round the corner nicely.    I must love a challenge, because I keep setting them for myself.  I might learn a lot from solving these puzzles, but I haven't yet learned how to slap something together and call it done.  I need lessons in that.....

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Finally!  A cool rainy day has arrived, and I'm excused outside chores.  Mereth and I have been constructing a paved entrance to our workshop, and I've been shovelling and crawling around on hands and knees for a couple of days. The actual paving took about 30 minutes, it was the preparation that took so much time and effort.  We're using all the second-hand pavers we can find, so that will save a trip into town to get more; it might not be pretty, but it's better than the weeds and dirt that was there before.

Nothing more can be done while it's raining, so I'm going to hit the sewing room and get some fabric running through the machine.

Of course Dolly helped with the paving; every time I turned around she was lying on her back on the newly levelled crusher-dust, or chasing her tail and spreading stuff everywhere, or trying to crawl under my arms as I lowered pavers into place.  Very helpful indeed.  

The pile of crusher-dust was apparently very comfortable, and a good place to survey her domain.

There's a lot more to do, but it will wait until the rain moves on.

I went a bit stir-crazy yesterday.  I've been working on the vintage hexagons; I've been making more Flying Geese units and bagging them up into kits for the Wild Goose Chase blocks.  I've been tidying and sorting.  And NONE of it was going to lead to anything being crossed off my UFO list in the next month or so.  It drove me nuts.  

So,  I chose a set of blocks from the list, made a very snap judgement about the setting and was off and cutting.

I rummaged through my scraps and pulled out every dark blue and cream piece and sliced them into 2" strips, then joined them in pairs.  It didn't take long at all, and then I cut them into sashing pieces, and the parts for four-patches, and laid it all out on the design wall.  I'm glad it looked good, because I really didn't have a Plan B.

This morning I pressed and trimmed all the blocks, and cut out pieces for a few more; I want to spend this afternoon sewing it all together.  I needed a quick fix, and this is it;   Once it's done I'm sure I will be able to go back to my snail's pace on the other projects.

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I decided to be brave and tackle the pressing of my vintage blocks. The most annoying thing about it is that for every seam pressed correctly, the iron nudges four other seams in the wrong direction. To counteract that, I borrowed Mereth's mini iron, which has a 4" sole plate. It was perfect for the job, only pressing the seams I wanted it to. There's no steam either, so no burnt fingers.

I ironed it with the big iron afterwards, on the right side, and now it looks nice and tidy. I've pieced another row, so once that's joined I will have 3 done and another 6 to go.

 I know I'm making progress, but it's so Slow!  Once I have the rows of rosettes together I'll have to make some units to fill in the sides.  It will take months. I think I'll have to fit in a pieced UFO, something that can be finished in a week or so.  I need to go through the list and pick something quick.

We visited our friend Helen's farm last week and had a lovely morning tea, before a wander around the garden.  The crysanthemums were lovely this year, I bought another 6 to add to the 18 I already have.  There are so many varieties I don't have, all the lovely ornate old ones, so I'm going to keep collecting them whenever I see them.

 I have greenhouse envy!  A neighbour gave Helen this huge one, and she and her hubby loaded it onto the back of their biggest truck and brought it home.   I wish I had neighbours like that...

 Their are quite a few orphan lambs at this time of year, and Helen raises them in a pen next to the house.  To her hubby's amusement, they all have names.  They are awful cute at this age.

 Oh well, best go get into the garden while the weather is still nice; as soon as it gets colder I will be able to stay inside and sew all day, but while it's this lovely outside, I'd better make the most of it.

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My work commitments took over my life for the last fortnight, and I hardly had time to turn on the machine.  I left the Big Dipper quilt top on my design wall until yesterday, and it was a very nice place to rest my eyes, in between struggling over computer work and the like.  However, I'm caught up on most of my chores, so I am going to spend the afternoon doing whatever I want to.The weather is lovely, grey skies and given to little showers of rain; I may be able to get some garden time, and I'll save the sewing till after dark. This weather is perfect for weeding.

 I still don't feel any inclination to work on new projects, the UFOs are occupying my mind.

I've organised all the bits for the vintage hexagons so that I can work on them first thing in the morning, before I go to work, and then again just before bed.  There are hundreds of little 1" seams to sew, but I will get them done one at a time, no matter how long it takes.  It's been quite painless so far, but the pressing is going to be irksome.  I will have to make sure I do it as I go along, it would be horrifying to have to do it all at once when it's finished.

I've been making a few Flying Geese units for the Wild Goose Chase quilt, and there are a few more completed blocks;

I'm not loving it though, and I think it would be a shame to sew up all the pieces I've cut and not enjoy it, so I'm not pushing myself to work on them.  Their time will come.  That bit of lace on the design wall is there as inspiration for an applique border. It was in a scrap bag from the op-shop, I wish I had more of it.

Instead of sewing, I've been sorting fabrics and organising the stash so that it's easier to find what I want.  Now I just have to remember to put things away in their proper places.

A while ago I lashed out and bought three of Cindy Blackberg's quilt stamps, but I haven't had enough spare time to plan a quilt using them. 

I grabbed some charm squares and made this little LeMoyne Star, finishing 4.75" square. 

It's so cute, and was easy to sew; I will go through the scrap box and stamp the pieces for a few more blocks, while I think on a setting for them.  I would like to do a few doll and miniature quilts, and these little stars would be perfect for that.  I also bought the Tumbler and Pointed Tile stamp; they will be great to use up little scraps and charm squares.

My design wall now holds the blocks I was working on before the UFOs sidetracked me;  I'm sure I'll get enthusiastic again, if they are always in view.  I bought the fabric I wanted for the sashing a while ago, so when  I fall in love with them again, I'll be able to get them set together with no hassles.  Hopefully.

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