April sewing progress

I worked really, really hard at getting the Boxy Bowties in one piece.

All the blocks were sewn, and then two sewing sessions were needed to get them sashed together. I was a bit tired after that, ready to have a rest before I started auditioning border choices. I meant to take a leisurely look at my UFOs to see what I would tackle next, but.....

 

I seem to have started another project, very spur of the moment. I read on Gretchen's blog that she was starting a Blue Ridge Beauty quilt, and that suddenly seemed like a really good idea to me. The pattern is in Bonnie's book, Adventures With Leaders and Enders.

I've been going through my charm squares lately, trying to find a use for every last one.  I had a lot of these cream large florals, and darker blues; they seemed made for this pattern.

The four-patches are going to be made of the light blues and ýellowy creams that I pass over whenever I'm choosing fabrics.

I even pulled out some of my treasured layer cake blues; got to use them sometime.

Mereth and I visited a little craft shop in a nearby town, and the only thing that tempted me was a pack of blue samples. These were cut up straight away for the new project, so I didn't even add them to the fabric tally for the year.

I'm pleased that I've found a use for these random charm squares at long last. And I think it's going to be a very fresh, pretty quilt when it's finished.

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Time to finish this project

I still haven't pressed that seam on the british quilt. It's not going anywhere, so there's no rush. I need a colour fix.

The Boxy Bowties are getting my attention.  They seem to have been around forever, and while it's nice having them as a Leader-ender project, I'm ready to be done with them.  I started them late October 21, so it's 6 months; that's a long time for a leader-ender around here.

I have 30 blocks, and I need 42.  That little basket contains the quarters for 6 blocks; I cut out the final 6 blocks, and now I'll work on them exclusively until I have all the blocks done, and can arrange them on the design wall. I need to go through the strip drawers and find a whole lot of 1.5" strips, and I'll cut some more with the Accucut. It should really clean the scrap stash out.

I've already chosen the replacement leader-ender project, but it won't stay in the background for long, it's going to demand centre stage. I won't devote a lot of time to it till I get the current 2 projects finished, but it will be my incentive.

The Antique Cross quilt is quilted, and I'm very happy with how this panto turned out.

 I'm calling it Flower Arches; it looks a bit traditional, a bit like sashiko. I think it will become one of my favourites.

Love that texture. I'm dragging my feet on the customer quilt though, I'll have to make myself do that tomorrow. It will all be done before I go back to Adelaide on Wednesday.

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This heap of fabric is the British quilt, after I sewed that last seam.

It's a big pile of piecing, and I am very relieved to have it done. I haven't found the courage to iron it yet, that will take quite a bit of time and patience, so it's just sitting on the ironing board for now. I'll get round to it sometime this weekend.

Mereth found a piece of fabric in her stash that should work well for the borders, so I will tackle that sometime soon

I've been working down the shop all this week, sorting, organizing, quilting. I'm determined to claim it as my workspace, with things set out the way I want and the workflow as efficient as I can make it. I've quilted 3 quilts of my own, which is really gratifying, and the next top on the machine will be a customer quilt.

This Many Trips Around The World is a Bonnie Hunter pattern, of course. Her version is named Scrappy Trips, and it's a favourite of mine, I've made 3 versions. I seem to have made quite a few of her patterns over the years.

The Antique Cross is stitching away right now, if I apply myself I might be able to get that and the customer quilt finished today. I'm not known for my speed though.

Later:

Well the customer quilt didn't get done. I had a long video call with Seonaid and her kids, and Rhys and his family. Why are we video calling, instead of sitting together in Seonaid's loungeroom?

 Covid. Seonaid, Isla and Thomas all have it for sure, and Finn might but he absolutely would not let anybody put anything up his nose. Seonaid took them all for testing on Monday, and Rhys and Naomi had to cancel their flights. I am so disappointed at not seeing Theo, we were going to celebrate Easter, and Rhys and Isla's birthdays. 

The scary thing is that I was supposed to be down there last weekend, but there was a last minute change of plans. I would have got it too, and with my dodgy health I would be in real trouble. I feel like becoming a hermit some days, but I'm also not willing to never see the grandkids. I don't know what the answer is. I'll keep quilting while I ponder life's strange ways.

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We continue to plug away at setting up the workspace, and it's slowly coming together. Our ironing table is in place and working well.

The blue-green Scrappy Bargello is from Bonnie Hunter's pattern; it was finished in September 2015, and it was high time to get it quilted.

It's still fun to watch Millhouse at work; even though he's computerised, he needs monitoring to make sure that he's stitching properly.

The next top is prepped and ready to load, and I'm ahead of my goal to have one top a month quilted; this makes 5.. Mereth is having a family-centric weekend, and I'm making the most of having the machine to myself. The customer quilts will take over next week, but I'll be in Adelaide with my own family get-together.

This may look like every other photo I've posted of this project, but there's one major difference. It's almost in one piece, just one last seam to join the two halves. It's a long seam, and I've had enough for now, so it can wait. That's probably why I'm quilting instead of sewing, just to avoid having to pin that 60" seam. Then it will be time to work out how to do the borders; I don't think my stash is going to be adequate, so I might have to visit a couple of quilt shops and see what's available.

The border on the original quilt is quirky, to say the least.

I'm not having much luck finding a lozenge material like this; 

this is the closest I've found, and I don't have enough. 

I'm right for those big red Broken Dishes blocks, but I have to decide if I'll make the pale ones like that, or if I'll choose a fabric that shows up better, And will I tip the blocks randomly? Knowing me, I'll have to make it symmetrical.

So it's probably going to sit like this for a while, while I cogitate over my choices. 

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Getting Closer

Oh my giddy aunt, as Mum used to exclaim. How come this table always ends up looking like this?

It's bound to happen when there is lots of cutting and piecing happening, on more than one project. I took a deep breath, fetched my tall chair to sit on, and sorted it all out in comfort.

Everything is put away where it should be, and the only thing left out are the 3.5"strips to cut the last of the Hourglass blocks.

I had a mad wave of compulsion, and decided I needed to get the British quilt closer to completion. I sewed many, many Hourglass units into blocks of nine, and that's when I discovered I'd either miscounted, or misplaced, about 50 blocks. Hence the strips left out to cut some more. I don't care if I make too many, I have that other quilt in mind for them, so they won't go to waste.

At this stage, I'm very confident that this won't end up as a UFO. I have 8 more blocks to finish, and then the big 9" Broken Dishes blocks in the border.  I've had such fun with this, and it's cleared out a huge pile of dingy grey scraps.

As much as I love it, I'm ready for some colour in my next project. I cut some bright scraps up for the Boxy Bowties, which was refreshing, but not enough. 

I think I'll have a colour tantrum once I'm done with the greys, and make something outrageously bright. It will be fun to see a colour-happy design wall at last.

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Last week was a week of upheaval. We have a major change happening, and it's good, but there's such a lot of work involved. We have a shop in the main street of town, where we sell quilts and other things that we collect. The aim was always to move the Statler down there, but this year has been so busy with family etc that it just wasn't happening. Somehow, all the planets aligned to make moving the Statler possible, which is a minor miracle. 

There's plenty of room, but we will need a major reshuffle to turn this into our workspace.

Moving a machine this size is no easy task, and we are 12 years older than the last time we moved it, with the help of family. Two strong men are needed, and my brother and nephew have both moved away.We needed outside help to make this happen.

We were in the process of contracting a furniture removalist to help, which is a nerve-wracking thing because they just do not understand how big the Statler is. And I would have fits wondering if they were going to treat it carefully. Right about then, the Gammill service rep, Moreno, announced he was on a trip through South Australia. Alas, the only day he could visit was the only day we could get the removalists. Don't worry, he said, I could move the machine for you. Offer accepted.

So we quilted madly to get the bulk of the customer quilts done before Friday, and the workroom cleared out so there was access to the machine. I'm very glad we had that big clear out weeks ago, so much of the work is already done. A young friend who is extraordinarily strong was recruited to help with the heavy lifting. He was great, so cheerful and quick, we couldn't have done it without him.  Most all of our friends are as old and decrepit as we are. The machine was in pieces by 9am, and transported down to the shop without a hitch.

Moreno had the machine completely assembled by 11, serviced it and replaced several bits and pieces, and had Millhouse purring like a big cat by 1 o'clock. It all went so smoothly, I can hardly believe it.

Now we have to tidy up the shed/workroom, and move all the necessary bits down to the shop, but we can take our time with that. We have been stressing about this move for a month, and it will be lovely to just work at our own pace completing the job. I honestly have no idea what the shed will become now; sewing room, living room, office? It will have to wait though, we have so many family commitments coming up, not least of which is a visit from  DS Rhys and family.  I can't wait to see Theo again, he's growing up so quickly.

What a little sweetie!

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Remnant is a finished top, and I'm really happy with it. Sometimes I fall out of love with a project, but I didn't feel that at all with this. There are so many fragments of treasured fabrics in the strips, I'm glad I combined them all into a top instead of throwing them away.

I'm happy with the corners; I wanted something that would break up the corners, the borders running all the way across the top were distracting. So this little block doesn't show up in any great detail, but it doesn make the borders end at the edge of the pieced centre, but still carries the 3 main fabrics out into the corner.

I've been sewing blocks together for the British quilt, and building more blocks as leader-enders.

One quarter of the quilt is assembled, except for a few seams.

There are enough blocks here to make another quarter. I need to put it up on the design wall before I go any further. Those blocks with the diagonal red QSTs have to slope in the right direction, so I need to have it where I can check I'm doing the right thing.

My three little poppets out shopping with Mum on a wet day. That denim jacket has been a fashion item for all three girls, it will be sad when Isla grows out of it. Thomas is in that long thin phase of growing, he's shooting up like a weed. And Finn has decided to skip all Thomas' size 2 winter clothes and go straight into size 3. 

He is so happy that he's one of the big kids now. 'I not like a baby" he declares loudly. You're still my baby, Finn.

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Fussing

 Once the remnant strips were all joined together I started thinking about the borders. Before I sewed them on I thought I'd better check it on my bed to see if it was big enough. Surprise surprise, it wasn't. Even with the borders it would barely hang over the sides of the mattress. So it was back to the design wall to come up with a solution.

I was all out of the little bits to make another couple of strips, and I didn't want to wait till I'd amassed enough through cutting out other quilts. So I went to my stash of 2.5"triangles to make up the extra width.

This arrangement of triangles made it look a bit like crumb piecing, with a nice haphazard look. I have a huge collection of triangles, so the two strips of them never made a dent in the box.

While I was fussing over the borders I came to the conclusion that I really needed a 4"block in each of the corners. Off I went to the drawer of orphan blocks, and there I discovered enough HSTs already sewn into strips to have made the 2 strips I'd just sewn. I should know by now that it pays to check all the boxes, containers and drawers when I'm looking for extras. Oh well, they'll be there for another quilt. Or for the backing.

I didn't find a block I liked, but I liked the effect, so I made this one as a trial. It's a definite maybe. 

This UFO was supposed to be a quick finish, but it's anything but. Maybe it will get done in the next day or two, if I can just stop fussing. It reminds me of an optometrist appointment; is this better, or this one? The first one or the second one? I should just toss a coin to decide.

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2 little tops quilted

Last month I quilted the two little blue and green quilts.

I think this one is going to be for Finn.

The panto on this is called Dandy, one of my favourites.

This is made from the scraps of a tumbler quilt I made more than a decade ago. Can't hurry these things. I quilted that with a simple pattern of waves, called Ric Rac. Both quilts were done in no time flat, I wonder why I put things off for so long.

I joined all the strips for the scrappy bars. I think I'll call it the Remnant quilt, as these are all the little bits left at the end of strips

It's going to have different borders on the top and sides, to use up those prints that are great for borders but I just don't have enough of them. this will be the top and bottom border.

And I'm dithering over these two for the sides. Or both? There's only half a metre of the floral, so it would use that up nicely. The holly one is a Judie Rothermel which surprised me. It doesn't look like a repro; the colouring is what I want, but I do have metres of this one. Should I save it for another quilt? Do I have enough to do this and still do another quilt later on. These and other questions occupy my mind.

Mereth and I came out of the workroom yesterday afternoon to be greeted by these ridiculous shaving cream clouds. They were moving fast, changing all the time, so we decided to go for a drive and chase them.

We headed out on the backroads, stopping often to take photos and enjoy the scenery.

There was a lot happening up there, but not a breath of wind at ground level around us.

And then after one bolt of lightning and some rumbles of thunder, they just gave up and wandered off. Even the weather can't be bothered these days.

So we came home and went on with our day, but it was a fun little interlude.

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