Been away, now back!

Warning:  quite a few pictures!

We had a marvellous trip to visit family in Wales for a month, that is now just a memory, and a trip that went far too quickly!    We didn't quite manage to do all that we had vaguely planned due to darling husband unwell for last two weeks and for a week after returning home - he is quite recovered now.  I think that this is a fine excuse for another visit.

Before leaving I did manage to complete these 14 blocks for the 365 Challenge Quilt.  Means two-thirds of the blocks made!  The dates are from the original emailed patterns in 2016.

This is the dawn taken from the outward bound flight (just past Paris).  Note the clear sky and the cloud bank below.  

And then we descended through that cloud bank to find us amazingly above a second bank!

 

 

 

My elder daughter makes quilts and is involved with the local Project Linus programme.  These are two of her own quilts being made for friends. Hehe, I got to trim some HSTs for her!

 

My six-year old grandson and I had a lovely day out together at the open-air St. Fagans National Museum of History.  They have many old buildings rescued (and restored) from all parts of Wales, some furnished as they would have been in the past.  They also have inside displays, and I managed to take some photos of the Welsh quilts, and an embroidery, on display.

 

 

 

 

These are a few of the quilts that caught my eye at our regional Guild meeting earlier this month.  Most are blurry as were taken from quite a distance, indoors, on a grey day.  I don't have details of the makers, but they are from the Helderberg Group

 

 

 

At my monthly quilt group we've been presented with a Block of the Month by whichever one of the six sub-groups runs the meeting.   My sub-group (named the Quilt-Maniacs) showed various blocks made from Disappearing Windmills.  Here are some of the results from (already on-hand) 4.5" Windmill/Pinwheel cut into 9 equal squares:

 

 

Later I stitched them up, and played with the big Windmill block (made from four roughly fat quarter sized pieces, trimmed square, as the starters for the HSTs).

 

I was asked for a specific finished size block,and have done an exercise in two different construction methods for the HST and using different sized starter squares. More to go!

 

 

 Thanks for reading to the end!

Some progress on various projects

I'm finally finding more time to sew.  A long weekend away at the end of May on a quilt retreat meant that some projects got moved along.  First was this Good Hope Quilters' Guild mystery quilt.  I want to add another border but am short of the preferred fabric.  I ordered some locally but it wasn't quite right, and knowing we are to visit family in UK  (very soon now!), I hope that what I then ordered from there, and had delivered to my daughter, is the right fabric!  

 

At the same weekend I managed to sew up the pink RSC Hen and Chicken blocks for May, and 13 more of the 3-inch blocks for the 365 Quilt (only started in 2016!).

 

 

With such a good push on the 365 Quilt blocks, I've kept the fabrics out to continuing sewing up more - 14 so far, with another 11 cut out.  And the next border is added; it's at 66-inches square so far.  My aim is to finish (the top) this year.

 

 

 

A mosaic workshop was organised at my sister's school and this is what I produced.  Done that, a bit of fun, but don't think again for me.

 

As I am spending a little more time at this school a new quilt was needed for the sick bed, top done...just need that new frame assembled to finish it!   (What a blurry picture!)

And Audrey at Quiltyfolk.com announced the first part of Bramble Blooms ll.  The prompt was to take an element from BBl and creatre a central background.

And finally, the RSC Hen and Chicken blocks in blue for June, and all the blue scraps sewn up into made fabric (there is about half a meter of new fabric here!).

    

Thanks for reading!

Bramble Blooms I and a few other things

We've settled into the new house, oh why oh why didn't we do it three years ago!   I guess that it was not quite ready to be occupied until about mid last year, and then we wanted to sell the old house first.  Everything in good time I suppose.  Soooo happy to be here!

Not a lot of sewing has been done since the beginning of March, but it's slowly starting to pick up.   I did catch up with the RSC Hen and Chicks blocks for the missed months, here are March's purple, April's yellow and the first pink ones from May.

   

 

And some pink strip sets and crumb blocks.  Curiously, I moved some of these string pieces out of the orange box when orange was the monthly colour as they seemed more pink-like; and now they seem more orange!  And the same for the more purply pinks.

 

BRAMBLE BLOOMS:  This has been a most enjoyable journey.  A calm, slow pace  Some indecisions by me at times.   But reading Audrey's prompts with her wonderful descriptions of her thoughts and choices for each of the sections has been a delight.  Waiting very patiently for the next instalments on this journey.

 

This is where it was in early March and I knew exactly what I wanted to do when she gave the final border instructions, but had to wait until this past week to actually work on it:

 

 And the next border sat cut for a week.  The cat slept on it one afternoon, it got pushed aside another few days so I could do some admin work for a couple of entities for which I have the responsibility, the vacuum cleaner blew a few pieces around - :))

 

And finally in a burst of sewing when Audrey invited participants to share via link-up, it became a quilt top.  My intention was to continue the impression of the top being further away than the bottom, so altered the scale of the various squares, ranging from four-inches at the bottom to one-inch at the top. I will probaly use a dark red for the binding to contain it all.  And, glory-be, I might even consider hand-quilting this one!

 Note to self:  take more pictures, more often!!!!

 

Thanks for reading!

End of an Era and New Beginnings

We heard on 28 February that the buyers of our house had met the suspensive conditions of the sale.   So tonight is the last night we are in the old house.  We had the movers in 10 days ago to move certain items, like my sewing desk and fabric cupboards, washing machine and dryer and a few other things, but tomorrow they are back to move the beds and the remaining large furniture.   All the small stuff has been/is being shuttled between the two houses in my mini-van, with some assistance from family.  A few days in hand to clear out and clean up, before we hand over the keys next Monday.

 A quick view of what my new sewing space looked like a week ago.   Lots more stuff in there now, more sorting to be done!   Smaller space but with the long-arm frame in the garage.

We are getting new bedside tables,  DH assembling them!  Then he very ably installed a very necessary cat-flap in the back door (no pictures!)  One cat nudged through so far.

 

 

And, before the hard-work began, I finished the Indigo Way quilt top, and noticed a blue triangle block element flipped so quickly fixed that.  It is folded here in quarters to see if the pieced back was big enough, and yay, it was.

  

 

These are the nine blocks from the Good Hope mystery, When You Shine.  I have all the sashing pieces ready to sew, maybe as soon as next week!  There have been some amazing fabric combinations shared on social media for this mystery.

   

 

Tired, but happy!

More Blocks and Choosing Fabrics

Every time I sit to write a blog post, I wonder about the ideal layout.  Do I put the picture or the text first?  What alignment to use for the words.  Should they be above, below, next to the images?  So, I change things, but never fully happy.  If you are a regular reader, hope that this was not confusing!   

Just as I was almost done, a hit by our regular "load-shedding", ie the local euphemism for the government failure to keep the power on everywhere all the time.  We had almost three weeks over Christmas/New Year when the power stayed on, but now we are back to two-hour outages about every eight or ten hours.  Cape Town is slightly better than the rest of the country as we have a pump-storage system on one of the mountain rivers nearby which supplements the national power supply.  Glad we have invested in some solar panels and batteries to have lights and the fridge running.

Bramble Blooms:  Border number one attached, with a narrow spacer in red and beige/tan. 

Still trying to get the perspective of the top being further away than the bottom, so red strips are narrower at top, and the crosses are smaller at the top.

Not adding any applique, yet.  Happy so far.

Bonnie Hunter's Indigo Way:   All three borders prepped, just waiting for the desire to press the centre!

It has been unusually hot here, no enticement to get out the big ironing board.  It may be cooler later in the week.

Fabrics chosen to piece a back.  Might be some time before stitching together.

    

Good Hope Quilters' Guild Mystery 2024:  Third set of blocks sewn.  Tantalisingly slow, but a really enjoyable process.  I think that all the blocks might be set in a Suduko type arrangement.  Maybe as interesting stars?  There have been fabulous colour combinations being shown on various whatsapp groups and also facebook.

 

 

RSC2024 Sampler:  Red is this month's colour, and these are the 3-inch and 6-inch blocks made.