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.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little sewing

I have been busy with things other than sewing for the past couple of weeks.  Guild bookkeeping needed attention;  understanding new-to-me web-based accounting software for my sister's school, so I can remotely help with this;  keeping house very tidy for showing to prospective buyers (that's mostly keeping my sewing space tidy, which is not so conducive to the creative processes!)   And I needed a trip to doctor today as I couldn't quite put my finger on the problem (no pain, just slight discomfort and weirdly out of sorts), which turns out to be a very easily treatable UTI.

 I've prepared the first two borders for the Bonnie Hunter mystery, that is, cut, joined and pressed two long strips.   Also, have cut out one of the https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/ for February, and ready with the patterns for two more different blocks, probably a fourth one today.

 

 

We are running a block of the month at my monthly group (Creative Quilters).  We are about 40 ladies with 6 or 7 leaders who take turns in running the meetings, with assistance by all, in turn, providing amazing tea-time spreads.  

This was drafted by leader Candi.  We discovered that there numerous different colours of these support ribbons.  My choice was Burgundy, as it is the colour that represents multiple myeloma, because my brother-in-law is undergoing treatment for this incurable affliction.

 

 

 

 

 Another small Kawandi quilt finished. I think this was started in November and finished last week.

This is one of the very few hand projects that I do, and can be done on a Thursday evening at a small weekly group.

 

Top and back.

 

Week 3 of January 2024

 Some good, even if daunting, news in hand, and some small progresses were achieved this week.

We have a purchase offer for our current house.  The buyers have a suspensive condition on the sale of their apartment, which in turn affects their offer to us.  We will know at the end of February, so meantime ours is still being marketed.  The reality of moving is now sinking in!

 

 Rainbow Scraps Challenge:  I was able to tidy up the overflowing small box I keep close the cutting mat.  All the tiny bits filed away for future crumb sewing with the more usable pieces put back where they belong.  I did pull out a bunch of dark and bright green fabrics thinking I would sew up a backing, but with above news, they might just go back into the cupboard.

Bramble Blooms:   auditioning fabrics for the next prompt for this improv quilt.  I started out with just the greens up, but couldn't quite put my finger on why it didn't spark joy.  Then saw someone else's and the penny dropped that I should include some of the colour from the applique'd centre.  More thinking needed, as I want to include more details from the prompt.

 

 

Little Quilts of Love - turned right-side out, top stitching up next.

 

 

Good Hope Quilters' Guild Mystery Quilt -  When You Shine

 The designer of this Mystery, Diana Vandeyar, really has us guessing!

 

 

Until next time, happy sewing!