Some Sewing and Some Finishes

 Summer is almost upon us, the days are longer and warmer and not too much wind yet.  Not warm enough to swim though.

The big news from here is that I worked my butt off very hard this week preparing our old house for photos for listing with the estate agent.  The garden looks immaculate, and most of the house was tidy enough.  When I gave up wondering where to put some of the clutter, I just opened the nearest cupboard door or drawer and shoved things away.  Not the most sensible way to deal with things, but it worked, for now.

Hopefully the house will sell reasonably quickly and then we face the The Move.  Half of my sewing stuff is in the new house, so the rest will be the next big project.  Am sort of getting excited about this.  Tidied up some of the new garden this weekend until it was too warm to be outside.

Walking continues three times a week, this was a beautiful rainbow taken on one of the days in September;  didn't realise that the rain was heading our way!  Last week I graduated from walking the field to being out on the road.  That rugby field was muddy all through the winter!

Had a haircut last week, and this uplifting board faces one at the basins!  Words to live by.

 The past few weeks have given me some time to sew.

These are a couple of the six-inch 365 blocks that I cut out back in June, time to prep some more.  I think I'm about half-way with this project.  Started in 2016!

 Next up is one 30-centimetre (hand-pieced over paper and appliqued) Dresden plate block as part of a group quilt.  I saw all the other blocks this week, and they are amazing.

 

Crumb slabs, the colour for September at Rainbow Scrap Challenge was Aqua.

Locally we have:

 "A community of quilters making Little Quilts of Love to donate to the parents of stillborn babies."  https://www.facebook.com/LittleQuiltsOfLoveSouthAfrica

These are some of the quilts I assembled from extra units made for/left over from other quilts.  Sides are between 50 and 70 cms, have flannel backing and are only quilted on the edges.  Soft, cuddly and comforting.

 

Last, but not least, I can now share the three quilts I made for my sister's school.  Two of the three age groups each painted a 8 or 9-inch block, the theme for 6-9 years was nature and the 3-6 year olds, was about themselves.  The 9-12 year olds were given precut fabric and asked to design a 7 by 7 block with the fabrics - that was great fun, as they shared and hard-bartered with each other for colours they wanted/needed.   All three quilts were beautifully edge-to-edge quilted by my good friend Tracy at The Quilting Co as getting to my frame was going to be a real challenge!

 

 

On to some sewing of the neutrals for October!

A Few Photos

In July I had the pleasure of spending a month with my children and grandson in Wales.  Whilst it was wonderful to be there, it was marred by all of us being sick with a nasty flu.  So we didn't do as much as we would have liked.

 

June was blue for Rainbow Scrap challenge, and managed to make these few crumb blocks. 

 

These are the two quilt tops made with the units from the GHQG Mystery 2023, The Spice Route Quilt.  I decided to make two smaller quilts instead of the final reveal.  The one above is still to have a couple of borders added, similar to the one below.  I was happy to have enough brown crumb slabs to use for one of the colours. 

 

This little quilt is destined to be a Little Quilt of Love.  Made from bonus triangles from one of Bonnie Hunter's mysteries.  Had enough of various units to make 3 more flimsies....need to finish them!

 

I have resumed making the blocks for the 365 quilt. But after a flurry in June, the making has slowed down again!

 

  

And finally, a work in progress from a class last week with John Cole-Morgan.  Borders to be added, etc!

 Thanks for reading!

Another Wild Chicken

Well, I said, sew for 20 minutes a day...right!  Nothing for three days, but made up for it today with another Chicken Gone Wild Lotto Block...  took longer than expected as the tail was stitched on five times before I was happy, including chopping it off by mistake.

 

No picture of the progress, but I continue to work on the Lifelong Hexie Project at odd times.  Like yesterday sitting in a hospital room waiting for P to have another carpal tunnel surgery, which was over in about an hour or so.

Some sewing

I had the wonderful company of a friend in my sewing room yesterday - thanks, Carol.  It's amazing how much one can tidy up when you know your sewing space is to be visited!  The tidy up was long overdue and it was nice to have the catalyst to not only tidy but to do some actual sewing instead of dreaming about it.   These two November Block Lotto  6" blocks were produced - "Chickens Gone Wild", and they are cute.  Paper foundation sewn.

Last month I printed the templates for this Dresden Fan Lotto block, but knew they were not quite the right size, but totally forgot when I cut and started sewing a couple of weeks later.   And then for some mad unknown reason I used a half-inch seam allowance and had already trimmed the blade tops before I realised.   I liked how it turned out, but it was not accurate enogh to enter into the Lotto, and I had no more time in October to make any more.  The fan blades should have been longer.

I think to keep on a roll I am going to try and sew every day for at least 20 minutes!

Saturday Night Sewing

After spending the afternoon with my mother working working on adding fabric to square up some of her beautiful scrap blocks I came home keen to sew something.

Looked on my really untidy sewing desk, and picked on the pieces cut out for the asterisk blocks that

I didn't make for the July Lotto.  Stitched the first one but forgot I had cut the strips wider with the intention to trim, oh well, looks sort of ok.  Decided to just make the others with only half the strips, and I like them.  Six in-between Split-9-Patch blocks were completed, now have 56 done.

These are the before and after washing pictures of the Inktense scribblings. Yes there was some fading in the wash (60 deg C in a laundry bag in with the towels). And some shrinking of the fabric - it is from a pile of +10" squarish off-cuts from a local factory shop - given to me years ago by my sister - never washed them as I use them only for testing and cleaning my sewing machine.

The Block Lotto for September is a paper-based block.  And I remember reading somewhere long ago that to make copies of your foundation, layer up paper, staple the pattern and with an old unthreaded needle stitch along the lines.   Then you have accurate copies and are apparently easier to remove.  I have a box of wide fan-fold paper that came from the defunct clothing factory my husband had about 15 years ago.  I still have to sew the blocks!!!