Another house, more birds and Eep

Blogger still won't let me upload photos, it might be my folder name has odd characters, so just used Picasa, which may be easier anyway!

Had fussy cut the cat fabric, so made another house lotto block.

And loved these birds from April - had kept out the fabrics with which I had made the first few for the lotto but turned out too small or I used the wrong backgrounds, just waiting for a day to make some more, and so I now have!  Some of them are much longer than the original called for, and have mixed up the backgrounds.

And a gratuitous blurry picture of Eep.  (She who rules the roost.)

No photos...

... well, I started writing a blog post, but don't seem to be able to upload photos, so will keep it until tomorrow.... maybe I can find a picture online... ahh found this one I took in Bareges, France, from which I  created a small abstract in 2011, and finally started the hand-quilting on Saturday...

July Block Lotto

Half enjoyed making these three blocks, mainly because I don't generally buy novelty fabrics, so my choice of interesting occupants appearing in the windows and doors was very limited!

Lost photos found

Here are the second and third last blocks, and thought to show the backs of the blocks.

 

 And the quilt top made by my mother, just waiting for narrow red border.  It is a log cabin variation, diagonal rows of two size blocks.

 

Almost finishes

Had a marathon sewing session today and now have two big quilt tops ready for borders, etc.!!!! And made 3 in-between stars.  And tidied up some of the left over fabrics.  Photos soon.

Little news, some sewing

I don't know why I have such long gaps between posts!   Am working on very last Just Takes 2 block, but don't know what happened to the photos of the last two finished ones!  On Sunday my niece had a High Tea afternoon with her girl friends (we were supposed to wear hats and gloves and be dressed in pastel colours) to celebrate her upcoming 21st birthday.  The Easy Street layout - yesterday, 4 seams to go now!

One in-between star

My lovely girl Claire, who made the cake and did most of the catering

My niece Nicola and my sister Cheryl

 

The cake with Smarties in the centre

My mother Denise who sewed up the tablecloths and overlays, and another niece, Alex.

Niece Catherine

Layout of Easy Street

Fourth last block - Just Takes 2

Geese, ships and stars and mountains

This evening, after catching up on some voluntary accounting (for my sister's school), I got some sewing done - last but one seam on the pieced picture, and four tall ships for this month's block lotto, and two in-betweener stars, trying out the 6" size that I (well, my mother mostly at the last two Thursday evenings at the quilt group) had picked out squares and rectangles for.   I have now received 11 out of anticipated 16 envelopes filled with flying geese blocks, once they are all here, I'll take some photos!  The doorbell rang today, and through the intercom a voice says, you've got an envelope from Canada - my sweet postman, so I opened the envelope to show him the contents.  A few years ago, when my office was just down the road, he would often bring my small packages there, although they had the home address on them, I think just to chat! I am seldom at home in the day-time, so it was a nice encounter.  We generally don't have parcels delivered, only if they are really small and light, normally we get a card saying parcel to be collected from Post Office, and if a foreign parcel, normally customs and vat to be paid!

This is supposed to be the back of Table Mountain in the distance (about 15km), with one of the highway catchment ponds in the foreground - I am in awe of this mountain every day, living in it's shadow is a privilege!

First geese have landed

What excitement! The first envelope has arrived!  Rachel's geese have landed safely from Texas, together with a delightful postcard.   The postcard was a perfect way of reinforcing the regular envelope, now I know how to mail my blocks in future, thank-you!

Some more small steps

This is the latest, and last but three of the 100 blocks for Just Takes Two:

There are some really prolific quilters that blog and encourage other quilters in all parts of the world.  One blogger that I read and have been following along with her Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2013 is Soscrappy from Florida USA.  I've kept up with each month, but haven't taken any photos until now.  My scraps are colour sorted by strips and bits, so that made the first step easier.  I have been grabbing a biggish pile from my strip boxes of each month, sewing them in a single large strata piece, and then cutting as many triangles as possible, and finally stitching all the left over pieces from that into 2 or 3 pieces.  At the end of the year I'll decide how to use them all.  June's colour is yellow, and these are all the strips I had, and what I created from them.  Please click here to go and see what others have linked as well.

I have been making small English Paper Pieced Hexagons for ever, and saw a mention somewhere that one can make hexagons without paper using a circle of fabric, so had to try!   A fair amount of fabric folded on the back, which I 'm sure can be recovered once stitched!  Partly stitched the smaller ones to see how they turn out.  

And finally, an applique flower with a blurry close-up of the detail.    One of our group members came by a bunch of made-up satin cushion covers, complete with zips, and challenged us to applique them.  There will be a viewer's choice prize at our next meeting.  And then they will be passed on to a charity for their fundraising.   Did this one by hand as I don't like raw-edge finishes, and my working sewing machines only do straight stitches so couldn't zig-zag them.

Mid-week bits and pieces

Well, the weather forecast got it spot on, a full ten days of rain, today was the first day of sunshine, with clouds but no rain, and with more rain forecast for the weekend.  I had a great weekend away with 21 other quilters all sewing our hearts out.   !@#$, no photos, as camera battery died.  This photo was taken on Sunday in the centre of Cape Town (sorry don't have the credits for it) - it's a carpet of hail, but looks like snow - we do not get snow at 10m above sea level!  Sometimes a dusting on the 300m+ mountains close by.  I've never seen this much hail in Cape Town, normally we just get a sprinkling, maybe once or twice a year, that melts in 10 minutes.

 

Only one finished Just Take 2 block, needing a press!:

And some quilt inspiration - these are the tiles behind my sister's stove top:

With a dead phone and no other connectivity over the weekend I nearly missed out on being a Block Lotto winner!  When I got back, a number of patient emails were waiting to let me know.  I needed to have replied to the first email confirming acceptance and posting details.  I should have let the co-ordinator know beforehand that I may not be available when the draw happened.  Lesson is, don't think you won't win!!  I only started participating at the beginning of this year, but had for about a year been following the blog site and trying out some of the blocks, even making a whole small quilt from the May 2012 block.  In the next two to three weeks I should receive a whole bunch of blocks to add to my three, thank-you, thank-you to all who made blocks.

Quilt with wonky Liberated 5-point Stars from May 2012, very wonky!

It's a very wet Sunday night

Other than about a month ago when we had two days of rain, we've had gloriously warm dry autumn day weather leaving us wondering when winter would arrive. A-ha, today!  It started raining last night, and rain is forecast for the next 10 days!  At this moment it is bucketing down!   It's a wonderful sound.

Another week has flown by, but I did manage to work a bit on the irregular-pieced project and I think I'm about half-way through the piecing now.
This is now and last week (the handbag is keeping the polystyrene sheet propped up on a chair):

 

 

Finished one more Just Takes 2 block, and have prepped all the last applique ones:

These are my 3 blocks for May's Block Lotto

The weekend is here!

Hurray, it's the weekend!  Did manage to make the last two pieced blocks for Just Takes 2 on Wednesday,  and only 7 appliqued ones to finish.  I really hope that they won't hold up the final assembly for too long.

Been trying for 2 hours, in between sewing and supper, to get computer to see phone to get last 2 photos off it.  Two reboots and one blue screen of death later, sigh.  Phone wasn't my choice and don't think I would recommend a Nokia N9.  My aging computer doesn't help!

(Yeah!  Worked out how to get 2 photos side-by-side - go into html and change one anchor from"1" to "55"!!)

Looking forward to tomorrow's second and final part of Bettie's class on Irregular Piecing, lots of attention to be paid to it tonight!  That is, find all the fabrics needed!  Update: have stitched 7 out of a gazillion pieces!  Working out OK so far!

Sent off my two birds to the April Block Lotto winner - they've migrated north to warmer climes.

Lots of pictures!

17 Just Takes 2 blocks done, in fact I only have two left to paper-base piece, and about 7 or 8 to applique, so these might be the take-to Quilt Retreat weekend to finish.  There a few similar blocks, but each has different fabrics.

Was putting this finished one back in its filing sleeve, and wondered why it didn't look like the picture, so some unsewing and resewing done!

Halves put together wrong!  But interesting!

This is now right!

And the first picture here is the prep for the central applique, and then the finished block.

 And finally the rest.  Now up to 34 star blocks made, one is peeping here.