2013 April first half

 

Foundation Failing

Kristy at quiet play is hosting a Foundation Piecing block of the month, and I confess I have been struggling.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

And here is my attempt

Spool 1 (brown) was fine. I was really pleased with spool 2 (green) until I realised I'd used the wrong background fabric. Spool 3 (purple) had the same background as 2, but I've run out of wood fabric, so the 'wood' is the same fabric as the thread in spool 1. You may have guessed I'm not very pleased with the way this is going! And oh gosh some of those pieces are small!

So change of plan! Kristy, I have learnt from you, and I am now using that knowledge!

I drafted a plan

And I made by own block - I used selvedge edges as the 'thread'.  Sorry Kristy, but this is about me being useless, not about your insructions being off!!!

Fabric In, Fabric Out

The fabric for the Rainbow charm swap has been cut into 5 inch squares, and is now ready to be posted back to Cindy

Crossing with that package was a package from Cindy.

I want to do a Bargello type wall hanging, but no one near me sells the Kona range, and I was reluctant to buy just from a website.  I sent the lovely Cindy some photos of the Northern Lights as seen on our recent holiday. 

 

And she sent me these perfect fabrics (which have not photographed perfectly, but are spot on in real life)

So, as if I didn't have enough projects I want to start, I'm now wanting to start this one too!

Strings and Things 1

While I was finishing the embroidery I also started rummaging through boxes of UFOs, and found loads of strings that had been stitched into squares about a hundred years ago. Some were HSTs, and some were just string squares. So some got combined into pinwheels

Strings and Things 2

Also in the box of HST string squares there were 35 string squares.  I have no idea what I'd planned to do with them, but I'd been making them up from scraps from other quilt tops (all in the Before Blogging days)

Looking at lots of the fabrics, I can remember the quilt that I made, and who it was for - others I'd have sworn blind I'd never seen before, LOL

Anyway, I have long loved Nicky's (mrs Sew and sow) Fractured quilt, and I wondered whether these string blocks could make a colourful version of it

Here is Nicky's (hope it was OK to pinch a pic from your blog Nicky)

So I used her photo to create my own Scrappy Fractured:

 

Bizarre But Brilliant

When Jackie recently said she had a present for me, but handed me some toe separators, I was a bit confused.  I though Jackie realised / knew me well enough to grasp that I was very low maintenance - and that stuff from the beauty counter was not likely to get used much, if at all!

But then she showed me what it was *really* for:  4 bobbins, and they wont come unravelled at all as I drag my sewing stuff around the countryside

Jackie - I love you!

UFOs & Mission Impossible - fact or fiction?

I have a rubbish memory for dates, (I have a rubbish memory full stop) but I know I started making a yellow and white quilt for a friend, S, and his girlfriend, T, and I know I met T when Niki was a baby - she is now nearly 19. Anyway, S and T split up not long after, and the quilt never got fully finished.  Half got completed and was used on the kitchen sofa - and got eaten by the rabbit, so that has long since gone, but while I was looking for something else in the shed I found the other half.

Oh boy have I learnt a lot since then!!!

I have declined to take close up photos as its only just passable from a distance!

I have chopped the remaining piece into 2- The first part is now assembled and quilted. My thought is that it may go the the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), but they need everything washable at 60 degrees (c).   I'm washing it now, although I haven't put the binding on, to see if it copes with the hot wash

What I should be doing - is tidying Lisa's bedroom!

In 48 hours my cousin and her son arrive from Denver, on their way home to Kenya - and they need to be able to put their luggage in this room, AND sleep in it!  Anybody want to come and help with my Impossible Mission?

Marvellous Mosaic

As a creature of habit, I tend to sit in the same pew each Sunday (unless there are kids in which case we're in Sunday School on the mezzanine floor) and I tend to go to the left of the alter rail for communion. Each Sunday I look at these tiles and contemplate making a quilt based on them (I love the secondary star, but too many HSTs)

Last Sunday I happened to go to the right of the alter rail instead, and looked at the floor there.  This Sunday I remembered to bring my camera

Do you see what I see?

This middle one isn't a star!

School Football Shirts & Newspaper Charms

One of my tasks for the holidays was to embroider the school logo into the team football shirts, but I'd been putting it off - after all, it's not very exciting is it?

I have now completed the design work, and I've done some trial patches (they wanted some that they could sew onto track suits etc).  The patches have come out fine, so I was ready to risk stitching on the football shirts . . .  but . . .

Given that the I'll be stitching onto red and blue on the shirt, I couldn't decide what colour to use for the stitching?  Navy? Red? White? Black?

At the moment, indecisiveness is a good excuse not to start stitching yet!

So instead . . .  I have been cutting fabric.  It's only sort of for me.  I've joined another charm swap, this time for text fabric.  I'm actually contributing stash fabric.  I bought some fab newspaper print fabric in Amsterdam years ago.  I got it in heavy weight and in vinyl, then two years ago I was there again and got it it cotton, but I have been saving this for the right time.  So I have now cut my precious newspaper fabric into 56 charm squares, and I'm posting them to the lovely May.  She will received 55 similar bundles, and then will make 56 bundles of assorted fabrics, one for each of the group members.  If you are interested there may be places left, so hop on over and take a look