Quilty Resolutions - Review of July goals and setting some for August

Since it is 31st of July it is time to review the goals I set my self this month. I wrote about them here  if you want the full story

1. Finish the top for my Disappearing into the Blue quilt and make the backing.

This is finally completed. I crowed about it on Wednesday. I got more than the top and backing done. The whole thing is completed and is on our spare bed. The label still needs to be done but that will come.

2. Trim up the half square triangles and start assembling my Black and White (with a touch of red) trip around the world quilt. 

This too has been done. The ruler arrived mid month and I took the hst and the ruler, rotary cutter and mat on holidays with us. I got "The Look" from Fixit Guy when I suggested taking my machine with me so contented myself with trimming the blocks. The ruler worked really well. Now I am in the process of laying them out on my design world and working out how I want it to go exactly. 

3. Make Gamer Girl's Christmas Stocking 

I got the stocking made. I wrote about it here

4. Finish Teddies and Pinwheels quilt 

Done. I wrote about it here

5. Finish Twist and Disappear 

Done. I wrote about it here 

6. Finish the two Craftsy Classes I have almost finished. Do some of the projects/exercises mentioned in them!!

Welll.... didn't get this done. I did finish watching Shoot It with Caro Sheridan but didn't get to do any of the exercises. I had hoped to rewatch parts of it whilst on holidays and I did but I was running out of download so couldn't really do much. I also couldn't find the manual for my camera so that didn't help.

7. Start Teashop wall hanging when it arrives.

The pattern only arrived whilst we were away on holidays. I had trouble with my order from the UK as the first place I had ordered it from couldn't supply it and then I had to find it elsewhere but it got here eventually but haven't had time to do any thing with it. I am thinking that this is going to be my travelling project when I got away in October. Fixit Guy and I are going on a camping holiday for about 3 months - from the start of October and will be back in time for Christmas. I am going to need something to do whilst we drive along and this applique project is going to be ideal. Funny story though. Today Fixit Guy and I tidied off my shockingly untidy desk in the kitchen. Its been months and months since it got done. Guess what I found buried under a pile of stuff. Yup the original pattern I bought in the UK last September which I haven't been able to find since we got home from our last camping trip (last October. I bought some fabric for it whilst I was travelling) Ooops

8. Make seasonal wall hanging from the stitcheries my mum made for me

Nope... nothing done on this one

So all in all not a bad effort. 5 goals completed of 8. of the remaining 3 - one I did a bit of work on, one I couldn't do much on due to it not arriving and one no attempt made. Now to think about August goals

August Goals

1. Work on Trip around the world (work out a name for it to make it easier to refer to)

2 Start work on Teashop quilt - choose background fabric for blocks, trace off applique pieces. Get things prepped for taking it away to work on whilst travelling

3 Blue Jeans Quilt - get it prepped to take away on holidays with us. This will be my machine project whilst we are travelling. 

4 Disappearing Hour Glass quilt - collect together green and cream fabric for this quilt. This will be my project for Patchwork Group.

5 Cut scrap pieces. The basket is overflowing

6 Make a seasonal wall hanging from Mum's embroideries

7 Do projects from Caro Sheridan's photography class on Craftsy. Watch one other craftsy class

That is one less than this past month. I am not aiming for any completions on quilts this month. I might get some

Oh... just thought of one more little one so better add it

8. Label Disappearing into the Blue

Thats it for me

Hoping to link up with Gemma@ Pretty Bobbins for I Quilt Thursdays

Throwback Thursday Celebrate the Season

 Celebrate the Season completed 2010 (I think)

This quilt started as a block of the month quiltalong with my patchwork group. We were given the pattern for for one block each month. Well that is how it was supposed to work. I was keeping up with it that way and got satisfaction from turning up on the last week of the month or the first week of the month maybe with my finished block. However for some reason the people who were running it decided to give everyone the remaining patterns all in one hit after a few months. I did a few more but lost impetus and stopped making them. Eventually I climbed back on the horse so to speak and worked on the last few blocks I had to do and then eventually put it together and quilted it. Since its been finished it has been hung each year in our church as part of our Advent and Christmas decorations. I am pleased that the Nativity story features prominently in the blocks (even if Santa and Rudolph even more so) I have been given a lot of compliments on the quilt. I used my hand dyed fabrics predominantly, but not exclusively in the sashing around the blocks.

The details for the quilt are written on the label but the quilt is packed away at the moment with all our Christmas decorations and I am not going to drag it out just to check

This was the only time the quilt was on a bed!

Linking up with Quiltin' Jenny on Throwback Thursday

WIP Wednesday

I am soooo excited. Disappearing into the Blue is no longer a WIP but is a finished item. I have only just put the last stitch into the binding and I haven't done a label for it yet but I count it as finished when its bound. The label is just an added extra. Its is marvelous to have it done at last.

Disappearing into the Blue is the name I gave to the second of my Disappearing Pinwheels that I made using the Missouri Star video here. I liked the churn dash setting better than the shoo fly which was an alternative setting.

Its the first quilt in a while that I actually went out and collected fabric for. Lately... as in the last few years I have tended to work from my stash and just buy bits and pieces to finish quilts off. I have occasionally bought more fabric on a whim but not with any pattern in mind. For this quilt I not only raided my stash but also bought quite a bit of fabric for it. I ended up with enough fabric for the backing as well although that hadn't been my intention at the time.

I chose to make the quilt blue and white because I wanted it for the spare bedroom that Fixit Guy and I had repainted earlier in the year - a pretty blue with white trim. I made new white curtains for the room too. I wanted the quilt to be big enough for the bed... have some overhang. I seem to get a bit stingey when I make queen bed quilts and all the ones I have made to now haven't really been long enough on their own. This one is plenty big enough... I hope.

The centre of the quilt is 5 blocks by 6 blocks so 30 blocks in all with white sashing between the rows. The first border a row of pin wheels with another white border then a 4 inch piano key boarder and a 3.5 inch white border and finished off with a striped binding.

The back is made up of pieces of the blue fabric that I had bought for the front, some different width piano key stripes (made up of left overs from the front border including one piece that I had accidentally cut 4" instead of 4.5") and some white tone on tone as well. It looks great too.

I love it. Love it love it love it. Like my Peaceful Hearts, this one was made for me, or my house. I haven't made very many quilts for myself although I have a heap of them. These ones were planned and executed specifically for me.

Black and White with a Touch of Red- Trip Around the World.
I got all the hst blocks trimmed up whilst I was on holidays. Today at Patchwork I ironed them all. Next step is to lay them up on my design wall and then to start sewing. I saw an idea on a Facebook group I am on for handling rows. The lady used bull dog clips to hold the rows up as she sewed them and to keep them in order. I have a heap of skirt hangers that I thought would work as well. I am not looking forward to keeping track of the blocks and the rows and all that. I can get simple ones mixed up let alone complex ones. Yes I know that I need to label the rows and all that but even when I do that I can do major stuff ups. I'm just preparing myself for the "unsewing" I am going to be doing at some stage or another.

I am not sure if these classify as WIPs but I have started to plot my next couple of projects.

I want to make a jeans quilt. Yesterday at the Salvos I was able to buy women's jeans for $1 each. I grabbed 5. I could have taken more but that was a start. I have a few more bits of jeans in a box already (from when I cut off the legs of Fixit Guy's jeans to make them into shorts) so like I say... its a start. Today at Patchwork, after I finished ironing all my HST I cut the jeans up. I've saved the pockets and may do something interesting with them either on this quilt or another.

My friend Lindy (waves excitedly cause she is trying to find the blog to read it) showed me a YouTube video for a different kind of quilt. I was going to just do ye olde traditional sew the squares together and make a raggy quilt but this one is really cool. Its a bit more work but comes up with an interesting result. Its Blue Jean Quilt by Penny Halgren She makes Faux Cathedral Windows. The process is discussed on Quilt Inspiration's page

Add caption

I saw another video on Missouri Star web. Its the Disappearing Hour Glass.  I am thinking that I will make one of these for my bed. My bedroom is in greens so time to dig through my greens. I'm thinking green and cream rather than white since this quilt will get lots more wear than the one in the spare bedroom.

Linking up with

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays 

and

WIP Wednesday #52 @ TN&TNhttp://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com.au/

Sunday Stash Report

I thought when I wrote my early stash report last week that I wouldn't have anything to report for a couple of weeks because I would be away so no sewing. Well yes, that is write, no sewing, so no fabric used but... where have I been... I've been Away and that means finding shops to visit - patchwork shops to be precise. So... nothing sewn ... but....

First acquisition.
We stayed overnight with my brother and his wife. Christine (of Bluebirds and Bumblebees) had a little present waiting for me. This gorgeous apple fabric she had seen and thought of me Assorted Apples by Nutex, a NZ company.(I collect Apple and apple core fabric) as well as the notebook. Lovely. 1m

Second Acquisition
Lincraft had a 50% off fabric sale on. I was pretty restrained. Actually it wasn't hard to be restrained. There wasn't a lot of patchwork fabric out and to be honest the "buying for the sake of buying" bug has left me. Fabric diets do that to you. I did buy 4m of minky fabric for quilt backing. I bought the tan but was thinking afterwards maybe it should have been the pale blue but it was pretty wishy washy so the tan was better

Third Acquisition
Visited the patchwork shop that was on the same road as our holiday cottage. They had a specials shelf. I saw some apple fabric... brown background with some other motifs as well. I wondered if it would go with my fabric from Christine. So I got a metre of it and a metre of some pretty green stuff too. (Side note. The fabric was $10 m which is a good price in Australia for quilt shop quality fabric. A very good price. It amused me a heap to read Quiltcabana's musing on her blog as to when does fabric get too expensive to buy and they were thinking $13m. Fabric in quilt shops here is regularly $25-$30 a metre. It hasn't stopped people quilting. Once you have the bug you don't stop. You just buy more judiciously)

So nothing out but 7m in. Oh dear.

When I got home today there was a parcel waiting for me - my lovely Disappearing Into the Blue back from my lovely longarmer Kym from Professional Quilting Services.  Getting the binding on that done will see a big finish so maybe next week I will have recouped my losses. At least I am still in positive use territory.

Used this week:                        0m
Added this week                        7m

Year to Date Used                     100.58
Year to Date added                     79.27
Net Used                                    21.31

Linking up with Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times

Linky Parties

What is a Linky Party or a Link Up?
Val at Val's Studio has an acrostic on her web page where she lists the linky parties she knows of or is involved with.

Lots of posts are shared

Inspiring work is found
New friendships are formed

Kind words are given

Unique things are discovered
Praise is received from man

 

Val at Val's Quilting Studio has a page listing lots of link ups as well. The link up list is here. I did find that a few of the links on her page are broken or the link up is no longer active but many are

Personally I link up most weeks to two linky parties. One on a Sunday, Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times is a chance to monitor and share my fabric purchases and usage for the week. Its a way of being accountable for what I buy and what I use.

The other link up that I use regularly is WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced which is a chance to share what projects I have been working on during the week but not necessarily finished. 

Both these blogs encourage you to visit a couple of other blogs listed in the linky party and comment on them. We all love to get comments now don't we.

I copied this list of blogs from another blog I was looking at but managed to forget where I got it from. So thankyou nameless blogger who collected this list of links

Anything Goes Mondays @ http://marelize-ries.blogspot.co.uk/

Linky Tuesday @ Free Motion by the River @ http://www.conniekresin.com/ 
Fabric Tuesday @http://www.blossomheartquilts.com/

Let's Bee Social @ http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.co.uk
WOW = WIPs on Wednesday @ http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/
WIP Wednesday @ TN + TN @ http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Needle and Thread Thursdays @ http://www.liveacolourfullife.net/

Off the Wall Fridays@ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.co.uk/
Friday Linky Party @ http://www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.co.uk/
Lizzie Lenard@http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk/


The main reason I have written this blog is so that I have a record of the linky parties out there. Having found the lists on other blogs I wanted a way of remembering where they were. Now that I have shared them you too can find some other places to share your work. If you know of other places that have regular linky parties let me know.

Fitness Friday

Checking in again with my Fitness update

We've been away on holidays since last Saturday. We travelled 9 hours on Saturday so it is no wonder I didn't make my steps on Saturday. Sunday we travelled some more and then spent time settling into our motel unit and recovering from our travels so again didn't make my my steps. Infact my steps for the 2 days only totalled about 7000 steps.

Monday we had meetings with our financial advisor and our solicitor and since that involved a fair bit of walking around the city I got my steps up and a few extra which was good.

Tuesday we were travelling again... not so far this time - only an hour and a half. We went for a late afternoon walk. I thought we were just going for a walk but in the end we had dinner whilst we were out since we had ended up in an area with restaurants etc. By the time we walked home we had our steps up.

Wednesday and Thursday we went for several bush walks in the National Parks surrounding where we were staying. Wednesday we managed a total of 20 000 steps, a new record for me with my Fitbit. Yay. I was glad to get back to our lovely cottage and enjoy a soak in our spa tub which had beautiful views across the coastal plains to the sea. Thursday was less strenuous - only 12 000 steps but it was good to get them.

Today we were travelling again for most of the day. I had a bit of free time after we arrived (Fixit Guy had a meeting to go to almost straight away) I was able to find the beach and have a bit of a walk before it was time for dinner and then some evening meetings. Breakfast is at 7 AM so not sure that I am going to be able to get myself up and moving to get a walk in before hand but I will try. Otherwise might be able to find a break during the day to get some walking around done.

No running done. I did bring my jogging gear but haven't really been in a place where I could run safely. I could try it tomorrow... maybe. Don't think I will though.

As to diet. Yeah. Nah. That didn't happen. Fixit Guy and I have eaten out for most meals most days. We have had some beautiful meals. I don't do the whole take a photo of my food routine. Now I can't remember what I had when but it was all yummy. It is partly - mostly why I was keeping as active as I could so as to not do too much damage to the waist line. When I get home it is going to be back to being very strict and maybe even tracking what I eat. Have I said that before... probably. I do mean it... sort of.

Here are some photos from my walks in the National Parks.

WIP Wednesday on Thursday

I am away from home this week so haven't been sewing at all. I have been working spasmodically on trimming up some blocks for my Trip Around the World H/S Triangle Black and White with a Touch of Red quilt. Man I am going to have to come up with a name for this quilt. That takes way to long to type. 

At one stage I did know how many of them I had made and had to trim but I have forgotten. I can say that I have trimmed all of the black and white h/s triangles (H/S stands for Half Square for my non-quilty friends who loyally read this blog even though they don't sew. Its a square unit made from 2 right angled triangles) 

I have been using my special Quilt-in-a Day ruler that I ordered a couple of months ago after reading about it of aDiary of a Quilter'sblog. 

It has been going really well. Haven't ironed any flat yet to check that all is honky dory but it seems to be going well so far. Just the red ones to go.

I have visited 2 fabric shops. Lincraft was having a 50% off all their fabric so I popped into their store in the Myer's centre and got some minky which will make a lovely backing for a quilt I am beginning to percolate. Also visited a quilt shop today. They had a beautiful range of Australian fabrics as well as Japanese and lots of modern lines too. I was pretty restrained and only bought a metre each of 2 fabrics on special. And a new blade for my cutter. The one I have with me is getting a little blunt.

Disappearing Into the Blue
Its been quilted. As I write it should be making its way back to me from my long armer the lovely Kym at Professional Quilting Service.

Apart from that - I really haven't done anything quilty or patchworky at all. I have instead been enjoying a wonderful get away with my darling Fixit Guy.

We left home on Saturday morning with the Boyo's stuff in our car too although he chose to ride in his brother Kombi Boy's car. KB also had his partner Gamer Girl and a mate in it. We drove to Toowoomba. It was a 9 hour trip. We did stop for lunch and for fuel but other than that just pushed through. Arriving in Toowoomba my lovely Sister in Law Christine (Of Bluebirds and Bumblebees blog) had a baked lamb dinner prepared for us. After making short work of that the other carload departed for their homes in Brisbane - another 1.5 hours or so away. FG and I stayed over with them. It was lovely to catch up, get to sticky beak at Christine's inumerable projects.

We then had 2 days in Brisbane to complete some business before driving up to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland where we have booked into a lovely cottage. There are heaps of bnb's and get away venues in this area. When looking for a place to book we wanted a fire, a double spa and a view. Our choice was At Remingtons and we weren't disappointed. Our cottage has been everything that we wanted. We have enjoyed a number of walks through the rainforests hereabouts. We have had lovely meals out both lunch and dinner and generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. Its been a lovely few days. 

Tomorrow (Friday) we have to pack off and head north for 2 nights at a live in Presbytery. It will be church camp accommodation. I think we have a room with bunk beds and sleeping bags. A bit of a come down after the bliss of this place but guess its time to get back to reality.

Linking up with WOW=WIPs on Wednesday at Esthers Blog for the first time