WIP Wednesday

Its been another busy week with a variety of projects on the go. And too many is never enough...

I have started work on the 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month quilt. I watched all the shows in 2013 after I joined Craftsty. At the time I was sick in bed with Barmah Forrest Virus. Thats a mosquito born disease found only in Australia. It is not all that well known but is becoming so. Symptoms are aches and pains in joints, swelling of joints, rash, fatigue. I had the aches and pains and the fatigue but no rash or swelling. It left me feeling wiped out.

Anyway I was spending a lot of time lying down and I enjoyed watching the whole Craftsy class right through but didn't have the energy or inclination to actually get up and do any sewing. Its been on my To Do list for a while now and I put making at least one block from the class on my goals for March and am delighted to say that I have completed both of the blocks for January and have cut the fabric for February's blocks. Go me

I was able to go to Spotlight whilst in Rockhampton earlier on in the week and take advantage of their 30% off everything. I got the navy blue fabric I wanted to finish off the Pinwheel quilt I have been working on for our Patchwork Group. I should have enough to do the back and binding as well. At Patchwork today I was able to get the narrow borders on the front to finish the top off. It looks great.

 I also got to back pieced. I was able to work into it the 3 12" blocks that were made for other BOM's we had but in the wrong colour way. Originally we had been going to do all the BOM's for the year in blue and white but then they decided no, each one would be a different colour. However not all of us got to message and a few of us made subsequent blocks in blue and white too. So.... we had these spare blocks. 3 x 12" blocks and an 8" pinwheel. I am really pleased with how the back worked out - not to mention pleased to have the quilt ready to be basted and quilted.

The Tea Shop quilt has been sitting pinned and ready to go near my machine all week but haven't started on it yet. I really need to get a move on because I would like it finished to hang at the Our Rainbow House afternoon tea at the end of the month.

I was able to complete the last 2 blocks in the Elephant Parade quilt. They were two flowers. I have only made one of each of the blocks (apart from the flowers which I made 2 of the blue flowers as per instructions) I am not sure what I am going to do with the finished blocks. To make the whole quilt I will need to make more of all the blocks but I am not convinced I want to do that. I might make them into a bag or a wall hanging... not sure yet so have packed them up and put them away till I decide.

I made the next block in the Harry Potter POD QAL. That means that  I have enough blocks to complete 2 rows of the bookshelf. I started to sew  names on the books but that is a slow process. I don;t want to sew the blocks together as that will make it hard to embroider the blocks... but I am not sure now if I want to sew names on all the books. But perhaps it will look stupid if only some of the books have names on them... I can't decide. I could probably sew the blocks into long strips and still work on the blocks... but then.. I don't know. I can't decide so at the moment I haven't sewn them together.

The next clue in Scrapitude was released last week and I got the steps all completed. I had to cut more squares cause I misinterpreted an earlier clue but it was ok. It was a little bit tricky this time but managed it ok. Apparently there are only two more sets of clues to go and the last lot includes putting it all together. I am intrigued at how it is going to come out. All of it has come out of my stash and most of it has come out of my scrap stash. Funny thing is that the drawers with my cut scraps in still seem to be jam packed. Considering all the scraps that have come out of them......

And that brings me to my last WIP. I am once again working my way through my basket of scraps cutting them into useful units ready to be utilised in future projects. I really love having my scraps dealt with in this way. My choice of useful units are 1.5"through to 5" going up in half inch increments in squares or strips of that width, then 6.5" squares and strips and 10" squares. Having my units already cut has made preparation for various mystery quilts much quicker than it otherwise might have been. Yes sometimes I have to cut my units down (or cut units from my stash) if they are a bit more unusual eg 5.5" or 1/4" units but on the whole it has saved me so much time. Recently I was preparing for a mystery quilt to be held at a retreat I am off to in June. It called for about 300 1.5" squares. Would you believe I didn't have to cut any of them? They were all in my scrap stash already. 

Anyway - this week I have once again started to work on emptying my scrap basket. It was overflowing and then some.... I didn't think to take a photo initially. The photo is from today when I have already been working on it for a day or 2.

I have shallow boxes labelled with the various sized cuts to sort into. The tv set up means that I can watch shows whilst trimming my scraps. Today though I listened to a Craftsy class

I 

I used to try to keep the squares and the strips separated in the boxes but now I realise its much simpler to sort them at the end when putting them into the plastic drawers I keep them in. The drawers have shoe boxes fitted into them into, one for strips and one for squares usually. 

That's been my week. Pretty busy all in all. 

Linking up with WIP Wednesday,WOW- WIPs on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social