Checking in on my August Quilty Goals and setting my September Goals

August Goals

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

Sunburnt Zebras done and dusted AND labelled!.

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

I bought the vlisofix  in Brisbane last weekend and have traced off the designs onto it

  

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

I have all the circles cut out for the quilt. I have decided to make it 15 rows by 17 which means 255 circles for the blocks. Still have to draw the 5" squares on the last 65

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

The hour glass blocks are all made. Yay

5 Cut scrap pieces. The basket is overflowing

I emptied the basket. Its full again. 

6 Make a seasonal wall hanging from Mum's embroideries

I have made the 4 seasonal min quilts as well as making a mini quilt from one of my embroideries. Its of an outhouse and I am going to hang it on the outside of the toilet door. 

 

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

Given I now have just one day left in the month as I type this I have to concede that this is one that isn't going to be done this month.

8. Label Disappearing into the Blue

Labelled. Yay.

With one day left in this month I can say I have done pretty well with my August goals. I basically accomplished 7 of the 8. Just the Craftsy class that I haven't completed.

Fixit Guy and I are off on a couple of months holiday at the beginning of October. We will be gone for all of October and November and will return home at a date to be determined in December. So September is my last month of sewing at home for this year. So my goals are going to include getting some things finished before I go and getting projects ready to take with me. I am taking my little Janome Gem Platinum with me and when we are hooked up to powered sites I will be able to sew. Lots of the time we will be travelling so I am keen to have some hand projects to do in the car and also whilst we are stopped in camping areas without power.

1) Jeans quilt. The circles are all cut and 190 of them have the 5" square traced onto them. I want to get the other 65 circles marked and the 255 5" squares selected. Actually I have cut more of the circles than I need for just one quilt and have been given more jeans to cut up so think I will probably make a couple of quilt. One for us and one to give away. This will be my machine project for while we are away.

2) Finish tracing off the applique pieces for the tea shop quilt. Select fabric and get the applique ironed onto background fabric ready for our trip. Sort out embroidery threads to take with us. This will be my hand project

3) continue working on Disappearing Hourglass (Think of calling it Time Vanishes) The hourglass blocks are all completed. I have to cut them up, rearrange the pieces and sew them back together again. I have 6 more sewing days - 7 if I go to the Gemmies again for the day (which I will do if anyone else from our group is going out there) before we go. I would love to have the top completed and sent off to the long armer before we head out. (Edit. I ended up calling it Vanishing Hours. Will use Time Vanishes for another Disappearing Hourglass should I make it)

4) put together the quilt that is currently on my design wall. Its various orphan blocks I have dug out. I am trying to put it together in a pleasing way. It will probably become a donation quilt.

5) Do that Photography class on Craftsy. I have watched it right through. Just need to make myself go back and do the practical bits of it. Sigh. This is the third month its been on my to do list. It will be good to be able to take better photos on our trip. I have found my two digital cameras and the instruction books for one of them so its a start. Sigh.

6) Fangirl has bought her own townhouse. She moves in about a month. Its brand new and needs curtains and blinds. I have offered to help get them made so that is really going to be my priority. These other projects are going to fit in around that. So Make curtains as required for the townhouse.

That had been do me then!!
What are your goals for September?

WIP Wednesday Progress!

Been working on a few different things this week.

Blue Jeans Quilt
All 190 of the circles I have cut have the 5" square drawn inside them. I have been chasing some more jeans. I had several lots promised to me but they haven't arrived. Today I was able to visit a Salvo's store that had a $5 a bag special on so I was able to get 5 pair of jeans. A friend gave me 2 pair as well. Then I got a phone call to say another quilting friend had secured a large bag of jeans for me from a clean out at the charity shop she volunteers at. Safe to say I will now have PLENTY of jeans to complete the project. Just have to get moving on it

Disappearing Hour Glass Quilt
I made great progress on this today as I was at an all day quilting get together with a neighbouring quilt group. I got all my hst trimmed up (using my quilt in a day ruler designed for this) and the hour glass blocks made. Tomorrow I will get to iron the blocks and then cut them up to make them disappear. I am going to have to watch the youtube clip a few times tonight to get the process clear in my head.... or take my computer with me to patchwork tomorrow and work on them there.

Disappearing into the Blue and Sunburnt Zebras are both now labelled so I can class them as truly finished.

I have also dug out some of the embroidery blocks my mum made me. I am planning on making 4 of them into seasonal quilt hangings. They were designed to go together in one quilt depicting all 4 seasons but I am going to make them into separate ones. I am trying to use up some of the scrap hst that I have left over from making flying geese in my SOMB quilts in the borders for these mini quilts. We will see how it goes. I took a pile of bits and pieces with me today to work on as well but didn't get to them. Thought I might get sick of the hour glass blocks and I did at the end but was so close to finishing I just pressed on. So pleased to have it done.

I have an red work embroidery of an outside dunny (toilet/loo/bathroom) that I am going to make into a smalling hanging to go on the outside of the toilet door. I have a cross stitched picture of a cat in a bath that Fangirl made many years ago that hangs on the bathroom door. I got a border put on it and have it pinned ready for me to quilt it. I've see a tutorial of a self hanger you can stitch into the binding somehow that I am going to try to locate and do that for the hanger.

 

Decluttering Challenge



Still going slowly with this. 
Day 19. Cleaned out my handbag to take it away. I only have one so it didn't take long
Day 20 Email box - have been continuing to try to get rid of the rubbish. I am setting up lots of rules so emails get diverted to particularly relevant folders which helps me find stuff I need and delete stuff too
Day 21 Someday clutter - nope... haven't done anything with this. Will get to it... someday LOL
Day 22 Electronics and cords. Yes did this one. Got my husband to help me go through all the cords in various drawers and and boxes and we got rid of the ones that were surplus to requirement. I found a place I could send the old phone cords to which was great... post free. It was good to go through things and it came in handy when our club was chasing a cord to connect the computer to the printer. I knew we had a spare and where it was
Day 23 Cosmetics. Cleaned these out when we did the great bathroom renovations
Day 24 Kitchen Counters. Gave these a good clean down on Monday
Day 25 Craft supplies - nope not happened! I did go through the cupboard a six months or so ago but think it could do with a go through.
Day 26 Books and DVDs. DVDs -We've been through these a fair bit over the last few years. Books - have started to go through our bookshelves. Have found some that belong to our daughter and a few I can get rid of. Hope to do a lot more.


Linking up with

Sunday Stash Report

I had a finish. I have already told you all about it. In fact I think I have mentioned it in every blog post since I got it done on  Tuesday night.

"Disappearing into the Blue" is finished. Yay.

 I wrote extensively about it on WIP Wednesday so look here for lots of pictures but I will repeat just a few... since you asked (you did ask didn't you?)

The block was the Disappearing Pinwheel as demonstrated by Jenny Doan of the MIssouri Quilt Company  here I started it as part of a quilt along sort of thing done by Twilters... a group of quilters on Twitter. (anyone can be a twilter. Just hop on line and start following the various people who chat about quilter there. Look for #twilter to find some of us) 

Its final dimensions were 241cm x 268 cm or 92"x105" and it used (wait for it) 14.68m of fabric. (maybe more since it was a completely pieced back which uses a lot more fabric than if you use whole pieces or large strips but we'll let it go at that) I was so excited to get it done and onto the bed. 5 days later I still haven't made the label for it and I do want to get that done as I like to label all of my quilts, even the ones I keep for myself. Its on the bed and looks fabulous. It will get slept under for the first time this next weekend when we have some billets overnight for an Emmaus Board meeting. Hope whoever it is appreciates it!

So my statistics for the year look a bit healthier

Used this week:                        14.59m
Added this week                          0

Year to Date Used                     115.17
Year to Date added                     79.27
Net Used                                    35.90       

Linking up with Sunday Stash Report @ Patchwork Times                            

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

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

WIP Wednesday

I have had a really busy day and have moved all of my current projects forward.

Disappearing into the Blue
Today I got the backing for this quilt pieced. Finally. Usually I only work on this project at my Patchwork Group's weekly get together however I broke that rule this week. I worked on the backing a little bit last night and then again this afternoon after I got home from Patchwork. I was so close to finishing I just wanted to get it done. Tonight I even cut the fabric I am going to use for the binding.

working at home is not without its added complications. Patrick is a visiting cat whom we are minding for a few days but he has the "Quilting Helper Cat" routine down pat

Patrick the cat assisting with making the backing

Disappearing into the Blue top and backing ready to be packaged up and sent for quilting

Teddies and Pinwheels.
I took this to Patchwork to pin it (baste it) We have great tables there for pinning on. However when I went to do it I found that my cat had piddled on the backing fabric! Great. I bought it home, washed and dried it, ironed it and tonight I got it pinned. I had some hand dyes in the backing which ran a bit to my dismay. Most of the fabric that it leached into will actually be cut off so I have left it. Hope I don't regret this move

pinning this at home. Had to clear off my cutting table to do it but easy enough to do. 

Twist and Disappear
I got it pinned today at patchwork. I found that one of the pinwheels in it is coming adrift a little bit... seam has come undone so I am going to have to do some hand stitching before I start to quilt it.

Riverwalk.
I got it pinned. Yay. Originally I had planned to use 2 old flannelette sheets as the wadding and to have a backing as well. I forgot to take the backing with me but decided to just go with the 2 sheets. I just wanted to get it pinned. I hope I don't regret it.

my pinned pile. Now to get the quilted. Hoping to have at least one finish by Sunday!

Bathroom renovations
These are progressing. The builders finished up on Friday and all that is left to do is the painting which Fixit Guy is doing. He has also started doing some other plastering jobs that need doing about the house. He is doing a few touch up paint jobs whilst he has his overalls out. The en suite is almost done. He has to remove the painters tape and finish off a little bit of trim.

 

Linking up with Wip Wednesday at Freshly Pieced