WIP Wednesday - 2 finishes

This week I have finished off two quilts - the two I got pin basted at Patchwork last week. It was great to get them both finished off - wonderful for my stash reports and great to get them both done. They have both been in the almost finished stage for quite a while. That is Pink Pizzazz and Going Green. I have already posted Going Green off to my friend who has had surgery recently and Pink Pizzazz is up at our quilt rooms. They want to hang it there for a bit before we hand it on to a breast cancer charity to use as they wish

Obviously quilting them took up much of my sewing time at home but I have worked on a few other things

First of all the horse costume. No, this wasn't a costume for a horse but the costume of a horse. It was needed for a play my husband is in. They had one already at the theatre but the rough treatment it got during rehearsals meant that it was ripped to well not quite shreds but certainly enough to make it unusable. It was 16 or so years old and wasn't made from new fabric to start with. So... I remade it for the start of performances but I used fabric found at the theatre and it wasn't new. After the first night it ripped and I had to do some major repairs. Then after the 4th performance they once again managed to destroy it beyond use.

So with only 2 performances to go (they do 2 performances a weekend for 3 weekends) I have had to remake the body of it completely. The guys do have to be very rough on the costume - charge around the stage, going in different directions and then fall over spectacularly so they do have to be very rough with it. Hopefully this new fabric (whilst not brand new, newer than the other fabric) will last better. It has some stretch in it so won't rip as easily either.

Found Pippin on the horse costume this morning. With the red staining on the legs (from the actor who uses it's rouged cheeks) it looks like he has killed it and dragged it in and is proudly displaying it

Then there are the raggy hearts. We swapped our raggy hearts last week at Patchwork Group and I came home and immediately started putting my half hearts together and making the extra ones that someone had given us the fabric for. She hadn't had time to make any but donated the fabric for us to make some to go towards a quilt for charity. I made a few more using background fabric from our group stash so probably made 15 raggy hearts altogether.

I put my raggy hearts quilt together. I sashed all the hearts in purple and put in red corner stones. Since this is going to a friend undergoing treatment for breast cancer I used some pink quilt for a cure fabric in the border. I am really happy with how the top. Now I need to make the backing. I'd like to get this finished this week and off to my friend as soon as possible.

I had planned to piece a backing but I wanted to use really soft fabric and have a some minky that would be suitable. Its a fawny brown so not really in the colour family of the sashing and borders but will be fine. I think the feel of the quilt is more important in this case than the look. Its only just wide enough... I have about 1.5" on each side so am going to have to be careful.

After I put the borders on my quilt today at our patchwork group gathering I worked on some more hearts for the group quilt. We have a bit of a problem in that one of our elderly members made her hearts the wrong way around. The background fabric was 7 x 6.5 and you need to put the heart so that it is wider than it is long. She put hers so it was longer than wide. This means that when they are sewn together the blocks will be narrower than they are high instead of square... and they will be narrower than all the other blocks made with the correct fabric. We are working out whether we will trim all the blocks in the donation quilt down to the smaller size or if we alter the sashing... still trying to get our heads around what to do. We have 21 blocks that will be smaller... we could make 3 rows of 7 that are narrower or make 2 rows of 8 and put the leftovers on the back... or... yeah. Its a pain. But we will get there

Hexagons. I've been plugging away on my hexagons. I managed to get about 25 done so far this week. I might get back to some tonight whilst I watch tv... but then again I might work on something else

How has your week been? Have you be productive? Hope you have enjoyed your quilting and patchworking or other crafting.




  

WIP Wednesday - progress in all sorts of directions

Its been another bits and pieces week.

"Pink Pizzazz" (the quilt I am working on for our quilting group) was pinned today after our monthly meeting. No one rushed me for it and so I will quilt it myself. Its pretty small so won't take long. We decided that we would give it to our Neighbourhood Centre who run fundraising events for Breast Cancer research. We don't mind if it is used as a raffle prize or given to someone in need. They can choose.

"Going Green"  I also got pin basted today at the rooms assisted by 3 of the women there. I sure did appreciate their help. Pinning can take ages! I didn't stop to take a photo of the process. You will have to trust me on this

Hexies - have been beavering away making more of these. I now have 18 flowers made plus another little bag of basted hexies not sewn into flowers plus a heap more pinned. I found a website during the week that had a calculator on it for working out how many hexies you need for quilts.  Its here on CDDesigns.com You can select the dimension of the hexies and the dimensions of the quilt. Tells you how many half hexies you need too. Problem with it was that it told me if I want a queen bed quilt I am going to need 1523 hexies. ATM once I have put together all the hexies I have pinned, basted and sewn together that comes to about 300 hexies.... so I have a long way to go!! Last night a cut out a pile of hexie papers. I used a free pdf download from here on Love Patchwork and Quilting I have saved the PDF and only print out the page I wanted (1.5" sides) I printed out 10 pages. There are 8 hexies on each page I would use one page as the pattern and load up 5 pieces of scrap paper behind and cut them out together. I wish that there were more than just 8 hexies per page as it wastes a lot of paper but feel that they are more accurate than me tracking around my plastic hexie template. I have quite a pile of hexies cut out ready to pin to fabric.

Scrap Basket
This was probably my biggest achievement for the week. As per Pam, from Hip To Be a Square Podcast, I took before and after photos to document my progress. Here are my scraps both in and out of the basket

 It took me a day and a half to get it all done and one of those days was pretty solid going. It was good to get it all cut up and organised!  You can see how I organise myself in the photo below where my daughter's 2 cats who are visiting this week are Helpingering (that's another Pam phrase) I have my ironing board set up close to the cutting table (usually its over next to my sewing machine and set to a seated level so I can just swing around from my sewing machine to press the seams as required) I iron a pile of scraps and then cut them up to size. I have a number of shoe boxes, one for each of the sizes I cut to, set up along the back of the cutting table (resting on the back of the couch) I can watch tv whilst I cut although to be honest I listened to a number of podcasts and radio plays (lots on the bbc website if you are wanting to listen to good stuff) and also an audio book.

I cut my scraps into units from 1.5 - 5" (going up in .5" increments), 6.5"  squares and strips and 10" squares. I also make bricks in some sizes (rectangles where the length is 2 x width - .5" Good for making flying geese units)

See an empty basket. I put all the scraps back into it after I tipped them out for the earlier photo - 

In resorting some of my boxes of scraps and other bits and pieces as part of this scrap cutting I found some left over hexies from my QAYG hexie quilt I made 9 years ago. I had cut them out but not used them and was very pleased to to find that they were the right size... that's saved me some cutting (and is using up some scraps. Bonus)

What have you  been working on this week?

  

Sunday Stash Report

Its been another crazy busy week with so much going on here and not all that much time to sew... well not as much time as usual to sew.

It was another week with rehearsals - full dress rehearsals at that Sunday afternoon, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and first performances Friday and Saturday nights. Had a bit of sewing for that... had to fix up the cat costume... add elastic to waist band so the size 18 pants fitted out size 10 pregnant actress, also add a sign saying "Cat" to the back of the shirt and put velcro on it so the tail could be attached and removed as per script. Then after the performance on Friday had to do major repairs to the horse costume as the actors stepped on it and ripped it... I was also busy blinging up two hand bags for the leading lady. One I made fabric flowers for (that was fun) and the other I glued a packet of plastic "gems" too. In total I used about half a metre of fabric.

I managed to get Going Green's backing fabric completed as well as Pink Pizzazz. They both now need to be pinned and quilted. Since Pink Pizzazz is a group project I might ask and see if someone else in our patchwork group will quilt it (I quilted one earlier this year) If they will I get to count it as finished and so can calculate fabric usage... what I donated which will be all the backing.

And then there are the hexies... been making a bit of progress there too

Week 35

         Fabric Used                     0.51
         Fabric Added                   0

Year To Date
         Fabric Used                    114.37
         Fabric Added                    42.40        

Net Used/Added                       71.97m   

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

I finally got stuck into some more blocks from the Amy Gibson 2012  BOM Craftsy Class. I first listened to this class right through when I had Barmah Forrest virus in 2013. I sat in bed and watched them all through. I loved them... well most of them but I was in no position to actually do any of the sewing. I wanted to though but even once well there were enough other challenges and projects in my life to keep me busy. At the beginning of this year I put completing the blocks in this class on my to do list. Doing blocks from this class have appeared regularly on my monthly goals. For the first few months I even achieved them but..... for several months (the last 3 I think or maybe 4) they got bumped to the next month. I would add an extra 2 blocks to how many I had to get done but I stopped doing that even after a couple of months.

I had intended to take the project with me when I went to Yeppoon last week but it got left behind by accident and as it turned out I probably wouldn't have gotten through them if I'd taken them. 

Writing my goals for this month (see here) they once again came up on the list and something clicked and I was determined to get some done and over the last couple of days I have smashed my way through 5 of them. I've actually done 6 blocks but one of them I did twice. I didn't rewatch the classes - I just worked off the patterns for the class and have to say I ran into some problems in doing that. There were a couple of places where the instructions were a little obscure and in others they were plain wrong (miss printed or something) The reason I redid the block (the wonky 5 sided log cabin. ) was mine didn't turn out quite like hers cause I hadn't read the instructions properly. I made it like a crazy quilt. I redid and the same thing happened. I didn't get the instruction when I did read them. The 2 blocks I did were more like crazy quilt blocks and I liked them well enough so... that is what we have. One day I might listen to the lesson and have another go.

The blocks I have done this week are the ones from May and August plus one from July. (she gives 2 per month) I had decided I was not going to do the hexagonal blocks she has in the quilt.and was tossing up about the dresden plate blocks but... trying to convince myself to have a go.

I took Pink Pizzazz to Patchwork today and showed the other ladies. The wavy border was bugging me and they agreed it needed to come off. Sigh. It only needed to come off on two sides and be adjusted... reduced them by half an inch each and reattached them and now they are sitting nicely. I started work on the backing. 

it doesn't look smooth on the wall but it is... well much better than it had been. The blocks were all made by different people in our group.

Originally I was going to incorporate a vintage sheet I had in my stash but looking at it more closely I realised that it was perished in a couple of places and stained in others so decided not to use it at all... in fact it might go into the rubbish which would be a shame as it is lovely (pink background with big white daisies with yellow centres scattered all over it) but its no good using a fabric that might disintegrate after a wash or two.  

Isn't it lovely. I have cut the best bits out of it to save but there are great chunks of it that I've had to toss. It was only a cot sheet size which meant that there wasn't much good left in the end

Instead I decided to use some fabric I got from Patch n Peace this year - that I "won" in the silent auction. it has a pink background with yellow and blue threads. 

I incorporated some other bits and pieces in the backing as is my want! I had some hearts and a pinwheel so I have made a strip to put down the centre of the backing. I think its going to be great. Haven't finished it yet.

I made these heart blocks out of left over scraps from pieced hearts I made for another quilt. I was really delighted to be able to use them up.

We are goign away for 10 days and I am taking my sewing machine (cause I can) Now I'm trying to work out what projects to take with me and then getting them organised.

Going Green is going... haven't worked on it since I got back from Yeppoon. I'm up to the borders on it.

Will take Pink Pizzazz to finish it up the backing. I won't take the wadding etc cause I am not going to try to pin it without the big table at the craft rooms. Plus since it is a group project I will get some of the other ladies there to help me pin baste it

I want to make a couple of bags. Both are presents for birthdays coming up so won't go into detail here just in case they read this.

I'd like to work on my POD blocks but they are all paper pieced and will take a fair bit of fabric but not sure what... they would be much easier to make at home where I have my whole stash available So its staying home. 

Amy Gibson blocks. I have printed off the templates I need for the remaining blocks and will take them. It would be awesome to get all the blocks done. 

I'll report in next Wednesday and let you know how far I got with all these great intentions. I might end up chilling out and eating  drinking too much good coffee and enjoying my husband's company too much to do anything. But I have packed it all up so will see how I go

Linking up with


 

WIP Wednesday - what have I done!!

I have been away on my own little sewing retreat this week. Not officially but it is how I billed it for myself.

I have been staying at my friend Suzy's place at the beach at Yeppoon whilst she is away at Presbytery and then at a minister's retreat. I have been cat sitting the magnificent Patrick for her. When Suzy went away a couple of months ago she put Patrick at a cattery and he escaped and was missing for 12 long days. This was really tough on Suzy and everyone who is  her friend because we know how special Patrick is to her. It was a real blessing that eventually he was recaptured not far from where he escaped. I was with her when she got the news that he was found - such a special place to be.

Anyway  - I have had to suffer here at the beach for 5 days :) although I am going home today.

I went for a walk on Sunday in Emu Park including visiting the Singing Ship and the New Commemorative Walkway.

I put this one in so you wouldn't get too jealous just to show you we did get some less than sunny weather... but it was only sea mist and only lasted 10 minutes 

I tried to find a link to information on the Commemorative Walkway but it is so new (only opened this year for Centenary of Anzac) that there isn't much on official pages.This was about the best I could come up with

Accomplished

Zipper Pouches. I sewed 10 of these little pouches (See my stash report here for more details) I was so pleased with how they have turned out although must admit I am still looking for the split rings to thread onto the tabs

I also sewed a biigger boxy pouch. I got the dimensions a bit wrong and it looks a bit weird. I haven't photographed it yet so stay tuned... perhaps in the stash report.

Going Green. I cut rectangles from green fabric and white squares to work on the border for the quilt. I calculated that I would need 118 flying geese which is 236 squares. I've managed to get them all done over a couple of days. Last night I was sewing downstairs and watching tv upstairs. I'd dash down stairs in the ad breaks and sew then go back upstairs when the show came back on and snip and press the completed sides. I trimmed the excess fabric off from behind the flying geese having sewn an extra seam first meaning I had little hst. Tonight my friend Suzy was back home and we watched tv together. I'd finished stitching the blocks earlier this afternoon so just had the final snipping and pressing to do... so no crazy stair climbing in the breaks. (I am sure Suzy and Patrick were both relieved)

The finished flying geese... doesn't look much but there are 118 of them!

The ziplock bag full of the little hsts. I will find a way to incorporate them into the quilt too I am sure. I can feel another border coming on... perhaps a bunch of little pinwheels. I love pinwheels

Pink Pizzazz I bought the borders with me. I had made them last week at Patchwork group. Usually I only work on them up at the patchwork rooms - its my Wednesday project  but knowing I would be away this week I bought it home to get it finished.

The borders seem to be a bit wavy in the photo. I'll have to check that out when I get home. Don't you love my feet in this one :)

I am feeling frustrated because I had planned to bring my Amy Gibson BOM project with me to work on but left the box at home with all the fabric in it. I also planned to work on a bag I want to make as a birthday gift for a friend but forgot the fabric for that too. Its all neatly packed up ready to bring on the cutting table at home. Grrrrr

I also got to hang out with 2 lots of lovely quilting friends. On Monday I caught up with 3 friends from Patch n Peace. I showed them Crop Circles and they were delighted to see it. They especially loved the quilting done by my friend Kym. 

Tuesday I caught up with another friend who used to live in my town but has moved to Yeppoon. It was great

The impetus behind me staying on for these extra days was that I had an appointment to see a specialist today about a small lesion on my cheek. The surgeon thinks it is nothing really but given that it has changed size over the last 6 months - growing then getting smaller - so small now its ridiculous - he has suggested I get it taken off and I have agreed. So I'll be back next month and I can do it all again!!!

Linking up with


 

WIP Wednesday

Another weeks seems to have gone whizzing by. I have been dipping in and out of various projects.

On the home front I have studiously ignored Playing in the Sunshine. Its pinned ready to quilt but I am avoiding it. So much so that I even started a new top. I blogged about it yesterday in "Going Green" I was showing my husband the quilt last night as it was on my design wall. While he'd been out I had cut the set in triangles to complete the on point design. "Aren't you taking the four patches all the way through" he asked. I had made it according to the pattern but his comment prompted me to have another look and think and I decided I really liked his idea. It did mean I had to make another 32 four patches, which also meant I had to cut a few more 2" squares in order to keep the green overtones going through to the edge. It also means I have to cut more white squares..

I was able to cut all the squares from the white triangles and some of the set in triangles. I didn't take the squares right to the edge of the quilt but like the bit of extra that I did do.

I was at Handmade Love yesterday and gave them the hanging towels I had made... well all but the 2 that still need press studs. I ran out, bought some more but do you think I can find the packet with 2 cards of press studs in it. Aggravating. I had planned to finish them off whilst we were gathered together but instead I sewed a casserole carrier. It was so easy that I got it done in a morning.

Came home and then in the afternoon made a boxy zipper pouch for the stall we are having in 2 weeks as well. I am hoping to get a few more pouches made this week. I used a new pattern I found via Pinterest but to be honest if I hadn't know what I was doing I would have been in a bit of trouble. It wasn't really a beginner pattern. I am not sure about the two loops

Today at Patchwork group I worked on putting our latest community quilt together. I got the 9 centre squares together in a nine patch arrangement with white 1.5" finished sashing in between each block and around the outside. I have the borders made but not attached. These are also white - 5" borders with a pinwheel in each corner and in the centre of each side. It will only be 50" square to finish so might have to add something more to it. Thinking I will call it Pink Pizzazz. Or maybe Pink Pinwheels... all my quilts have to have a name.

I am going away for a few days to the coast to mind a cat I am very fond of. Its a rather long story and has lots of changes and ups and downs. Originally I was going to be away with my husband for 5 days but through various commitments we both have we are both going to be away but we are travelling separately and he is going to be gone Friday to Sunday and I am going to be away Saturday to Wednesday. I have a doctors appointment on the Tuesday with a specialist but that is my only commitment aside from feeding Patrick the Cat. I am going to be meeting up with some quilting friends for morning tea and lunch whilst I am there but the rest of the time I am free to do my own thing and that means.... lots of sewing time.

I am starting to organise various projects to take away with me. So far I have

• Pink Pizzazz with the borders to be attached and backing fabric bits that could be put together
• Going Green - attach the set in triangles and then sew rows together
• Birthday bag for a friend to be made
• Heart blocks to be made
• Zipper Pouches for Handmade Love stall to be made

I don't think I am going to be bored. Nor am I likely to get everything done but I can have a red hot go at it!!