Wip Wednesday

I've had a very busy week working on lots of different projects

I have finished off both the top and backing for Scraptitude - Scrap in a Box. I ended up adding an extra border to the top to make it big enough for a single bed. Then I pieced the backing using up  as many of the excess triangles I had accidentally cut for the top. I used up as many of the excess bits as I could. I had a lot of fun doing it and took far more time than I should have but ... well it was fun and the end result was pretty pleasing too.

Yeah a crap photo.. but I no longer have an outside line that I can hang things off so it has to get pinned to my design board. Yes... should close cupboard doors and use a camera not my phone

Our Patchwork group has decided to do a block swap - raggy hearts. It was my suggestion as I had missed out on doing it this swap at our retreat. The swap won't be till September but I decided to get a start on and have made over 60 of them already.

The mystery quilt from the Retreat weekend has also been under the needle. I made some more of the half circle units and extended the circle motif into the border. Its now 66" square. I didn't end up using the half square triangle units that were left over from the half square triangle units in top. The top is still on my design wall and I think its done... but we all know what happened to Scrapitude-Scrap in a Box.

I've started working on putting together some blocks at our Patchwork Group rooms. At the end of last year we did a black and white and red block. We only got 9 blocks and one of those was wrong but by putting the wrong one in the centre it becomes a feature. I have a heap of left over half square triangle blocks from Sunburnt Zebras - 80 of them. We also have a few small half square triangle blocks from the big blocks in the quilt. My friend Lindy and I are working on coming up with a design for the borders. It will be our project that we work on up at the rooms. After we do it there is a pink and white one we have to finish off too.

At Patchwork today one of our members guided me through cheneleing process. I'd bought a cutter and a brush several years ago but had never got around to using them. I made used a panel with daisies on it for the top and several pieces of old sheeting for the under layers. It worked well although when I brushed it up it worked too well... have heaps of threads and they are still coming off. I am not worried if I have totally wrecked because it was all old fabric I have had for ages. I am thinking of making it into a cushion if it works ok.

This is just a small bundle of what I brushed up

My last sewing efforts for this week has been to finish off a project for my daughter Fangirl. She is in a swap to do with super villains and she had designed and cross stitched a piece that she wanted me to make into a wall hanging. I framed it with a lovely blue and gold fabric and then did a very simple quilting design on it - just stitched in the ditch around the design and the a simple swirl on the border. If you are interested in the design then check out her Etsy shop... links in my sidebar

     

WIP Wednesday

Having trouble getting my photos off my phone. Not sure why I can't but once my daughter gets home she might be able to help me.

Anyway quick update with only a few  photos

Scrapitude
Have worked on this and over the last few days I have got the blocks together with the lattice like sashing. I think it looks great. Next I am going to add some other borders but haven't worked it out yet

Its the season for mystery quilts I was on a weekend retreat - 4 days worth and we had a mystery quilt there too. We had clues Friday Saturday and Sunday. I managed to get all my blocks made before The retreat ended Monday. Since getting home I've managed to get the blocks together. Now to work out borders for it too. I would like to continue the circles into the border - finish them off. I also have some hst fro the flying geese units I could incorporate some how too. Working on this one too

Linking up with

 

WIP Wednesday

Time for quilting has been a bit short over the last few weeks. Boyo was home over Easter and whilst I did some sewing whilst he was here it was more limited. Then we were packing and getting ready to go to Malaysia for a week at the same time I was working on getting my A to Z Blogging Challenge posts written before we left so that they could go up while we were away.

One way and another time was short.

Then we got home and I went back to work full time for a week. That was a bit of shock to the system when I haven't worked fulltime for a few years. Whilst I had some time to sew in the evenings I needed to get my sewing mojo back up and running again... and I didn't have the energy.

So... finally on the weekend I had the time to spend sewing. I was delighted to get  back to Clue 4 Scrapitude. This month's clue saw us putting the blocks together. They have turned out really well.

I was on a roll. On Sunday I tackled the Block 14 of the POD challenge and Monday Block 15 and Tuesday Block 16! All ready for Block 17 to come out Thursday.  

 

 

I then decided to have a go at quilting the Blue Pinwheel quilt that I have put together for our quilt group. I was really pleased that I got the whole top done Tuesday evening, and got the binding machined on. Now I have started hand stitching it down.

 

Today I was off to our quilt group for the morning and I was able to work on the Bluebird quilt I am making for my niece Judy. The embroideries were designed by my sister in law Christine and they were stitched by my sister Joy. Judy is her daughter. I got the blocks trimmed up and have started to stitch on the sashing so I'm making good progress.

 

Its great to be back into my sewing AND now I have almost finished ALL my April goals. All I have to do is get the rest of that binding stitched down and I will be done!. Yay. Go me

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and WOW -WIPs on Wednesday

        

WIP Wednesday - what I have been up to this week

I've worked on a variety of projects this week.

Pouches
I completed 6 little zipper pouches over the weekend. I blogged about them on Sunday in my stash report. I took them along to our craft group "Hand Made Love" and one of the other crafters bought one right off the bat! She also asked me about making her a bag to carry her folder in. I am a bit reluctant to do a commission - she wants it bigger than one I had there and in the same colours as the pouch she bought. But that will take almost a whole fat quarter of fabric just for the front of the bag - and the fabric she likes is rather expensive. It was some of the fabric that I had bought whilst on holidays in South Australia last year. So I am not sure if I will take her up on her commission. I will see how things pan out. This craft group was meeting fortnightly but they have now decided to meet weekly. I am not sure if I am willing to commit to that regularly. I might just sew at home....

I also completed another denim jeans bag for the stall. That was the last of my jeans shorts left over from my quilt however someone gave me a bag with another 5 cut off jeans in it so I can keep on sewing should I wish to. I am thinking I will leave it till after the stall at the end of the month and see if there is any interest in them before making any more.

POD
I completed the next block in the quilt along... block 9 and the next one is released today. Some people are already sewing their blocks into rows (5 blocks to a row) but since I've been planning on embroidering book titles on each block I haven't sewn them together yet but I might give in and sew them into strips just to see what its going to look like. This last block had a snitch in it and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I did have a few  hassles with the block this time... of my own making. I did a lot of reverse sewing on the first book I sewed but got it eventually.

Elephant Parade
I managed to catch up the two blocks I was behind last week and to get all the eyes sewn on - including the elephants which I hadn't realised were eyeless. They are also tail less but there are no tails in the patterns. I am not sure if I'll add some tails now or if I will wait till I sew the blocks together and then embroider some tails on... or perhaps add some plaited tails. That might look good and add some dimension to the quilt.

Sorting my scraps.
My scrap basket was once again over flowing... piled well up. Time to get sorting. I'm going to have to do a bit of ironing as well as the scraps have been shoved into the basket so are really scrunched up. Its going to take me awhile to get through it all

Patch n Peace Mystery Quilt
As I started to sort things last night I remembered that I have a mystery quilt to prepare for, for a retreat I am going to in June. I could cut for that as I sorted my scraps. I do have a pile of cut scraps already so figured that I should go through them first and get out the sizes I needed so as to not specially cut sizes I may not need. Turns out that I had plenty of 1.5"  3.5"  and 4" squares cut but needed to cut some 3.5" "bricks" -rectangles that are the size of 2 3.5" sewn together (6.5" cause you take off .5" seam allowance) and also some 7" squares. The bricks I was able to cut from 3.5" strips I already had in my stash but a lot of the 7" squares I had to actually go to my stash to cut as even in my scrap basket I didn't have large enough pieces - well didn't have sufficient of them. It was also important to cut from a variety of fabrics.

Blue Quilt at the club
Today I was able to get the centre of the top completely finished. I am going to add a narrow navy border but then that is it. Well then I have to put the back together and baste it and quilt it. I have spent a good bit of time on this quilt. The blocks were contributed by club members in our BOM challenge. Lindi, a fellow club member and I made a few more that we needed to complete the design. Lots of half square triangle pieces were left over and we made a mass of pinwheels from these, of varying sizes and these we used in the border. The border had to be pieced carefully and painstakingly and it took me a couple of weeks to get it done but at last I got it finished. Everyone is really pleased with it. It was designed to be a charity quilt but now we have decided to keep it for at least a year as next year the theme for the Queensland Patchwork Quilting Guild is blue and white so we will display it at our exhibition at the gallery.

Scrapitude: Scrap in a Box
The next clue for this challenge has been released. It looks really complicated and scary. I've only read it through but I am super nervous about it already. Better get my act together though and have a go. I am not sure how I will go with the April clue as it is due to be released just days before I fly to Malaysia. I get back from that and then head off to Melbourne and then back from that and my sister flies in for 10 days stay. She is a quilter though so she will be happy to sew with me... when we aren't tripping about. Still ... that isn't till April and May. I shouldn't be borrowing trouble should I!! I've realised that I have made a huge mistake and used up various things I needed in previous steps. Anyway - have cut more and ready to start some sewing.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, Wips on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social 

Monday Musing - Scrap in a Box - 2015 Scrapitude Challenge

Yesterday I decided to jump in and join the Scrapitude 2015 mystery quilt - Scrap In a Box. I am a month late starting but I have now cut all my pieces so can jump in and do 2 months this month. I might even get step one finished before the second clue is released... have 2 days (by USA time). I worked on cutting the pieces last night and this morning. I had a huge sleep yesterday afternoon so was wide awake till 1AM (and then lay awake in bed for an hour after I went there) Strangely enough we didn't walk this morning (Fixit Guy has come down with a stomach bug as well so he is out for the count)

The cutting instructions are on Sandy's blog Quilting for the Rest of us here and the clues will be on Charlotte's blog, Scrapitude Quilts. January's clue is here. Charlotte actually does this mystery quilt for her guild hence the clues are released monthly. That just might suit me!

Today, with Fixit Guy out of action (so we didn't do the house work together as we usually do) I got to spend the day sewing. I cut this morning and this afternoon sewing. I got Step 1 completed... in time for Step 2 to be released tomorrow (well Wednesday our time in Australia)

Units All done!

This year seems to be the year of challenges for me. I'm doing the POD challenge and there is another I have signed up for (can't recall what... hasn't started yet) and now this one. Its all good though. Enjoying it hugely.