WIP Wednesday

Having been away from home for 10 days, and whats more away from my sewing machine, I haven't done any patchwork this week. No surprise there

I have been busy with some handwork though.

I took 4 embroidery squares away with me to work on and I am very pleased to say that I got them all done. Yay me. Now I have to sash each block and then work them into the wall hanging that they are going to be part of. Fangirl and I are working on a joint project for the local show.

 As well as these 4 embroideries I have to print out a couple of photos to include in the quilt. These will be pictures of my great uncles who were both killed in action at Gallipoli. Tracking down the special fabric that you can feed through the ink jet printer proved harder than I thought it would be. I got some in Sydney on the second stage of my trip away but had to get A3 sheets (and a pack of 10 at that) which I can cut in half to go through my printer. I can now do lots of photos for quilting projects!!

Whilst in Melbourne I bought myself some knitting looms and got rather hooked on making beanies. I got 3 finished whilst I was away and there is another on the loom. I made 2 from regular knitting yarn and one from recycled t'shirt yarn (t shirts cut into continuous strips, then the strips are stretched which makes them curl over on the edges to make a thick yarn type stuff) The one I am working on is also from the tshirt yarn. 

I modelled 2 of the beanies on social media. I don't think they are a particularly good look on me. The red and white one (made from the recycled yarn) is really rather ugly. Not sure what I am going to do with it. It was fun to make but... butt ugly best describes it. I am teasing my sister with whom I stayed in Sydney that I am going to give it to her but if I do that I might not ever be allowed to come back and visit her.

 

I got home tonight and was too tired to get stuck into sewing straight away but hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get busy working on the Bluebird Quilt. My hope is to get it finished in time for my sister (who did the embroideries and who is coming to visit me next week for a week) to take home with her.

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Final WIP Wednesday for 2014

New Years Eve is upon us and it's time for one more WIP Wednesday report

This week I have been working on a new project. It's been one I have been contemplating it for a year or 2. Fangirl made her dad a set of Doctor Who figures a for Christmas 2 years ago. They were designed to hang on a tree. I decided to use them on a log cabin tree that I had just completed. I also completed an advent hanger with little pockets for you to put little gifts in. I decided to use it to it the decorations for the tree in and the Doctor Who figures fitted pretty a a perfectly. trouble was that there weren't enough figures so Fangirl made some more over the next year and gave them to me when I visited her in the UK (where she lived for 2012-2013) she gave them to me. I wrote a blog post about the tree, the decorations and the advent pocket here

The wall hanging I made was in creams and green and was based upon a quilt that my friend Dawn had made.

 I had to draft the pattern myself and it took a bit of doing working out how many pieces of each size I needed. I was pleased with how it turned out but to be honest... It didn't really suit s Doctor Who themed decorations. So I went searching around for the calculations that I had made but I couldn't find them. Just thinking about redesigning it made my head ache

Then on a Facebook page I am s member of someone posted a picture of a tree wall hanging made from small square.


 I decided that I would make it the same size as the log cabin tree. I calculated that I was going to need just under 1600 1.5" pieces. The tree would be in blues and the background whites with a black stem. I wasn't going to go with the star or the presents... or the sleigh.

Firstly I sorted through my scrap bins for all my 1.5" squares in blues and whites. I also got out all my 1.5" strips in those colours. I pulled out 3", 4.5" and 6" strips. I sewed strips together sliced them across and built up strips. I also made a heap of half square triangles in blue and white.

I built the tree in groups of 6 strips 38 squares wide. Each strip had white and blue squares with the blue In the centre Starting with 2 half square triangles to be the peak I increased the row by 2 blues in each row. The 7th row i decreased the blues by 4 and then built it out again for 6 rows. I made a total of 5 sets this way. The last row the blue stretched right across the 38 squares

The trunk of the tree was made from black squares. 4 squares wide. I made it 10 rows. Looking at it I might have made the trunk a bit long but it's pretty good

Its not quite finished. I will put a border on it. I will probably do a tonal white 1' finished border on it first and then dark blue 2' border and will bind it in the same colour.

Apart from the Tardis Tree as I have called it, I have also done a bit of embroidery. We drove into the city to have a look at couches, shoes, clothes for a wedding we are off to. Its a 3 hour trip in and out and I did a bit stitching whilst going in and out (in between snoozing) and before it got too dark.

Its almost midnight so nearly the new year. Hope you are all having a great time where ever you are celebrating. I will do my New Year goals in another post.

  

WIP Wednesday. Vanishing Hours gets some attention again

I started to write a WIP Wednesday report last week after I got home from our big trip away but I didn't get it finished as I didn't have photos... still don't of some of the projects so will just do a recap of the last 2 weeks

Our last week of our holidays we were mostly in the Flinders Ranges, which is in South Australia, about 5 hours from Adelaide. For the first 7 weeks or so of our trip temperatures were on the whole cooler than usual. Of course as soon as we headed inland the temperatures rose somewhat! We were blessed that we could do our exploring and walking in the morning and relax more in the afternoon and then go for a sleep in the resort pool.

I managed to get some sewing done too. Our patchwork group has started a Block of the Month. The lady running it had chosen several months in advance and I had been able to take the patterns with me (she chose them off the internet) Whilst we were camping at Flinders Ranges I made up several blocks but I had misunderstood and thought that all the blocks were going to be in blue and white and so had taken a pile of blue and white scraps with me to make them. However once I had made them I found out via an email that the next block was supposed to be in pink and white... oops. I took the blocks I had done (2 of the first month and one for the second month) to patchwork today and found that I wasn't the only one to have made the second block in blue and white as well. They can go into the back.

I worked on my Christmas embroideries on the long journey home. We did the trip in just 2 days - which was pretty huge. Stitching the redwork patterns passed the time for me. I got 3 completed and started the 4th. I have worked on the 4th one during a meeting or two since we got home and whilst waiting for appointments so that has made good progress.

a finished embroidery block

Pam from Hip to Be a Square podcast and blog shared a great pattern she had got from Craftsy... a free download. It was called Easy Christmas Table Runner by Sew Today Clean Tomorrow I went to Craftsy and downloaded it as well and have made two of these gorgeous table runners. I can only share one of them here as the 2nd one is a gift for someone who may read this blog. The 2nd one I made for my daughter Fangirl. She recently moved into her first home of her very own... she bought a townhouse just before we went away on our camping holiday. She has a lovely big table that it will look beautiful on. I gave it to her today and she was very happy with it. I forgot to take a photo of it but she kindly took one and messaged it through to me so I could put it on my blog. 

  

I made it sort of reversible ... only I stuffed up the alignment on the back so it didn't end up straight but still... I was pretty happy with it and Fangirl is happy so that was great.

At Patchwork today after I had quilted the table runner I got back to work on Vanishing Hours. I used the big design wall we have there to work on the layout of the quilt





We tweaked a it a few times and to be honest... I don't think this was the final layout but pretty close. Once I had decided I labelled each block... A-F across the top and 1-7 down the side. Before I left to come home I had sewn all the blocks into rows and tonight I got some of the rows stitched together so I am making a bit of progress


I forgot to say... when I sat down at my Janome Horizon, to sew the when I first got home... it seemed so HUGE having only had my little Gem to work on whilst away. I am slowly getting used to it again although at Patchwork today I was back on the Gem

Now that I am no longer driving around the countryside I don't have the gorgeous photos of my wonderful country to give you as eye candy. I will salt this blog with some of the photos I haven't shown you occassionally

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