WIP Wednesday

Its a wonderfully cool wet day here in my home town. The wonderful is mostly cause its wet. We are very dry at the moment and so the rain is very appreciated. Unfortunately its also the 2nd and final day of our local show and so not so great for going to that. In fact I didn't go... stayed home and sewed all day. Our church was paid to do the parking at the show (ie be up at the car park directing cars into rows) and I did go up for 3 hours yesterday and help there but I didn't go inside at all. I didn't enter anything this either. We were away till the day before the quilt entries had to be in and I couldn't get my head around it.... That plus most of my finishes this year have been given away as gifts.

So... lots of lovely sewing weather ... what have I been working on this week.

Onya Bike. I got the back for this finished. It (the backing) ended up being 104" x 112" - HUGE. The quilt should finish at 96"x 104". Now I will have to get it pinned and quilted. I am not sure I have enough batting left on the roll. I need to order another roll asap. 

Birds in the Air Twilters block swap. Twilters are having a block swap in honour of our member Frances Dowell who is releasing her first novel for adults, which features the Birds in the Air block. We are swapping the blocks amongst ourselves as well as making an extra block for Frances. When her book is released, Frances will be doing a book tour to some quilt groups and bookshops and will be taking some quilts she has made based on the birds in the air block, along with the one she will make from the Twilters Blocks (we hope.)

So today I finally got down to making my blocks this week. I had a few hassles; I miscalculated in my cutting and ran out of fabric but was able to find some more that would do the job. It is always a hassle when instructions are given for one block but you need to make 42.  Some are a little undersized. I don't know why. When signing them I stuffed up a couple of times as well... one time I wrote my maiden name. I've been married 34 years next month so not sure where writing it came from... I just added my married name to the end (I do use both as my facebook ID so maybe that is why it popped up)

A Lovely Year of Finishes - APRIL

This is not my Blogging A to Z posting. That will be the one before or one after it

At the beginning of this month I knew I had a really busy time coming up so I chose a very simple project, a small one that I knew I had to complete, for my project for A Lovely Year of Finishes.

I chose the mug rug that I had to make for a swap as my project. I chose to cut into my very special Australian Wildflower fabrics for this since it was going overseas to a lovely Twilter. I fussy cut the cream background fabric to showcase 5 different Australian wildflowers.

The backing fabric featured gum leaves. I loved the fabric and so did the recipient (I can't find the photos I took so these are ones that Gretchen took and put on Twitter)

Now I have to decide what I am going to do for my ALYOF project for May

WIP Wednesday

Coming to you on Thursday - at least in Australia its  Thursday

If you are visiting me for the A to Z challenge then the post you are after is either the one before or the one after... but feel free to stick around and read this one.

I have completed a couple of small things this week. I completed a block for something I can't tell you about or show you pictures of because its for a surprise for someone

I completed a mug rug for a swap I am in organised by Sandi of Quilt Cabanna Patterns. I can't show you pictures of that either cause she hasn't received it yet either. I only posted it Tuesday and its got to go to the USA from regional Australia. And my swap partner Gretchen From 120 Blocks admits she reads my blog so definitely no reveals here.

I also completed the project I was pattern testing. It is also something I can't show you as its all very secret. But its really sweet.

I did get block 13 of the POD QAL completed and its NOT secret so I can reveal all. Its the" Monster Book of Monsters" book. I might add some buttons as eyes. Other people who made it did that and it makes it look a bit more of a face.

I don't think I will report in next Wednesday. Fixit Guy, Fangirl and I fly out to Malaysia tomorrow night for a week. I won't have a chance to get anything done between now and when we go and unless I take a hand project with me there won't be any progress on any of my works until after we get back

The other thing that I have been working on which is quilting related but not actually fabric is the Blogging A to Z Challenge. It involves blogging every day in April apart from Sundays. Since we are going to be travelling for 10 days (we leave today get back late Saturday week) I needed to get my posts written ahead of time and schedule them to go up in my absence. (We may or may not have reliable internet access whilst we are away)

Once we get home I have one day and then am back teaching full time for a week. That is going to be a shock to the system after not working full time for a few years. So wanted to get them done too. My hidden OCD kicked in and I couldn't just write the ones that I was going to be away for... I had to work on them in order. The net result is that I have them all written.

Scheduling them was a bit of a hassle. My time zone on my blog was out. Fangirl got that sorted for me. Still not having any luck. The scheduled posts were not going up and I was having to do them manually. Then Fangirl looked at it again for me and yes it was operator error. I was scheduling the posts ok, getting the time set properly but I wasn't hitting publish. My bad. So the Blogger was treating them as drafts still. All good now though and they are going up no problems. Glad we got it sorted before we went.

Part of the challenge is also visiting other blogs that are part of the A to Z challenge and commenting on them. There were over 1800 signed up at the start although the numbers are dwindling as the organisers do check the sites and if you aren't posting or its obviously an advertising portal etc then they are deleted from the list.

Check out the linky party if you are interested in discovering a few new blogs

Linking up with

 WIP Wednesday WOW- WIPs on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social