What I’ve Been Stitching

Here it is, three weeks into the month and I’m finally sharing what I have been working on.  I seem to have been doing a bit on this, then a bit on that, and not completing anything.  At least I have been doing something.

Firstly, the crochet granny rug has slowly been growing.  Here it is when the big ball of yarn I bought was completed.

I then bought an extra ball of purple yarn and dug into Mum’s wool stash to find a couple of other colours that would work.  I have since bought a variegated mauve to add as well.  I have used up the three smaller balls, so the rug should be finished fairly soon.

Next, I have completed the red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. There aren’t too many more colours to go this year and then I can start the fun part of playing with putting the block together.

The other main thing I have been working on is the Laundry Basket Spring Mystery Quilt.  All of the sections have now been revealed, but I won’t have it finished for a little while yet.

I was a bit nervous about piecing Week 4.  Firstly, I had to decide on fabrics, but the main thing that worried me was piecing the diamonds.  Finally, I bit the bullet and got stuck in.  Oh my!  I have never had so much trouble piecing a block.  Jack the Ripper had a fair old work out.  In hind sight, I would have cut most pieces over size and trimmed them down.  I had to make four blocks and they all ended up a little under size, but I thought I would be able to fudge them into the final quilt. 

Week 5 was much easier, but a bit more time consuming, as we had to make twelve hexy flowers, using 7/8” hexies.  Not your usual size.  I forgot to take a photo of them as they were pieced.

Week 6 was the final week.  The work in this section was quite extensive.  Firstly, you had to appliqué eight of the hexy flowers onto background fabric.  We had a lovely warm, sunny day earlier this week, so I sat in the backyard and stitched them down. The temperature reached 20 degrees C in our backyard that day, which is rather incredible for this time of year.  I was making the most of it while it lasted.

Next, you had to cut a lot more background pieces and then piece together all the components into four identical quadrants.  I didn’t have sufficient of any one background fabric, so have gone with a scrappy version.  Having said that, each quadrant has the different fabrics placed in the same positions, so a controlled scrappy background.  It doesn’t look anything at this stage, but by the time it is finished it will be beautiful.  Next, I have to applique the final hexy flowers and then there are stems, leaves and berries to be appliquéd.  Quite a bit of work to go. 

I am going to put the Laundry Basket Quilt aside for a little while now, as I still have not made a start on my One Monthly Goal of working on the centre block of my Blue Quilt.  That will take a little while, so needs to be my priority this week.

I did work on one other, rather unusual project.  We have bought some reflective shade cloth to put over our little potting shed.  The length was six metres, and we only needed three metres.  The two ends of the length came with a hemmed casing, but I needed to stitch two more casings once the length had been cut in half.  I didn’t want to run it through my sewing machine, so it would be backstitch by hand.  What thread would be the best?  It needs to be strong and also weather resistant.  In the end, Mick suggested using braided fishing line.

Not the usual thread spool, rather Mick’s fishing reel.  I was also able to sit in the warm sunshine to stitch this.  I still have the casing on the other half to complete.  It will then just sit in the shed to be used when this one wears out.

Mick has installed the completed shade cloth on the potting shed, so it should be a bit cooler in the summer and protected a bit more from frost in the winter.

So, that about sums up all I have been doing.  Not a real lot to show for it, but most importantly, I have managed to maintain my goal of 15 minutes of stitching each day.

My stats to date are:

15 minutes a day/week = 7/7

15 minutes a day/July = 21/21

15 minutes a day/2023 = 191/202

Success rate = 94.55%

Now to get moving on my OMG.

I am linking up with So Scrappy and Life in Pieces.