May Stitching Progress

It is time to have a look at all that I achieved on the crafting front during May.  You can pop back here to see what my grand wish list consisted of.

Firstly, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks were made.  Easy Peasy.

My Chookshed Challenge was completed.  Yay!

I have now joined in with Betty’s Rainbow Quilters and completed the nominated block for the month.  You received some feature fabric, in this case the batik centre piece and the small teal squares, and make the block following the pattern provided, in the colours requested and return it to Betty to be put into a quilt.  A bit of fun, but not too onerous.  This block is very effective and I look forward to seeing how the quilt comes together in the future.

During my short time at the sewing machine, I have managed to piece a further ten pairs towards the Bonnie Lass leader and ender quilt.  Only a squillion more to go.

I have made good progress on the crochet rug.  This is the first time I have seen it laid out.  As soon as I finish this ball of yarn, I will stop making it any longer and do the decrease rows to fill in the corner.  That will take a further two balls of yarn.  Following that, I will do a few rows of something around it as a simple border.  Watch this space.  I’m eager to get it finished, so Mick can use it and I can work on something else.  

I didn’t make a start on the hexagon panel and I have made no progress on any of the projects that I took to Scrub Stitchin’, and that doesn’t matter in the least. This is supposed to be fun. 

I managed to complete 15 minutes of crafting on 27/31 days.

119/151 days = 78.81%

I only managed to empty one thread spool. That is better than nothing.  I may have something to do with spending very little time at the sewing machine.  Who’d have thought.

Now to think about what to do in June.

Scrub Stitchin’ - Part 4 - What I Worked On

“Stitchin” is a key part of our time at Baradine, however, the amount completed varies considerably between participants.  This year I spent quite a bit of time before the event preparing projects with the intention of being a bit productive.  Of course, I did not expect to get everything done, but to have a variety of projects to work on.

The first thing I brought out on Wednesday was my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  A nice quick and easy way to ease into the retreat.

Next, I started work on the appliqué on the bright fish blocks.  Rather than complete each block, I chose a thread colour and used that on whatever blocks required it.  I did manage to complete one before being ready for a change of project.  After working consistently on an appliqué project last year, I knew that this year I would give myself lots of breaks in this project.  The plan went well, and I just did bits and pieces randomly throughout the retreat.

The next project I started was the Secret Garden Quilt.  I had this cut out and ready to stitch the centre strip into the blocks.  That didn’t take too long.  

I had to wait a while for the design wall, before I could play with the layout, so went back to my fish.

Once a part of the design wall was free, I started yet another project, the One Yard Wonder Quilt.  I worked out the placement of the patches for the panel.

It didn’t take too long to stitch them together and then add the remaining pieces to format the quilt top.  The alphabet fabric, found at a neighbour’s recent destash garage sale, really sets it off.  This was to be a donation quilt, but one of the girls asked if she could buy it, as she has a baby quilt that she needs to make soon.  Yes, she could have it, but no she couldn't buy it.  In the end, she gifted me a charm pack she had that she wouldn’t use.  I think that was more than fair, as she still needs to get the backing and batting, quilt it and bind it, so she will still have made a lot of input into the gift.

The design wall became free, so it was time to play with my Secret Garden blocks.  I was determined not to overthink it and they came together rather quickly.

Once again, it didn’t take too long to get the top together.  This will be another donation quilt.  The turquoise sashing fabric was a “free to a good home” item at last year’s Scrub Stitchin’, so it was great to use it this time.  There isn’t enough of the fabric to do an outer border, so this is as big as it will be.  I still have to decide on a backing and binding fabric.  Hopefully, it will be finished before too long.

Time to play with some more fish….

Then it was time to bring out another project.  This time the “Five and Dime” quilt from the fabric I was recently gifted.  I had just brought strips of the fabrics that I had cut, so stitched them into their sets and cross cut them into their blocks.  Once again, time to play with the layout and not overthink it.  As there were only eight different fabrics there would have to be duplicates in the rows.  I can live with the layout.

This was on Saturday afternoon and I knew that there would not be time to get them all stitched into a quilt top, so packed them up in their rows to complete at home.  Once joined, there will be a narrow and wider border added.  Once again, hopefully soon.

Then it was back to my fish.  I had hoped to get them all done, but the two skeletal ones still have to have their bones stitched down and the eyes have to be done on all of them.  However, overall, I am really pleased to have made such good progress.

In addition to all these, I did start to use my leader and ender pieces I had cut towards my “Bonnie Lass” quilt.  I ended up getting forty pairs joined, which was a good start.  This will be a long term project.

So, all the prep I did before the retreat really paid off, as I did manage to get quite a bit of stitching completed and best of all, there was very little thinking or matching of fiddly seams involved.  The challenge will now be to get them all completed.

I also took along my Chookshed Challenge project, but didn’t make a start on it.  Fingers crossed I still get it done this month.  

A New Leader and Ender Project

When there are lots of things that you should be doing, what do you do instead?

Why, start yet another quilt, of course.  However, this is a bit different to the last few.  

I have really missed having a leader and ender project on the go for the last couple of years, so decided to do something about it.  I’ve had a couple of ideas swimming around in my head, but this was going to take the least effort to bring to fruition.

The pattern is “Bonnie Lass” from Jen Kingwell’s book Quilt Lovely.  

As you can see, there are lots of the same sized pieces that will be perfect as leaders and enders.

I got out a couple of tubs labeled “Small Scraps”, as well as the left overs from when I made my Trail Mix quilt and made a beautiful mess.

After a couple of hours of playing in my happy place, I had 80 sets of blocks ready to go.  Now, that isn’t even a quarter of what is required, but should keep me out of trouble at Scrub Stitchin’ and for a bit longer. When these get low, I will have another cutting session. There is no rush for this, so I will just have them sitting beside my machine and one day I will have a bonus quilt top.

Meanwhile, they are tucked away in their pretty little tin.  From memory, I used this tin when I started the hexies and they outgrew it rather quickly.