Getting Sidetracked

I decided it was time to go into my sewing room and get started on this month’s plans, but first to do a bit of a tidy up……well, not much, just to at least get to see my cutting mat and get the ironing done that was on my chair, so that I could actually sit at the sewing machine.

In the process I notice this little pile of ten fat quarters.  They came to light a couple of months ago when I was looking to find a plastic container to put another project it and I noticed them, all alone in a tub.  A bit of a waste of space.  It reminded me how pretty they are.

Their history is that I purchased them on a stall at a local market quite some years ago for next to nothing.  They were obviously the remains of a fat quarters pack and when I look at them I can see why they were destashed.  They are nearly all very large prints.  The range is “Secret Garden” by Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller.  After having a little google, it appears the range of forty prints were released in 2011.

So, what to do with them?  It needed to be simple, with large blocks to showcase the prints, but I didn’t just want to do squares.  Yesterday, I noticed this pattern in my folder of ideas for donation quilts.  I liked that idea, so tweaked the measurements to suit what I had.

Fortunately, all the fat quarters were just over 21 inches wide and 20 inches long, so I could make it with blocks that finish at 10 inches.

Now to find a suitable sashing.  White or cream would not have enough contrast.  I got out my tubs of solids to see what I had that would suit and have sufficient yardage.   Nothing really worked, then I spied a fabric in the tone on tone tub that Brenda had destashed at Scrub Stitchin’ last year. Yes, the colour was perfect. There was 36 inches in the piece and best of all, it was 54 inches wide.  While I had my shower, I did some maths in my head and I reckoned that there would be enough of it if I just had sashings and no outside border.  I double checked, and yes it would work.

I could get four blocks from each fat quarter with next to no waste.  That would be 40 blocks, or five by eight.  Eight rows would be too long, so I decided to go with seven rows and then use the remaining five blocks on the back.

Today, I got everything pressed and started cutting.  After having checked all but two fat quarters yesterday to check their length, the first one I picked up to cut was only 19 inches long. Grrr.  Oh well, I could still get two blocks out of it.  One other was cut crooked, so I could only get three from it, so just as well I had worked on having some spares.

Everything else went swimmingly, and I now have a quilt cut and kitted up to take to Baradine.

The only left overs are about six inches of the teal, which may still need to be used, plus some tiny teal squares.  The fat quarters only had a shaving top and bottom and the selvedge off the side.  The bigger chunks may still get used on the back, along with the extra teal.  Time will tell.  I think this is a time that I want to use up every skerrick of the fabric, so will do something with the selvedges and whatever else ends up being left over. 

It will all be a bit of fun.

Looking Back at 2024

I can’t quite believe that we are already at the end of another year.  It is time to have a look back at what we have been up to over the last twelve months.  This is something I have done for the last few years and I do enjoy having a quick read over them and seeing how we have fared.

At the start of 2024 I made a post with my wishes for the coming year.  Let’s see how things panned out.

As usual, I set some goals for my stitching and joined in with some challenges.

Once again, I joined in with the One Monthly Goal challenge.  I missed achieving my goal for a couple of months, due to travel, but caught up by the end of the year.

A new challenge this year was the Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge arranged by Deana.  This consisted of nominating and numbering ten projects or tasks. Deana would then select one number at random each month and we would work on that project or task.  Having only ten projects gave us a couple of extra months to make up for any time we were unable to complete the task in the nominated month.  I’m pleased to report that by using that extra couple of months I was able to meet all my goals.  I’m looking forward to joining in again next year.

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge featured again this year.  I worked on a few projects, but completed none.  

Firstly, I continued to make the split nine patches I had started in 2023.  

I also made a few crumb blocks and started a few hexy flowers.  

What ended up being a lot of fun was working on the Fishy Business Quilt blocks in rainbow colours.  Sadly, I fell off the wagon in the second half of the year, so they are an ongoing project.  I hope to make two donation quilts using these blocks.

The Rainbow Fish were such fun that I started a second version of the quilt using batik fabrics.  I’m loving how this is turning out.  Once again, it came to standstill in the second half of the year, so is ongoing.

I did manage to make quite a few donation quilts.  Some went to a local charity that supports victims of domestic violence.

One was used as a raffle prize at the church fete.

There were a couple of things that didn’t progress how I had hoped, one being the Blue Quilt.  I need to remove a couple of borders, as they were flaring, and adjust those borders. They are the checkerboard border you can see here as well as a narrow border that was added after this one.

I have become somewhat obsessed with hexy flowers since autumn, when I made a couple of random ones as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This morphed into making the Bigs and Smalls quilt pattern by Anorina Morris.  I have stitched 111 one inch hexy flowers and 8 two inch hexy flowers.  I am currently in the process of appliquéing them to background squares.  It has surprised me how much I have enjoyed the process,  It has also meant that other projects have been put on the back burner.

I started a little stitchery when we were overseas and rather than just adding a simple border, I had a play and made a little wall hanging.  It was a bit of fun.

This year I again played along with working on something crafty for 15 minutes a day.  It really motivates me to get at least some little thing done most days.  The hexy flowers were a perfect project.

This is how I ended up:

December = 26/31

Year to Date =  336/366

Success Rate = 91.80%  That’s a little bit down on last year, but I think anything over 90% is definitely a win.

Being a bit of a nerd, I set up a spreadsheet with some goals.  This is how I went.

Complete 24 projects = 25

Quilt 12 quilts = 12  (I had hoped to achieve more here, but Monique has not been playing nicely for the last few months.  Once she is sorted, I should be able to make some good progress - and complete some more UFOs.)

Complete 12 UFOs = 9 (I had listed 24 UFOs to choose from)

Complete 12 donation projects = 10

I started 25 new projects during the year and have completed 16, so there is the start of next year’s UFO list.

I am really enjoying the social side of stitching, continuing to attend my patchwork group on a Wednesday and the U3A group on a Friday morning.  These groups mean that I get much more handwork completed these days.

Participating in the Chookshed Stitchers Zoom sewing sessions continues to be a favourite way to spend time.  It is such a lovely group of women.

Finally, visiting Baradine for sewing retreats is the best fun.  This time with a second retreat in the spring being a bonus, as well as a free motion quilting workshop at the craft shop in Coonabarabran.

What else did we get up to during the year?

Things started out on a sad note, as we farewelled our cat Joey.  He was sixteen and his time had come.

Travel is always a feature.  The main trip this year was rather unplanned and impromptu.  We decided on the Friday afternoon to go to the Isle of Man for the TT motorcycle races and had everything booked that evening and left on the Monday morning!!! I still haven’t got around to blogging about most of the trip.  I may still get to it.  I do hope so.  Anyway, we had a great time while there and in England.

We had quite a change with our caravan trips too.  After the ute started to give us grief, we made the decision to buy a small truck to pull the van.  Enter “Frank” the Fuso truck.  We are very happy with him.  He is shorter than the ute and Mick finds him surprisingly zippy for driving around town.  The vision from the cab is terrific, being so high and, best of all, there is no worries about being overweight when towing the van.  He has already done quite a few miles.

Our first trip was to Baradine for Scrub Stitchin’, when the above photo was taken.  

We then took him to Canberra in May, so that we could see the Rajah Quilt, the Ancient Egypt exhibition, both Parliament Houese and Mr Squiggle.

His next trip was to Queensland, where we visited Dalby, Bell, Gayndah, Cania Gorge and then on to Rockhampton to visit our friends.

We have also taken him to Forbes and Lake Cargelligo.

And finally, Braidwood for the Airing of the Quilts.

As usual we had quite a few days out.  Quilt shows and open gardens seemed to feature a lot.  We went to the Blue Mountains Quilt Show, the Rajah Quilt Exhibition at Canberra, the Sydney Quilt show and the Braidwood Airing of the Quilts.  We visited open gardens at Cowra, Bathurst and Crookwell.  

Meanwhile, we are also enjoying just being at home.  Mick has become really involved with his lawn bowls.  Not only is he playing twice a week, he goes down and practices on a couple of afternoons and has started taking an active role in looking after the grounds. 

I have continued to read some books, but still not as many as I would like and tried quite a few new recipes, but once again, not as many as I would like.

So that wraps up another year of retirement.  Life is definitely good.

Stitching in December

I just had a look at my goals for this month and think I did rather well.

I’ve already posted about the Three Yard Dog quilt that was my goal for the Chookshed Stitchers and One Monthly Goal, and the Christmas decorations.  

In addition, I completed a long term UFO, being a little quilt to donate to the neo natal unit at the hospital.  I made its matching one a couple of years ago.  Can you spot the boo boo?  I couldn’t until I was in the process of quilting the cross hatch.  I had cut the second row from the right half an inch too wide.  Oh well, it will stay as it is.

I also added the final two borders to the Dr Seuss Quilt.  It is now waiting in the wings to be quilted.

Remember how I sorted out my sewing threads.

Well, at the same time I actually got my overflowing little scrap tub that lives on my cutting table and took it out into the kitchen and sorted the scraps by colour.

The scraps were then put in their designated coloured box.  That looks better.

While on a roll, I went through Mum’s embroidery threads that now live here and pulled out all her DMC threads.  Any that were on cards are now in the containers with mine and any duplicate skeins are put aside, so that, like my sewing threads, when I run out of a colour I can shop the duplicates first.  Add to this, all the odds and sods that Mum has and I think I have a lifetime’s supply.

My final project start for the year is a kit that I purchased at Baradine at Spring in the Scrub.  I made a promise to myself that I would make it between Christmas and New Year.  I’m pleased to report that I succeeded.

My one comment on this make is “What a Cow”.

I had my first go a spray basting.  It went well, but made the machine needle sticky, so had to keep wiping it down.

The bag stiffening is really stiff, like a hard felt.  It was incredibly difficult to manoeuvre under my machine.   Even to quilt it was rather difficult. Maybe, foam such as Soft and Stable would be easier.

Also, when stitching the sides to the base, there were three layers of batting and eight layers of fabric.  My machine really struggled with it.  However, we got there in the end.  It is definitely not my finest work, but finished is better than perfect.  

After all the trials and tribulations of this project, I like it very much.  It is really pretty and will be good for taking my projects to my stitching days.

Lastly, my hexies.  Yes, I did manage to get all the remaining hexy flowers stitched.  A long session on Zoom one day certainly helped.  I then proceeded to get them all glue basted and have already appliquéd lots of the one inch hexies onto their background.  Tomorrow will be a Zoom day for the Chookshed Stitchers, and I plan to have a very long sewing session, so should get quite a few more done.  Getting the quilt top made before Scrub Stitchin’ is looking very promising.

It’s Finally Done

After heaps of delays and loads of frustration, the Three Yard Quilt using the novelty dog fabric is finished.  What a relief.

It is definitely not perfect, but it is a donation quilt and will still keep some kid warm.  I’m just pleased that it wasn’t a special quilt or I would have been really disappointed.  

The quilting has lots of imperfections, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.  Monique is playing better, but still not quite right. After more googling, we have one more thing to try, but that will wait until after Christmas.

In the meantime, I am just happy to have this one over the line.  I will just be quilting donation quilts for the next little while until everything is running nicely again.

I had started this quilt at Baradine in September and it was my Chookshed Challenge project for that month.  This was the final goal to be met from the ten that I chose for the challenge and I’m stoked to have ticked all the boxes in the calendar year. The only projects that weren’t completed were the Laundry Basket Quilt, but the goal was only to progress the quilt, so that was fine, and to work on any EPP.  I worked on my hexies, so that was fine too.

This was my One Monthly Goal for December as well, so happy to also tick that box.

Now, I can concentrate on Christmas.  There’s two days left.  Plenty of time.