Chookshed Challenge #8 Is Complete

Can you believe it.  I actually completed a Chookshed Challenge project within the month!

I did not expect to get this project completed in May, but we did not expect to be back home after only about a week away.  Let’s recap.  You can read my initial post here. 

So, this was the kit I was working with.

As I explained at the time, I replaced the embroidered centre hexagons with vintage doiley pieces.  Despite saying I would include a yellow fabric, it was too strong.  In the end I made the three EPP motifs the same.

The kit used two different background fabrics for the blocks.  They were from fabric that was cut at ten inches square.  I felt that an extra half inch would give the motifs just a smidge more room to breathe, so would use something else.  I have a box of fabric labeled “Pretty”, so I was hoping to find something suitable in there, and I did.

This super soft green on cream was ideal.

I also wasn’t too fussed on the border fabric.  It was a bit too lolly pink I felt.  Therefore I auditioned a few options, all with the striped binding fabric that came in the kit.  

This is what came with the kit.  When I look at it now, it would have been fine.

This fabric was one of the fabrics that came with the kit and was to be the background for one of the blocks.  I liked it, but then realised that it was directional and that wouldn’t work.

I found this one in the Pretty box.  Mmm, that’s OK.  Still a bit too pink.

Let’s try something else from the Pretty box.  Maybe a bit to green.

Now, what if you refold the fabric, which has large florals?  That’s better.  

Next to look for some batting.  I knew I didn’t have sufficient iron on batting, but maybe I could make some frankenbatting that would work, and also use up of some of those small bits.  

It worked….just.  Mum would be proud of my frugality.  She was always careful with fabric usage.  If ever she used a commercial pattern, she would lay it out at home before purchasing fabric and inevitably found that you didn’t need as much as the pattern recommended.

I found a backing fabric in the Pretty box that would work but I’m not that fussed on.  You won’t see it, so a great way to use it up.

So, here it is.  All finished on the 29th of May.  

And the back.

I am so very pleased to tick this one off the list.  It is very “pretty”.  In the end, the only fabrics I used from the kit are the pink and blue in the EPP and the binding, but I am happy with the fabric choices I ended up making.  The other fabrics from the kit have now been added to the “Pretty” box for use in the future.

I am linking up with Deana.  Pop over to see what the other girls achieved.

Now, we just need to have a nice afternoon tea with pretty cups and saucers.

August Stitching Wrap Up

I did have a rather productive month in August. As I stated after the first week, it makes a huge difference when I actually stay home.

Just to recap, I finished the little Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt.  Thanks to Lou for giving me the encouragement.

Then I finished the little Blue House Sampler mini quilt.

I also achieved my One Monthly Goal and Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge by completing the Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt top.  I have decided to quilt it with a pantograph, but I want to try a new pantograph on something smaller first.

I was rather productive with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Completing the split nine patches, a crumb block and four orange Hexy Flowers.  The Fish will be caught up next month.

Which brings me to my Scrappy Hexy Flowers.  This was just to be a pick it up whenever type project and maybe do one in the RSC colour each month.  Well, it has progressed, as I cut out heaps of fabrics, then glue basted them and have actually stitched fourteen flowers this month.  That has been helped by taking them to my stitching groups and joining in on quite a few impromptu Zoom sessions hosted by Chookyblue.  They are the perfect project to work on while chatting away.

I have now completed thirty flowers.  I’ve decided on a project to use them in.  It is called “Bigs and Smalls”.  The designer is Anorina Morris and the pattern was published in the May edition of Homespun magazine.  I have quite a way to go, as there are one hundred and eleven one inch hexy flowers and eight two inch hexy flowers.  They are appliquéd onto six inch background squares.  That should keep me out of trouble for quite some time.  There’s no rush.

Although I am leaving my RSC fish till next month I still made my Batik Fish this month.  I made three versions of the pattern, which all look quite different.  I’m continuing to enjoy playing with this project.

The final thing I worked on was making a block for a group quilt that our Wednesday Patchwork Group are making.  The instructions were rather broad. “Make a 12 inch block, any pattern, any colour.”  Eventually, there was some fabric provided to tie the blocks together.  The blue in the centre and the background come from those fabrics.  I will make a second block using another provided fabric.  The hardest part is selecting a pattern.

Looking back at my goals, I didn’t do too badly.  The only one that was missed was working on my knitted jumper.  It will happen, all in good time.

As for my 15 Minutes a Day, this is how I went:

August = 29/31

Year to Date = 221/244

Sucess Rate = 90.57%

At least I am still above the 90% mark……just.

Now to start thinking about September.  It’s always fun to look forward and make plans.

My Goals For August and Stitching Road Blocks

With the prospect of being at home a bit more this month I feel a greater enthusiasm for setting some goals and achieving them.  Despite it still being a mess, I’m looking forward to playing in the sewing room, and as the weather will hopefully provide a little more warmth towards the end of the month, I hope to be able to sit outside with some hand stitching or knitting.  We’ll see.

So, to start, here are my stitching goals.

ONE MONTHLY GOAL AND CHOOKSHED STITCHER’S GOAL

Once again, these goals will be combined.  Deana has selected the number 3, which is “Laundry Basket Quilts 2023 Spring Mystery Quilt - Progress”.  I’m quite happy for this one to pop up, as it was originally to be my goal last month, but wasn’t portable, so swapped with the EPP hexies.

I am up to the stage of preparing the final border, after a big effort at Scrub Stitchin’ to get all the applique stitched and the four quadrants joined together.  I am planning on making the border from half square triangles.  I have to work out the maths to see what size I will do and if a narrow border is also required. This is a quilt I have enjoyed making and would like to get finished.  Whether it will get quilted this month, who knows.  

My goal is to complete the quilt top.  Anything more is a bonus.

Pop over to Stories From the Sewing Room and Dreamworthy Quilts to see what the others have selected for August.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The nominated colour this month is orange.  I will make my usual split nine patches, as well as a hexy flower.  I’m not quite sure what I will do with my fish this month.  You see, I already have a few orange fish and September’s fish is a set of tropical fish.  I would really like to do one of those in orange.  So, do I just make two fish this month with orange accents, or wait until next month and swap the colours over?  I’m kind of leaning towards the latter. 

BATIK FISH

I will definitely be making my two batik fish, and possibly a couple of extras.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I really hope to get my stats up a bit in August.  My newfound enthusiasm should help here.

My other stitching goals are:

• Work on a donation project - Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt
• Use Monique - I really want to get the little Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt done.  This was supposed to happen in May.
• Knit or crochet something - I would like to finally make a little progress on my plum jumper and my crochet rug.
• Work on a WIP - that is my Batik Fish and the Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt
• Work on a UFO - that is also my Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt - It will really be good to put this one to bed.
• Hand stitching - That little Blue Sampler Stitchery really won’t take much to finish, so that is a goal.  Also, I would like to progress the Natalie Bird Pincushion.  I’d like to restitch the saying and start on the little appliqué. 
• Complete something - Yep, the Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt and the Blue Sampler Stitchery.

My other goals for the month are rather simple.

• Write my Isle of Man blog posts - I really want to get this down before I forget the details.
• Read a book - surely I can manage that this month.
• Try a new recipe - I’ve been rather slack in this department for quite a few months. I have a plan.
• Have a fun day out - I have at least one that I know of.

Now for the road blocks…..  

One of the things that sapped my enthusiasm was hitting a couple of road blocks with my projects.  

Firstly, the little crochet rug, that was going along so swimmingly.  When I crocheted the blocks together the joining came out rather tight and the blocks are not sitting flat.  It looks fine in the photo, but believe me, it isn’t.  As it is acrylic, blocking won’t help, so there is nothing for it but to separate all the blocks and rejoin them by stitching rather than crochet.  The worst bit will be undoing where I wove in all the ends.  Once that bit is done, it will be a very simple process to pull the crochet out.  That may be a job for sitting out in the sun on a nice warm day, or alternatively, for sitting in front of the heater.

The second road block is my Blue Quilt.  When I added the checkerboard border it transpired that the border was just a tad too large.  I gently eased it onto the previous round, but it was fluted.  My grand plan was to then gently ease it back onto the next narrow border, but that didn’t work and it is still fluted.  I need to remove the narrow border, then the checkerboard border.  As the blocks are just one inch finished and it is a checkerboard, I can’t simple remove one block.  I think I will have to separate the appliqué sections from the pieced sections and just trim a smidgeon here and there so that they don’t look too wonky.  It will take time and care, but will be worth it in the end.  I just have to be in the right mood for that one.

The third one I have mentioned before.  My Santa cross stitch ended up out of whack and would look silly, so I have abandoned it.  I may restart him, as he is rather cute.

I don’t want any of these road blocks to prevent them from being completed.  I feel they are a monkey on my back at the moment.  They won’t beat me, especially as they are mostly nearing the finish line.

By the way, I don’t expect these to be resolved in August.

I know my goals for this month are rather ambitious.  I’m looking forward to trying to achieve them all.

Wrapping Up July

It’s time to have a look at what else I managed to get up to during the month of July.

I seem to have been a bit lost with my stitching since coming home from Scrub Stitchin’, back in April.  No real direction and not a great deal of inclination.  Add to that, two trips away and not a great deal has been achieved.  Also, as usual, when my sewing room gets in a mess I feel somewhat overwhelmed by it all, and don’t know where to start.

When looking back at my goals for the month I did so, so.  Some things were a fail, while others were above expectations.

You can see here that my Rainbow Scrap Challenge and One Monthly Goal were both achieved.

I had mentioned that I would be taking my blue stitchery sampler away with me.  I didn’t do any while travelling, but have added a few stitches since we returned home.  I’m not worried, as this is just a little something to work on every now and then.  There is no pressure.

I haven’t touched my knitting.  I have to be in the mood to sit quietly and concentrate for the lace pattern.

I said that my Batik Fish would have to wait until our return.  Well, as we returned a little earlier than expected, that gave me time to devote to them.  On Sunday I traced out May, June and July, as well as made up another two blocks to kind of represent a snapper.

On Monday I selected fabrics and fused the eight blocks down, ready to stitch.

Yesterday, I got stuck in and stitched all of them.  In addition, I hadn’t stitched the eyes on the previous twelve blocks, so I finished them off too.

You will notice that one fish is swimming the wrong way.

There’s always one rebel, isn’t there.  These two blocks were supposed to be the same as the top one.  However, some silly billy traced one back to front.  Not to worry…….until I realised that I had somehow managed to actually trace the head the right way around and it now wouldn’t fit.  Doh!  Fortunately, I had cut this one out first and was able to do a head transplant, and fortunately, the colours still worked.  I had only rough cut out the other head, so I was able to have a fiddle and redesign it to use the fabric.  It turned out surprisingly well and now looks to be a rather happy fish.  I’m amazed how different they now look, just from that one modification.

Here are the first twenty blocks.  I’m so very pleased with how they are turning out.  It is such a good feeling to be back up to date.  I have another sixteen to make to achieve the size that I want.  They look so very different to the bright version I am making. It’s been great fun making use of the various design elements in the batik fabrics.

The other thing that I have worked on is the little Natalie Bird pincushion that I started while overseas, by stitching the little saying. 

One side consists of a panel of half inch hexagons.  The other day I cut them out of tiny scraps that any sane person would throw away and today stitched them together.  

I think my stitchery looks a bit chunky stitched in two strands, so will probably redo it in one strand.  It is only tiny, so won’t take too long.  The other two sides of the pincushion consist of a small house applique and a feature fabric.  I’m looking forward to working more on this, as it is a pattern I have been wanting to make for many years.

As expected, I didn’t use Monique and didn’t work on any donation projects, other than the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

Surprisingly, I didn’t even read a book.  I thought I may do that while away.

Finally, I’d better report in on my 15 Minutes a Day.  For most of the month I just did a the bare minimum each day, and on some days didn’t do anything.  Hopefully, that will change now that I am back home.

July = 26/31

Year to Date = 192/213

Success Rate = 90.14%

I’m lagging a bit behind last year’s rate of 93.42%, so had better lift my game.  No pressure on myself.  LOL

I’m linking up over at Life in Pieces.

So, that wraps up July.  Hopefully, we will be at home during the next month.  My sewing room is still an absolute mess, but in the last few days I seem to have found some of my stitching enthusiasm.  I’m looking forward to deciding what to work on in August.

One Monthly Goal - Another Ta Da - Moda Love Completed

The thing with One Monthly Goal is that I can generally leave it till towards the end of the month to get it finished before the cut off……..as long as nothing untoward crops up.  Fortunately, nothing did this month and I have another completed quilt to report. That’s three for the month, which is a good feeling.

This is yet another UFO, but a relatively new one, being pieced at Scrub Stitchin’ last year.

Having kitted it up before the retreat, I had the centre section pieced on the Wednesday that we arrived.

The next round was pieced by lunch on the following day.

Then it was time to play on the design bed in the caravan to set out the final round.

I had that section pieced by the end of that day.  And that is as far as it got at the retreat, as I came down with the dreaded COVID.  Blast!

I added the final grey border once I returned home and that is how it has sat for the best part of twelve months, as I still wasn’t all that confident to quilt such a large quilt on Monique.

The wish to take the completed quilt for show and tell this year was the push I needed to finally quilt  and bind it.   I love it!   It is such a dramatic quilt and rather different to my usual style, whatever that is.

I used the “Scrollworks” pantograph with a dark grey thread, so that it just provided texture without detracting from the bright fabrics and am really happy with how it has turned out. It has finished at 76 inches square.

I’m linking up over at Stories From the Sewing Room.  Pop over and see what the other ladies have been working on.