At Long Last - I Finally Have a Flimsy

Whenever I have started a more detailed quilt I have given myself a two year time frame to complete it.  This has worked fairly well in the past, as once the quilt top was completed I would send it off to my long arm quilter to work her magic and then bind it.

However, my most recent more detailed quilt has been in the works for nearly three years and today, finally, it is a quilt top, so still not completed.

I bought the book shortly after it was released.  There is no date on it, but it was definitely prior to 2019, as I made a wall hanging from the book that year.  I knew I wanted to make the featured quilt and started “quarantining” blue fabrics in my stash for future use.  Natalie Bird was selling the complete set of EPP papers at the Sydney Craft Show one year, so I bought them and added them to the “kit” as well.  I bought a final few fabrics in early 2022.

I made an actual start in June 2022, in readiness to take with me on our three month caravan trip.  While travelling, I worked on the EPP hexies and the next EPP section and did some stitcheries on the appliqué blocks, even though the appliqué had not been stitched down at that stage.

Gradually, I made progress over the next little while.  The hand stitching was great to take along to the two stitching groups I had joined.  The last of the Dresden appliqué on the final border was completed in March last year.  What!  I didn’t realise it had been sitting, waiting patiently, for that long.

It was then that I hit a road block and it has taken me until now to finally get going again.  The problem was that the checkerboard and appliqué round was too long.  I had thought I could ease it and the next border, but it didn’t work.  I wondered why it was out so much, but I now realise it is because I had pressed many of the seams open, rather than to one side.

Finally, last month I removed the offending rounds and this week reduced the length of the checkerboard round. The process wasn’t as bad as I had feared. 

Yesterday, I reattached the checkerboard round with no flaring and today added the final two borders.  To say I am happy to finally get to this stage is an understatement.  It will now sit patiently again, until I work out how I am going to quilt it.

Oh, and it will suit our bed rather nicely, once it is finally completed.

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.

Famous Last Words

Remember back when I wrote my “Looking Forward to 2025” post?

Well, one paragraph read:

“I’m also forgoing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge after several years, as I have lots of blocks made, but no completed projects. This year I would like to focus more on getting those older projects finished.”

That rings true in most parts, but having looked at my Split Nine Patch quilt, that I have also listed as Number 8 in the Chookshed Challenge, I reckon it would benefit from another twenty blocks.  The easiest way to do that is to join in on RSC again this year and make a couple of blocks each month.

The colour for January is Pink.

The only downside, is that unless Number 8 comes up at the very end of the year, I will have to switch it out of the Chookshed Challenge.  Now, that is not exactly a problem, as I have plenty of other projects that I can slot in to replace it.  We will just have to see how things pan out.

Anyway, in the meantime, here are my two pink blocks for January.

I will now also add the RSC logo to my side bar.

Chookshed Stitchers Challenge and One Monthly Goal Completed

 My goal this month was “Laundry Basket Quilts 2023 Spring Mystery Quilt - Progress”.

This is where I was up to at the beginning of the month.

Finally, after I had finished the little Blue House Sampler hanger I could turn my attention to this quilt.

My plan was to add a narrow border and then a half square triangle border, but first to work out the maths.  Ideally, I would have liked to have added three inch HSTs, but that would mean only a half inch narrow border, so in the end it was a one and a half inch first border and then four inch HST.  

I pulled out this selection of fabrics that I thought would work.

They looked nice all cut out ready to go.

I marked them all out ready to stitch and started pinning them together when I realised I’d had a brain freeze and pinned them right side of the neutral to the wrong side of the coloured fabric! Doh!  Thank goodness I woke up to myself before I had stitched and cut them apart.

After I made them and started to lay them out I thought the overall effect was a bit drab, so removed a few colours and replace them with something a bit more vibrant.  Here is my final selection, ready to stitch together.  Much happier.

So, here she is, all done, in the poor indoor night time light.  I had just enough of the narrow border fabric left over from the pieced centre.

And outside in the daylight.  I’m really pleased with how it looks. All fabrics were from stash.

The next big decision is whether to quilt it now using a pantograph, or wait until I have the confidence to custom quilt it.  At this stage I am leaning towards a pantograph to just get it done and being used.  Mick has commented that it would be a nice springtime quilt on our bed, so let’s see how I go.

Anyway, for now the challenge has been met, as I definitely “progressed” the quilt.

I’m linking up with Stories From the Sewing Room and will link to Deana in a couple of days.

So Much for Will Power…….

I was going to be so good this year and only use my stash.  Well that lasted for one whole month.  I suppose that is better than nothing.  Right?

So, I had to pop out to Spotty yesterday to buy some more thread, which is definitely allowed, and I just happened to see some new low volume fabrics that would work beautifully in scrappy backgrounds.  I have used quite a bit of my stash of that style of fabric, particularly with pink and blue, so I succumbed and bought some, as they were 40% off.  Otherwise they would have stayed on the shelf.  Sadly, they didn’t have any of the little heart design in blue, but you can’t win them all.  They will get used at some stage or other.

I also noticed this watery looking fabric, which will be perfect for the background for some of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge fish blocks.  Yes, I know, so much for only using stash.  At least it will be used, and not just added to the stash.  That’s my reasoning anyway.

Then these two batik fat quarter bundles jumped into my arms at 50% off.  Why?  I don’t sew with batiks.  Well, my brother loves his fishing and I reckon the fish quilt I am making would be ideal for him for Christmas, but not in the very bright colours I am using on my present version.  A more muted version in batiks would be more appropriate.  This wasn’t just something I thought of while in Spotty, but when I saw the bundles I decided to go ahead with my idea. 

I’ll probably need to add a few more colours into the mix for both the background and the fish, but I will try to still keep my batik fabrics to a bare minimum.

I think I will try to prep the fish appliqué for the first four months and then take them to Scrub Stitchin’ to do the actual stitching. Appliqué is such a good project to work on there.

I suppose after that little lot I had better get stitching.

What Have We Been Up To?

It has actually been a rather quiet time around here, which we are both enjoying immensely.  The weather has been lovely.  We had a couple of days with some rain, receiving about 30mm over a few days.  Not flooding like some places, so just nice for the garden.  The temperature has been reaching the mid to high 20s C.  That is about to change over the next few days, with it supposed to be reaching the mid to high 30s C.  Not so nice.

In the sewing room I have continued to work on the Just 2 Charm Packs Quilt Along, having completed the next 10 blocks.  That means all the blocks are now made.  They aren’t due yet, but there is nothing better than being ahead, rather than behind the eight ball.  I won’t work on this any more this month and will hopefully have the quilt finished in February.

A few more crochet squares have been worked on while watching the cricket.  This is where I am up to now.  I don’t know how big I will make it, but they are a great project to pick up when you just need to make that 15 minutes.

I haven’t worked on my Blue Quilt for a few months and I really want to get this one to the finish line.  The next border consists of the appliqué blocks, which I have already completed, and a lot of checkerboard blocks.  The pattern just says to join width of fabric strips and cross cut.  That would be easy, but I have lots of smaller pieces of fabric I wish to use and which will also make the end result scrappier.  Obviously, this takes more time and is somewhat fiddlier.

I’m making progress, and a great big mess.  Hopefully, they will be finished this month.  If not, at least I will have made some good progress.  The next border that needs a bit of work will be the half dresden plates, which will all need to be appliquéd down.  I really want to get started on that, as it is something that I can take to my stitching mornings. 

I have continued to work on my What Sweet Delight stitchery at my patchwork group mornings and am very confident that it will be completed this month.

And I can report that I have worked on something for at least 15 minutes every day in January……and am having a lovely time doing it.

In other happenings. Mick has continued to work on the fit out of Rosie, the Suzuki Sierra. He has fitted a solar panel, deep cell battery and hooked up a 12v fridge. It is looking good.  We took it for a short drive last weekend and it went well.  There are no creature comforts and the air conditioning is via winding down the window.

I haven’t done a garden update for ages, so will try to do a separate post soon.  In the mean time, here is yesterday's harvest.  We are getting that many beans every day, so loads are being frozen and some given away to neighbours.  We are also getting one, if not two zucchinis each day, so they are being given away too, as well as making zucchini slice for the freezer.  Our tomatoes are not doing well at all this year.  We think it may have something to do with the sudden extreme heat in early December.  Lots of people are having the same issues.  There are a few self sown plants coming up in garden beds, some of which have come up in compost that has been put on the garden.  We are leaving them in place, hoping that they will provide some fruit.  Funnily enough, the healthiest one is in the flower garden by the front door.  This is the first cob of corn we have picked.  We haven’t grown corn since moving here, as we haven’t had the room.  Now that Mick has extended the vege garden, we can plant more variety.  The egg plants are just starting to have fruit large enough to pick.  We will probably have more than we can use of these too.

Last night we had a lovely dinner of homemade chicken rissoles, accompanied by all our own veges and our homemade tomato relish.  It was very good and that cob of corn was just perfect.  We just cook sliced egg plant on the barbie or in a frypan and it is so lovely and creamy.

A common sight at this time of year has always been the Christmas beetle.  However, in recent years they seem to have disappeared.  We heard on the radio that there is now a program where you advise of sightings, so researchers can work out where they are and where they have disappeared from.  Mick found a beetle yesterday and we thought it was a Christmas beetle, as it was the same size.  However, the dark stripe on its back didn’t look right.  After a little Google search, it turns out that it wasn’t a Christmas beetle, rather it is actually a Cowboy Beetle.  We’d never heard of them.  They are an Australian native and live on nectar, so not a pest species.

On Monday I had a day out at Orange, travelling up with my friend.  She is picking and selling beautiful organic blueberries.  We had a lovely time.

Of course, we are enjoying them for our breakfasts.

To finish off, we went on a walk after dinner a couple of days ago and enjoyed this sunset.

I’m On a Roll

Remember yesterday I was having fun with the Crossroads Quilt.  Well, I’ve continued to play today, as other than a haircut, I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything in particular to do.

Firstly, I did make those last eighteen blocks. That’s all fifty six completed.  Happy dance!

I forgot to mention yesterday that my machine started playing up.  It started to keep running, even when I had taken my foot off the pedal.  I hoped it was something simple, as it wasn’t all the time.  Anyway, we pulled it apart and there was a bit of fluff and dust in there, but very little considering the machine is 20 years old.  I now have a better understanding of how the foot pedal works.  I wish I’d thought to take a photo of its innards.  The bit that pushes in when you put your foot on the pedal has a bit of wire in it that compresses two springs that activate a plastic white bar thingy, which I think then triggers something electrical.  (How’s that for technical.) Well, that white bar thingy was pretty sticky, so we gave it a good wipe down.  Touch wood, it has been fine since then.

Back to the quilt…..

So, I thought I would just lay the blocks out to see how they looked.  Remembering, I had pressed half the blocks towards the cross and half away from it.  I cannot express enough how pleased I am that I made that decision right at the start.  Anyway, that did govern which blocks could go where.  I just lay them out, as they came, with just a little consideration to keep colours separate.

This is how it ended up, with just a couple of blocks shuffled around.  Very random and I didn’t overthink it.

Now, how to piece the top…. would I attempt to web it or just join in rows?  I web individual blocks, but have never successfully webbed a whole quilt top.  I decided to compromise and web it, but in two sections.  The top four rows and then the bottom three rows and then join the two sections.  I’m happy to say it worked like a charm.

Did I mention that it is so good that I pressed the blocks the way I did? Yep.  Well, I’m saying it again.  It came together so very easily and that would not have happened if they were all pressed the same way.

Time to lay it out and have a look. I barely had it spread out and someone had to come and plonk on it.  Honestly, Joey!  

Time to hop off.  No, he was quite happy there.

Really!!! He did have to check that all parts were to his satisfaction.  I’m happy to humour him, as he is now sixteen and starting to show his age.  He is having trouble with his teeth and with eating.  He needs some extra love and pampering these days.

Finally, here is the top in all its glory.  It is straight.  The photo just shows it in a distorted fashion.  I love it.  It is such a happy looking quilt.  This one will be a keeper.

Now, to hunt out something suitable for a backing.  Do you think I could possibly get it quilted before Christmas?  Oh yeah, I also need to decide on a quilting design.  I don’t think it will be done by tomorrow.

I’m Having Fun

Christmas is still a week away and all my main sewing plans have been completed.  Things are under control just enough (I hope) to let me have a bit of a play.  This project was to be started in the week after Christmas, while Mick was watching the Boxing Day Test Cricket, but I’ve been a bit keen to get started, so I did.

The project is The Crossroads Quilt by Treehouse Textiles.  I’ve had the pattern for quite a while.

I first saw this quilt at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2021, when Georgina shared her version and I fell in love with the simple effectiveness of the design and thought it would be something I would like to try.  After finding the pattern I thought I would make it in vintage inspired fabrics, including some from Mum’s fabric stash, some dating back to the 1970s.  

It has been on my “To Do Very Soon” list and this was brought even further forward when I discovered the two packs of “Contemporary” fabric ten inch squares that Anni Downs had curated at the garage sale I recently attended.

These are the fabrics that were included.  The quilt has 56 blocks and a background and cross can be cut from a fat sixteenth or ten inch square.  I just needed to add some more from my stash.  That was fun.  Some fabrics have been around for a very long time and used years ago, some have been around for a very long time waiting for the perfect project and some are relatively new, from the big destash that Chooky and I bought a few years ago.

The first job was to cut and pair up the fabrics.  Some are a great match, some not at all.  It is truly scrappy.  I just cut the fabrics into bigger, overall sizes, rather than the actual block pieces at this stage as many of the fabrics were directional or had designs that would look best in the proper order in the blocks.  I had them spread all over the dining table and kitchen bench…..then I had to go out, so Mick had to carefully work around them until I returned home. Oops.  Just as well he is patient.

At this stage I batched the blocks up into sets of six, as I have six mini design boards and figured it would be best to work on six blocks at a time.

I thought that would be all I would get done before Christmas, but I was still eager to start so picked my first pile of blocks and cut them into their smaller pieces and set out on the design boards.  I can’t quite believe it, but I actually considered the pressing order before I started doing any piecing.  Would I press towards the cross or away from it?  When I thought about it, if they were all pressed the same way, they would not nest when I joined the blocks together, so it made sense to press half of the blocks each way……but which blocks, as I hadn’t worked out a layout yet?  The answer was simple, I would press one set of six one way and the next set of six the opposite way.  The blocks are to be fairly random, so surely I can make that work.

So, I reckoned if I pieced one set of six a day I could have them all pieced by Christmas.  Well, I’ve been enjoying it, and on a few days I have piece two sets, and at this stage I only have three sets to go.  I’ve worked out that, now that I have a routine, I can get a set of six blocks stitched in just on an hour.  If I get a wriggle on, they will be finished in the next couple of days and I may……just may…..have the top pieced before Christmas.  If that is the case, then all I would have to do would be quilt and bind it after Christmas.  I haven’t thought about a backing yet, but I’m sure I could find a little something here…..as if there was any doubt about that.

An incentive is always a good encouragement for me and this time the incentive is that I would like to do a jigsaw, but only once this quilt is finished.  I have several lovely ones here and have been wanting to do one for ages, but there always seems to be a reason to put it off….and we also only have one table.

Wish me luck and I will keep you posted.