A flimsy and a finish

Another flimsy-I have had these string/crumb blocks pieced for five years!  I sewed them onto squares of old cotton sheeting and quilt covers, so this will be very heavy.  I will probably tie it with buttons as the seams are so thick in places. I have about a  kilo of old buttons, so I may as well use them!

A finish: baby quilt for Alexander, who arrived two weeks ago, I had a cuddle today and feel all warm and fuzzy!

The pile of flimsies to be quilted has been growing in the corner of the spare room, how do they KNOW!?????  They are going to have to be moved or be covered in black fur!  She has her own quilt, one of my trial free motion pieces, on the largest chair in the living room, I hoovered the layer of fur off it this morning and its just not right now! Miaw, psft!

More bow ties with spun centres.....

700......

800 and counting this month!

Which fabric for the sashing for Sisters Choice?   the cotton reels have all the right colours, perfect, but however narrow I cut it there isn't enough!  I am not buying more fabric, it has to come from the stash, so I have gone with the burgundy bamboo instead.  Probably a better option really, although the reels have all the colours it would end up very 'busy'.  I'm going to set these 'dancing' like the baby quilt.

Linking up for

patchworktimes.com design-wall-september-23-2013
quilterinthecloset building-blocks-tuesday
www.freshlypieced.com wip-wednesday 
lizofdandeliondaydreams Brit linky Thursday 

123 blocks

 Another flimsy, borders on, about 80 x 100.  This was a really quick make, it used up 200 of the four patches and a big chunk of the red border fabric I bought in a sale was perfect.  The cream border was sale fabric too.

15 minutes play to find a use for the crumbs, scrappy stars.  I didn't enjoy this process, so these will go in the orphan bin.  To fiddly, too much trimming!.

123 blocks-how to set them? Didn't realise there were this many!


That's two sets of blocks to consider settings for now.

Bits and pieces

 I finished the rough sewing on of the scraps for the beach rug yesterday.  I'm going to back this with some old  heavy cream curtains, no wadding, then quilt it densely to hold down the roughly appliqued pieces.  As its used and washed its going to get more rustic and  soft and frayed.  Another flimsy finished and ready for quilting, there's a backlog! This used up crumbs and random bits of polyester sheeting, everything recycled  instead of thrown out.

This months total for bow ties is 600 and counting.......

The yukky green dilema

Lesson learnt, yukky greens don't improve by putting them with nice greens, it makes the whole mess look yukky!

I tried inserting some red into the layout-nope, that didn't help.  I tried three layouts and finally found one that's not so bad.

Original layout, pattern pivots round the centre (only half here)

Second try, even more random greens tightly packed, ew.

Ah, better,  this is about 1/4 size, rows zigzag down the quilt, a stronger look  that I can enhance with quilting

 I'll put the rest of this together tomorrow, that's another flimsy ready to go. I have sent my son this picture and the red and green one from the last post, so he can choose which one he wants, before I start quilting anything. 

Now, what to do with 239 nine patches!  This was a leader and ender project that got out of hand!

 I used a few for the baby quilt I made last month.  There are enough here, with enhancement, for a double.  Some thought necessary here.

Another 100 bow ties  with seams spun, that's 500 from this months sewing so far (more to spin).

Also been working on

The most comfortable place is propped up in bed watching Quiltcam archives or The Quilt Show episodes.   It's been cold this week, so that's been rather snug!

Rethink

A while ago I started using up all my pre-cut 3 7/8" triangles and 2" squares to make one of Bonnie's designs for my son.  I got the blocks made up, but I really don't like it when it goes together as I have used too wide a variety of greens, all of them in fact!  It just looks a mess to me.   I can use these component blocks up (enough for the whole quilt!) by mixing them with some strong reds later. 

Meanwhile, he needs a quilt, particularly as he has moved into a rather cold flat with his girlfriend.   I had about three hundred cream/green four patches left from the above sewing, so I picked out the 'greenest' ones, went to my cut strips for 3 1/2" reds and cut a few more.   It's Bonnie's pattern, you can find it here.

These blocks came together really fast as the four patches were already made.

Someone wouldn't pose, she just kept wandering about on the trial layout! 

I am going to put  a 2 1/2" cream border and a 6"  green and red outer border on  to make the quilt larger.   I'm wrestling with webbing it at the moment! I have the perfect dark red backing fabric, with bamboo fronds on.

Bonnie's scrap users system has come into its own recently, the last two projects have had me dipping into my cut pieces to finish something.

I also had to try out a whole block using the pink snips from sisters choice, fiddly as each square finished at 1 1/2", but I like it.

Linking for the Brit Linky Thursday at Dandelion Daydreams

'Orange and Blue' flimsy, 15 minutes play fabric making

Finally, I got this put together. I laid out he pieces over a week ago and wasn't going to pick them up and 'file' them again. 

I love that 'orange', it's a great print and a really authentic colour.  This will finish at around 74 x 92". The 'made' fabric element will need some heavy quilting to stabilise it. Another one ready for layering. 

Linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Over excited again

If you are a regular reader, you know I have trouble throwing away even the smallest scraps.  These are the snips from Sisters Choice blocks I made a while ago....... some of them I used for pink bow tie knots.

I almost threw a bag of pink and a bag of cream snips out this weekend.   Whilst I'm doing the bow ties, I thought, with the 2" cream squares out, I'll just sew a few pink corners on, then I will HAVE to do something with them one day someday.

I was browsing blog posts, and there is was, all halo lit and pink round the edges......

Lainee, one of my followers over at A Bit of a Novice Quilters Life posted in June about her mini design wall: on it were multi-coloured windmill/star thingies.

I immediately had to try it out......and its going to work!

Yay! Thank you Lainee!  As long as I keep the pinks all the same in a block, and fairly dark, the overall scrappiness of the creams and the star points won't be too overwhelming.   I'm not going to get sidetracked though, this was just the experiment for later on.  This will probably end up as a baby quilt or a Linus quilt (whichever happens to come a long at the time of making!). 

I'm still plodding through the last of the bow ties on the machine-another 100 spun:

that's 400 from the current sewing frenzy so far.

New facebook group

Hi all, I have a new Facebook group page, you can find me here !  

You are welcome to drop by to chat all things quilty and exchange ideas.

300

No, not really!  I got your interest though!

Three hundred bow ties with spun  centre seams.  With those I have already bagged, I recon I have about 700 done now.  More still on the machine and more sets ready to sew up. Overdoing it again!

Reading: just finished

I'm sending this off to another Bookcrosser. then I will be reading

 for the same person, both are tags for the 'Wishlist Tag Game'
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/10/488977?&page=1

So may bow ties!

Here is the first  batch of bow ties  waiting to have the seams spun, a TV job this weekend.

I like the odd mismatched ones the best, can't wait to see them in the quilt-there aren't many of them but they will add interest-here, orange bows, black knots. Sore fingers form all the smoothing!

I have kept the bow ties on the machine all week for spare moments-this is the second huge batch!  There are a lot left to do: I have had my fill of 'just sewing' this week, so the project will go back to the standard leaders and enders status for a bit when this batch is done.  Nice to have one of these projects ready to go when the 'just sew' bug catches you.

The next leaders and enders project will be Bonnie's Perkiomen Daydreams. This should keep me going for a bit. Years, in fact!

Later this weekend I'll be putting the sashings on 'orange and blue' which is still laid out in the spare room (link to previous post).  I'm going to set the blocks in the same way as the blue and red baby quilt, sashed with the orange highlight fabric.  I'll also be finishing the binding on the baby quilt-Baby Alexander has arrived!



 I don't know if I will get this done in time for a Christmas present, as there is so much else to take priority, but at least the top will be ready to go.

Linking up for the .maybushstudio brit-thursday-sewing-linky

Thank you Mark

Mark donated a box of Oakshott cottons and some ric-rac from his late wife's stash for me to make charity quilts.   

 The coloured cottons will be great for Linus quilts 

Ric-rac for tactile elements in the quilts for my colleagues sister, who works with disabled children. I'll it as crumb-catcher edging on these two flimsies....

Newsflash! Leaders and enders take over British womans weekend!

I wanted my plastic storage box back in the kitchen. Nothing for it, Those bow ties have to be sewn!

This week: free motion

This week has been filled with finishing off projects: by the end of next week I will have four finishes, once the binding is sewn down!   I have been free motion quilting into the wee hours.

VE1 series table mat quilting detail

VE1 series table mat quilting detail

Cot quilt detail, lollipop trees and border

Now its hand sewing binding for a week (I like doing this, strangely!)

Linking up for FMQ Friday 
and WIP Wednesday