Charity quilts update

I have one more bound and ready.  This one is backed with a donated duvet cover . 

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And the next, layering in progress....

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The last three flimsies of the current batch have been webbed.  

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The webbing of my bow tie quilt  is in progress...

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A little bit of cutting-I found this block a while ago, loved the sample and have been cutting the strips for a while. It looks complicated though it is only HSTs and four patches from 1 1/2'' and 2 1/2'' strips. 

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And of course, MORE binding. It has been a week of record temperatures in the UK, so sitting with a quilt on my lap hasn't been an option for most of the week! 

I got this silver thimble in a house clearance. It is marked 'James Walker the London Jeweler'. 

A little bit of research told me that they were given as a free gift with wedding ring purchases.  It came from the house of a 90 year old bachelor!  Maybe he had a romantic disappointment. They used to make thimbles in much smaller size increments, this one fits me perfectly.  Shortly after, I bought another antique one in the perfect size from Ebay.  

Decluttering and mending

I started another ten stitch blanket this week for Project Linus UK (well, 20 really-it grows quicker!)

I have a lot of random green yarn scraps, they may as well go to make someone warm rather than be binned. It will be my YouTube  watching project for cold winter nights. 

Sewing this week has been clothing repairs and a few 3" finished leader-ender broken dishes blocks...

...and a LOT of draw cleaning and reorganisation! I have five empty drawers now that I must not fill up with NEW projects! 

I found lots of  half made four patches left over from Perkiomen Daydreams-this was intended to be a large quilt, however I wasn't happy with the accuracy, so it ended up as a cot size flimsy. 

I need to find something to do with several hundred navy four patches that finish at 2". 

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!

Distraction 2

I sewed more sisters choice sets yesterday to get to this stage...........if you sew in the same order every time they act as their own leader/ender project  in a neat string ready for snipping and pressing.  Then I sew the borders on, working on two blocks at a time.

I sewed these yesterday using  snips for the tie knots.  I'm trying to move the colours to orange and red so I don't end up with too many pink blocks.  I didn't need to do any of these as leaders, it really IS a distraction. 

I now when I have trimmed, I sew the  knots onto cream 2" squares, pair up with the coloured squares, and the sets go in the box ready to be sewn later as leader enders when they are needed as such.

Sorting out the pile of snips wasn't too fun.  That's why I'm sewing them up as I get them now.  These corners are around
1  1/2", just the right size.

A slight distraction

What to do with the waste from Sisters Choice? Each block generates 8 snips of pink and 8 cream. 

 This is is an odd block, I like these.  And see the deliberate mistake? 

All those triangles on the border strips get snipped off.

Light bulb moment.   Leaders and enders........

 

....for bow tie knots

A little try out...seems fine to me once I worked out how to get the irregular snips fairly straight by lining up with the opposite edges.

Happy days!  Reuse and recycle.  The bow tie quilt may end up with a lot of pink in!

A few more blocks completed, I have done around 100 now.

An I have even managed to use up a random FQ that I thought of as irredeemably ugly-see that pink and brown diamond fabric?  Just shows you have to find the right quilt for it.

Weekend roundup

I sewed up 224 blocks for 'the big green one'

It will be a while before I piece this top though. 

I made about 50 bow ties too.

I undid machine quilting on this three times!

Stock take for Darwin's Flower garden:

I have all these rosette sets spare!

Looks like I did  it again......

Sniffles antidote

A few acid orange bow ties...........


........and a Ginger Man

Almost a flimsy.....

Mini moths ironed and pieced into four strips..........

 

.............and about 20 bow ties made in the process.

The top is ironed and ready to smooth out and measure  to find the final cutting dimensions of the mini moth border sections: I should be layering this next week!  

Looking forward to my first machine quilting experience.

Cozy Sunday

I counted the bow ties, 270 done.  I will need about 1100 for a quilt top. 

Today I will be ironing mini moths and making up the border for moth in the window.  Once that is on I need to wait for son and daughter in law to choose the backing from my stash.  It may be a while, as we have a few inches of snow: those of you from the UK are familiar with the ridiculous chaos this causes!  Its not cold out, really quite pleasant: soft falling snow, no wind, perfect, if it HAS to snow.

This weeks read is my first Iris Murdoch, on Kindle.  

So, I'm set for a cozy day in. The freezer needs defrosting but somehow it's lost its urgency........

How to tie you bow ties

I made up two layouts of bow ties, to see which arrangement I like-these will form the two sides of a big cushion cover.   I'm no where near ready to put the quilt top together.

I like the grid pattern-because I have used scrappy 'knots' that don't match the bows, I think the pattern is stronger with the grid.  

Huge peg, small hole

I can't see how this is ever going to fit into that little space under the machine to quilt!  

Watch this small space.....

I have been thinking about tying patterns for 'Moth in a window' as an alternative if it won't squeeze in there.

I seriously considered an 820 when I was looking for a new machine, but they hadn't been out long and they still had problems.  I found two suppliers who wouldn't sell me one so I researched on the net and found the first issue batch needed to go to the breakers yard!. I wanted to try one at an exhibition, the retailer had two there, neither of which they could make work to strait stitch.
That pretty much decided it!


Border for the moth quilt...... I sewed the odd lengths of 2" strip greys into two lengths, enough for a scrappy look to go round the quilt twice.  Boy, do I ever overdo my requirements for every project.

 That will need bringing into line or I will end up with dozens of sets of blocks/strips  that will only make half a quilt.  I have 40  complete moth blocks and about four hundred 4 patches and more grey strips left, as well as over 40 sewn up inner moth blocks!  I will have to make something out of them or make a mini quilt that will become part of a backing. .

I thought that small grey and cream moths would be too plain, so off  to the the 2" squares box-a row of these all the way round, in between the  two grey border strips.......all the creams are pre-cut too.

I had originally thought grey and purple, but  I think all purple.  They finish at 3". Slowed down a little by having to pencil the sewing line, I'm all over the place! There is something familiar about this process..........

Yesterdays bow ties! I made way more than I had estimated.

Moth traps

Experimenting with the layout this morning:  I don't really have enough room  (:¬/  The conference room at work was in use this week so I couldn't commandeer it. 

It took me all day to web the grey sashings in as I wanted to make sure that there were no adjacent strips. 

Agh!!!

 Oh well, too late now. No one will notice, shhhhh!

I made 20 or so bow ties whilst I trapped the moths.  I don't have a picture of the finished top, there will be others here tomorrow to hold it up for a snapshot.

Can't decide what to do with the border: the top so far SHOULD finish at a troublesome 93 1/2", but I haven't measured it yet, perhaps the measurement is actually more cooperative!  I'm thinking about mini moths. I have a maximum border allowance of 7 inches on each edge.

Kitting up again

Not much sewing done during the week-Tuesday and Wednesday I had family for dinner after work, Thursday I was tired from cooking two evenings. Friday I fell asleep in the chair by 7pm. What a waste! Saturday was family visiting, today I've been really lazy!  Just fitted things to do with bow ties in here and there during the week.

 

I had to find the perfect 'knots' for more bow ties kits from the 1 1/2" bin, easier to tip them out than rummage as if you rummage the bin ends up full of a big knot!

I pulled a few more 2" squares out of the boxes, all brights.  I found out this week that someone is expecting a new arrival next year, so maybe some brights will go into a cot quilt.....

Now the drawer is stuffed to capacity

And the storage box is full....

And the overflow is heaped next to the sewing machine.  Enough!  But it filled those spare moments this week. 

I kept a few chain pieced bow ties in the machine and I have only finished ten. 

I will have a little go tomorrow evening, to finish whats there.  

I hope for a more industrious sewing week!

I have to iron the last of the moths, then I can put the top together.