Roundup without curves

I have been working on hexies for the last month. Piccies later. 

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I gave up on Perkiomen Daydreams as I wasn't happy with my accuracy on earlier blocks. I have pieced the finished  blocks into a cot sized flimsy, as cot sized people are no the quilt police! I will quilt this when I need a baby quilt in a hurry. 

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I have started another postage stamp quilt, from the 1 1/2"  bin. I am not using this size, so I sewed some strip sets together and will sub-cut a few at a time- blocks of colour when I need a quick fix. Teenny bits help me with my accuracy. 

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I have done a few of these flying geese strips, from 2" scraps in sets 1-8, again, to work on my accuracy. They will probably make a scrappy border for something. 

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These two charity quilts are pinned and ready for quilting, all orphan blocks. I have several filmsies of the moth blocks in this size, I am practicing with the fancy stitches on my Bernina before I quilt the king size version! 

This one is part quilted. 

Much more to do to shape the moths.

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A charity quilt finish today, about 1m square.

This one was frugal:

• Backing was a new gifted polycotton duvet cover
• Many shirts were harmed in the making of the blocks
• All the thread was gifted polyester from my dressmaker mum's stash
• The stripy border was a charity shop cotton duvet cover
• The white border is recycled cotton sheeting
• The scrappy binding is made from off-cuts from previous quilt backings 

=happy!

Stripper

I raided the string bin for neutral strings, then chopped into rough 5" strips. I also cut off some selvages as the cream stash was handy and used some uglies up. 

 

 

 

 

Pieced onto 4 1/4" strips of paper: not ideal as it was quite heavy paper, but it did the job.  I used strips from 2 1/2 to 3/4".

My Daughter in law happened to come over and got rather excited about the peeling process! She had not seen this before, so we both worked on the papers for an hour, then I finished them the next day. Help was gratefully received!  I recon I have enough for three borders for king size quilts! Each strip is about 11"; pressing and trimming at a later date, as I could cut them in half for 2" sashing too.

I also made some pieced squares with the larger crumbs as I was going. I can use these as centres in a charity quilt. 

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 Still plugging away with the 3" finished broken dishes blocks as leaders and enders. I have sewn a lot into sets of four as I keep loosing the bits if they hang around on the sewing table too long between being needed. Much more user friendly. I have quite a pile now. I spin the seams as they come off the machine, but don't iron.  These need a lot of accuracy: as they are so small there is no wriggle room.

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This weekend I am working on the Allietare blocks, tricky little things to get the points to meet! Taking it slowly. The blue is my 'red' from Bonnie's design.

 A few more geese were needed for accuracy practice.

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I was all sewed out in the middle of the week: I found some short lengths of yarn, a couple of metres each (I am not a hoarder!) and made a scrumble, very therapeutic.

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Other evenings have been spent ironing blocks and ironing blocks and ironing blocks......

....these are done

 and these are done.

 About the same to go!

I put the mini ironing board  and iron on my lap on top of a cushion in front of the TV, I don't feel its such a terrible chore then.

Cat-napping

It seems the word went round the neighbourhood that I no longer have a resident quilt inspector. The vacancy has been filled: he does have a home (somewhere), but obviously no duties there. Every time the door is open, he is in! So much for ironing the backing and patches!  Encourage him? Noooo, 'course not!

Testing my lap for comfort too-my last cat didn't do this in 17 years so I made the most of it! 

 He is a bit gorgeous, is genuinely pleased to see me and had a marvelous purr. I am clearly not properly trained yet as I don't act like his real servants at home, he tries to tell me what he wants but I don't understand!

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 Allietare four patches have been waiting since December to be sewn, so I cut the strips that had been hanging over the door for three months and got on with it. 

Then I cut the next stage. The patches were not meeting at the points properly when I sewed a few. (:@{

I had leftovers of the 2" strips, rather than add them boxes, as I had cut a few as goose blocks (too small) I trimmed all the leftovers down for the mini broken dish blocks and goose centres for future use. 

 

Then I sewed a few goose blocks to work out where the accuracy was failing by two whiskers on Allietare blocks. 

I think I have worked it out now, after much goose beheading and broken wings. 

Next update will tell!   

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I have sewn up trimmings from other things to 10 1/2" strips as I go for the crumb quilt, to keep the piles down.

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I am wading my way through ironing several hundred pinwheel and broken dishes blocks, sitting on the floor in front of the TV with the mini board and iron on my lap, on top of a cushion!

These will take a couple of days. 

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I was feeling stressed yesterday morning so sat down to push a few random mini triangles through the machine, it did the trick.  I am thinking these could make Ocean Waves

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We have Storm Katie hitting the south of England today, roof felt/fence panel lifting winds. I will venture a short walk, then it's back to sewing related occupational therapy for me  and finishing this...

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Happy Easter!

I won!

I have had a sumo contest with this beast and my 440, quilting in the ditch, 100  x 100".  Too big to do any free motion, so I had to go for stitching round the dark star borders in the ditch. Still hard work turning the quilt round!

 

Sisters Square Dance

Checking the back to see if I missed any ......all OK. 

I used this thread, it was very good, no breakages. 

One final round of ditch stitch on the border.......

Binding on. I feel a film coming on this afternoon.....

This is some of the work I have been doing in the last three months, in an effort to tidy and consolidate:

Enough of these for two king size projects, one of which will be combined with geese, all prepped and ready to go after Xmas.

170 scrappy Box Kite blocks, enough for two quilts. 

A few more of these to add to the stock

And a couple of hundred four patches  from a box of 2" random squares I found.

All the crumbs string pieced to make hexies, I have about two hundred to trim down.

Some random hexie and teeny diamond paper piecing whilst out and about 

Clue one of Bonnie Hunters mystery done,  'Allietare'. Cutting for clue two tomorrow. 

And I pieced the backing for nine quilt tops that are ready to go!

Odds and ends

Still finding little stashes of random bits-today's find was a bag of blue two patches that must have been left from making  250 nine patches some time ago-I am using them as leader-enders to make nine patches to add to the stack whilst making more box kite blocks. 

I need 99  of these 9" finished blocks to make a quilt with no borders or sashing inserts.

 Today's hoard:

 I have watched all of Bonnie's Quiltcam archives from the last year in recent weeks whilst I have been sewing.  Time to go back to the beginning now!

A boring jobs next: I have to draw diagonal lines on the goosey squares I have been cutting to go with the pinwheel blocks; also lots of sets of box kite triangle pairs to press.