Use it or bin it 2

 I have been knitting. This will be a long jacket, made in one piece: I have borrowed the construction method from gansey knitting. No pattern! I have put it away until it's colder as sitting with this on my lap is like a double knitted blanket! 

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 I have about 250 scrappy nine patches sewn up, I used half of them to make this 'I Spy' dancing nine patch, perfect border fabric bought at a bargain price! Yet to be quilted.....

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Leftover blocks from 'Sisters Square dance': a table runner, twelve table mats and an occasional table cover/mugrug.  Just four finished and bound so far. 

 The original: 

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Still chugging away at the random leader ender 1 1/2" finished triangles.

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Twelve Linus quilts and 10 blankets are ready to go. Mum knitted the blanket strips and  my daughter in law and I crocheted them up.

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 I sewed up hundreds more pairs of 3" finished triangles, ready for .....something! All that pressing, all those dog ears to clip! 

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Some more quilters tinsel made with stitch and flip clippings!

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Garlic Knots: I just could not like this pattern, I would have thought this regular chain piecing project would be fun.  Nope. Tried several variations: I may come back to it in brighter colours someday; meanwhile, the blocks will be put to use, two Linus flimsies. I like the stitch and flip corners for sure and I think I like it better set on point. The contrast between the dark knots and white background it too much.

An ugly, to be put down to experience!

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 Mum gave me her 201k, bought at a boot sale 20 years ago for £16, model from 1950s. 

Oiled, up and running: very clean inside, unmarked paintwork, outside needs some attention. 

The 2 x 3 1/2" brick bin wasn't getting touched, so I sewed them all together to see how she runs: VERY fast and very quiet! I have a Bonnie pattern in mind for these. 

 I also raided the 2" and 3 1/2" squares to make these blocks, very scrappy. Love how they turned out! 

 I had an incident with this little blighter, chasing it round for 5 minutes! 

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Then I tackled the crumb bin, making  strips for the next crumb quilt, mostly from mis-shaped triangles. Must get a bulb!

Then the strip bin: these will be cut down to 10" inches  after pressing. I made a serious mess! 

I also started on the 1" strip bin, use it or bin it! This is work in progress. 

This is the quilt I made with crumbs and strips last time: Eclipse 1. I gifted it as a surprise to a sick colleague and his wife a few weeks ago, with instructions to spread it in the garden and stay until he recovered!

Some serious mindless sewing done in the last two weeks to take my mind of real life for a bit, I am so grateful for this hobby! 

By the way, I have a rotten camera on my phone!

Postage Stamps

A while ago I decided that my original piecing for Perkiomen Daydreams was not good enough to continue with for a large quilt: I sewed up completed blocks into a cot size.

I may try one of these in a different colour set in the future.

So, I needed work on my piecing accuracy. It's not bad generally, but with 1" finished pieces the 1/16" and 1/23" errors quickly add up.  I had cut lots of 1 1/2" strips from all the ugly fabric I came across, but was not using it. I spent several hours running strip sets through the machine this week and have cut and stitched the strip sets in batches.

The pieced strips are 105" long.  I have played with the assembly, four, eight, six and random patches so it doesn't look too uniform. 

I am keeping back two of each symmetrical four patch I make for future projects, as I would never cut this much variety for one or two quilts.

I am working on 25 patches now to use up part Perkiomen rejects.  

All of the uglies have gone in here! 

Just about had enough of this fix now, it will go away for a bit as I have two large tops to quilt. My accuracy has definitely improved in the last week working on this. 

3,465 of  11,025 1" finished squares in the completed strips so far, with partials done as well. Almost 1/3 done!

Linking for Move it forward Monday
and Oh Scrap!

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!

A little more alignment

 I am gradually organising the boxes of random stuff that have accumulated. The blue two patches have been sewn as leader-enders into another two dozen 9 patches to join the rest.

 These 3" finished four patches left from Moth in Window have been bagged up and put in the 'potential' category box.

 The backings cupboard is organised. 

The crumb bin was 1/3 full of 2" offcuts from kitting geese and Garlic Knots, so I pieced these into 10 1/2" strips for the Crumb Quilt Project: whilst everything in the bin is the same width, it makes it  an easy job.

 Lots more triangles chain pieced for Box Kite, and some of them pressed

Yesterdays blocks...............

 

 Kitting up the 2" pre cut orange and browns for garlic knots:  I need to make a dent in these  2" squares as they are not moving.  I may add different colours.

 

I am using good quality recycled soft white sheeting for the background, again in an attempt to use up things that are sitting about. Soft, soft, soft!

I made four blocks to play with the arrangement: however I laid it out  there was a big white area, so i found some snipped triangle corners and played-half a flying goose on the long strip (not the final colour for the diamond!) Better.