Milestone

It is horribly dull and cold today, so the picture doesn't do my EPP top justice: 3829 random hexagons. It won't be quilted yet as I am working on another hand quilting project. The last stitch went in to this yesterday evening. It has taken about six years on and off. 

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I finished a table runner from orphan blocks that has been hanging around for over a year waiting for quilting. I free motion quilted this in a spiderweb design to go with the twelve table mats I made over a year ago.

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I sewed the ends in on this small blanket, modelled by grandpup Archie. It will go in my granddaughters play tent. 

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Archie had an early start today, he went to work with my son to meet the team, he is now curled up in his scrap shirt quilt blanket having forty winks, whilst my son puts his bonsai trees to sleep for the winter in the poly tunnel in my garden. 

Currently reading:

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Mittens and orphans

Two finishes today: super thick crochet mitts for my 8 month old granddaughter and a quilted mat for her play tent (at Christmas)

The mat was made from orphan blocks from Bonnies sisters choice, that I gave as a gift a couple of years ago

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!

A hiccup.

The moral of today's post-don't trim your quilt at night in poor lighting without your glasses especially when the fabric is black!  Doh. Fold on the corner perfectly sliced through!

What a pain! I wanted to hand sew the binding last night so I did most of it and left this corner until this morning. 

Insert new binding on corner. Fiddly.

 This was my first free motion scribbly filler, it didn't turn out too bad.  Using neutral thread in case it was awful meant that I couldn't really see what I had already sewn. Catch 23. 

The border is my  all purpose border filler, a very forgiving pattern, especially when you use matching variegated thread on scribbly fabric!  I need to work on a consistent stitch length.

I am calling this  a finish for today as I only have to sew down a few inches of binding. Charity quilt for Linus, about 40" square.  

These are  orphan blocks from 'The Big Green One'

Verbose backing, my favourite kind. 

This week I have pieced some flimsies for charity quilts.

Borders are recycled fabric, but you would never know. 

 Another hiccup that I am calling a deliberate block placement-it wasn't until I took the photo that I saw the red corner block was the wrong way round, but as the fabric says BLAH I am calling it a design feature!

Leftover blocks from 'Kiss in the Corner', with a wide binding, for a larger charity quilt. 

And another, this on has leftover grey strips on the border from  'Moth in a Window'

I used the burgundy block settings that I unpicked from the leftover 'Sisters Choice' blocks for the border. 

Orphan blocks , a larger Linus flimsy. White with orange scrappy border. 

And another. That uses up all but one random broken dishes block!

Crabby border fabric-you can find a use for everything! 

Orphans

 Today I put the borders on this charity quilt

 The blocks were leftovers from this

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Then I found orphan blocks left over from Sisters Choice

I put borders all the way round 12 of them, they will be place mats. Not my usual colour at all, but I can practice my free motion on these -I got a super slider for Christmas.  There were enough for a table runner too.

 I raided the batting and pieced 12 squares for the mats. Not enough left for the runner at the moment.

 The last one used six pieces!

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I have been working on these, that finish at 6"

There were some 2" pieces of red left: I have fallen in love with my easy angle ruler (new toy) so I tried smaller ones out......

 ....and so I have started a leader ender project! These will finish at a teeny 3"

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Then I put borders on this..........

 and this......

and this for more charity quilt flimsies.

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 I pieced a scrappy neutral backing for orphan Moth in a Window  blocks for a charity quilt that I made up about 6 months ago. 

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 I unpicked the burgundy borders from a row of Sisters choice blocks that didn't make it into the main quilt or the table mats

 and there were just enough for another charity quilt.  It will need another border when it it pressed.

I felt like I hadn't achieved much today as I worked on rounding up orphans for lots of things rather than one project, but I guess things are more organised now.  I have thirteen charity quilts from orphan blocks to quilt!  Super slider practice, here I come.