Fuzzy headed

Everything it taking me so long at the moment whilst I recuperate, it's frustrating!

I have three of the five playmat flimsies with borders on, backings chosen and bindings cut ready for sandwiching, which I can't do yet until I recuperate some more.

All of the blocks that made up the five came from my scrap user bins. 

I deliberately chose backings and borders to try to use up older/ cheaper/ up-cycled fabric.

1 .

Backing: charity shop pure cotton curtain

Border: charity shop heavy duty poly cotton 'sheet' from a valance (the under the mattress part, so its perfect!)

Binding: a 'not so neutral' that I have had for too long- I like the pattern but it's not very useful!

2.

Backing: My eldest sons  cotton bedroom curtains from when he was growing up

Border: inner-from the 1 1/2" bin: outer-a long awaited home for a random piece of fabric I got in a bargain mystery parcel

Binding: a pale yellow oriental waves pattern, I bought 5 bargain yards some years ago.

3.

Backing: brand new cotton duvet cover I was given some time ago (not a pattern that I could sleep with)

Border: Two discount/sale fabrics

Binding: another discount/sale fabric, same as the pink

I had some of the border strip left-rather than stuff it into a scrap bin I made four orphan blocks to go into the orphan box-these will one day in the far future find their way into a pieced backing.

A little wobble, I wouldn't say I fell off the wagon!

I went for a constitutional stroll to my local shops: there is a wool/sewing shop there run by a lady well over retirement age.  They have just started running patchwork classes and there were a few bolts of cloth, so I bought a metre of pink and half a metre of yellow very cheaply with the cottons I had gone for.

That means so far this year my total fabric purchases are 2 1/2 metres. I am VERY proud of myself!  I still look in the online stores at sale times , put things in baskets, then don't buy.  I think I may be cured!

I need to buy quite a lot of machine quilting thread for the Threadplay ribbon design I have decided to do on this quilt, as yet un-named.  You can see from the blocks picture how busy it is: I think  strong ribbons of colour will be the only thing that will tie it all together.   I will buy the polycore thread from Empress Mills-I have used their pure cotton machine thread for a while.  The polycore is £12.50 for 7500m!

Where is that seam ripper?

 

The green hexie corner is stripped and stashed away. 

I set myself a comfy spot, and put Bonnie's latest Quiltcam on this morning whilst I sewed a couple of Brown Hexie flowers up.......................

......and got these done.....

 

                                                                                          

I got out the quilt which needs the machine quilting ripped out last night, thinking it would take 10 minutes- but I couldn't find a seam ripper-it was impossible to get the small 'in the ditch' stitches out without risking damage so that's postponed until I can get a new one. Grrr!  Moral? 

Be tidier!

 

I'll be sandwiching this playmat next, which will be simply machine quilted  as I need to get at least one of the five done quickly.

To do this month list....

.......or at least progress things:

I'm recovering from an operation, thus fairly restricted: as my son said, a guilt free opportunity to please myself- he has been a good cook and bottle washer for the last week!

1. caterpillar corner fill-in to cover my inaccuracies on 'moth in the window'-I have been thinking about what to do with this for ages, caterpillars now seem so obvious to go with the moths-these will be my first public attempt at hand applique and shouldn't take long, so they're at the top of the list                                                                      
   
                                                                                   
2.  finish the green corner strips and stow away for a later date (next couple of days                
   
                                        
3. Unpick the aborted  machined in the ditch quilting (only a few rows) and finish this long overdue gift AFTER deciding on the new quilting pattern that will test my wobbly skills and enhance what I did with the colours-you can barely see this as the blocks are too big, the eye doesn't follow what's happening, it just looks 'busy' at the moment. I think it needs ribbons of dense quilting to enhance the colour layout
   
   
4. layer and machine quilt two of the five playmat flimsies-again practicing technique.
   
5. Find a smaller hoop so I can do the hand quilting for another overdue gift-I can't hold the hoop against my stomach at the moment!                                                                                                               
   
   I am soooo frustrated, I have so many ideas and no time to play with them, partly as I work full time and partly as I already have so much on the go, promised to others (ALL of the above!).  I will try to treat this week as an opportunity to practice what I will do with my retirement and GET IT DONE!    I had a really good week last week propped up with hours spent guiltlessly browsing blogs that I wouldn't normally spend, seeing what everyone is doing, its been great!  You are all such inspirational people.

I would love you to leave a comment, share if you are doing something similar or 'follow' me! xx

Green corner formatted

Tricksy greens, never happy with merging from blue to yellow

This is the last corner. 

Blues were stripped up by yesterday evening.

Now I can sit in a chair and sew the strips together instead of on the floor!

Colour inspiration modification

Isn't this just gorgeous? 

It's an ice cream tulip. 

Re: my post of a couple of days ago, with the burgundy and acid yellow/lime chrysanthemums as inspiration for a quilt colour way-I like this version better.  I'm not a 'pink' girl as a rule, but seeing they green blend into a hint of yellow, then pink, with a fluffy white crown, I think I may try!

Such a shame that tulips are so short lived.  These must be a new variety as three bulbs are around £8. Not quite back to the C17 tulip mania, but too much for my pocket as you would want more than three!

In the blue corner....

The orange flowers are sewn into strips and stashed away. 

I have almost 'stripped' the blue ones.  I'm doing it this way as the floor is the only surface large enough to lay things out- I'm recuperating at the moment so have the time to get the basic layout done quickly and get things off the floor as soon as possible. 

I will lay the greens out tomorrow, but they're tricksy!

Then the slightly tiresome border issue:  I have some 'path' rosettes to cut and sew, to join the red, orange, green and blue sections on with, then measuring as I think it will be too big already to do a 3 row border with path and a couple of rows of foliage, as I wanted to do.  My son and daughter in law have a king sized bed, so this is ENORMOUS.  It will be hand quilted (no doubt over several years!) quite closely to stabilise all the hand sewing.

I do feel I'm getting somewhere with it though, finally. 

Inspired

Flowers my sons girlfriend bought for my birthday, still going strong.  A nice colour way for a quilt-dark red, acid yellow and green......hmm.....not my usual mix.....but I have a pattern in mind..... (again!)

Green Man Quilts

If you are a quilting novice and  live in the Watford area of London check out Green Man Quilts: Sheena is running classes!

We met at our City and Guilds patchwork and quilting class. 

Sheena says: 

I run courses and workshops where you can learn patchwork and quilting skills - some are for a few hours a week and continue for a term, some are one off day courses.
If you would like some one-to-one tuition, I can do that for you.

A Pieceful job

I'm recuperating, but have a serious case of the fidgets: I need something to keep my hands busy whilst I sit and rest.  I got up early and laid out the orange corner flower bed for Darwin's flower garden.  This should take me a couple of days to make up, whilst I watch as many David Attenborough documentaries as I can: 'Africa' is first on the list. 

 This weeks read is 

About half way through and my Kindle died-nasty things happening on the screen, so I guess this one will be finished on the computer, not my favorite way to read. Enjoying the book so far.

Yesterdays fidget job was unpicking 60 blocks that I had sewn up wrong for 'the big green one'.  I did that four weeks ago and put it away as I couldn't face doing it at the time.  There was only one seam to undo and actually it didn't take that long.

I had sewn the four patch and triangle pair together, then had to join two of these sets, I put them the wrong way round: moral?  Keep referring to the drawing, even if your sure!

Overactive imagination

In the design sense, this is not normally something I suffer with.  In the last two days I have modified and old idea and come up with two more-oh, I really need to retire to get all this done!

For my first year City and Guilds I came up with a trilobite design wall hanging that never got made, probably because it was rather too complex.  

 

Then I thought I would make it into a full sized quilt but never got round to it. 

The latest imaginative trilobite incarnation is a cushion with lots of prairie points.

I had surgery yesterday and whilst in recovery, my mood pleasantly enhanced (;¬}, the ceiling became very interesting and my mind wandered!  I have only had time to do a couple of quick sketches between snoozes toady, I just had to get the ideas down before they faded along with the 'enhancement'!  Probably only makes sense to me, but here they are.......

This will be black and white HSTs assembled in vertical grading across a quilt.  The inspiration was the tiny refractions from a three tube fluorescent light fitting cover!  It only occurred to me afterwards that it must have been good at diffusing light as I spent about four hours looking at it on an off!    I will cut these HSTs at he same time as the planned black and white 'Farmers Wife' quilt later in the year and use them as the leaders and enders project.  I have LOTS of black and whites I have been collecting in sales for a while now. 

The next two are only scrappy sketches for me to get he idea on paper before I forget.  

One inspired from the ceiling air vent yesterday that had a lop-sided louvred appearance and viewed interesting angles of light and dark grey. 

The last one is on a favourite theme of 'evolution' for which there are already several ideas in the creative pot. 

This time, its block evolution, starting with a square in one corner, then three adjoining squares bisected corner to corner, diagonally and unevenly,he patterns evolving across the quilt with gradually more complexity. This one will need a design wall!

Doing the rounds again

This time: I spent over two hours spinning the centres of around 300 bow ties, whilst watching a film last night, like this.....

Now all packed away tightly so they wont need ironing when I assemble the quilt top. 

I won't get much sewing done today as the family are over for a roast beef dinner. I need machining time, I will have to wait until this evening for a fix!

Acquisitions

A new charity shop has opened with an 'antique' theme.  Some lovely dresses from the 70s, wish they fitted me!  

They had a 50p rummage bin in an old suitcase-even the display items are themed-and I found this to cut shiny red centres for my Isle of Man log cabin, which is mixed fabrics and ugly greens.

This will be perfect.

A couple of weeks ago I went into another new charity shop and found neutral cotton curtains and bedding, I bought the equivalent of 20 metres of fabric for only £15.  Some for log cabin strips and lots for good quality backing.

Love a bargain! 

 All washed and ready to go.

As of today, I have still only bought 1 metre of 'new' fabric this year.  I am doing very well, considering the enormity of my habit!

Sewing this week has been hand quilting 'kiss in the corner', I have actually reached an edge of this double now.  Probably have the same amount still to quilt as I have already done but that psychological barrier had been crossed! Yay!  I really bit off more than I could comfortably chew for a first hand quilting attempt, a double with lots of different shapes means a lot of hoop wrestling on my lap.  Now I know why so much of the traditional hand quilting was simple lines and patterns.

The next one I will do is a hand pieced hexie top in baptist fan pattern, to stabilise the hand sewn hexie joins.  Only one sewing direction too and wool wadding, so it should be easier. It will be done on the quilting frame a friend made me for Christmas.

This weeks Kindle read is

Really enjoying this.

Early bird lazy Sunday

Annoyingly, I was awake at 5.30 am this morning. By 6am I had a pint mug of tea and I was set up for some hand sewing in bed whilst watching Bonnie's now pre recorded QUILTCAM, also available on Youtube. 

All ready to go by 6am on the dot.  The feed was so much better than before. I now feel I have really indulged myself and its not even 8am yet. 

I didn't get a great deal done, but never mind.  

I think I will make the Isle of Man handpieced log cabin my quiltcam project. 

I drew diagonals on the backing fabric and I love the way you can correct and little inconsistencies by lining the folds up with these diagonal lines. The actual sewing part is really quick, it's the folding and lining up that takes a bit of time. I match the sewing thread to the backing so slight 'variations' in my stitch length aren't so visible on the back!

Doing the rounds

I was visiting today, so I took portable hexies in my pocketed Clippy bag and got these done.  This will be the heirloom quilt for son number two.  Give it a few years though as I'm still working on the one for son number one!

Morning Dreaming

Still sorting out the roomful of craftiness. 

Inspiration note: I was daydreaming in bed this morning about what to do with my green strips-this is the green/blue bin........ it's mostly greens now as the blues were used up for this project, 'Orange and Blue',still work in progress.  

Thistles. Like this.... courtesy of Bonnie Hunters 'TALKIN' TURKEY': green strips, purple spikes. 

What do you think?

                                                                                                              

Sniffles antidote

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


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