Pieced ... and a party

Here, at last, is last week's pieced top.  The fabric is Moda's Girl's Best Friend - yummy batiks.  

I did the pinwheels blocks, and joined them in strips.  Then I joined the strips to the fleece in my Quilt As You Go method - the one that probably has traditional quilters shaking their head sadly, but works great for me [click here for instructions].  It took about 45 minutes to go from 4 strips to a pieced top!  I did then decided to echo quilt each pinwheel block - except I then did one quilt line down the middle of the block instead of at the side.  With normal fabric I might have unpicked, but batik isn't too forgiving, so I did the echo quilting on each horizontal and each vertical - that might teach me to concentrate!

I have ordered some more of one of the pinks for a border then this will be ready!

Although we had a no-work day today for the Royal Wedding, I didn't get any sewing done.  The family didn't show much interest in watching the wedding, so I thought we'd have it on in the background - in the end I had a husband, two daughters, two boyfriends, and nephew and his daughter all watching the wedding, and drinking my tea!!!

After lunch we then moved out into the lane for a great Street Party.  Appx 120 people in our little road, eating, drinking, chatting - having a great time!

Hope you had a good Friday :-)

Done some sewing :-)

Today I've finished three black bin bags full of fleeces to be embroidered, I've made pinwheel blocks from the batiks and arranged them, and I've arranged the Arnold's Attic vanishing 9 patch blocks (the ones in the earth colours)

I've pinned the two patchworks in strips, and I'll need to sew them fairly promptly as I've only got 4 pins left!  My bed is fairly high which is great for pinning, but rubbish for getting photos of blocks!

(Now that I've got Windows 7 I cant seem to turn these photo, so please feel free to tip your head to the left if it helps!)

So these are the pinwheel blocks

and these are the vanishing 9 patch blocks

My Poppies opening ceremony plaque was shown in the local papers: two photos of the plaque, one including the lady Mayor, and none of anything else.  A bit of a result for me, but a shame for the organisers and all the mums and kids who turned up

and a final photo is of the lovely sunset that I saw when I was upstairs pinning the blocks

Now I have a busy week coming up: 5 hour, 9 hour and 6 hour days at school at the beginning of the week, and then  teaching at the museum, at the library and at the church at the end of the week.  Added to this we lose access to the sitting room tomorrow morning for 4 days while the new floor is laid, and sometime I need to get something for Brian's birthday on Saturday.  Ho hum.  Of course I will NEED to do some sewing if only to get my pins back!!!

Feeling better

Whoever invented Night Nurse and Day Nurse capsules deserves a knighthood.  I'm sure I remember, as a kid, Night Nurse having the colour and consistency of washing up liquid, but I got capsules and they have done the trick.  (mind you my grandfather used to say that a cold lasted 7 days without remedies, and just a week if you took something for it, he also reckoned that Whiskey was his favourite of all the cold cures that didn't work)

Possibly one of the I'm-feeling-better reasons was two packets of loveliness that arrived in the post:  I have taken part in the BQL skinny quilt swap, and the ladies sending quilts to me have been far more efficient than I have.

this lovely quilt came from Ann, the squares are just one inch each, and the quilting pattern is lovely

and this came from Marian - she dyed the fabric herself, and the simple quilting really brings out the design

So that's why I'm feeling better, but my memory - still rubbish ... where was I?  ... Oh yes, so I have cut up my lovely Moda batiks into 10 inch squares, stitched them together in pairs [see here for method] cut them into triangles

 and opened and ironed them into half square triangles (HSTs).

(I really aught to get a new ironing board cover, it's AWFUL!)

Now I'm pinning them together and should get twenty two 12" pinwheels.  While I'm doing that the embroidery machine is plodding through 20 fleeces for a local builder, and then 30 polo shirts for a transport company, so I'm earning the money to pay for the fabrics :-)

And now I've just seen the time ... nearly midnight, so Good Night!!!