2020 Wk 19 - sorting stuff!

I have dug out various UFOs that have been stored in all sorts of places.  This pile is flimsies waiting to be attached to fleece

This pile is waiting to be hand quilted or hand finished

This one was a quick win - I quilted it whilst listening to an audio book this afternoon, whilst also attending to Lizzie with her embroidery, and the binding was already cut so that has now been attached - another hour or so in front of the TV and this will be finished.  I cant find that I've blogged about it before: I am fairly sure they are Aldi fabrics from Jackie.  Gorgeous bright spring colours

It can join the various piles of stuff in the sitting room: you might have thought I was content with having the biggest room in the house for my sewing room but that is clearly not enough room!!!

Lizzie has been working on pre-school polo shirts: It is really lovely not to be working on the burgundy for a change!

I have finally completed the last dark row of this and have decided to call it a day.  It is in the flimsie pile

A quick make: my niece in Norway had her second baby last week.  I made this quilt for number 1, Saga, and thoroughly enjoyed embroidering her name in usual letters and how it would be written in Viking runes, and also in runes type letters.  Her new sister is Theia, and Great Grandmother explains "Both names have a mythological background: Nordic and Greek, fit together well: Saga and Theia, it seems they have made a good choice."

So having gone Viking on Saga's quilt I felt I have the opportunity to go Greek on Theia's!  There is even a small patch of Greek fabric!

And I embroidered her name in Greek looking letters, normal letters and Greek letters! 

I will post it with crossed fingers: things are looking better on that front.  The first American quilt was delivered and well received (Step Mom's comment is on this post) and the Irish quilt has been received, and the second American quilt is being tracked.  The Aussie quilt - no news :-(

 Basil has been stitched back together and I made him a onesie to protect him for damage for a while

 I've been doing a bit of baking - Cheesie Marmite swirls went down well at the VE Day party, along with the bunting made for the Queen's birthday 4 years ago

And Kay and I made no-knead bread which was better than expected

And husband and I went out, together, in public, and saw people!!!!


Not quite a date night, and not breaking any rules ...


We went and gave blood!

2020 Wk 15 - playing around and a round up

It's lovely to receive REAL post - it does wonders to stave off the wobbles!  I got two miracle cures this morning - Lisa sent us a crochet rainbow and Plum sent a stitched Easter Card - Even husband was impressed!!!  Thank you both!

The two villages have set up a Safari Park Trail - people are encouraged to put out an animal and facts about it, so kids can look for them on their walks.  Mine:

And next door's

In other news there has been some hand quilting

And some finishing (only one side so far, I'd forgotten what a flaff this method was!)

 

I also have to confess: Following our Resin craft afternoon a few months ago, I *may* have popped some resin craft stuff into my Amazon basket!

I found a collection of postage stamps dating back to I don't know when (but some of the values have half pence on them!!!) so I made these

And then I did some more with some pretty rainbow buttons

I have also (clearly not much else to do at the moment!) made the Hexi flowers for the Facebook swap for April as well as March

 and completed some more FPP blocks 43 made, 90 needed!!!

I have been keeping a UFO spreadsheet (thanks for the idea Amo) to show me what needs doing next.  Unfortunately it's a bit two-steps-forward-one-step-back as I keep finding more projects to add to this list

As if this wasn't bad enough I've just realised the Spotty Circles quilt isn't even on it!!!!

2018 Wk 11 - Almost Snowing Again

It isn't really snowing again - it's just that I am working on a very old Christmas snowy quilt!  Plum reminded me of it earlier this month - We met through being members of then Yahoo BQL (British Quilt Lovers) group, and back in 2011 I offered to embroider BQL badges for the ladies who were going to Festival of Quilts.  They offered to pay but I asked for green scraps for a scrappy quilt I wanted to make.

I got the scraps and started the quilt but it then stalled.  It was last blogged about in 2014 when the tree was shown plonked on the sky fabric

At some stage since then the tree and the sky were joined but nothing further.

Today it has moved forward to this


The details don't photograph too well, but the star above the tree and the candle flames have been embroidered with a glow . . . in glow in the dark thread!


The top of the snow glistens with a glitter fabric attached on a gentle curve

and snow drifts have been topped with more sparkle

It's still a bit tall and thin but it's doing much better than it has for the last 4 years!

The one where I worked on another UFO

More chores today - leaving me doing my couch potato impression this evening. (The guilty secret is that Lisa is watching The Gilmore Girls on net flicks, and once that's on I'm rooted to the sofa!)

I could have gone upstairs to get yesterday's UFO and done more work on it, but that would have meant missing a few seconds, so I dug this out of the sewing box in the sitting room

 

And made a few more flowers

So now TGG represents time well spent, instead of a guilty pleasure!

I'm spending the next three days at my new job, shadowing the girl I'm replacing, so there might not be much sewing happening!

 

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UFOs & Mission Impossible - fact or fiction?

I have a rubbish memory for dates, (I have a rubbish memory full stop) but I know I started making a yellow and white quilt for a friend, S, and his girlfriend, T, and I know I met T when Niki was a baby - she is now nearly 19. Anyway, S and T split up not long after, and the quilt never got fully finished.  Half got completed and was used on the kitchen sofa - and got eaten by the rabbit, so that has long since gone, but while I was looking for something else in the shed I found the other half.

Oh boy have I learnt a lot since then!!!

I have declined to take close up photos as its only just passable from a distance!

I have chopped the remaining piece into 2- The first part is now assembled and quilted. My thought is that it may go the the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), but they need everything washable at 60 degrees (c).   I'm washing it now, although I haven't put the binding on, to see if it copes with the hot wash

What I should be doing - is tidying Lisa's bedroom!

In 48 hours my cousin and her son arrive from Denver, on their way home to Kenya - and they need to be able to put their luggage in this room, AND sleep in it!  Anybody want to come and help with my Impossible Mission?

17 days, 5 lists, 23 projects, and still counting

I woke this morning thinking "yippee", 17 days off. Then I starting gathering up the lists I've been making for myself, I found 5 so far!

There seem to be 4 groups:

• Boring paperwork
• Money earning embroidery
• Blocks I want to make
• Other random stuff

And then there are also quilt tops I want to start/ work on / finish. Maybe I need another list, showing what to to each day.

I seem to remember something similar when I was studying for exams (late 1970s!!!!) I spent so long making a coloured revision chart, that the first few days had passed by the time it was finished, so I had the perfect excuse to make a new one!  Maybe Excel will make it easier - maybe I'll go and check!

A Few Finishes

 Last month a friend, Jacqui, lead the group at Chertsey Museum, and taught us how to do Padded and Raised work,  She used the theme of a rock pool, and gave us a number of examples.

I've finally finished mine

I have also finished stitching on the binding for a Batik Square Dance that has been in the PHD pile for far too long.

* * * * * * * *

To keep me on track I have written a list of projects to be finished before Christmas: at least the Square Dance can be my first tick!

• Christmas Waistcoat
• I-Spy for Dina
• I-Spy for Liz
• I-Spy for Jane (Chloe)
• Christmas sack for Chloe
• Christmas sack for Richard
• 12 place mats for Carol
• 2 Pairs of Patchwork boots
• Warm Stars quilt for Philippa
• Christmas Tree by Candlelight wall hanging
• Napkins for Anna
• Batik Square Dance  18th November)

UFO, HST and other TLAs (*)

At last I have managed some sewing, and I have been tackling what is probably my oldest UFO.  When I first went to Sandown park for a quilting festival, I admired a quilt that was about 8 inch squares, made from two triangles where one was blue, and the other was stripes of fabric. (Now I can tell you that they were HSTs using strings)

So I started sewing strips of leftover fabric, and cutting squares of blue and squares of strips, and joining them with two seams either side of the middle (if you don't understand, see end of the post, but be warned, very boring to make!) and ended up with 17 completed units

 
(no, I have no idea how I ended up with an odd number)

and a few dozen striped squares, and some blues

and two flimsies of strips waiting to be cut into squares

and a loathing of stitching HSTs that is still with me.

I cant accurately date the start of this UFO, but I recognise most of the fabrics, and remember whose quilt I used them in.  I can see Teddy bears from when Great Niece Emily was born (2000), and purple with white spots when a work colleague's daughter Sophie was born (2004), but none of the citrus fabric from when niece India was born (2006), so I'm guessing it was started about 10 years ago, and worked on a few times in the following half dozen years then put away.

Part of the problem was that I didn't want to make any more HSTs, and the other part was not knowing what to do with the blocks..  So today I took the bull by the horns, and make big pinwheels from the HSTs.

So that makes 8 pinwheels - NBG for making a quilt.

I can make a square and just use string squares in the middle, like this, and then add more strings around the outside (there are another 38 cut to size, plus the two flimsy, I wont run out!)

Or I could alternate pinwheels and strings like this,

Or I can return it to the PIGs group, and put the whole lot back into it's bag until I am next inspired . . .  anybody got any ideas, suggestions or preferences?

.  .  .  .  .  *      *      *      *      *  .  .  .  .  . 

UFO = Unfinished Object
HST = Half Square Triangle (explained brilliantly by Rachel at p.s. I quilt
TLA = Three Letter Acronyms
NBG = No Blinking Good
PIGs = Project In a Grocery Sack


There are plenty more of these if you want them!

Colour coding

A hundred years or so ago, when I was doing my O'levels and A'levels (translation for non UK residents - school leaving exams at 16 and 18, O=Ordinary, A=Advanced) I spent ages designing revision timetables - different colours for different subjects.

By the time I was happy with it, the first day had usually passed, so I needed to do a new one so as not to miss out on that subject's revision.  I think there just may have been some avoidance going on there.

The reason I mention it here, is because I found myself this evening colour coding my UFO / To Do list.  The projects which can wait until after Christmas are in green, while the projects I really should be getting on with are in red.  Looks very pretty, but there are still a dozen projects in red!

However, the first Cream Orphan D9P and the second Pure Blue have had the binding machine stitched to the front, so they now just need some hand sewing doing (the pile is now at 5), but Debbie tells me they can wait until after Christmas (have you seen they are in green now!  :-)

Meanwhile,I want to have a rant about my supposed friend Plum - I had a nice day with her and her diddy (!) little machine on Saturday, until I realised she was sewing with Aurifil threads.  I knew something was up as her spools were orange and my quilting thread spools are green.  Do you know she subliminally infected me with her thinking (she must be on commission or something) as last night my fingers did some tapping on the iPad screen, and I suddenly found that I am soon to be receiving

ta da

this

(be still my beating heart)

and the super lovely Meg at New Threads was not at all miffed at discussing colour descriptions and swaps at 8 o'clock last night!