The one where I zigged and zagged

A beautiful bundle of cotton batik type fabrics has sat maturing in my sewing room for at least 2½ years:

I made a decision back in May, and cut and pieced rain fence type blocks and back in July I got them laid out

but hadn't progressed much further until today

They have now started to be joined together onto a fleece and are looking like this:

And I have to say I am rather in love!

Maybe I can get the piecing finished tomorrow

Five A Day

You may remember this quilt

which was a birthday present for a friend, Katie, in the village.  She has asked me to make one for her Mother-in-Law, the same but a bit funkier

We emailed back and forth, chatting about designs, colours and fabrics, and ended up with the same design (sort of woven rail fence) but using some fab Farmer John's Market Stall fabrics that I got last year, with black borders.  Funnily enough, it was the design I had planned for these fabrics, and I am L.O.V.I.N.G how it's looking so far.

I cut the fruit and veg fabrics into 5 inch strips, width of fabric, and the black at 2.5" x width of fabric.  It will be slightly bigger flimsy than Katie's, but will still be applied to an Ikea fleece, so the final size will be the same.  All the black strips have been stitched on, and the blocks have been cut to size and arranged, and they have now been pinned in columns, waiting for the time to stitch them

Don't panic Katie - (they look a bit wobbly, but once they are stitched they will lay flat!)

I had real spacial awareness issues with the triangular cut blocks, but I got there in the end without any seam ripping.  I hope you agree the name of Five A Day is appropriate!

Found time to post!

The beginning of the week is always difficult for me to blog, I get bogged down with work (apologies for the four letter word there) Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then treat myself to some sewing on Thursdays, finally getting to blogging for a few days before we start with Monday all over again!

So, excuses over, and here I am

So an apology for being tardy - and here are the photos of the very high tech give-away random winner generator:

Basket of scraps of paper,

and the first two slips drawn from the basket. 

 

As you can see, neither Plum or Teje relieved me of decision making, but they did narrow it down!  I decided to go with two children's charities

So the vanishing nine patch will go to the Foster Network, organised by a friend of Plum's, and the fail fence zig zag will go to Great Ormand Street hospital in London

 This going-to-be-a-whirly gig top hasn't progressed. :-(  I couldn't find any suitable border fabric locally, so went on-line and found what looks like the perfect fabric, and ordered it.  It was only when I got the dispatch email that I realised I'd ordered it from Germany!!! so hopefully that will arrive next week

 I have however managed another texture block for Hilary's quilt.  She has no idea that this is happening, but i needed to know how best to do these braille dots.  I stitched the braille for 'texture' in a few different ways (satin stitch, running stitch outline, triple stitch outline etc) and got mum to take it and ask Hilary for her help on a project!!!

So with Hilary's help (she chose the satin stitch) I have created another surprise block for Hilary - isn't that great!

One last piece of news before I go and pack my stuff for a lesson at Chertsey Museum (we are going to tackle hexies (and pentagons) and make either a pin cushion or a child's ball), I finally have furniture again in my living room.

This arrived on Monday, and is so squishy and comfy, I love it, (even if it is a tad too big for the room LOL)

Rural Jardin Jelly Roll

Jackie and I both got a free Moda Rural Jardin jelly roll when we signed up for a year's subscription for Popular Patchwork at the festival of quilts in August.

Mine has been sat on a shelf while I drooled over it, and waited for inspiration. As I surfed around blogland I saw a number of designs that would work, but this morning, with some help from an inspirational email (thank you Victoria) decided on a sort of rail fence design.

I joined the strips into pairs: a light with darker, keeping reds with reds and blues with blues.



And then ironed them



I then cut the selvedge to selvedge units into 9 inch units















and started to play around with them

I tried using 'twins' in a mirror image,
















and tried dissimilar pairs so it looks woven, and finally decided this was the way I wanted to go.
















I am going to be brave, and have my first go at setting these blocks on point (diagonally).















I was just about to start cutting some squares into triangles for the corners, when I realised they weren't actually square - they had ended up 8.5 x 9 inches. (grrrrr)

So I have put them aside for today, and will get back to them tomorrow night.

By the way, I am L-O-V-I-N-G the Moda fabric - it's the first time I have used it, and it's lovely to work with and so soft.

END NOTES:
Mum, if you prefer the first layout, don't tell me, it's too late.
Jackie: Jardin is French for garden ... I reckon working with this fabric counts as horticultural homework?

lots of shopping :-)

We went to the Mall today - and shopped and shopped and shopped :-)

From top left:

• 4 muted fabrics for a rail fence quilt, and the yellow in the same range. I didn't choose the brown at first, but the yellow didn't blend too well, so i added the brown, and will use the yellow as the border
• pack of 5 spotted fabrics
• two packs of 5 Fat Quarters - usually each FQ is a couple of pounds - but each pack was $7!!!
• lots of cream and neutral textures for Hilary's tactile quilt
• More fancy buttons - I must start using them!!!
• And in the middle - fabric flowers that I've been searching for since Festival of Quilts. Jackie if you are reading this I will send you some :-)

And for Lizzy - $60: red zippy hoodie, turquoise long sleeved hoodie T shirt and grey t-shirt - hope they are ok!

Oh and we went in the new mini, with the top down!!!