Friday 27 July 2012

Armchair Athlete Cushion

In our household we are gearing up for the Olympics. Our youngest son is a volunteer at the Olympic Park, so has decamped to London and is psyching himself up for the 5 a.m. starts, a bit different from life as a student that is for sure :)

We are taking a less strenuous approach to the whole business, however, and are settling ourselves in for major sessions of armchair athletics. To make ourselves as comfortable as possible I have been busy with my own contribution to the Olympic effort!



This side is for the action



and this one for relaxing afterwards!

If you want to get yourself comfortable too here is what you will need to do.

To make a cover to fit a 16" / 40cm cushion inset you will need

Sufficient material to cut 1 strip of 4 colours 4.5" by 16.5" each, and 1 piece of a 5th colour 16.5" by 16.5"
2 pieces of fusible fleece 16" by !6"
Squares of felt in 4 different colours
Freezer paper sheets
1 zip 16"
2 yards covered piping cord. (you can buy this ready-made as I did or make your own with piping cord and bias tape)
piping cord foot for sewing machine (optional)

Seam allowances are 1/4" throughout

Step 1

Sew your 4 strips of material together lengthwise to make a 16.5" by 16.5" square. Iron one fusible fleece square to the back of your pieced square and the other fusible fleece square to the back of your 5th colour fabric square.

Step 2

Trace or draw the letters for your applique on to the dull side of the freezer paper. For the small letters on the front of the cushion I used an alphabet template from here and drew the larger letters out freehand. Make sure that you reverse the letters so that they will be the right way round when you applique them.



Cut out the letter shapes and apply to the felt using a hot iron.

Arrange the letters to your satisfaction on the striped front and plain back of the cushion.



Once you are happy with the layout remove the freezer paper from the back of the letters and pin them to your cushion ready for applique.

I chose to straight stitch just inside the outline of each letter using a black thread for contrast, but you could also use blanket stitch or a small zig-zag instead. You could also hand stitch this instead of machine sewing. The choice is yours.

Step 3

With the letters attached it is time to attach the piping. Leaving a length of piping free pin the covered piping cord to the outside of the cushion front matching up the raw edge of the piping with the raw edge of the cushion.



When you have pinned back to the beginning of the piping cord, unpick the seam for an inch or so at the unpinned end and cut the piping leaving a length of bias covering with no cord inside.

Match up the beginning of the covered cord with the end of the cord in the unpicked cover and overlap the cover to provide a continuous line of covered piping.

If you have a piping foot use this to stitch the piping to the cushion front, if not a zipper foot will do just as well.

Step 4

Measure your zip and shorten, if necessary, by hand-stitching over the zip teeth several times at the open end to create a new closure at the appropriate length. Attach the zip to the top raw edge of the cushion back right sides together, then repeat for the cushion front using the piping seam as your guide for the zipper seam.

Step 5

OPEN THE ZIP HALFWAY

I have lost count of the number of times I have forgotten to open the zip for the next step and believe me it is not easy to open a zip from the wrong side!

Pin the cushion front and back together right sides facing each other and stitch together from one zipper end, down the side, across the bottom and back up to the other zipper end.

Turn the cushion cover right sides out through the open zip.

Press the cushion cover and insert your cushion pad.



Grab the remote control, pour yourself something refreshing and sit back and enjoy :)

Well that is my plan.

May the best men and women win!

Let me know if you make one of these for the armchair athletes in your life. I can already see another one in the colours of my sons' rugby clubs with appropriate (clean!) phrases. Would love to see what you come up with.

Linking this up to  TGIFF

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Dresdens, HST's and WIP's

After the excitement of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop post yesterday it is back to normal service today, and a reality check with WIP's.

Not wanting to fall behind again on the In Color Order HST BOM, I set to yesterday to rattle up the July block. Just when I think though that I am finally getting the hang of these HST's I discover that although the points were perfect I had managed to sew the third row on the wrong way round! How unfair was that? Needless to say the points on that row never achieved the same level of perfection second time around :)

Although I have already completed the two Dresden Plate blocks for this month's Craftsy BOM, I really enjoyed putting together the modern interpretation and with the leftover material from the blocks managed to put together another two plates.

I haven't decided yet what to do with them, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.


I have also been pattern testing an embroidery pattern for Rebecca at Sew Festive Handmade and although I can't show you the finished embroidery just yet I can give you a sneak peek. The pattern will be on sale on Craftsy in early August, so I will be able to show you the whole thing then.

Only one of the above projects was actually on my WIP list, so it is not much improved I am afraid.

Completed projects

  • Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange, Sunflower and Reindeer cushions
  • Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and 
  • Padded Hangers  and Key/Coin tidy tutorials posted
  • Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilts, Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
  • Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags
Ongoing

  • 7 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
  • (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
  • 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
  • Teatime quilt pieced, backed and basted 
  • 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
  • 14 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
  • In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived still waiting for inspiration!
  • 6 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed (one month ahead!)
  • 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed and sent
  • Sew Festive Handmade embroidery project 
Waiting

  • Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
  • Last block of Sampler quilt
  • Amy Butler bag
  • Christmas mini quilts
  • Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop project 

Maybe it is not looking so bad after all!  Looking forward to seeing how everyone else is progressing.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday  and We Did it Wednesday

Monday 23 July 2012

Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop

Hello and Welcome if you are visiting this blog for the first time as part of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop and welcome back if you are a regular reader.



Allow me to introduce myself, I am Fiona, a Scot (hence the blog title!) currently living in Riga, Latvia. I enjoy trying my hands at different crafts but recently I have been drawn more and more to quilting, mainly due to the inspiring blogs, Bees and Quilt and Sew a Longs that I have found in blogland.

Here are just some of the projects I have worked on since I started blogging!


I first encountered patchwork and quilting when I signed up for an evening class several years ago in the UK. The aim of the class was to make a bed-size quilt using QAYG. It perhaps tells you something about the class that all but one of the blocks are completed and still waiting to be put together into a quilt. It is on my to-do list for this year though, well actually finishing the last block is, not finishing the quilt!


Discovering blogs and particularly craft blogs opened up a whole new world for me, and suddenly I was encouraged to have another go at quilting, which leads me to my first blogging tip - Join in! I started this blog in January this year, and simultaneously signed up for Sew Happy Geek's Sampler QAL, it was not only a great introduction to quilting, but also to other bloggers. The quilt from the QAL is in the middle of the second row in the mosaic above. Since then I have learnt to paper piece with Katy, which resulted in the Circle of Geese and Log Cabin cushions above, and embraced Zakka-style in the SAL, hence the tote bag and mug rugs above too!

The mosaic itself is my second blogging tip -  Big Huge Labs If you have been wondering how to put together a mosaic of all your projects, wonder no more! Access to the mosaic maker is free once you have registered and you can link your account to Flickr and Facebook accounts too.

As to quilting tips I can only repeat the join in tip, as I would definitely never have attempted paper-piecing without the support and inspiration of fellow bloggers.
My favourite quilting tool has to be my 6.5" and 12.5" rulers, the first is invaluable for trimming a 1/4" seam from paper-pieced patches and the second for squaring up blocks in the various BOM's I have joined.

Either of these tools will come in handy for the tutorial I have put together for today's post. As regular readers will know, since living here in Riga we have taken every opportunity to travel around the region, so travel accessories are high on my list of useful projects. The project today, though, was inspired by a remark from our eldest son about wanting a leather travel coin tidy. Well, I thought why buy a soulless leather  tray, when I could put together a more personal tray for him, so here it is.



The fabric is Box Cars purple by Echino and is available from the Eternal Maker


Travel Coin/Key Tidy Tutorial 

To make a Travel Coin/Key Tidy you will need the following;



Feature fabric   -  1FQ (more if you use a directional fabric like the Box Cars)
Natural Linen   -   6" x 6" square
Wadding          - 10" x 10"
Heavy Sew-in Interlining  6" x 6" (I used Vilene Craft/Pelmet Sew-In)
4 10mm Press Fasteners/Studs (+ Press Stud Pliers if you have them)
Letter Stamps + Stamp Block
Ink Pad for fabric (Versamark and Stayzon inks are both recommended for fabric)

Cutting Instructions

From the natural linen cut one 4" x 4" square
From the feature fabric cut two 4" x 3" strips, two 9" x 3" strips, one square 10" x 10" and sufficient 1.5" strips to make at least 40"  for binding 

Step 1 : Stamping the Linen Centre

Protect your work surface with wastepaper. Arrange your letter stamps on the stamp block to spell out your chosen words or phrase. They will be reversed on the block. Ink the stamps with your chosen colours. Be reasonably generous with the ink as the linen fabric is fairly absorbent. If you are too generous you can clear up any excess ink on the stamps with a baby wipe!
Once you have stamped your fabric you will need to set it with a hot iron. (I used Versamark ink, check the manufacturer's instructions if you are using Stayzon inks)



Step 2 : Making the tray inner

Using 1/4" seams throughout attach the 4" x 3" strips of feature fabric to the 2 sides of the stamped linen square. When sewing with linen I usually stitch a second line of stitching inside the original seam allowance to help prevent fraying, but I err on the side of caution after a shop-bought linen log-cabin cushion cover came apart in the first wash!

Press seams to the side and attach the two 9" x 3" strips to the top and bottom of the linen square

Step 3 : Quilting the tray

Cut your heavy sew-in interlining to 5.5" square and baste to the centre of your pieced tray inner. Layer up your backing fabric, wadding and basted tray inner and baste all of the layers together. You will need to quilt straight lines 1.5" from each side of the pieced square, the length of each side. These lines will cross in each corner creating a ready-made guide for your press studs/fasteners later on. The remainder of the quilting of the tray is entirely up to you, make sure though that you quilt the heavy sew-in interlining as this will create the flat bottom for the tray. I chose to quilt around the stamped square and echo quilt around the square, but left the centre unquilted.



Trim the excess wadding and backing.

Step 4 : Binding

Sew your 1.5" strips together at right-angles to each other to make one continuous strip for binding. Fold the strip in half lengthways and press along the fold. I prefer to attach my binding to the front of the square by machine using a 1/4" seam and mitring the corners then folding over to attach by hand to the back, but you may prefer to machine stitch the binding completely. In which case, you will attach the binding by machine to the back off the quilted square and then fold over and attach to the front by stitching in the ditch through all layers.

Step 5 : Attaching the press fasteners

To make the quilted square into a tray that will fold flat for travel, you will need to add 4 press fasteners/studs, 1 to each corner.
Using the quilted lines you sewed earlier mark the halfway point on both sides of the corner. This is where you will fasten the studs. Each stud is comprised of 4 parts, two rings with hooks and 1 male and 1 female fastener.

You can see the individual parts in the photo above.

You will attach a hook ring on the exterior of the tray and 1 male fastener on the inner tray at the first mark and another hook ring and 1 female fastener on the opposite mark on the corner. The fasteners come supplied with a tool for fixing them to the fabric, which needs a hammer to exert the pressure needed to lock the hooks in the male and female fasteners. Alternatively, you can use eyelet/stud pliers.

Whichever method you are using you will place the hook ring in the lower arm and the male fastener with the back facing you in the upper arm.


Place the quilted tray between the two arms of the pliers or tool at the mark you made earlier and squeeze tightly together or hammer to lock the fastener in the tray.

Repeat at the mark on the other side of the corner with the female fastener in the upper arm. Do this at each corner of the tray making sure that you use a male and female fastener at each!



When you have attached each of the press fasteners, press them together and voila! You have a travel coin/key tidy!

Use whatever stamps you have to hand, these deckchair stamps came free with a magazine, and don't feel limited to using linen for the stamped centre, this coin/key tidy was made from an orphan block with a cotton centre.



I hope you have fun using this tutorial and thank you for making it this far!

Don't forget to check out my fellow Blog Hopper Colby's sewing machine cover tutorial today too, and if you have missed them you can catch up on all the other posts in the Blog Hop here. On Thursday the Blog Hoppers will be :

Mary from Spoolhardy Girl
Fiona from Finding Fifth


Finally, huge thanks to Beth who is responsible for organising the Blog Hop, she has put in a tremendous amount of work to put together such a wonderful array of bloggers. There is no shortage of inspiration and talent on display, and the Blog Hop certainly demonstrates all that attracted me to blogging in the first place, so it is a real privilege and pleasure to be able to take part.

I look forward to seeing travel tidies popping up in blogland soon and to meeting new readers as a result of this post.



Dresden Duet

The Craftsy BOM for July is based upon the Dresden Plate block, with one block being a traditional Dresden and the second a modern take on Dresden Plates. As the Dresden Plate is currently one of my favourite blocks, I was really looking forward to tackling these. Templates are provided for the petals and inner circle, but instructions are also given for using the Ez Dresden ruler and as I bought one of these on my last trip home, it was time to get it into action.

The Traditional block used 4" petals and was machine appliqued to the background square. The centre circle was made again by stitching two 4" circles together then making a slit in the back and turning the circle inside out. Taking Katy's advice I was more generous in cutting notches around the stitched circles, so the shape was better when it was turned out.


This modern Dresden block was made with 4.5" petals, which were joined at each side with 1/4" seams and then sewn right sides together to a background square at the top edge of the petals, again with a 1/4" seam. The background square was pulled through the open centre to turn the Dresden right side out, and then machine appliqued to another background square.

I really like this modern interpretation of the Dresden block and have already cut out enough petals to do two more blocks!

With 7 months of the Craftsy BOM now done, there are only 6 blocks left to do as the final two months of the BOM are dedicated to putting the quilt together, so, who knows, it may be done in time to be an extra Christmas present!

Here is how the blocks look so far.

Although the next set of blocks for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee are not due until August, I decided to get ahead of myself and get them sewn up ready to send off at the beginning of the month. This month the colour for the blocks was green, which I didn't think I had a lot of in my stash. Thanks to my charm square win some months ago from Erin at Missy Mac Creations, I was surprised to find that I had more than enough to make these two blocks.

I am looking forward to seeing the blocks that come through the post in this direction!

Tomorrow is my day for posting on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop along with Colby of Sew,Quilt, Explore so I look forward to welcoming you back then and in the meantime here is a sneak peek of what is in store!

Linking up to BOM's Away and Manic Monday,



Friday 20 July 2012

Friendship Stars and Free Motion Quilting

My faithful sewing machine does not know what has hit it these last few days, not content with making buttonholes and trying out machine embroidery on the Dresden Sunflower cushion, I have been trying out another new (for me) function of the machine.

The Time for Tea quilt was backed and basted but I have been putting off doing anything about the quilting as I know what I would like to do - teacups in the border - but don't know how to achieve it. Never having attempted any quilting other than straight line and echo quilting, it is a big leap to contemplate fancy motifs, even if this is only a lap-size quilt. I did, however, have the 4 spare Friendship Star blocks as a result of my shockingly bad maths, so now had the opportunity to play with them.

Bordered with another dotty fabric from the Sunny Happy Skies line, then backed and basted the quilt square was ready to be practised upon. Beforehand though, I checked out Leah Day's video tutorials on Free Motion Quilting, to help with the machine set up, as the machine manual was sadly lacking in this respect! Armed with this knowledge, I set to.

What fun! How tense! Oh dear! Not so bad! All ran through my head in the space of a few seconds, whilst also trying to remind myself to breath and relax my shoulders. I have new found respect for the FMQ experts abounding in blogland, their hand-eye co-ordination is amazing :)

It wasn't perfect by any means, but when I got the hang of moving the quilt sandwich evenly my FMQ stitches even began to look quite respectable in places! In other places, not such a good result, but it was good fun. I think it will be a while before I am rattling off dancing teacups, but at least I can add another new technique to my mental list of things tried.

I didn't get too carried away though the Friendship Stars were echo quilted first, before I tried out the meandering loops on the dotty borders!

Having seen the photo of the cushion I am now regretting using two such similar prints for the bottom-right star, as I don't think the star stands out as much as it could do, but as these were spare blocks anyway I shall just chalk it up to experience.

Fortunately, the Friendship Stars in the quilt itself are better balanced.

Last weekend we visited a Coin and Collectors Fair here in Riga. The stalls were mainly geared to Coin, Stamp and Postcard collectors but there were a few other interesting items to be found.

 These medal ribbons were a glorious jumble of colour in the midst of all the military paraphernalia

And these Christmas Decorations seemed very out of place on a baking hot day! Not that there has been that many of these this summer in Riga.

Have a great weekend.

Linking up to TGIFF

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Sunflowers and WIP's

Although I have had the Dresden plate for my next Rainbow cushion pieced for ages, it has been gathering dust in the cupboard whilst other projects muscled their way to the top of the pile. Well, it finally got to the top of the pile, nudged a little by the fact that this month's Craftsy BOM blocks are Dresden plates! I haven't started my Craftsy blocks for July yet, but I have watched the video and I was taken with the way that Amy Gibson finishes the centres of her Dresden plates. She cuts out two circles of fabric and sews them all the way around with a 1/4" seam then makes a cut in the back of the circle and turns the circle fabrics outside in. Seemed a lot less work than needleturn applique, which is what I had intended to do, so I gave it a go :)

And here it is, I found it hard to get the circle shape exactly right, but it is not far off and it was a lot quicker than trying to get an even circle with needleturn applique that is for sure! As I am trying to use new techniques with these cushions, I decided to have a go at using one of the embroidery stitches on the sewing machine to frame the sunflower.

All was going surprisingly well until I got distracted! Then what had been a nice, even spacing of vine tendrils became a rather dense vine. Unpicking dense machine embroidery is no joke, and I definitely learned my lesson to pay attention all the time!


Still another new technique tried and, if not mastered, at least completed, and another project moved from waiting to finished!

So this is how my WIP list looks now

Completed projects

  • Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange, Sunflower and Reindeer cushions
  • Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
  • Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilt
  • Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
  • Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags
Ongoing

  • 6 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
  • (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
  • 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
  • Teatime quilt pieced 
  • Let's get Acquainted Blog Hop project 
  • 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
  • 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
  • In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived still waiting for inspiration!
  • 4 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed and sent
  • 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed and sent
Waiting

  • Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
  • Last block of Sampler quilt
  • Amy Butler bag
  • Christmas mini quilts
  • Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop project 
The waiting list is looking pretty healthy, now I need to get to grips with some of the projects that have been loitering on that ongoing list before they get lost under all that dust!

If, like me, you have several orphan paper-pieced blocks lying around waiting to be made into something wonderful, their wait may soon be over. Kristy at Quiet Play has just announced the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop, which kicks off on August 1st and runs for the whole month, except Sundays. Naturally there will be giveaways and prizes involved with a linky party at the end for showing off all the wonderful creations. I can't wait, but will have to as my day on the Blog Hop is not until August 27th!  

If you haven't already check out this week's Blogs on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop, you are missing out on

July 17
    Katie from Kati's Quilting
    Claire from Sewing over Pins
    Caroline from Quilting in the Cold 
July 19
    Jamie from Sweet Baby Jamie
    Janine from Rainbow Hare Quilts 



Looking forward to seeing all your progress this week.
Linking up to WIP WednesdayQuilt Story and We Did it Wednesday

Friday 13 July 2012

Time for tea

This week I have been enjoying working on want to rather than need to projects. So the pressure has been off me, which is just as well as the husband has had a really pressured week and there in only room in the household for one person under pressure at a time!

Today I have finished the top of my afternoon tea quilt that I started many moons ago, and has been gathering dust wrapped up in a map roll on top of the wardrobe ever since. As the quilt was intended to make use of an embroidered panel there was no pattern for the top, so I had drafted out the cutting and sewing measurements myself. Although I knew maths was never a strong point of mine, until today I hadn't realised quite how bad I was! According to my calculations I needed 28 6.5" blocks for the second border on the quilt, so I duly cut and pieced 24 Friendship Star blocks with the intention of making 4 different blocks for the corners. When I laid out the quilt centre and pieced Star blocks I discovered that my calculations had been way out, instead of needing 28 blocks in fact I only needed 20! So out with the seam ripper to take off the extra 2 blocks on 2 strips.

The dodgy maths mean though that I have 4 Friendship Star blocks ready to make up into a matching cushion, so it wasn't all bad.

I would love to be a bit more adventurous with the quilting on this lap quilt and ideally, quilt some form of teacup in the striped border and on the linen centre, but that may just be a bit over-ambitious as I have never even tried free-motion quilting! All tips will be much appreciated.

Last weekend there was a large pan-Baltic Folklore festival in Riga, part of which was a Craft Fair and open-air concerts in one of the City parks. I was delighted to see these girls with their flower headdresses working on their looms and thought you might like to see them too.





And just to prove that all you need is attitude to carry off the flower wreath look!







Have a great weekend.



Linking here and here

Wednesday 11 July 2012

High Rollers and Fashionistas

Yesterday the Rolls Royce Ghost Club from the UK came to town as part of their Nordic and Baltic tour. Fortunately it was a glorious day when they pulled up in formation outside Riga City Hall. It was very funny to see so many grown men unashamedly drooling! Here's a flavour of what they were drooling over!


And

This little lady attracted the most attention!

Today is the last day for submitting entries to Sew Sweetness' Purse Palooza, so true to form I swithered about whether to make the Fashionista bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible, which is on my 12 WIP's in 2012 list, in time to submit. Yesterday I decided to go for it. Nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind!

I have already made two of these bags, both of which I gave to my daughter-in-law, so had decided that the next one was definitely for me. I had even bought the perfect bright pink wool fabric for the bag a long time ago on a trip to Tallinn, so I have had very little excuse not to have it completed before now.



Once I started making the bag I remembered why I had been putting it off for so long! The first step in making the bag is to construct both sets of handles and although the shoulder length handle with the chain is fairly straightforward to sew, getting the chain cut and attached is another story. The instructions tell you to cut the chain to the desired length, an action I have found impossible to do on my own in the past. Fortunately, our local ironmongers at home has a very willing owner who is happy to cut my chains with his professional-looking wire cutters as often as I need, so I have gathered a store of them for just such an occasion. The instructions also tell you to open the chain links to attach them to the D-rings on the end of the strap, another action I found impossible to do, so my solution was to attach a split ring to the end of the chain, which then attaches to the D-ring.

The short handle provides a whole different set of problems. To attach the bolt hook to the end of the piped handle you need to sew 8 layers of fabric whilst trying to avoid hitting the top of the bolt hook with your machine needle, not for the faint-hearted that is for sure! It took several attempts is all I am admitting to :)

Actually once the handles are sorted, the rest of the bag is fairly straightforward, even fitting the twist-turn lock and inserting a zipped inner pocket is pain-free compared to grappling with 8 layers of fabric. Although I did need to grit my teeth, cross my fingers and hope for the best when cutting into my already sewn bag flap to attach the front part of the lock and then again to fit the eyelets for the short handle.

Finishing this bag also means that I can shift another project off of my waiting list and on to the completed list, which is very nice, and it is this month's finish for 12 WIP's in 2012!

So here is how my list is looking now

Completed projects

  • Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions
  • Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
  • Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilt
  • Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
  • Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags
Ongoing

  • 6 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
  • (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
  • 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
  • First border of teatime quilt completed
  • 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
  • 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
  • Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued 
  • In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived waiting for inspiration!
  • 4 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed
  • 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed

Waiting

  • Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
  • Last block of Sampler quilt
  • Amy Butler bag
  • Christmas mini quilts

There is a bit of a logjam in that ongoing list I think, will have to work on that soon.

Tomorrow's posts in the Let's get Acquainted Blog Hop are from

July 12
    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 
    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks
Rebecca has been posting tutorials this month for her Christmas in July series, so I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with tomorrow and Marti has a giveaway running on her blog at the moment, so both are definitely worth checking out. 

Monday 9 July 2012

Three down, twenty-one to go!

This weekend I decided to forget all of the commitments I have signed myself up for and spend some time working on a project that is just for me. I started my Time for Tea quilt a while ago to make use of a piece of embroidery that had been gathering dust in the cupboard. The first border has been attached for a while and the 2.5" squares for the Friendship Stars I had planned for the second border have been cut for ages too, so this weekend I decided was the right time to make some more progress.

I discovered when I started marking the squares for HST's that I had been too generous in my cutting and had twice as many squares for the triangles as I needed, so I only needed to mark, sew and cut 96 squares! Still, there is a quilt in the Sunday Morning Quilts book that I would like to make sometime that uses leftover triangles, over 500 of them (!), so at least now I have the start of a triangle stash :)

Ignoring the rising heat and then thunderstorms around me, I determinedly ploughed on with the sewing and cutting to produce 72 pieced strips for the blocks.

The fabric is Sunny Happy Skies by Riley Blake and is rightly named, because they are such cheerful fabrics. I had time, just, before the Men's Championship Final at Wimbledon kicked off to get a couple of Friendship Stars sewn up too.

So, progress has been made, but as the title says only 3 down, 21 to go!

Whilst watching Wimbledon my latest project from Made in France, Cross -stitch in Red, white and blue was the particularly apt strawberry pattern. I stitched it on a small hand towel that I bought in a textile factory outlet in Estonia on our last trip there. Fortunately being one colour the pattern was not too complicated as I couldn't have coped with the anxiety of watching Andy Murray's gallant performance and a complex cross-stitch pattern!

Hope you have all had a productive weekend too.

This week's posts on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop are from

July 10

    Jenelle from Echinops and Aster  
    Julie from Bedsheet in the Kitchen
July 12
    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 
    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Rebecca has a Christmas in July event going on at the moment, so if you want to be more organised this year (or in my case just organised) be sure to check out her blog! 
 
Linking up to Manic Monday
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