Starting to fly

What with holidays and competitions it has been a while since I have had a chance to think about my WIP list.

Speaking of competitions, voting is still open in the

I know the entries are all fabulous and it is really hard to choose between them but if you haven't already voted, you can cast your vote here. There are great prizes up for grabs, so vote to make sure your favourite wins one of them :)

Although I didn't quite get my In Color Order HST BOM completed before the FAL deadline, I have been quilting away ever since and the quilting is now nearly completed. As this quilt has been on my finish list for every quarter this year, that is definitely progress!

I don't know whether it is because the border fabric is dark and the wadding is light so it is more noticeable, but everything is covered in fluff at the minute. Anyone would think it was moulting season around here! 


No wadding needed yet though for the SMQ, Up, up and Away quilt, it will be a while before I need to get that order in :) Although, there are now less than 300 blocks needed for the quilt top! It doesn't sound too bad if I say it quickly enough :)

Progress is being made though, and now that I am using the strips of 10 blocks from my Bee mates, in theory the strips should go together quicker! We shall see how well that theory holds up.

So this is how my WIP list looks now

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting almost completed!
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received, 2 more to be added by me
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee 313 blocks made, 277 to go!
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee - COMPLETED
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (only 2 left to make!)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee Q2 - COMPLETED AND SENT
•  And Sew On BOM - eight blocks completed (One left to make!)
• Paris Cushion - COMPLETED 
• Stamp it Up Swap pouch- COMPLETED AND SENT
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted  
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks 
• 20 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed 

Linking up to

 

September already?

Thankfully it is not yet September otherwise I would have missed my birthday entirely, but as far as the SMQ Bee is concerned August has been skipped over and we have dived straight into September.

Both of the Queen Bee's for August went AWOL so there was a deathly silence when the request for their block preference was made. So instead of August blocks I am now ahead of the game (in my mind anyway!) with the first of the Bee blocks for September done and dusted.

Jennifer asked for 25 blue blocks for the Up,up and away quilt from the book. This was the same block that I asked my Bee mates for back in May, so it was fun to have a go at them again in a different colourway. The blocks went together in such quick time that I was encouraged to keep on making them to add to my own pile.

In May I asked the Bees to send two strips of 10 2.5" white squares with a triangle in the corner, and all but three of them have come through so far, so with an extra strip sent by a Bee member I had 270 blocks. The quilt needs 589 blocks! You can see why I asked for strips, I can only admire Jennifer's fortitude in asking for the blocks to be sent individually!

Here are my 270 blocks in all of their glory.

 

The strips for the quilt are set diagonally so I have made a start on the first diagonal rows, 279 blocks down only another 311 to go :)

The instructions in the book call for triangles cut from 2.5" binding strips for the corner triangles but I haven't bound enough quilts to have that many triangles on hand so have been saving triangles wherever I can.

I am hoping that this bag of triangles will get me most of the way there.

So with another Bee block down and a start on my own Bee quilt here is how my WIP list is looking now

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received, 2 more to be added by me
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee 279 blocks made, 311 to go!
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (ahead of schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (only 1 month behind schedule!)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee Q2 - no progress yet
•  And Sew On BOM - eight blocks completed (On Schedule!)
• Paris Cushion - no progress
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted  
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks 
• 20 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed

Linking up to

Bee blocks in, Bee blocks out

There hasn't been a lot of sewing going on around here lately, but in an effort to keep up to date with at least one of my Bees I have finally got around to making this month's block for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.

Julie asked for blocks for a Ticker Tape quilt from the book. The original quilt is put together with scraps of fabric attached to plain white blocks, quilted and attached at the same time. Julie asked us to stitch fabric scrap squares to a 22" x 22" white background square, leaving the edges raw.

The plan then is that Julie will stitch over the original stitching to quilt the backing, wadding and pieced front together. I wish her luck, I found stitching these squares and rectangles, very tedious! I wasn't sure about the original quilt in the book, when I first read it and now I definitely know that this quilt isn't for me. All those raw edges are too disturbing.

Having seen the other blocks that are on their way to Julie though, this will be a really colourful quilt.

So one block out, and two blocks in.

 

I have asked my Star of Africa Bee mates to make house blocks for my Bee quilt, and boy are they coming up trumps! Jen made this fabulous block based on her grandparents house, and shared the tale of the making here She has a photo of the original inspiration for the block and has definitely nailed it.

Irene sent this block all the way from Guatemala, complete with a description of the Spanish Colonial style architecture that the block is based on. The door fabric is an example of typical Guatemalan textiles, and the fussy cut flowers in the windows are adorable.

Although the Star of Africa Bee definitely taxes my brain at times, receiving such fabulous blocks with their stories makes the brain frizz worthwhile :)

So no change on the WIP list this week.

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee all but 3 blocks received 
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee 12 sets of blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (3 months behind schedule)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee -  COMPLETED AND SENT
• And And Sew On BOM - four blocks completed (two behind schedule)
• Son's quilt  COMPLETED
• Paris Cushion - fabric received
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted  
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks 
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!)

Maybe the rain we are being predicted for the rest of the week will mean some progress will be made on that list this week :)

The Link-up for New to Me in July opens tomorrow, so don't forget to link up if you have tried anything new this month!

Linking up to

The Scrap that was June!

It seems like I have done nothing but Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks for weeks and when I look at my mosaic of June makes, it turns out that is what I have been doing all month :)

1. Scrappy Trip Block 3, 2. Scrappy Trip Block 1, 3. Scrappy Trip Block 5, 4. Scrappy Trip Strips, 5. Scrappy Chevron finished, 6. Scrappy Trip Block 2, 7. Scrappy Chevron folded, 8. Scrappy Trip Block 4, 9. Cindys Giveaway

 There's a lot of Scrappy in that mosaic!

Sneaked in at the end is the great bundle of Halloween fabrics that I won in Cindy's recent giveaway. There was also a packet of Jolly Rancher sweets in the parcel, but I am afraid that they didn't hang around long enough to be photographed. The watermelon flavour sweets were especially delicious :)

Maybe I should plan a Scrappy Halloween Trip quilt next! Although given that I had aimed for 4 finishes for Q2 of the FAL and only managed one, maybe not!

My one finish was the Scrappy Chevron Quilt

which was actually the least advanced of all 4 projects at the beginning of the Quarter. So,

The HST BOM quilt still needs to be quilted and bound

The blocks from the first round of the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee still need to be turned into a quilt top! If I don't get this one finished soon it will be joined by the blocks from the second round which have been arriving over the last few weeks!

The Paris cafe embroidery has yet to be turned into the cushion I promised myself too! No prizes for guessing what I will be working on next quarter :)

I have discovered that I am much more likely to get a project finished if it is not for me, so with that in mind I have joined another Bee with the express aim of completing some projects for me. The aptly-named Me Me Me Bee . Check out Kettleboiler's post if you could do with some Me Me Me sewing motivation too.

All of this month's Scrappiness has meant that I was in danger of falling even more behind with my Bee blocks, so the last couple of days in June saw a burst of Bee block activity. 

 

Both of this month's Bees in the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee asked for the same "High Five" block, but in different colourways. Jacqueline asked for a bright block

Whilst Martha wanted low-volume, neutral blocks with pops of colour. It will be fun to see how the two different quilts turn out.

With these two blocks in the post I am up-to-date (just) for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee but still way behind with the Star of Africa Bee, maybe I will finally catch up with them in July!

Linking up to

Lily's Quilts