Slow Blogger Link Party

Welcome to the Slow Blogger Link Party for August, a place to celebrate the slower pace of life in the blogosphere.

 

I'm Fiona, welcome to my blog if you haven't stopped here before, feel free to have a look around and get to know me a bit better.  

As many of you know the Slow Bloggers Link Party is the brainchild of Catherine, at Knotted Cotton who declared in the Slow Bloggers Manifesto that amongst other things;

 " With membership you are declaring your intention not to sweat about the blogging when other things take over, or to feel apologetic if you have only made one thing in a month"

So, whether your month has been spent like mine, mostly watching the flowers grow

 

with a little bit of sewing thrown in

or you have whipped up quilts right, left and centre.

Link up your posts below to celebrate the achievement of hanging on in there for another month :)

Enter the stash cupboard!

Kristy's block for August in the  And Sew On BOM is a paper-pieced stash cupboard, actually it is a totally unrealistically neat and tidy stash cupboard :)

Although, as you can see, it is probably just as well that I was not attempting to paper-piece a pattern of what my stash actually looks like!


 It is also a pattern filled with tiny bits of paper-piecing! I am beginning to like tiny paper-piecing bits as even I can't scrimp on the fabric for them so my usual problems with paper-piecing and very scant seam allowances just doesn't happen, well alright maybe sometimes.

So here is my fantasy stash cupboard in all its glory. Only one more block to go with the BOM, I dread to think what size the pieces will be in that one :)

As you can see I had a bit of trouble keeping the seams straight when I joined the pieces together. Using the linen for the floor meant that the seams didn't iron as flat as they might have if it was all cotton, so I think I will need to be a bit tougher on this with the iron when I come to join all the blocks together.

Speaking of ironing, am I the only one who ends up with bumps of fabric where the seams of all the tiny pieces are joined? How do you get a block like this as flat as possible, I would love to know? 

So, with another BOM block completed here's how the 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 13 sets of blocks received, 3 more to come
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (only 1 month behind schedule!)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee Q2 - signed up
•  And Sew On BOM - eight blocks completed (On Schedule!)
• Paris Cushion - fabric received
• (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 

I will be guest hosting the Slow Blogger link party tomorrow for Catherine at Knotted Cotton  so be sure to check back then and link up your month's projects, whether fast or slow.

Not sure whether you are a Slow Blogger or not?

Check out the Slow Blog Manifesto here

Linking up to

Bridging the Gap

I have no idea why but I seem to be on a bit of a roll with the blocks for the Star of Africa Bee, which as regular readers know require a lot of brain activity on top of the sewing required. We are in the middle of redecorating and shifting rooms around, so maybe getting the Bee blocks done is really procrastination on the shifting furniture front. Whatever it is, though it's working :)

Back in May, Leanne asked for "a postcard block - a block with anything that you might find on a postcard from where you live or your country". Eek! where to begin? I live near the Roman Sites of Hadrian's Wall so thought about trying to come up with a block to represent them, but eventually decided that my ability to replicate a pile of stones meaningfully was next to non-existent!

So with ancient history out of the question, maybe something more modern was called for. Coming into Newcastle upon Tyne by train from the South, the sight of the Tyne Bridge from the High Level Bridge is a welcome sign that I am nearly home. So I decided to have a go at representing the Bridges on the Tyne for my block for Leanne.

So here is my version of four of the seven Bridges crossing the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead. The Bridges are from top to bottom - Tyne Bridge, High Level Bridge, Queen Elizabeth II Bridge and the Swing Bridge.

This block is winging its way to Australia, so it seems appropriate that it has a version of the Tyne Bridge there, as it was apparently the model for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was built 4 years after the Tyne Bridge.

And here is the block with the original postcard that inspired it.

I am delighted to have another tick on the list of outstanding blocks for the Star of Africa Bee and now need to come up with a plan for the music-themed block that Irene asked for in July :)

If your holiday photos are of bridges or other industrial structures this year, then they could be the perfect subject for a mini quilt entry for the

At 10.5" by 8.5" this block is too small for an entry, but extended to the minimum 12" by 12" I might even get all 7 of the City Centre Tyne Bridges into a quilt :)

Linking up to