a few more blocks

Last week I made a start on the And Sew On paper pieced block of the month and have January's block sewn.

I also finished the last Craftsy block in last year's block of the month - yippee - now I'll be able to put this on my finish-along list later in the year - I need to get some backing organised first!

and on Friday I received a half done mod mosaic block that was my choice for the Design Camp bee in July last year - Tiff didn't get around to finishing it so sent it back to me and I just added a few blocks and its done !  I'm just waiting on one more block and I can thinking about putting this one together as well :)

tomorrow I'm making a start on the totally groovy quilt - can't wait :)

weekend sewing

I'm sewing with the new Janome - yes, I packed up the old faithful Elna (sniff) and put her away and set up Jilly the Janome !

the first block I sewed was the halloween block that I needed to applique and I used the blanket stitch which went pretty well - just don't look too closely at the zig zag chimney - I definitely need some practice!

then I sewed the binding on Lucy's pram cover and also made the strip ties and she sewed like a dream!  This is my a lovely year of finishes project for January - just need to hand sew the binding and sew on the ties so I should make the deadline !

I love the extension table - its nice and big and made sewing the binding on very easy.  My only issue is that it sits a bit higher than the Elna so when I put my chair higher my legs sit firmly under the drawers of the table - so I might have to find another table at some stage but for now I'll cope !

I also finished a couple of craftsy blocks - only one more to do!

The friendship circle block - its paper pieced and its a block that I've fallen in love with - I can see a whole quilt made from this block.

 

and the wonky log cabin block - I had used a fabric for the centre that looked terrible when it was finished a while ago so I unpicked it all and used a plain centre - its still not my favourite block but hopefully it will blend in with the others !

and then I sewed a border on an old embroidery that I'm going to make into a cushion.

Its a candlewick embroidery block that I made years ago - finished in 1998 to be precise - I've even dated it (bottom right!).  My excuse is that I was waiting for the perfect fabric to frame it and I think I've pretty much found it.

I'd been thinking about making some cushions for my couch for a little while and when I pulled one of the boxes out of the garage recently and opened it up I found some half made or started cushions from quite a few years ago, this being one of them!  I'm planning to get the others done very soon :)

Linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes mid month check-in!

the Janome has arrived !

Mum's Janome arrived on Monday morning which was pretty quick as Mum and Dad only posted it from Queensland on Friday - it was sent with Australia Post and they delivered it lickety split and she arrived in good order too - thanks Australia Post !

I'm very excited that mum decided to pass her machine onto me when she bought her new Janome Horizon at the end of last year.

For one it means that I can do blanket stitch applique on the machine rather than doing it by hand which has been the only way in the past (extremely time consuming) as my gorgeous old Elna doesn't have fancy stitches !

I'm planning on learning free motion quilting on the Janome as the feed dogs drop down - there is also a needle down function and a speed control without using the foot pedal (I'm sure that function has a fancy name!).

There are also lots of other stitches that I'm sure going to have fun discovering !  oh, and she has a nice big extension table - I forgot to put it on for the photo !

I'm sure that mum will be amazed that I have yet to plug her in!! I need to do the machine applique on the halloween house so I'll start her up tomorrow :) and now I'll definitely need to make the old Elna a cover so she will be dust free in her new home in the cupboard !

In the meantime, I used the Elna today to make a couple of blocks for the January Design Camp 2 bee - Shelley is making a quilt based on the bright birch trees quilt by AmandaJean of Crazy Mom Quilts.  Its a really fun design that uses strips of small scraps sewn into blocks. I just discovered this quilt recently and have already put it on my "when my ufos are finished" list as I have a heap of tiny scraps that I can use.

I only received the design camp package from Shelley yesterday and I've finished the blocks already so I think that might just be a record for making bee blocks.

I also made a craftsy block during the week - so I'm slowly getting those done - only a couple more to do!

I've got a few blocks to do tomorrow so I'll try out the new machine and she how she goes :)

hurricane sandy quilt block appeal

I didn't really achieve all the sewing I wanted to on the weekend but I did get four Hurricane Sandy appeal blocks done.

Annabella alerted me to this appeal on Saturday night - Jenn from Knotted Thread has set up a flickr group and is wanting these simple blocks by the end of November so if you have a little fabric and an hour to spare why not make some too :)

my other Sunday sewing included the craftsy BOM October circle of geese block - I forgot how long it takes to paper piece - all that flipping and checking and pressing - but I love the end result :)

and I very nearly finished the long distance quilting bee block for Joy - this was due to be sent by the end of March so I'm very late and it was lost for 4 months which didn't help.

I've unpicked and restitched this whole block since I started - I originally had the purple frame on the inside (kind of a cross effect) so I think it looks way better as an actual frame.

I just need to embroider the lavender flowers in the top left block and I can post it - I'm so glad this is nearly done as I only have one other block to do for this group and we're finished for the year!

I was tossing up last night whether to keep sewing today or do housework - well, unfortunately the housework won but I'm hoping to get it done early so I can get some sewing in later.

hope you did some fabulous sewing over the weekend :)

a little sewing !

gee - its been more than a week since I last posted and I'm not sure I have that much to show for my time away !

I've made the October long distance quilting bee block for Rhonda who requested a maple leaf block using green and earth colours/leaves.

When I uploaded a photo of my block onto flickr I discovered that the others had done the block with a light background so I decided to quickly make another one just in case I'm the only one with a dark background !

and I've finished up some blocks that may or may not have been on my to do list !

I finished the traditional dresden plate block for my craftsy bom - I just needed to applique the circle so that's another one done.

I also redid one of the craftsy blocks that I wasn't that happy with - hopefully this one might suit the quilt a little better that the original :)

I've appliqued the ball and surfboard onto my wonky house block - I made blocks for the wonky house swap at the beginning of the year and I kept this one as (a) it wasn't finished and (b) it was the first time I'd done curved piecing :) - its nice to have it finally finished as well !

As I've mentioned I'm in the Modern She Made Swap and last weekend I finally decided on the design and some fabrics to make a mini quilt for my partner.

I'm using a design by Quiltdad that he did for a cushion tutorial (along with Julie from Jaybird Quilts) over at the Moda Bakeshop - I decided to adapt it for a quilt - half square triangles with some wonky stars.  I think my love of half square triangles is bordering on obsession !

I've now got the half square triangles sewn and trimmed - just need to put them on the design wall to arrange and then sew together - I am definitely going to machine quilt this one - mainly because it needs to be in the post within two weeks.

I've also finished a little embroidery block that I started sometime last year with the idea to make a bag for mum - its using colouring pencils with embroidered outlines - its a technique used by Helen Stubbings that she calls colourqué - I really like the effect of this technique but I'm thinking now that maybe that orange is a bit out of place !

I need to make this into a project - after talking to mum I've decided not to go with a bag or pouch as she has plenty of them so hopefully it won't take me another year to think of something to do with it !  its about 6" square so if  you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them - my only thought at the moment is to make it into a mini quilt (bordered by hst - lol) !

this weekend I'm hoping to get the capsule/pram cover finished, the modern she made swap top done, and the last craftsy blocks sewn - phew - I'd better get sewing - have a great weekend :)

weekend swap blocks

I made a tiny dent in my to be done before christmas list over the weekend with some swap blocks finished and ready to be posted tomorrow.

first up is the august design camp 2 block - linda requested improv blocks - either an all linear block or a wonky log cabin block - the fabrics she sent were gorgeous - I thought I was going to do a linear block but when I saw the little bird I changed to a log cabin - which was fun - I used all the fabric in the one block rather than doing two smaller ones.

I also sewed the september design camp 2 blocks for suzy who sent out some gorgeous stripe fabric along with white and grey and asked for square or rectangle blocks - I managed to make three blocks out of the fabrics and I'm happy with how they turned out.

In between I did some hand sewing and appliqued the circle of the craftsy bom dresden wheel block so that is finally finished - I need to do the circle of the dresden plate block as well.

the idea of the star of africa swap is to make a block representing your country - for the July block May asked for something in pink and as I was born in Tasmania which is also known as the Apple Isle I thought I'd do an apple applique - for those who don't know Tasmania is a small island at the bottom of mainland Australia and its shaped kind of like a heart or this apple :)  I've embroidered "Tasmania" on one side and "the apple isle" on the other but as I've used pink thread it hasn't shown up too well in the photo.

I was also going to do some extra embroidery on Patti's June block so I could send it off too but I seem to have misplaced her block at the moment - on saturday I found a swap block that I haven't seen since I got back from leave four months ago and now I've lost another one - very annoying - I know I've just put it somewhere for safe keeping but I hope I can find it a bit quicker than the other one !

and lastly I've trimmed the hourglass blocks for baby Lucy's quilt and its on the design wall - hopefully I'll be able to get a layout and sew it together soon as it uses the whole area !

that's a few blocks that I can cross off my to-do list - hope you had a productive weekend too :)

a few finishes

I tidied up and got a few finishes done today so that I could start on sewing the down under doll quilt tomorrow - its been on the wall for at least a month so it will be good to get it finally sewn !!

I finished the two care at do.good stitches blocks - fabulous wonky churn dash blocks using fabric foundation.

 

I also sewed up the craftsy drunkard's path blocks - they're a bit uneven so I might have to look at them a bit closer when I put the quilt together but I'm pretty happy with the first time curves :)

 

and I finally sewed the binding on a little mini quilt that I made back in April for a blog hop - its the one that had the red dye issues so wasn't finished in time and I'm not sure why I've been so slow in getting it hand quilted and bound ! I hand quilted lines in the sashing with red variegated Perle 8.

I put little pocket hangers on this one which is a technique I saw on Amy's Stitchery Dickory Dock blog earlier this week so its already on the wall !

have a great weekend - we're lucky to have a long weekend this weekend and the weather is perfect for sewing - cold and raining !!

conquering those curves!

on the weekend I decided to tackle the curves of the totally groovy quilt.

amazingly, the craftsy bom blocks for September were drunkard's path too so I thought I would practice on those first.

I have a curvemaster foot and was pretty confident that I knew how to use it - I'd watched a few video tutorials and it looked kind of easy .... I should have known better !

So I cut out the pies and crusts of the drunkard's path craftsy blocks and started sewing them together and had issues straight away - none of them were ending well and I kept catching the inner circle when I was sewing.

the first one will be interesting as I try to sew it together - as not many of the seams line up !

hopefully they'll sew together ok though !

doing the blocks for the second one I actually did one almost perfect block !

and the rest turned out a bit better - at least I didn't catch the bottoms

but I'll probably still have issues trying to sew the block together !

when I cut out the totally groovy blocks I noticed that the inner curve template was way smaller than the craftsy one so I was a little worried with that - I think I'd heard somewhere that starching the fabric would help with stretching so I starched all of these blocks - I sewed a few and while one turned out ok the others were wonky and had seams extending - oh well - there's always tomorrow !

so I went to bed on Sunday night thinking that I couldn't do curves with the curvemaster !

anyway, not to be outdone by a sewing foot, this morning I tried again but it wasn't pretty !

they either didn't sit right or I was catching the inner curve !

So it was time to do something else !

There were a pile of papers on my cutting table that I needed to sort through so I started that - about half way through I saw a curvemaster tutorial that I'd printed out and read through it and discovered what I might be doing wrong - I think instead of holding the top fabric straight up I was kind of holding it to the side so I jumped on the machine and tried another curve as I still had about 18 to sew !!

well the first one turned out not too bad - the difference between these two is quite amazing !

the final lot that I sewed turned out really well too - I was very happy - I think I might have conquered the curvemaster - yippee !!

hope you had a great weekend !