furtling around at home

Wow another couple of months have zoomed by in this crazy year - I'm sure its not just me who thinks that this year has literally flown by !?! which is good and bad too, I suppose !

anyway, it’s time to join Archie The Wonderdog for a furtle around - although to be honest its halfway through the month so I'm more than a little late to the party, especially as I started writing this post for last month's linkup which I missed !!

Like everyone else, I'm finding it hard to make sense of everything at the moment and like everyone else I've been staying at home and trying to stay safe in the current global crisis, although it sounds like we might start opening up a bit by the end of May !

A little while ago I was looking for something to straight sew - something easy and not too taxing on the brain - I think I needed to just sew to keep my mind off all the Coronavirus news and as my current projects all need at least a little bit of focus, I went digging around in one of my UFO boxes and 5 hours later found the fabrics I’d put together to make a Maple Leaf quilt - back in 2015 - lol !!

Even though it was late afternoon I got quite a few blocks cut ready for sewing and sewed a few blocks up - my original plan was for a cream background but I had this Kona Zucchini on hand and I really like how it mixes with all the browns as well as the oranges and yellows :)

At the beginning of April half of the blocks were made - I’m going for a 7 block x 7 row quilt - 63 inch square - and when I put them together on the design wall I thought it looked very busy although I think the alternate row direction above makes it a little less busy !!

so now I’m wondering if it needs sashing and then I thought I could combine with solid squares or maybe use only a few blocks in lots of negative space !! anyway, I’ll continue to ponder as I finish making the blocks with the fabric I’ve already cut :) I'll continue to ponder and make the blocks when I find where I've put them again !!! Honestly, once a project comes off the design wall it seems to just disappear - although I'm sure it will resurface again at just the right time when I need meditation sewing again :)

My Midnight At The Oasis project has slowly been moved from the design wall

every time I had another little project to do another piece was taken off so its totally off now although I am very happy to say I've finished all of the orange peel blocks !!!! so once I put the centre block back together I can start sewing a couple of borders on - yay.

The other project I mentioned in my last furtle is the Hourglass blocks - a prompt by The Ad Hoc Improvisational Quilters. I’ve made quite a few blocks now.

I'm still thinking about what I’ll do with them - I had a thought about columns, a la chinese coins, with solid fabrics in between columns of hourglass blocks and maybe strips in between blocks or chunks of blocks, then I thought about a medallion style with those little pink and grey blocks in the centre - anyway, I'll keep playing for a little while longer with these little piles ... while I ponder !

especially as I've already moved onto another recent UFO -  my sherbet Ocean Waves blocks - I finally tracked down the 3 fabrics I'd "misplaced" and I'm absolutely loving making these blocks - it looks just like the mock up block I made in Electric Quilt !!

I'm looking forward to these blocks becoming a quilt and hopefully I won't get distracted by anything else long enough to get the rest of the blocks sewn :)

Anyway, I must post this before the link closes !!  happy sewing, stay safe, and I hope life is starting to look a little like the new normal wherever you are :)

finally furtling

my friend Helen who blogs over at Archie the Wonderdog decided to revive her blog last year and to encourage others back to blogging she is hosting a monthly link up called Furtling Around the Blogosphere!

That was last January and at the time I was really excited about getting back into blogging as I really miss not having more info about projects with the process and ideas included but of course another year has been and gone and I haven't done a Furtle post at all !!

and I might have winced just a bit (or was that a wink!) when reading a recent post by Audrey of Quilty Folk ... and I quote ... 

"Don't you just love the people who write a post after being gone for 9 months, tell us how wonderful the blogging community is and how they're recommitting? Then after another post or two they disappear forever. We're like, 'Hey, come back here! We love you!'. But it's no use, they're off over at Instagram scooping up the 'likes'."

Audrey is an amazing blogger, a prolific maker, and an allround lovely person - she makes the most wonderful improv quilts with amazing hand quilting and posts incredible details about the making of her quilts. Oh and she is the mastermind behind Quilty 365 !

Even though I think I haven't made that much to blog about, when I look around I have so many projects on the go and although it is fun to have instant feedback when posting on Instagram I really do worry that the algorithms they use mean that I don't even see the people I love anymore anyway and the advertising is getting more and more !! I do love having all of this blank space to post photos and tell stories, especially as I'm such a long term maker - haha !

As usual at this time of year I'm trying to come up with a plan to get all the projects done - I re-read a few of my previous year's first planning posts which obviously didn't work but it was fun reading :) I'm going to go with the "working on mainly one project for the month" plan for the moment.

I've been working on a couple of projects this year that I'll share soon and recently I've moved forward on my Midnight at the Oasis quilt.

The orange peel blocks have been my slow point - I have a bit of an issue with hand applique that I think is to do with my RA but since I've discovered turned edge applique I'm finding it easier to prepare the pieces and I'm actually getting the blocks hand sewn a bit quicker - I also have my Quilty 365 blocks close by so I've been hand sewing those a little as well !

I really love the little stitches on the back of the applique !

I know I said I was going to work on mainly one project but of course I'm always getting distracted by the latest bright and shiny thing - the above mentioned Audrey is also a member of The Ad Hoc Improvisational Quilters

Their first prompt for this year is Hourglass blocks and I've found that I have a large stash of half square triangles just right for making lots of improv hourglass blocks - of course I've yet to start but the ideas are whirring around in my head!!

I'm off to walk the dog and then hopefully a little hand sewing before bed :)

have an awesome week !