Tis Done

Geometric star from Vintage quilt revival

Really enjoyed this pattern & have a feeling it will be one I do again and again.

Now it just wants the requested white border & then we can quilt.

W.I.P Wednesday !

And its a day without wind & rain ! 

But alas, the forecasters say it will be short lived, the west coast is inline for yet another battering from storm force winds from Friday onwards. 

Anyhoo, whats in progress..

This is

3 blocks away from being ready for pristine white borders as requested (feature quilting to happen within said borders, plumes of feathers in pearlized thread) 

So linking this up over at

Still hiding

From the awful weather, the winds have abated slightly but have now been joined by snow and temps in the negs. 

So i'm playing around with one of the block patterns from Vintage Quilt Revival & doing up a quilt a neighbour asked me to make, dusky colours, lots of roses & co-ordinated scrappy.

There will be a lot of dusky pinks in this quilt, but also some blues & greens, all dusky & muted, and the old roses fabric on the block framing pieces will be our constant. Its a very easy block to put together but as with all foundation pieced blocks, most of your time is taken up in cutting out the templates and trimming the sections before piecing the blocks together.

Hiding from the storm

shhh I'm in the sewing room..

It's F10 gusting F12 out there, the noise of the wind is horrific. 

So i've been hiding in the sewing room, while everyone else huddles in the living room watching movies.

Been playing with some block designs from Vintage quilt revival.

Table runner to start.

Really easy foundation pieced block, rather fun to do. 

A little sidestep

Into an ugly fabric challenge !

So, my mother call's me up the other week telling me she's entered me into an ugly fabric challenge with our fav LQS. 

Ok..

I'm always up for a challenge.. So I patiently wait for the fabric to arrive & start to remember some of the other uglies I've entered.. Ohh boy, those Uglies sure were ugly, so as the postman appears in  the drive with package in hand it is with a certain amount of dread that I open it.

HA I need not have been so worried

Ok, so it was a bit of an odd choice

But it wasn't *Ugly* My 11yr old loved it. 

So... some hrs later I decided it wanted to be used in a pillow.

so here's my front.

And my back

I'll have to wait a few days before I can quilt it, my walking foot, my dearest friend of many years decided it had taken its final step the other day, so having ordered a new one I now impatiently await its arrival.

The weather has improved none at all, last night we had F10 gales gusting to F11/12, or violent storm force winds to those not familure with the beaufort scale and tomorrow we are dreading the arrival of expected hurricane force winds.

Gosh

But we've been having a run of it.

Gastly weather that is !

One of our greehouses was torn apart the other night in winds over 80mph, so the past few days have been spent repairing it & its now almost good as new.

More than can be said about the roof, which is leaking & it's still far to windy to be able to get on the roof and make repairs, so we live with buckets & a continual drip.

On the upside. I got another toddler quilt done

And a good few more blocks for Goodnight Irene v2

20 more of these to go & than I can start on the X blocks & borders.

Now, after spending days drooling over the Vintage Quilt Revival book which I got for christmas, I gave in the other day & fabric shopped to make 3 quilts from it, and decided that once the fabric arrives I'd join in with the block along.

Tis done...

Purple thang that is

I may do something slightly funky to the border while putting the binding on, thinking of random placements of folded tri's for a bit of 3d interest. 

Middle daughter still off school, fever gone but the cough has taken up residence in her chest.

Its been a busy day today

Middle child is off school ill, nasty cough and a nasty fever to go with it thus much of the day was spent adminstering paracetamol to tackle the fever, honey for the cough, glasses of iced water, cold cloths & encouragement just to stay abed, watch movies & allow her body a chance to start fighting the infection, I managed a wee bit of sewing when the cough finally eased up enough for her to get some much needed sleep. Thus the purple thang has just about grown to its full size, only 2 blocks remain to sash up & then decide on a border.

Really love how this is turning out.

W.I.P Wednesday

Gosh Wednesday already, where has this week gone to ? Mabye its hidden in the closet under the stairs ? 

SO

Whats in progress this Wednesday..

Lets look at the wall shall we..

Toddler quilt, have decided that yep, it does need a skinnyish border of crisp white & either orange or pink binding.

Up top is something that started just as a play with colour value 

and now seems to have grasped life with both hands and gone on a growth spurt

Really love this, last time I really played around with colour values was when I was doing city & guilds P&Q so it was so refreshing to allow myself the space and time to just puddle around.

so I'm off to link this up over at Freshly Pieced and take a look around see what everyone else has been up to.

Improvements on the weather front..

Meant a wee stroll was once again an option today, would rather have hauled out the saddle and gone for a treck but alas mud still reins king & the bridle paths are in horrible condition, so instead with apple in pocket I went out to visit with my girl (who is a very spoilt 5yr old irish cob) and we strolled around the edges of the 100acre field just enjoying the day & eachothers company, and of course, the apple.

Once indoors I armed myself with a mug of T & set to making up some folios to pop in with birthday pressies this year.

I sized these to fit an A5 sketch book on one side & A5 watercolour book on the other, a certain daughter will be very happy with these on her birthday. 

Afterwards I decided it was time to start to tackle the drawer full of blocks ready for piecing into quilts, then changed my mind haha and moved onto piecing up the toddler blocks, I recon I maybe needed a colour injection Lol. 

I love how bright and fun these tops are turning out, debating a narrow border of white to really pop the colours out. 

Ouchie Ouchie

One has managed to tweek ones back so one is feeling ones age today.

Not an overly productive day on the sewing front.. because I spent a good part of today measuring and working out drops/hand gathers etc for the curtains I'm about to make for the lounge, office and 2 bathrooms.

I did however get a little sewing done.

Few more square within a square toddler blocks 

Log cabin blocks turned into a runner for the table at christmas

And I repaired an old huck towel, the 8in long lace trimming it origionaly sported had finally given into time & decay, so I stripped it off & replaced it with a piece of same era lace which had been stripped from an old tray mat that had to many rust spots.

I'm now off to start building the huge piles of toddler blocks into toddler quilts on the wall.

slow sunday sewing

No let up on the weather today, it's remains bitter cold, lots of wind and yesterdays hail has been swapped for heavy sleet filled rain showers... yuk. 

It's been very much a stay indoors unless you really have to go out sort of day. 

so stay indoors we did, himself has been busy working out how much seed we need to order to re-seed the hay fields this spring & the girls were both busy working on school projects or lost in the latest read, so I sat happily in the sewing room and had a very productive day.

Goodnight Irene V2

This one is for me & shall be done along with the other girls on the sew along, I'm doing a generous double with an extra border, so i've upped the 5 blocks a month to 12 (which includes border blocks) so that we are running in time with everyone else.

Square within a square toddler blocks.. Another 80 done !

And I did as many more christmas log cabin blocks as I could get done before I ran out of dark red fabrics, I think I've got enough blocks now for a wallhanging and a table runner, i'll pin them on the wall shortly and see how it goes. 

So i've been sitting, mug of T in hand, browsing amazon looking for some new quilt books for which to use my christmas amazon vouchers on and I'm just finding nothing, my girls got me city sampler & quilt revival for christmas & there just doesn't seem to be anything else on the go which isn't aimed at the inexperienced stitcher of small things, ie books for bags, half aprongs, pot mats etc, what on earth happened to dedicating books to quilts rather than 1001 things you can do with a 40 piece jelly roll, frustrating some, I want quilts I can sink my teeth into (I've already done 2 Dear Janes before someone suggests it ).

Brrrr

it's so cold today, the wind is howling & bringing with it massive hail showers carrying marble sized pellets of ice, all thoughts of doing anything in the greenhouse quickly fled this morning to be replaced by thoughts of stay in & sew where its warm. 

So thats exactly what I did, Goodnight Irene V1 now has her border & is sitting in row by row piles waiting to be pieced together.

Cutting out for the itty bitty block quilt is.. as finished as I can get it, need to search out a few more light blue prints and that should be us.

And I also started working through the stacks for toddler quilts

These promise to be bright, breezy and so much fun, and as with all my toddlers quilts, they contain so many prints which just need the addition of a little parental imagination and hey presto, our quilt turns into an endless amount of bedtime stories just using what you can find within the quilt.

Dearie Me !

I've hardly put needle to thread today, this is the sum total of sewing today..

I watched a movie with the girls this evening & stitched a few seams on the notions bag while listening to the girls drooling over Johnny Depp (can't blame them at all !) 

I did however.. Get loads of cutting done.

Both square in a square baby quilts are now cut out & 3 of those piles of squares are now and endless pile of tri's.

Then in the afternoon, I started the endless cutting for a quilt I designed myself, endless because I am using 1in strips, 4 in blocks & its a generous double quilt. A godless amount of strips, squares, bity tri's & entire migrations of flying geese. 

Its a veritable strings party in the cuts box at the moment, tomorrow i'll sew up a few tester blocks to decide how I want my log cabin 4in blocks to be done then make final colour choices and get the rest of the cutting done.

It's been a bit of a flit flit day

When you flitter flatter between projects doing a little on each. 

I spent the morning working on Goodnight Irene v1, we are now ready for the border blocks

Then the afternoon got pretty busy with visitors, so inbetweenies I started to cut out for 2 square within a square toddler quilts

still a few hundred more squares to cut before we start turning 2 stacks into triangles

And I got the first pillowcase upcycled into hand towels.

Really pleased with these, they bring back such memories of helping my grandmother turn linen pillowcases which had become worn at the seams into hand towels for the scullery/kitchen.

I also spent a good amount of time on a tile hunt for the upcoming bathroom re-do's & picking out the new bathroom suites so himself could get on the phone and get them ordered. 

WIP's, 2014 Finishalong & Goodies

I thought, well my kids suggested.. That taking part in a weekly WIP link up and a year finishalong could do much to keep the mojo flowing throughout the year, since moving to the middle of nowhere some years back I no longer have my circle of quilty/stitchy/coffee & giggles friends to discuss and share projects with so sewing has become a bit of a lonely experience, hence the blog. 

So without further ado.. My first WIP wed link up..

Whats doing this week, on the quilting front 

Good night Irene is taking shape

I've settled on making this one twin size esp as its already under threat of being willfully removed by my son on his next visit.

Evening stitcheries are about to resume with a whole bundle of yuletide related designs lined up and ready to go

And

a new travelling notions bag after a neighbours young puppy put an end to my old one during a visit.

So this will be linked up over at Freshly Pieced & I shall enjoy browsing through and looking at what everyone else has linked up.

Now to Finishing for 2014, so I did my duty and gathered together everything that has so far become a definate for this year.

Log cabin christmas quilt

Nautical themed, just need to finish drafting the foundation papers for mariners compass blocks.

Irish Linen pillowcases, I have a stack of these which are going to be turned into hand towels for the bathrooms.

Upcycle vintage table linen & embroidery into cushion/pillow covers for the lounge.

Square within a square toddler quilt

Another toddler quilt

Lace trimmed tree dec's for christmas

This vintage hankie case + hankies are going to be an upcycle project for ME ! The case is going to stay as a case but will be taken apart, lined, repairs made, the monogram unpicked and changed for an A.

Vintage table linen = upcycled into pillow/cushion covers.

I'll link this list up tomorrow when the linky goes live over at the 2014 finishalong

Other news today... The fabric for the lounge blinds has arrived !!

  Discovered on ebay & cheap as chips, ultra soft linen/cotton blend, it will be roman blinds with a bottom edging of vintage pin lace.

And, much to my husbands relief, I have finally got around to starting to replace worn out cutting rules with new ones, no more slipping rulers and trying to figure out where the measurements should be.

The worn out 12" square has been consigned to the * turn it into templates* box & the new 12" square came accompanied by a 6", 3" and a super handy 2.5" x 36".. 

Feeling a little bit better today

Which I'm really pleased about after the previous few days, no more running a temp or aching from the inside out, ventured out for a wee walk today & felt refreshed with the gale forced influx of crisp winter air.

On the sewing side... Wonky blocks is pieced

It wants an equally funky border finish I think.. 

And I pieced up a few more blocks for Goodnight Irene 

10 of the multi patch 

And got a start on the stitch and flip X blocks 

In the afternoon I started packing up the lounge to make ready for the upcoming new stud walls & painting, once I'd done what I could I retreated back to the sewing machine to get myself thinking about curtains, pulled out the fabric for the lounge curtains

And fell in love with it all over again

Bought 15mtrs of this years ago when a very posh fabric store was having a close out sale, its a raw silk & linen blend, to say it feels opulent is to understate it, every time I look at this fabric I just want to caccoon myself within it. Because these are going to be interlined & weighted full length curtains I will be handsewing throughout. These fabrics are what caused me to fall in love with sewing & fabrics in general, when I was a wee small lassie, my father took me to visit Castle and National Trust properties & I was forever more interested in the curtaining and linens than anything else on view, then at Crathes Castle, one of the housekeepers caught me gazing at some fantasitic silk brocade drapes &  came over and encouraged me to touch and look, the hand the fabric had took my breath away and the hand stitching just amazed me, now I make such curtaining for people and occassionally myself. 

I'm having to force myself to think of the bathrooms too, I don't want to think about the bathrooms because when I do all I see is the mess involved in putting in new suites & a new shower unti + shower, but I did push myself there for a mighty half a hr, long enough to ramble around ebay and pick up some irish linen huckaback towels.