Feeling good about finishing off UFOs

I had a productive couple of hours yesterday afternoon.
I had added borders to the 4 leftover Square Dance blocks on Friday so yesterday I cut backings and sandwiched them together using odd scraps of batting.  I machine quilted diagonally across the block, eyeballing a fairly regular distance between the rows.  Trimmed them and sewed around the edges ready to send to Alison of Little Island Quilting for her on-going Soy Amado project.

I won't post these until after Christmas and New Year but they are finished! 4 more UFO blocks sorted.

I also sandwiched Mr Scarecrow so he's all ready for quilting.

I used a piece of brown Laura Ashley fabric for the backing, which has been lurking in my stash for a very long time - originally gifted to me and was a much larger piece which I have snipped away at over the years.  Still got some left.

I bought a Ditch stitch foot for my Janome so will try this out, ditch-stitching the borders.
Lovely to see these UFOs on the way to being finished.

Making blocks like crazy!

Following on from cleaning and sorting my Sewing Room I am still dealing with scraps and trying to use up "things" I have found.

I found a Square in a square block given to me by a New Zealand quilting friend as an example of this block. I decided not to add it to my Orphan blocks but to 'Use it up"!

So yesterday I created a block which will be made into a 12.5" QAYG block for Soy Amado.  I also used strings and leftover piano keys and added scraps from my recently sorted stash:

 

I made this larger than the size required because I find that QAYG takes up a bit of the size and the blocks finish a bit smaller.  I can always trim it to size after quilting.

 

I have been amassing a huge amount of part-finished Crumb blocks so I finished off 12 more of those:

 

Finally I had a splurge on String blocks using phone book paper as a base - 24 of them:

 

All made from my strips stash (recently added to !).  I think this photo illustrates beautifully the colours I use most: blue, pink and green!

 

 

Pink, purple and orange, coming together nicely

Today I have spent a little while sewing together the Pink, purple and orange blocks to make another quilt for Siblings Together.

I decided to use these 12 blocks for the quilt:

 

and to leave the 13th block for making a QAYG block for the Soy Amado Project:

And here's the quilt top I created from those Swap blocks, scraps and stash:

 

I had already added 5 hearts to the block in the centre of the bottom row which I will hand sew on with blanket stitch this evening.

However I think the block which is on the left of the 3rd row looks very pale compered to the other blocks so I am going to add some royal purple shapes to the two wide pale lilac borders.

I am trying to decide whether they should be triangles to reflect the flowered windmill featured in the block or some purple flowers with pink centres to reflect the border fabric which butts up to this block.  Have to think about that one a bit more.

Turning hoarded UFO blocks into quilts is so satisfying!

Like the curate's egg .......... good in parts!

Well, what a mixed bag of a week I have had! I am still recovering from the horrendous cold which hit me almost three weeks ago. I dread catching colds because I know I will be in for weeks of misery.
This one was even worse than usual and I spent a lot of time in bed for the first couple of weeks, fighting off sinusitis, hard barking cough, high temperatures etc etc.  However, I finally feel as though I have turned the corner.  Still coughing and feeling very tired so hope my energy levels pick up soon.

So, part one of the Good parts of the Curate's Egg is feeling a lot better than I have for a while!

I haven't done any sewing whilst I was feeling poorly, so it was good to get back to some on Wednesday, although it was not as straightforward as I had planned!  My head still feels very woolly which perhaps explains the many mistakes I made. 

I was trying to complete a String Quilt which has been weeks in the making (there is a lot of work in these quilts).  I had sewn the blocks together before I went down with the lurgy so on Wednesday I started to prepare the backing and batting. 
The quilt is larger than the sizes I normally make ( approx 68" square when it's finished) so the piece of backing fabric I had wasn't big enough - hunted in my stash to find a complementary piece of fabric so I could create a pieced backing.  The idea was to make a strip of pieces either side of the original large piece.  First mistake - I hadn't done the maths properly so had to piece even more bits to make the sides long enough.  All time consuming and frustrating when you are trying to catch up on time lost being ill.

On to the batting.  Joy of joys, no piece large enough so yet more piecing had to be done.  Again, I made a mistake with the maths ( blame the woolly head and breaking off mid-cutting to check on my pot of home made soup) and I cut the piece 10" short!  Even more piecing by which time I was decidedly fed up!!!

Then wrestling the quilt on our bedroom floor, trying to sandwich it without getting too many wrinkles.  It took me a very long time and I was exhausted at the end of it all.  Lots of scratches from the safety pins too.

Note to self ............. don't make another quilt this large.
And, don't try to make equally matched pieced strips to fit either side of a large piece of fabric. 
I failed to centre the top symmetrically so the back will not be equal. Hope it looks OK once it is finished.

Another Good part of the Curate's Egg:  I have now started tying my quilt, so the end is in sight. This quilt has to be finished by the New Year so it can go to NZ with me for a 70th birthday gift for our lovely neighbour.

Here's a Sneak Peek:

 

And the backing!

 

 

Another great bit of the Curate's Egg was going to my Patchwork Group yesterday - first time for three weeks.

One of the Group gift quilts was almost finished and I spent a happy hour last night doing the finishing touches:

 

Only a Sneak Peek because this won't be handed over for a week or so:

 

 

It's really lovely!!

 

I finally managed to get my three QAYG blocks off to Alison  ( littleislandquilting.blogspot.co.uk)for the Soy Amado project. They've been sitting here waiting for me to go to the Post Office.

 

So, another Good part of the Curate's Egg!

 

But the really Good part was this:  A parcel from Australia from my lovely Blog friend Jo - jobutterfield.blogspot.co.uk

 

Inside a gorgeous card with a pen and a wrapped gift which I will open on Christmas Day.  Thank you, Jo.  I do hope we manage to meet in person one day.

 

 

 

And finally, another great part of the Curate's Egg was having a good report at the hospital on Thursday.  My consultant is very pleased, all well at present so that's a wonderful feeling.

So, all in all, more Good than Bad. Hurrah!

In case you are wondering what the saying "Like a Curate's Egg, good in parts" means:
The origin of the phrase is the George du Maurier cartoon "True Humility", printed in the British satirical magazine 'Punch' in 1895.  A curate is being entertained and his host says "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones!"
The Curate: "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!"

Well, having listed all my week's events I think I can safely say that MOST of the parts of my egg were good.... in fact some were absolutely marvellous!

QAYG blocks for Soy Amado

Now that I have finally surfaced from over a week in bed dealing with a heavy cold which got worse and worse and worse - thank heavens for antibiotics, I say! - I can finally write a post about the three QAYG blocks I made for Alison's on going project, Soy Amado Quilts

I have made a couple of lots of QAYG blocks for Alison in the past and thoroughly enjoyed making them.  I am full of admiration for Alison because she continues to make these quilts for a great cause: they are sent to a children's home in Mexico where every bed has one of her colourful quilts to cheer up the rather utilitarian surroundings. I am sure the children must be delighted as each quilt is completely different.  Have a look at Alison's blog: littleislandquilting.blogspot.co.uk
and her Flickr Group page: Soy Amado - quilted blocks for charity

As I finished the group quilt top and looked through stash for suitable squares for making lavender bags I thought I would take the opportunity to use up some orphan blocks and scraps to make a few blocks for Soy Amado.

Firstly I made two blocks using two orphan blocks from the group quilt top:

 

 

I surrounded the centres with scraps found from stash and the leopard print FQ I also  found in my stash.

 

When I made the lavender bags I discovered a bag of 3.875" squares and striped blocks I had used to make a Pinwheel Quilt for my sister - back in April 2010!

 

I used the 4 striped orphan blocks to make the centre, halved the squares and joined to make borders and created this QAYG block:

 

 

 

Two of the blocks had pieced backings, again using scraps and the rest of the leopard print FQ whilst the third used a leftover piece of fabric which has lingered in my scraps stash for several years.

 

 

 

All three were hand quilted using Perle thread - a process I so enjoy.

 

They have been waiting patiently for me to get better, so now I hope to get them mailed in the next couple of days.

 

Soy Amado Blocks catch up

June rushed past in a blur!  I was busy doing so many things that are not quilt-related but I did finish the last of 6 Soy Amado blocks I was making for Alison's project.

A couple of weeks ago I posted them to her.

Here they are:

I was very pleased with them all, nice and bright, which will hopefully add a cheerful note to a Mexican child's bed.

I was thrilled when I looked at Alison's blog yesterday (Little Island Quilts) and discovered she had sewn all 6 blocks into her quilt Soy Amado 47 which you can see on her blog and also on her Flickr page.  My four Star blocks have made the corners of the quilt and the other two appear in it too.

I have so enjoyed making the blocks and am full of admiration for all Alison's hard work in assembling all those random gifted blocks into marvellous quilts for such a worthy cause.

Hope to write another post soon to show other projects I have completed.  However, it is Wimbledon! And tennis takes priority at this time of the year!

Never too old to learn

I have been Quilting since 1997 and made so many quilts that I cannot even remember them all.
However, I was never a sewer until I started making Patchwork quilts. 

I hated the year of sewing we had to do at Grammar School: the teacher didn't have the patience to explain to a girl like me who didn't have a clue about sewing machines!

After I qualified as a Primary School teacher I attended an evening class for Dressmaking but again it didn't really thrill me. 

When I was in my mid 20s my mother-in-law gifted me her old machine when she replaced it with a Bernina and when our daughter started ballet and tap dancing I was forced to use the dreaded machine to make costumes for the various Dance Shows Caroline was in.  Oh dear, the ups and downs of those costumes!  I once had to make a proper net tutu on a fitted satin strappy bodice.  Lots of downs with that one but I got there in the end.  I'll let you into a secret.................... that tutu is still hanging in the Guest room wardrobe as I just cannot part with it ( too many hours of sewing went into that dress).

Fast forward to 1997 when I got bitten by the Patchwork and Quilting Bug.  I HAD to conquer my fear of sewing machines and I managed straight stitches OK..... nothing else, nothing fancy and certainly NO machine quilting!  I tried it once and nearly ruined a lovely baby quilt so it was back to hand quilting for ever as far as I was concerned.  I love hand quilting and like the effect it gives the quilts.

However last Sunday I decided to make an I Spy Playmat for a baby born a couple of days before.  Baby Caspian is part of our extended family and I know playmats are useful for babies to lie on and kick and have their "tummy time".  In addition it can double up as a Moses basket and crib quilt and even keep him warm and cosy in the car or when he is being cuddled.

In an afternoon I chose the patches and sewed them together into a top.  Next day on went the bright yellow spotty border and the following day I sandwiched it ready for quilting.  Then I heard a family member was going to visit the new baby on Saturday so, if I could finish the quilt in time he could deliver it by hand.  Much safer than trusting it to the postal system.  In order to meet this deadline I would have to machine quilt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought a walking foot almost three years ago but had never been able to work out how to put it onto the machine - that sticky up pokey rod flummoxed me.  So I asked my good friend Ruth to show me how to out it on when our Patchwork Group met at my house on Thursday. She put it on (I hope I can remember how next time!) and after lunch I set to, sewing up and down either side of all the seam lines.  And I DID IT!  It's really good, I didn't stress about it and the finished grid is perfectly acceptable.  I am so thrilled with myself, you can't imagine!

So by Friday evening I had a completely finished, bound and labelled (my own hand embroidered label) quilt which was delivered to baby Caspian yesterday.

Which just goes to show YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN!

And here it is!

 

 

 

Can you see my first-ever machine quilting on the back?

 

This quilt came together so easily.  I enjoyed rummaging through my stash to find 49 different fabrics to use.  Many of them were novelty prints but I also incorporated some African fabrics I bought a few years ago and never found a suitable project where I could use them.  However I like the animal skin prints mixed up with the more traditional boy fabrics.

 

Another friend had bought the remains of a bolt of fabric half price in a sale and offered friends the chance to buy a metre from her.  The pale yellow and pale cream checked fabric had been in my stash for perhaps a year.  Do you know it was the exact size for my Playmat? 

 

The trimmings have been trimmed to a 2.5" strip and three 1.75" strips for Alison to use in her Soy Amado Project.

I am busy making some more blocks for Alison and also adding some strips for her to use as sashings and bindings. Alison joins up the strips to make her scrappy bindings and uses a variety of strips for  joining the QAYG blocks to make her delightful colourful quilts for the Children's Home in Mexico. She has now completed 19 quilts ....... check them out in her Soy Amado Group on Flickr.

 

So, from a very happy bunny, I wish you a lovely Sunday!

More Soy Amado blocks

I had great fun making 5 more Soy Amado blocks for Alison ( Little Island Quilting ).

This time I went with Scrappy Stars, combining Crumb Blocks ( Bonnie Hunter style ) with the Wonky Stars of Gwen Marston.  Really please with the result. 
This time I added a bigger border so that after quilting I could trim them to exactly 12.5" square.

I did a little machine quilting and then hand quilted around the star shape with a mauve/purple variegated Perle Cotton.

Here they are:

 

And here is my favourite one:

 

 

Can you see the funky cats peering out of the centre?

 

I love making Crumb Blocks, using really tiny bits of fabric.  I have a whole tin full of them back in the UK, probably 80 or so, and now have a little stash here in New Zealand too.  I couldn't get a 4" square ruler at our nearest NZ Quilt Shop so bought a 4.5" instead which has worked very well.

 

Do take a look at littleislandquilting.blogspot and perhaps make a block or two for Alison's excellent project.

 

I was thrilled to find some of my first blocks in two quilts:  Soy Amado 6 ( littleislandquilting.blogspot/2014/03/soy-amado-no-6 )

 

and in Soy Amado 7 ( littleislandquilting.blogspot/2014/03/soy-amado-no-7 )

 

Little People Premature baby quilt

 

 

First finish of 2014! Ta da!

 

This is my first finished quilt of 2014.

As I have been in New Zealand since the beginning of the year I have done very little sewing.  I belong to two Patchwork groups here and I needed some sewing to take to meetings so  I had some hand quilting to do.
I made two simple Premature baby quilts and a few days ago I finished the first one.

All the fabrics were in the small stash I keep here.  I can't even remember where I got the feature fabric but think it was some fabric scraps someone in the group was clearing out.  It is very quirky and I wonder if it is from the 1940s or 1950s. I think it was originally used to make a child's dress and the scraps were odd shapes, like you would have left over from dressmaking.
If anyone has an idea about the age of the fabric please leave me a Comment on this post.

Today I went to my last Patchwork meeting before we go back to the UK and I worked on the second small quilt.  Same design, different fabrics.  I will donate both to my local hospital in the UK.

I have also been making some Soy Amado blocks for Alison of little island quilting and will blog tomorrow about those.

Donation blocks

I recently read about Alison's Soy Amado project on her blog Little Island Quilting.

Please take a look at her post Soy Amado if you haven't already seen it.
Such a worthwhile project and I am sure it will be well received by the Quilting Community.  Quilters are always so generous with their time that I am sure Alison's project will be well supported and QAYG blocks will be flooding into her post box.

Here are 6 blocks I have made which I hope will be OK and help to make another quilt to keep a Mexican Street child warm.

 

The quilts Alison has already made using her own and donated blocks are so cheerful and colourful they are bound to put a smile on the face of the child who receives one of these quilts.

 

We are still having gorgeous weather here on the South Island, New Zealand so this is all the sewing I have accomplished during this week.

Those quilters in the Northern Hemisphere are probably sewing away like crazy, trying to forget the rain, winds and snow outside.

 

Happy Sewing!