Scraps + Strips = QAYG blocks

I have followed Jan Macfadyen's blog for a few years.  She does the most amazing work making quilts for charity. At present she is concentrating on making quilts for a Woman's Refuge.  I am just amazed at the sheer quantity of quilts ( and crocheted blankets) that she produces. She also works shifts at a hospital so where she finds the time to juggle sewing, a job and a husband and family is incredible. And when does she sleep??????????

Jan receives donated tops as well as orphan blocks, QAYG string blocks, fabrics etc and turns them into completed quilts so quickly.  Do have a look at her blog where you can see her work.
sewmanyquiltstoolittletime.blogspot.com

I have made QAYG blocks for Jan a couple of times but promised to make some more once I was settled in NZ. I have looked through my small NZ stash and decided many of the scraps have hung around far too long.  So I cut them into strips of various widths, found all my bits of leftover batting and made some blocks to send to Jan. You can even piece the batting for these QAYG blocks ( she explains all this on her blog) so they are economical to make as well as putting those scraps to good use.

I also used Bonnie Hunter's video to find out the best way to 'de-bone a shirt".  You can find this under the Tips & Techniques tab on her blog quiltville.blogspot.
I had one of my husband's shirts to cut up - perfectly good fabric except for a slightly worn collar. It took about 10 minutes to de-bone it into good sized pieces to use to back some of my QAYG String blocks.

Jan uses both 10.5" and 12.5" blocks so I made as many of each as I could with the fabric sizes I had.
I even pieced some of the backs of the blocks.

Here they are: 13x 10.5" blocks

 

And 6 x 12.5" blocks:

I know Jan has completely depleted her stash of blocks so I hope these will start her off on her next couple of Charity quilts. I will post them when I go into town tomorrow.

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 Australia

Well, I find it amazing that it is almost a month since I last blogged and that we are now in March!
I have definitely felt that Spring was on its way the past few days: it is getting noticeably lighter in the mornings and not becoming dark anywhere near as early, the birds are singing and the woodpecker has spent a long time pecking away at our lawn - a whole hour the other afternoon!  So, I am feeling lighter too. I really dislike the dark winter months and have to say I am not too keen on snow.  Good to look at from the window, to admire how pretty the trees look, and I enjoy snow scenes on Christmas cards but then reality sets in and I just think it's a nuisance.

So, what have I been doing on the sewing front?  Continuing hand quilting another cot quilt, a top I made a year ago when I was indoors a great deal during my chemotherapy.  I am hoping this will be suitable for one of the twins  expected in New Zealand next month.  Have an idea for the second quilt but not started yet! I think the twins are both expected to be boys so I am using strong colours.

Then I rediscovered Jan MacFadyen's blog. An amazing lady who makes quilts, crocheted blankets, hats etc for charity. How she finds the time and energy to create so many in such a short time is simply incredible. 
Check out her blog: Oz Comfort Quilts  where the posts are solely about her Charity Quilts, both ones she has made herself and blocks, quilts and other handmade items sent as donatations to her cause.
Jan's other blog is Sew Many Quilts - Too Little Time, very aptly named! Somehow she also makes time to sew for herself!
Both well worth a look, you will be blown away at what she achieves. Perhaps she never sleeps?

One of the quilts she makes over and over again is a QAYG String block which she sashes together into a fairly quick quilt. I used her method a couple of years ago when I made a String Quilt to send to the Christchurch earthquake quilts appeal. I found the instructions for the sashing a bit puzzling, but did it eventually and the finished quilt was good.

As I had a lot of strings left over from other projects and lots of small pieces of batting I decided to make 20 String blocks for Jan.  She relies a lot on donations: blocks of any kind, fabric, batting, backing, sashing, yarn etc.  I really enjoyed making them - I LOVE string blocks and get a kick out of 'making something out of nothing'.  I pieced batting, stitching bits together with a zigzag stitch on the machine so I used up lots of odds and ends which made my large plastic box for batting bits look a little less full.  All good.

Here are some photos of my finished blocks.  They are so bright and cheerful, lots to look at too as so many colours and fabric styles are used.

Last two photos show Close ups of some of the blocks.  They are even brighter than these photos show.

Whilst I was hunting around in my sewing room for more scraps of fabric I found 7 orphan blocks.
I cannot remember when or why I made them and know I won't use them myself.  I emailed Jan and asked if they would be useful to her and she said Yes, so these Pinwheel blocks went into the parcel along with the 20 QAYG blocks.

Again my photo doesn't do them justice, the fabrics are brighter than this.

Also, as always I have been stitching tiny scarps of fabric into Crumb blocks and, as a result of the trimmings from my QAYG blocks I have a HUGE stack of bits for 100s more Crumb blocks. I have a coule of ideas for more quilts using these, just need to find some time.

Hope you are having a great  time sewing.
Do let me know if you make some blocks for Jan.