Finished the cushion covers

 I finished making the 36 string blocks for my next baby quilt for the local maternity unit. A real mixture of fabrics. Sometimes there was only one bit of a string scrap for me to use. I’m surprised how well the middle white strings stand out in the blocks.

Here they all are pinned into rows ready to sew later. The fabric next to them is the backing fabric.

The photo isn’t terribly good as the light is fading and I took it in the electric light.

We took my friend Margaret to the local pantomime yesterday evening. It was excellent - Beauty and the Beast. The script was written by a local chap who provides scripts every year for our Amateur Talisman Theatre. There are always jokes included which relate to our town of Kenilworth. We are very fortunate to have two Amateur theatres, the other one being the Priory Theatre. Our family and another family we know came too and a good time was had by all. I gave Margaret the finished cushion covers, wrapped up  for her to open on Christmas Day. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they fit the special cushion pads she has and that she likes my colour choices. I have to say they were a real fiddle to finish so I hope they work.

The pattern is called Hidden Rails which I found in a Pola Quilting youtube tutorial.

I wrote and posted the Christmas cards earlier in the week and this morning I wrote and sent a whole list of Jacquie Lawson cards. I’ve decided to cut down on cards this year so actually sent email cards to many of the people I have previously sent real cards to. However that wasn’t straightforward as I managed to loose my work halfway through and had to start all over again! So frustrating. Another thing I cut out this year was my Annual Round Robin, replacing it with a short message instead.

Hoping to fit in a little sewing this coming week as I would like to finish machine quilting and binding the RSC String Quilt and also complete the baby String quilt. 

Joining up with Angela’s RSC So Scrappy blog.

Using up scraps and stash

 I have been busy in my sewing room this week, trying to use up scraps and stash.

I used my newly invented ironing board method to sandwich the playmat I am working on. It worked brilliantly! Completely flat at the first smoothing and pinning so this is a winner. As I’ve decided I’m only making small quilts from now on I will continue with this method,

I worked hard on the playmat and yesterday I sewed on the binding, using new fabric I bought online. I thought a red and white stripe would show off all the different novelty squares and I’m pleased with the result. I watched TV last night and hand sewed a lot of the binding which I should finish today.

I hand quilted around a few more stars on the Pink Scrappy quilt and I love how it’s coming along. A neighbour popped in and saw it and loved it! I think I’ll ask her if she knows of a new new baby girl she could gift it to.

As it’s green for RSC this month I got out all my green scraps - hardly any. I cut a few more strips to make some Strippy blocks, then saw Cathy’s post yesterday (Crazy by Design) which gave me an idea for a centre section for a Green Scrappy quilt.

Here’s my start:

I’ll be adding some yellow to mine to bulk out the green scraps and use some more of my stash of Wonky stars. I’m loosing count of how many quilts I’ve added those to! Probably make some 4 patches with green and yellow and see if I can work those in. It will be like a puzzle to work out as I go along.

I’ve also been leader and ender sewing some 8 patch rectangles I had put in piles by my machine ( an idea of Cathy’s, Sane Crazy Crumby Patchwork blog ). Hope to show a few finishes next week.

Joining with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog.

More RSC scrappy blocks

 I basted and machine quilted my Wonky Stars RSC quilt but I want to add some hand quilting around the stars. That’s a nice project to have for Patchwork meetings.

I have made some Windmill blocks after seeing them on Cathy’s Sane crazy quilting blog. I just used pairs of 2.5” strips , whatever colours I found.

Then I made three Wonky Stars, again using whatever colour that was to hand.

And 4 green and 5 blue String blocks. That’s pretty much all the strings in those colours I had in my bag of strings.

The light was starting to go when I took this photo, the actual blocks look much brighter.

Linking up with Angela’s SoScrappy RSC blog.

A blue RSC flimsy and more String blocks

 Blue is the September colour for RSC so I have taken the opportunity to make a Coin Crumb flimsy from finished 4.5”  Boyish Crumb blocks alternated with blue fabrics. I used a blue check fabric I bought on sale years ago for all the sashing and in the process finished every scrap of it! 

There are some interesting snippets of fabrics in the top, good for I Spy.

I sorted out all my small strings and scraps and made 8 more Blue 5.5” String blocks. 

My box of string blocks is very full so I sorted them into colours and discovered I now have 38 Blue ones so I’m going to look back over some photos I have of String blocks quilts designs and perhaps next week I can put together another flimsy? Cathy at Crazy by Design has made lots of lovely String Quilts so I’m going to have a look through her blog posts for some ideas!

Hoping to baste the Coin Crumb flimsy this afternoon.

Linking up with Angela’s SoScrappy RSC 2022 blog.

RSC July 2022 Round up & Gifting a quilt

 Not much sewing has happened here during July.

Here’s a Round up of RSC projects this month:

                                7 blue String blocks and one purple( hardly had any purple scraps)

A few HSTs made from Bonus triangles created whilst making Sawtooth Stars blocks, trimmed to 1.75”

  

                                            Sawtooth Stars blocks, one with some purple fabric. 

I continued to make the Elephants and Zebras Medallion style quilt, it’s basted and I’ve done some machine quilting. It will now be a hand project to take to Patchwork meetings when I will hand quilt with Perle threads.

I now have a home for a Baby quilt I made in September 2006! I named it Little Boy Fishing and I loved this quilt - there’s a lot of work in it, all hand quilted with Perle threads and all the appliqué is blanket stitched by hand. I didn’t have a home for is at the time but when our daughter was pregnant in 2009/10 I decided to gift it if we had a Grandson. At that time  I made a similar one in pinks and lilacs with Sunbonnet Sues in case we had a Granddaughter. Our Granddaughter was born on 2nd February 2010 so Little Boy Fishing was put away.

Several times over the years I have considered gifting but then didn’t. Finally this week we received great news from New Zealand. Good friends of ours have a Grandson, Hugo Christopher William, born on 26th July in Wellington, NZ. 

This is the perfect home for Little Boy Fishing! 

It measures 47” square and the label is made, just need to sew that on tomorrow and parcel it up ready to mail on Monday. 

It’s a grey cloudy day here so this isn’t a true colour, much brighter in real life. 

A couple of close ups.

            And the backing, appropriate anchor designs. I still have a bit of this fabric left in my stash.

And finally, some blue RSC sewing.

 Yesterday I finally sewed 5 blue String blocks as a start for my Blue blocks for June’s RSC colour. I chose this block because my blue strings were handy and I had 5 phone book papers already cut to size.

Earlier in the week I continued with my green scraps- Twinkler blocks, Bear Paws and Wonky Star blocks.

Sorry this photo has turned itself upside down!

Along the way I’m sewing up my bonus triangles as Leaders and Enders: this week’s haul.

I’m hoping to sort out my blue scraps tomorrow and then make a few of my regular blocks.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog  

Piecing with Pink flimsy

 I cut some of my pink scraps and chunks into 4.5” squares and alternated them with some of my more “girly” Crumb blocks, making columns which I sewed into pairs, alternating with 2” strips of a pink fabric which has a pattern of little white snails. It measures 40” square and will eventually be donated as a Linus Project quilt. I have enough of the snail fabric for the backing and binding.

I’ve also been making some pink RSC blocks, Bear Paws with a 4.5” “pad” and some with a 3.5” “pad”. 

The first one I made the HSTs incorrectly so, rather than waste them I made a Bear Paw block with a 4” pad. It can go with my orphan blocks!

I had enough strings to make 7 x 5.5” String blocks.

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

RSC roundup of the Yellows

 Had a busy week with yellow scraps, adding 2 more Sawtooth Blocks to the ones I finished last week.

4 Twinkler blocks

L

12 String blocks 

18 Little Wonky Stars

And 2 little Ticky Tacky houses

 Now ready for the new colour for April.

Linking up with Angela’s SoScrappy blog.

Last of the Aqua scraps!

 All shades of aqua/turquoise/teal are my favourite colours - to use and to wear! In fact I’ve just realised I’m wearing a teal coloured sweater today.

In between progressing with my Linus Project Round Robin flimsy I have been making a few RSC blocks, using up the last few aqua/teal scraps. Here they are:

6 Wonky Stars, a Fish block and 4 String blocks. Colours are too dark in this photo as it was getting dusk and I had to put the lights on in order to take the picture.

My Round Robin is now finished, measuring 40” square, a nice size for Linus Project quilts and an easier size for me to baste and quilt. Lots for a little person to look at.

In making the Wonky Stars I used some of the RSC blocks I had already made and used lots of the Pinwheels I had in my stash of completed blocks. And it all started with that 10.5” aqua- based piece from my stash.

And a couple of close ups:

So this is next week’s project - to baste and do some machine quilting around the turquoise and outer borders and then a lot of hand quilting around the stars and across the centre piece. Hopefully I will be able to complete the basting and machine quilting so I have my hand quilting ready for Thursday’s Patchwork Group meeting.

Linking up to Angela’s SoScrappy RSC blog.

Patchwork and Quilting has been my therapy and distraction for the past 25 years and in today’s troubled world never have I been so grateful for taking up this hobby. God bless Ukraine and all those innocent people fighting for their country and the elderly, women and children fleeing to other welcoming ones. 

RSC Flimsy

 I love making String blocks and a few years ago ( I think 2017 as I found a blogpost about some I’d made for RSC that month) I started making some in the RSC colours. Last week I made 4 green String blocks to use up a few strips. As I added them to the bag of blocks I realised I had rather a lot. A couple of years ago I saw a quilt that Cathy of Crazy by Design had made just using three colours of RSC String blocks - red, yellow and pink - which looked really eye catching. Then a few days ago another Cathy of Sane, Crazy, Crumb quilting showed 2 quilts she  had made from large blocks which she had divided into Cool and Hot colours. They looked so effective.

So I got out my Hot colours: red,  orange, pink and yellow.  I had very few red blocks and not enough of those 4 colours to make a quilt so I added the neutral ones too. However, I was still a few blocks short so made a few more orange and yellow ones. Then I set out the 5” blocks in an 8 x 8 lay out. A couple of afternoons later I had this flimsy:

It looks very pretty and I’m pleased with it. However, as I finished pressing it I found a problem with one of the neutral blocks. Two strings had been sewn too closely together and had pulled apart to make an open slit in the block! So this afternoon I had the fiddly job of unpicking the seams around it and inserting a new block. I fortunately had a couple of neutrals left over. But it was a good lesson for me to learn : to check all seams on string blocks before I sew them together into a quilt! 

Linking up with Angela’s RSC 2021 on her So Scrappy blog.

Challenge set by Win, almost 103 years old!

Towards the middle of last year my dear Patchwork friend Win (103 years old in a month's time) set our Group a Challenge.  She had found a scarf pattern which used a 100gm ball of DK yarn.  She asked a friend to buy a ball of yarn for each of us in the Group and photocopy the simple pattern.

I was so busy sewing and lots of involvement with the family and knitting for a friend's baby that I'm afraid the Challenge was put to one side. However I recently started to knit the scarf and it is now completed.  It's really nice, one of those scarves that wrap around your neck and fill the gap between sweater and coat collar.  I've decided to gift it to Liz in NZ to use during the winter.
It was so interesting to see the pattern evolve as I knitted my way through the ball of variegated yarn.

I'll definitely make more of them, perhaps for gifts for friends.

Yesterday I made 4 more QAYG String blocks for Jan in Australia.  Now have 6 to send her soon.
I have chosen darker/stronger colours for these 6 blocks as I know Jan always needs blocks for men and boy's quilts. They measure 10.5" square.

Trial layout

I finally had a little time for sewing this afternoon but decided to see how many blocks I had for a Twinkler Quilt.  I intend to make this a donation quilt for Siblings Together. The minimum size they require is 50" square so I worked out if I set my Twinklers 9 blocks by 9 that should finish at 54" square. I don't really enjoy making larger quilts, quite hard to sandwich together without getting lots of wrinkles so this size is good for me.

So a quick layout looked like this:

Adding this picture to Busy Hands, Finished or Not Friday.

All the blocks need trimming - horrid job so I'll tackle the blocks a few at a time. I probably should have trimmed them as I went along!

I even have 30 blocks left over, useful for swapping if I feel some of the blocks in this current Trial Layout are too similar.

I also counted up how many 5" String blocks I have made - 105.

I have made a note of how many of each colour I need to make to be able to sort them into sets of 4 for each block. Not too many.

It's amazing how these Projects using scrap blocks mount up.

Neutral string blocks

I'm linking with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 17 on the SoScrappy blog.
I follow the blog each week, enjoying the marvellous blocks people make from their abundant scraps.

I haven't been sewing along with each month's chosen colour but I did make some blue String blocks last month as that was the colour choice for July and I am building up a stack of 5" String blocks which eventually will be sewn into a quilt top.


This month's colour is Neutral and I never have many neutral scraps but I knew I had a few (not many variations though) but I managed to make 10 blocks this afternoon.  I already had 6 neutral blocks so with today's haul I will have enough to make 4 neutral coloured diamond blocks for the quilt.

Here they are:

 

I now have 96 finished blocks.  I need more yellow, orange and purple ones, all colours I don't have many scraps for.

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!

 

 

Irish Blessing

I was ironing some tea towels I had brought back from church to wash.

This was one of them:

 

 

It looks like cross stitch - which I have never done - but I thought the words we appropriate for quilters too.

 

My hands have been sewing up some more stash blocks:

4 one colour 5" string blocks, 4 Spool blocks and 5 more Twinkler blocks.

I have sets kitted out ready to sew and I make a few when I feel like doing so. Sometimes I make the Spool blocks in Leader and Ender style but the other blocks I make as a proper project. Really because I like to lay out the Twinkler blocks in pairs and make two at a time (Bonnie Hunter style, chasing each other) so I can web each block. Of course this helps to line up the seams when sewing the rows together.

When I am making the String blocks I make my stitch length much smaller so taking off the paper foundation is not a problem. Not suitable for making Leader and Ender style or I would be forever altering the length of my stitch!

 

Here they are:

 

 

Must have a count up and see how many of each type of block I have.

 

Spools & Strings & other things

After I had put away my tiny 9Patch blocks yesterday I made some 5" single colour String blocks.
As I had been sewing the 9Patches I made a few Spool blocks, Leaders & Enders style.

6 of each to add to my growing stash.

Here they are:

 

 

 

Last night was Awards and Quiz Night for the Hospital Radio Station where I have been a member since March 1997.

 

I broadcast every week, was Duty Producer of the Wednesday evening team for around 11 years but now I only write and produce special programmes.  Since I was ill 5 years ago I am wary of visiting the wards as I don't want to lay myself open to infections. This is a sadness for me because I loved going round the wards, chatting to patients and their visitors, collecting requests and then being on air for 2 hours, creating and delivering a Request Show programme with my team.  We had lots of fun and the patients loved the shows.

 

However, last night I had a lovely surprise, as I was awarded with my

20 years HBA - Hospital Broadcasting Association - certificate.

 

It was a lovely evening, good fun with the Quiz (3 Radio friends and my husband).  We called ourselves III + II as we were 3 ladies and 2 men!  Very tight match only a few points between us and the winners.  Lots of laughter and  conversation. They're a good crowd.

So today has been Church, a bit of gardening (lots to do but my cold has stopped me doing much this week), housework and now I'm off to get our tea, a Prawn Stir fry.

 

 

Playing with Scraps

Over the Easter weekend I managed to find some time to sew, making up the Spool blocks I had put together in sets a few days ago. That made another 19 Spools to add to my previous ones.

 

Then I decided to look through my bags of strings and sorted out ones which were narrower than the 1.5" widths I needed for Spool blocks or strings which weren't a uniform width.

These I sorted into colours and made more single colour 5" String blocks.

This time I made some neutral ones too:

 

I really enjoyed making all of these scrap blocks and now I'm off to cut out more strips to make some 9 Patches using 1.5" strips.

Finding sewing is good therapy for the cold I woke up with this morning!

We have had such cold weather this last week after a very warm weekend the one before Easter so I think the huge change in temperature is the reason why I've got a cold.  I had intended to do some gardening today but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.

 

 

 

 

Busy with scraps

Still having fun sewing up scraps. Had a great day at my Quilting Group on Saturday and managed to sew another 16 Twinkler blocks.

I now have a total of 45 blocks, a good start for the basis of a Scrap Quilt. But I have run out of enough 2.5" squares to have enough variety to make more so I have started to use the 5 orphan String blocks to make large Wonky Stars.

 

Here's the first one:

 

Four more to go.