Autumn is sewing weather

 

We're off to the USA to visit our son very soon and I've made him a quilt - of course.  How else can I show my love?!  💓💓💓   Last time I made him a quilt was in 1999, from fabrics he and I dyed together in a workshop with Susan Mathews.  He was about 11 years old then, so it is definitely time for another quilt for him.  

Here's the 1999 quilt:  

Not a great photo, sorry.  The fabric was dyed with Procion dyes in mainly browns and blues, and Brett and I had a great day doing that.  He chose the pattern for me to make the quilt, and did help me with a couple of the steps.  He didn't use the sewing machine though - from memory!  

Last year, one of the blogs I follow https://blog.maryquilts.com/ had a great quilt made from a panel showcasing an American national park.  I asked my son which were his favourite national parks, knowing that he'd been to a few of them.  He said that his favourites were Yosemite, Zion and Petrified Forest.  So I hopped online and ordered a panel and a few metres of fabric from the USA.  I didn't think there would be many Australian quilt shops with this fabric (I may be wrong!)

Not a great photo of the quilt sorry.  But my handy helper isn't tall enough, even standing on a chair, to hold the whole quilt up properly.  It is a beast, at 99"x 84". 

https://blog.maryquilts.com/2023/10/22/birthday-party/ had used a panel with a number of blocks and borders to make it a decent quilt size, so I decided to follow suit.  I had to decide on which quilt blocks to use, and how big to make the borders.  Maths is not my strong suit but it worked out!  

I kept on running out of different fabrics (all from my stash other than the panel) so it was definitely very organically built.  And some cutting mistakes meant changes on the fly as well!  

The chevron block colours are meant to emulate mountains with sky, snow, rocks, trees and grass.  There are bears in the national parks so there are bear paws blocks.  And flying geese blocks in the sky.  It needed to be a big quilt as my son is 6'3" tall.  I didn't want his tootsies to get cold.  

     

I ran out of time to quilt the beast so ended up getting it quilted by a local woman, who did a great job with her longarm.   She said it was the biggest quilt that she'd ever done and never again.  I know that if I had quilted it myself, it would have taken a very long time on my domestic machine.  And would have been a lot of hard work.    

It was the first time I've had one of my quilts quilted by someone else, and it was hard to let it go.  Doing this though left me enough time to bind the quilt and sew on the label, ready to pop it in the suitcase.  

Finished size:  84"x 99"

April 2024 fabric tally

Finishes this month:    USA national park quilt =   - 11.0 m

Purchases this month:  none until I get to the USA! and all those quilt shops! 😂

Fabric used:  - 11.0 m         Fabric acquired:  + 0 m

Running tally:  - 17.5m

Finishes in March

Our local Days for Girls group https://www.daysforgirls.org/ sews menstrual health kits for the organisation, and have a focus on a particular region in the Philippines.  We spent a couple of days this month making a few baby quilts for the local indigenous women in that area, as an added extra.  These women, if they go to the local hospital to give birth, are given one of the heavy flow menstruation kits when they return to their villages.  A quilt for their babies would be a nice extra.  So we've had a couple of good days of sewing to get a few in hand.

Here are my two this month.  Scraps from making the menstrual health kits as well as our own scraps in a simple column layout, bagged and quilted.  

Finished size: 30"x 34"

               

I have been busy with other sewing and will reveal all soon!  Here's a taste.  

March 2024 fabric tally

Finishes this month:    baby quilts x 2  = 2.5 m 

Purchases this month:  I bought a 0.3 m piece of Japanese lawn at a market stall - so pretty, but was quite strong otherwise, and resisted temptation.  I will be in the USA in April, and plan to fill a suitcase with fabric at their great prices.  

Fabric used:  - 2.5 m         Fabric acquired:  + 0.3 m

Running tally:  - 9.0m

January started well then I got sick - again

January started well, sewing wise, and I was full of enthusiasm.  Then I got sick again in early January, which put me behind. All better once more and we had plans for a Sydney, Goulburn and Canberra trip in early February, but sadly I succumbed to the bug again after a day in Sydney, so once I was well enough to travel, we came straight home.  It meant that I couldn't hand over two quilts - the music quilt and the medallion quilt.  I should really just post the music quilt to my friend in Goulburn as I've been ill three times in the last year or so, when we had planned to meet up.  

At least the medallion quilt is finally finished.  Made from a BOM kit from 1998, which I purchased on special in 2004 from Barossa Quilt Cottage, and finally starting sewing up in 2023!  Pieced and quilted with Guterman 50wt cotton threads, and one section quilted with 60wt Bottom Line.  

I'm reasonably happy with it although the free motion quilting is a bit dodgy in places.  I had my main machine serviced and found that the tension was all out of whack when I got it back.  I've had to re-calibrate my settings for free motion quilting.  The border and backing fabrics are from my stash.  The backing fabric in particular, I think I've had for probably about as long as I've had the kit.  It was a great backing fabric to hide the differing quilting thread colours, blue, white and red.  I don't have much of it left unfortunately.  The border was added to make it a little bigger, and I'm glad I had a suitable fabric in the stash.  I will give it to the friend from Canberra in a few weeks' time.  Fingers crossed!

            

Finished size:  62.5" x 76" (before washing)  

I also made a library bag in January, for the granddaughter, who started school this year.  Where has that time gone?!!  It feels like she was only just born!  She wanted Bluey fabric.  I've used a lot of Bluey fabric for items for her in the last two years.  I don't have much left in the stash.

No fabrics purchased this month for my stash.  I did pick up some Aussie flag fabric that was on sale at Spotlight, to pass on to the Aussie Hero Quilts group who make quilts for servicemen and women.  But since it came in and went out, it doesn't count for my annual tally.

January/February 2024 fabric tally

Finishes this month:  medallion quilt = 6.2m,  library bag = 0.3m 

Fabric used:  - 6.5m         Fabric acquired:  +0 m

Running tally:  - 6.5m

The Colour Catcher sheets from washing the medallion quilt!  

2023 finishes and goals for 2024

Happy New Year!

At the beginning of  2023, I compiled a list of things that I'd like to achieve in the sewing room.  Less than half of them happened but that doesn't worry me.  I still achieved some things, which is gratifying, and progressed quite a few other projects.  

In the year, I've made:  

• two baby quilts  https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2023/12/
• some mindless sewing  https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2023/10/
• two shirts and an apron   https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2023/05/
• bunting for my daughter's shop  https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2023/03/
• two quilts finally finished   https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2023/01/

Not too bad really, considering how busy I was outside the sewing room.  

And I made one more thing - one of those DREAMI projects, which I forgot to post about.  (DREAMI = DRop Everythind And Make It).  I just couldn't resist.

On our return from holiday this year, I wanted to do some mindless sewing and made a 1600"quilt from a jelly roll.  The top is hanging up, waiting for a border and quilting and binding, but that doesn't matter.  The 1600" quilt is a great way of getting a quilt top done in very quick time.  Take a jelly roll - 40 strips of fabric 2 1/2"wide x width of fabric - and sew them end to end, fold the long strip in half and sew along the long edge, and repeat until you have a reasonable sized quilt.  

                       

Possible sewing goals for 2024

• Elephant wallhanging - complete the binding and hanging loops and give to my friend.  It has been hanging around for more than a year (see what I did there?)
• Sundress - make one or more sundresses for my granddaughter, from a pattern that she will grow out of all too quickly
• Dress - make a dress for myself
• Hat - make cloth bucket hat for myself.  I really struggle to find nice hats that fit my big head
• Pants - make some lightweight pants for travelling for myself
• Baby quilt - make a quilt for T & S's new baby due in February
• Baby quilts - cut and sew a few quilt tops ready to give as gifts when babies are born
• Quatro quilt - progress the hand piecing of the top
• Quilting - choose a couple of tops from the box and quilt them up
• Batman quilt - a Scottish friend has promised to visit us if I make him a Batman quilt so why not.....
• Army quilt - now that my husband has retired from the army, I will make a quilt from all his old army T-shirts 
• Quilt record book - I have a physical record of most of the quilts and embroideries that I've done over the years, but it needs to be caught up, and I want to make a digital record as well.  

So that's my hopes for the year!  But I won't beat myself up if I achieve none of them.  

Finally some finishes for the year!

Two baby quilts finished this month and in time to give as gifts at Christmas.  One grand-nephew born in April and a grand-niece born in June both received gifts when born, but I wanted to make quilts for them both as well.  

                

Both quilts very similar, as you can see.  That will be the last time for a while that I make quilts using that block.  When I was cutting I Spy fabrics earlier in the year, I cut several different sizes for different styles of quilts.  And I don't have as much solid colours as I did have!  

Now I'm looking at photos of the quilts, it seems that the black hedgehog blocks stand out too much.  

The two border fabrics were bought at a sale table at a local quilt shop in the last year.  I had not quite enough of the blue stop border fabric for the binding, so each quilt's binding has a section of the multi-coloured border fabric.  I still have a bit of the multi-coloured fabric left but probably not enough for borders.  I will have to look out for something similar on the sale tables.  Borders need to be a bit darker than the quilt centre, I feel.  

Now to start making more baby quilts - there are a few babies on the horizon amongst my family and friends. 

December 2023 fabric tally

Finishes since November:  two baby quilts, each 46"x 60" = 4.25m of fabric in each quilt 

Purchases this month:     = 0 m

Fabric used:  - 8.5 m         Fabric acquired:  +0 m

2023 running tally:          - 4.75 m.  So happy with this result as, despite not doing too much sewing this year and, to my mind, bringing home a bit of fabric, I've used more than I purchased.  Let's see if I can keep this momentum up next year!

I am still sewing!

I am still sewing but I have nothing to show yet, so decided to show you some embroideries I purchased in Croatia, which are quite lovely.  The woman I bought them from said her sister and her family make them.

A larger table mat, a small one and a cute bookmark.  (Not a great photo, sorry.)

Here's the lady at her stall on the city walls in Dubrovnik.  We had a lovely chat and I wished I had asked her name.  It was nice and shady early in the day, but would have been a real hot spot in the afternoons. 

November 2023 fabric tally

Finishes since March:  two shirts made in April = 4m; gardening apron for granddaughter = 1/2m,  I posted about these earlier in the year. 

Purchases between March and November:     = 12 m.  I had some spare time in the large town near us, and just happened to walk by the fabric shop, where I bought some metres on special as well as a couple of new to me cat fabrics - never can resist them.  And, after seeing a quilt on someone else's blog, decided that I would make a USA themed quilt for an overseas relative.  Of course I had to purchase the fabric from a US fabric store.  It arrived within a week!  When I make the quilt, remains to be seen.  

Fabric used:  - 4.5 m         Fabric acquired:  + 12 m

2023 running tally:          + 3.75m

Mindless sewing to get back into it

Once the sewing room was cleaned up and the urgent mending out of the way, I did some mindless piecing, to get my hand and eye back in.  In my collection of scraps are many pieces I've cut into specific sizes.   

Here's the little box of  1/2" x 2 1/2" pieces.  I've sorted them into colours and am making small crumb blocks with them, each block with 18 pieces, finishing at 6"

I also have a small box of 1" pieces (what was I thinking?!!)

I've also sorted these into colours and have made 2" finished blocks from them, 16 pieces of fabric in each one.  Despite the large number of 1" pieces, any quilt made from them will be small.  There is a lot of piecing in each block.  

 

I'm just about at the stage now where my brain is ready to deal with "real" sewing and I hope to get some of the planned baby quilts finished in the next few weeks.