A week away from the sewing room

The handy helper and I headed away last week for a few days R&R, so I did no sewing at all!  Not even the small embroidery I took with me.  However, I did visit a few local quilt shops and helped their local economy.  I didn't buy for anything in particular, really.  A few novelty fabrics for I Spy quilts, a couple of cat fabrics for my collection, a few metres of a good black/grey fabric for borders at some stage, and a few yummy fat quarters.  And some Japanese fabrics for the quilt I intend to make using the sashiko panel I embroidered this year.  

The best shop I visited was Rosemont Patchwork Shop in Mogo, southern NSW.  They had a good collection of fabrics and notions, but the best thing (in my opinion) was the sewing machine museum.  About 300 machines of all vintages, including a collection of toy sewing machines.  It was really impressive.  Barry, the repair guy, sounds like he can't refuse an old machine, or let one go to the tip.  His knowledge was great and I stayed there for ages.  There was also a small collection of antiques, mainly china and glass, but the machines were amazing.  The museum has inspired me to get moving on getting to know a couple of antique machines I have.  

         

    

There was a novelty machine outside - quite large as you can see.  😆

Recently I acquired a sideboard for our family room.  The drawers are glass fronted, so I've backed the glass with some fabric that is quite similar to our curtain fabric.  That way the messy drawers are not on show.  Double sided tape is so finicky!  

This week I plan to finish the I Spy quilt, make some small baskets for gifts, and maybe sandwich another quilt ready for quilting.  I also have to make a bag for our car quilt, so it doesn't get dirty.  We will see what happens.

Scraps, strips and slider

Quite a bit of time spent in the sewing room this week - yippee!  

As usual, while watching TV in the evenings, I've been sewing - still working on the hand quilting of my brights quilt.  (Will have to think of a better name for it.)  When I'm closer to finishing, I will take some photos.  

I made a few more QAYG blocks from strips, and they will look good in a quilt.  I've tried to make single colour blocks, rather than really scrappy multi-coloured.   

          

I spent time sandwiching Azalea's quilt, and had some help thankfully.  My hip is playing up so pinning on the floor was uncomfortable.  Thank you to my helper! I've almost completed the quilting now  - straight lines around each 6" block, in the ditch in the sashing, and meandering around the name block.  Not sure how I will quilt the border - it doesn't need much, just enough to flatten it a little.  I might try free motion quilting cat faces or paws or similar in a flowing design.  I've done daisies and stars and hearts like that before.  Need to extend the repertoire a little. 

      

I bought a super slider some time ago - a super slippery mat which goes over your machine bed and assists in moving the quilt around while quilting.  It has a hole in the centre for the needle to pass through.  I tried it out while free motiong quilting today and really think it didn't make that much difference in moving the quilt.  I will try it when I'm using the walking foot later and see if it makes a difference with that.  Has anyone else tried using a super slider?

While cutting fabric, I thought of a scrap quilt that I want to make.  Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville's Quips and Snips blog has designed a pattern that utilises scraps, which I quite like.  She calls it "Scrappy trip around the world".  https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/scrappy-trips-around-world.html

I want to make myself one, using some of the scraps I've been cutting over the last long while.  So I tried out the block this week.  Happy enough with it.  Bonnie emphasises that there isn't a need to play matchy-matchy with the fabrics, so I just grabbed six pieces of each of six fabrics from the 2 1/2" squares drawer.  Bonnie's pattern utilises 2 1/2" wide strips that are sewn together and then subcut, and I will try that method as well.  For the time being, sewing all 36 squares together worked fine for me.  (Note the "deliberate" 😀 error in the choice of fabrics?  I was sure that I had six squares of each fabric but realised at the last row, that I had only five pieces of the lilac/purple.  Fortunately it was easy to find something very similar in the scrap drawers.)

This week has been good sewing-wise.  This blog is good to record those achievements so I can say to myself "you've done lots!"

What have my friends been working on?  I love to be inspired by other's craft work.  

 

Lots done this week

This week I finished the top for the I Spy quilt for my granddaughter.  It was quite an organic quilt to make, as I just kept on adding blocks and sashing to it.  Then I wanted to add a border and struggled to find a good fabric in my stash, especially one with enough meterage.  I think the one I found goes well as it is relatively dark, which this quilt needs in the outer border, but still with enough colour in it to be cheerful.  It is quite a busy quilt, but I've decided it will do.  

I've pieced a back for the quilt from stash as well, so am happy that I've used up a few older fabrics.  All cat ones!  I do have a big collection of cat fabrics.  

While cutting for the quilt top and back, I trimmed and cut from odd shaped fabrics for my scrap drawers.  Some time ago, it seemed silly to have numerous small (less that a fat quarter) odd shaped pieces of fabric on my shelves.  So I investigated what other quilters do, and have starting to organise my scraps.  Basically I cut them into a range of sizes, 6 1/2" squares being the biggest.  And I cut them as small as 1 1/2" square.  I also cut 2 1/2" strips if possible, generally not from the scrappy pieces though.  I try to do those WOF.  And strips narrower or shorter than that are put into my scrap strip box, ready to make strip QAYG blocks, ready for donation quilts - at some stage in the future.  I can even use scrap batting for these blocks too, so they really use up scraps.  Here is my first QAYG block, made from scrap strips.  

  

The theory with all this is that I will have enough cut pieces in a range of sizes to easily sew together a range of scrap quilts.  A theory - we will see how it goes in practice!  

More hand quilting in the evenings this week.  I must chase up the special thimble for my middle finger that pushes the needle through.  The skin doesn't like it!  Not badly but I wouldn't want to do more than a couple of hours of quilting in a day.  

So next week's goal is to try and finish the quilting for Azalea's quilt, and attach the binding (already made.)  Not sure if it is achievable but we will have a go!

Another slow week

I did have one finish last week - a Humpty stuffed toy.  Australian readers may remember that Humpty is a character in the ABC children's program "Playschool".  This is about the 10th Humpty I've made over the years, the first one was for my own children in about 1993 or 94.  There is one I made in the children's area of the local public library, from when I worked there in the late 90s-early noughties.  This Humpty caused me all sorts of bother, when I mucked up the placement of the legs and arms (twice!) and ended up wasting four or five hours of sewing having to re-do him.  But he is now finished, and ready to go to his new home.

I've been continuing with two other projects, the hand quilting of my bright quilt, and piecing the top of an I Spy quilt. During my cutting of the 6 1/2"blocks for this quilt, I've also been cutting 2 1/2"strips from the fabrics and putting them in my box of strips.  The idea is that I will be able to complete one or more quilts from this box of strips one day.  (This, of course, is in addition to the jelly rolls I've purchased over the years!)

Also (sort of) completed last week was the reorganisation of my sewing room - nothing major, just a general tidy up and moving of some boxes from one place to another.  The word 'deckchairs' came to mind!  😃

Humpty doll:  30cm high.  Machine and hand sewn, from stash fabric, felt, ribbon and wool hair.  Even the stuffing was made from odd bits of batting and wadding, cut up into small bits.