Maybe you're like me, and wondering where this year is going. A quarter gone already!
I've had lots of other stuff happening in the last month - weekends away with friends, a 4WD course, babysitting a grandchild for a weekend, working a few days in paid employment, car service, medical stuff, helping our daughter move house - and the month disappeared. I did get some sewing done in the midst of all that, so I am happy.
Here's the first of the fabric baskets I made for my daughter's Ikea shelves (finished in January.) This one was made from bits and pieces from my stash, with the ends made from wedges - that I had cut for a round quilt three years ago. The base and two ends have extra-firm stabiliser in them, but the two sides are just normal batting. Unfortunately, this makes them sag a bit. It was very tricky to join sides to the ends when I got to the base and no room to manoeuvre my machine foot. So I'm going to try a different pattern for the next basket.
Finished size: 11"x 11"x 12"
Here's a picture of the round quilt I made from 36 x 10 degree wedges - all cat fabrics. I made it for my granddaughter, born in May 2018.
My QAYG quilt having the binding attached.
As one of March's goals, I experimented with sewing the blocks together and just kept on going and finished the quilt top - four blocks wide by six blocks long.
One issue with it is the sashing strips to cover the joins. I hadn't found a really good how-to for this so bumbled along on my own. It depends on which side of the seam you attach the binding strip as to which way it folds over - and unfortunately, in some cases on my quilt, the sashing strips don't match up between rows of blocks. It took a while before I realised this would happen.
The binding is all scrappy (of course!) All scrappy blue bits from my bindings basket. Almost everything in this quilt is from scraps, including the batting. The backing is consistent, from an old piece of fabric that I've had for years. But my next QAYG quilt will have multi-fabric backing, depending on the size of my scraps.
There will be a photo of the finished quilt once I've hand sewn down the binding. This will be a donation quilt, I think.
Finished size: 40"x 60"
Here is my granddaughter's third birthday present for May. It took me a while because I was also working on other things. All the fabric is from my stash, except the Bluey fabric - bought especially for this. I made bathroom curtains from the white No. 1 fabric, shorts for my son out of two of the blue-ish fabrics (28 or so years ago!), and other fabrics from a bag of scraps a friend gave me. The backing is cream calico with a strip of rubber backing down the centre ( to stop slippage). It is normally used for kitchen drawer bases to stop glasses and such sliding around.
Finished size: 2.1m long x 60cm wide (77"x 22")
I've also tried sewing some crumb blocks - not sure if they will be ongoing or not. Maybe I will have to throw out those smallest pieces of fabrics? No pictures of those yet. I'm still feeling my way with them.
Last post's goals . Notice that I hadn't specified a date, just by the next post - this one - so therefore I could have left this blog post until I had achieved all the goals on the list. 😆
- Finish the Hopscotch mat - Finished!
- Make a bag for the Hopscotch mat - still to be done
- Finish piecing the William Morris blocks into a top - have just started piecing this
- Try piecing together the blue QAYG blocks - Done!
- Glue baste grey blocks for next round of the Quatro quilt - Finished!
- Start on a new fabric toy box for my granddaughter - Stabiliser has arrived in the mail, but no time to start it at present.
- Get a photo of the first fabric toy box - Done!
March fabric tally:
Fabric brought in: + 2.5 m (stabiliser doesn't count) Fabric used: - 6 m
Total for March: - 3.5m (February's count was wrong; should have been + 7.5m rather than minus)
Running total for 2021: + 4m
