Update on progress

Ok, this is my first attempt with Blogsy, so let's hope it works....

Remember back in March I posted a list of things I wanted to do this year? And I promised monthly updates? Well, it's time for the first update, and as we're friends, hopefully you'll forgive the fact it's been a whole 5 months!

So, here we go with the list:

1) Cherry Christmas quilt - I've fixed the torn piece and unpicked the Himalyan quilting, and re done some of it, and unpicked sme more of it.... It still needs finishing but will be done for Christmas.

2) Melody Miller quilt - have been struggling with this and how best to do justice to the large designs, but this weekend I had a brainwave and I'm going to use mahoosive fussy cut hexagons.... So watch this space.

3) Macho quilt - Currently collecting denim.....

4) Welsh flag quilt - need to get cracking with this one - so am appealing for bags of red scraps and green scraps to swap for FQs so I can get started on this.

5) 3rd sister wants a wall hanging now - working on this one at the moment.

6) One of my work colleagues has commissioned me to make a quilt for her 4 year old son in blues and greens. I've got the fabrics for the top based on the Havana range and supplemented with lots of different Kona solids. - DONE!

Other things -boxy pouch for a friend's birthday which I adapted from an Annela Hoey tutorial - DONE!

Melody Miller Vintage flowers fabric messenger bag- this didn't happen but I did make a Melody Model Aeroplane and a Melody Super-Tote...oh and another full size Aeroplane shockingly NOT made from Melody...

There have also been lots of other things - some finished some still WIP:

HST quilt - this is still just a top, needs me to buy some batting so I can get it finished, but am saving it till the bedroom's been decorated.

Clothes - a new pleasure, as well as the Nani Iro Renfrew top, there's been a washi, schoolhouse shirt, Sorbetto top, and an a-line skirt.

Mini quilts - 'a Touch of Sparkle', which was for a work colleague's birthday, 'Home is where the Heart is' and 'Fairground Attraction' from Katy Jones' Triangle City pattern that I started at retreat and am currently finishing quilting.

So, all in all not a bad year so far.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Katy's HST class

I've been getting on with my homework for Katy's class this week. We started off making 48 x 5" squares in prints and 48 x 5" squares in a solid or background.  As I mentioned here, I was a bit short of time with one thing and another, so I grabbed a fat quarter bundle of Pearl Bracelets off the sewing table and a wodge of white on white for the solid, as it was all I had that was big enough to get all those squares from.  Fortuitously, in the bag I used to carry the fabric was my fat eighth bundle of Michael Miller's Mirror Dots, which I thought would provide a fab contrast, while continuing the circles theme.  

I didn't have time to plan or the brain power for maths on Saturday morning, so I just randomly selected fabrics that gave a rough rainbow range of colour, and started cutting squares.  Once we had a stack cut, rather than using the method of matching two squares, marking from corner to corner, sewing either side and then cutting into two, Katy told us we were going the bias route.

So we cut all the squares in half, and then matched the triangles and sewed together along the bias edges. As Katy said, learning to overcome the fear of bias sewing pays dividends in so many ways - not least in being able to sew curves with confidence.  

During my unplanned cutting, instead of the 96 expected squares, I managed to end up with 131!  Once they were all pressed and trimmed down to 4" and laid out on the spare bed which doubles for a design wall, I found I was one square short, so I rustled up a couple more and finished off the layout.

I'm going for an off-centred concentric rainbow squares kind of a deal.  Tonight, when I got home, I found out one of the various menagerie had decided they didn't like that layout and kindly rearranged it for me!  Luckily I'd taken a photo and could put it back in it's original format.

I decided to sew it together in blocks of 16 squares, and last night got the first three bits done and sewn together.  I took it super slowly, taking one pair of squares at a time to sew, then taking them back in the spare room to press and check the layout and line up the next one for stitching.  It means I'm walking miles between the spare rooms, but taking it very slowly and carefully seems to be paying dividends.  What do you think of it so far?

Hopefully by Friday night they'll all be sewn together and it'll just be a case of deciding what background colour to sent the finished mega-block into. I'm torn between dark blue, dark grey or dark purple.  I'm not sure white will really set it off -  - any suggestions? 

You'll be happy to know I did spot the mistake in this before I started sewing!