WIP Wednesday - Still Swooning

Thing's are a real work in progress this week.

Wilburs new Kennel!

Wilbur is overseeing the work but is not  a hard taskmaster.  Don't worry Wilbur you still have the sofa - its got your name on it !


Tula Pink Blocks for City Sampler sew-a-long over at Sew Sweetness - 6 Blocks cut ready for sewing.










HST done for Star Surround Quilt-A-Long over at Happy Quilting.  I feel a bit of a cheat on this one as I'm doing the 40" baby quilt so only one big block required!  I'm loving these colours can't wait to make the flying geese and see it coming together. 









Still Swooning-a-long on block number 3.  These are my favourite colours so far!

I even found a place to keep them together until all 9 are done.  I just love how pretty this block looks in all the various colours.  

My friend Mary wants one with as a giant cushion.  I'll add it to my to do list!  I'm not one for making the same thing over and over but I really like making this block.

Linking up to

Doctor Who-A-Long update

Now that my machine is talking to me again I made some progress on my paper pieced blocks for the Doctor Who-A-Long hosted by Whims and Fancies and Trillium Design on flickr here.  I struggled with this spaceship block.  There are a lot of tiny seams in centre but I do love how the colours turned out in this one.

This wolf along with K-9 are my favourites so far.  Those teeeth are cool - I love how Soma's design made them so pointy! That's 5 out of 6 released blocks completed so far.  If it wasn't absolutely pouring out of the heavens outside I'd take a photo of all 5.

I'm loving this project.  It is challenging and my paper piecing skills are getting better, slowly but surely!

Linking up to Finish it up Friday (a late finish I know but I really feel a sense of achievement on this block after my sewing meltdown and all!) and

Star Surround Quilt-A-Long

Melissa at Happy Quilting is hosting a Quilt-A-Long of her pattern the Star Surround.  There are lots of options in terms of size and layout from 16" cushion to bed quilt.

I'm joining in and making a 1 x 1 Star 40" baby quilt.  I figure I can get this done in between my Swoon-A-Long, Finish-A-Long goals, Doctor Who and City Sampler Blocks.  Well that's the plan anyway!

Maybe because the clashy bright fabric contest was on my mind I chose pastel purple, yelllow, bright blue and white solids as my colours.

They are bright alright and I love them!

This week was cutting and Melissa is hosting a link up, as well as a flickr page.

 If you are looking to join in, the schedule is here.  This is going to be a fun project!

Sewing Machine Maintenance - feed dogs and a broken needle!

Well I had hoped to have a Finish for Friday.  I was happily making my paperpieced Doctor Who block of a space ship when my sewing machine had a meltdown.  It was not my Viking's fault - it was all mine.

I left a pin in my paperpieced block that as I was sewing along the seam became undone from the fabric and got stuck in the feed dogs. Really stuck.  Lodged between the feet and wouldn't come out stuck!

I yelled for Gordon's help as you do, hoping very much he would have a pliers or smaller screwdriver to take off the throat plate.  After much faffing about and very mumbled curses we got the throat plate off, went wow at the amount of lint that had gathered since I last cleaned it (in my defence I have been using my Husqvarna Viking a lot!) and freed the pin.  All good so far.

Throat plate back on, needle threaded, good to go?  Nope.  Feed dogs wouldn't move the fabric.  Slight panic, take whole thing apart again clean some more, break a needle, curse a little bit louder this time, turn it off and back on again - no joy.

Having no clue what to do next I decided to lower the feed dogs and raise them up again.  They wouldn't come up. 

At this point, about midnight, and thinking it was going to have to go in for repair I turned it off and unplugged it.  Instead of going to sleep I googled "feed dogs stuck after lowering" and the answer would you believe is to turn the hand wheel a few turns - voila magic - feed dogs popped back up and all is working again.

Now I hope to finish the block tonight, oil my machine, apologise to it for abusing it and promise as Gordon put it to me - to be more careful next time!

Sunday Lack of Stash!

I decided to make my 4 Houses project this weekend.  I had some layer cake squares in Coquette left over from my Bounce stars project but wanted to save them for a baby quilt I'm planning for a friend so I bought a pack of 10" squares of Tula Pink's Prince Charming range.  There are 20 squares in the pack so I had great fun during the week picking the colours for the roofs and houses.

I kept Prince Charming for a future project.  He's just so cool I couldn't cut him up for a roof!

I tested some background colours initially thinking I'd go with white but this fawn colour is a really good neutral against the Prince Charming colours.  Only thing is, I only had enough on hand for an applique project "A Dog's Life" that I've had on the back burner.  With no background fabric on hand I've stalled on this until I can buy some more.

 So having the house to myself and time on my hands I decided to make my second Swoon block.

I think I prefer the small scale print in the middle and the larger in the corners as in my first block but I like the colours overall and I'm loving that Kona Midnight navy.  I very nearly used it for my 4 houses but figured Navy might be a bad choice for a living room where 2 dogs sneak onto the couch.

Time now for a cup of tea and a bit of online shopping to find my fawn/beige background fabric!

Quilt Math

I have a Tutorial's page!  I'm still working on my 4 houses cushion that I will post as my first pattern tutorial but in the mean time I've been taking the Writers Bureau course and before I get to the fiction section there is quite a bit of non-fiction.  The first two assignments are 1500 and 2000 word articles for a particular magazine or market so I chose the quilting world (of course!) and chose Quilter's mathematics as my subject.  I've posted both assignments on my Tutorial page if anyone is interested.

Part 1 covers popular quilt sizes from mug rugs to King size, Half Square Triangles and the 7/8" rule, Quarter Square Triangles and setting square blocks on point.

Part 2 covers deconstructing a block in order to change the block size.  I cover double 9 patch, simplified LeMoyne Star, Ohio Star and applique blocks.

There will be a part 3 but its a WIP at the moment.  Any feedback much appreciated.  Hope they are of use!

WIP - Swoon

I've been working on Swoon this week.  For those of us that missed out on last years sew a long Sarah has started a flickr group Swoon 2013 and some people have half a quilt done already.  I'm just starting.  I bought FQB of Crazy Daisy and played around with the fabrics to get a pleasing layout.  Mum (my colour expert) gave me the nod of approval and I took a deep breath and started cutting.

There's not a lot of wastage on one of the FQ's so careful cutting is needed.  Once I had all the pieces cut and HST and Flying Geese made I couldn't resist laying it out.  This really is a pretty block design.

The first corner didn't go together too easily but the second and third went better.  Directional fabric wasn't recommended on the flickr discussion page but I had already bought the fabric and decided to chance it.  I think it works but I'll have to be careful making the next ones as there is quite a bit of stripey fabric in my bundle.

Background fabric is Kona Midnight.  The planned recipient for this quilt doesn't like white too much so I think this will be perfect for her.

1 done, 8 more to go!

Linking up to

City Sampler Sew-A-Long: Blocks 16-24/100

Maybe the heat is getting to me as well as Wilbur because I have 4 blocks in a row with no matching seams.

I even considered remaking number 17 but just for a minute, it's wonky and busy and if I have enough Boho fabric left at the end I just might.  The rest of the blocks came together better.  Could have been the sun going down and the air getting cooler or the cold white wine from the fridge that did the trick!

 I haven't managed to name these blocks yet.  Tula left them blank for us to name them but to me they are rectangle block mostly purple and the green one with orange bits in.  Yup probably the wine having an effect!  

We're having a Heatwave!

 Hello Wilbur - want to go for a walk?

 Yes I know its 30 degrees out there.

 Ok you think about it for a minute then.

 No?

Okay then maybe I'll go and finish a quilt instead.

Yaaaay. Bounce is finally done.  This took longer than expected but I couldn't be happier with the result.  Pattern is Miss Rosies Quilt Co. and fabric is Coquette by Moda.  Just have to wash and dry it for Gordon's auntie Maura.  Can't wait to give it to her!

Linking up to 

and Finish it up Friday

Finish-A-Long Quarter 3 goals

This is what my sewing (ahem kitchen table) looks like at the moment.  I have 8 separate projects on the go at the same time in various stages of completion (in addition to UFO's from last quarter!) so choosing the projects I hope to complete by September has been a bit of a problem for me.

A lot of the projects I'm doing are BOM that won't be finished by September but there some above I really could do with getting finished so after much pondering here's my list:

Carryovers

• Bounce
  
  Nearly there with this one, 80% quilted and binding material purchased.

•  A Dog's Life,  2 blocks out of 4 done.

• Boo to you (UFO from last Halloween).  A finish in spetember would be perfect for this! Top done just have to quilt it with orange and purple thread to fill in those cream squares.

New projects started

•  Swoon 2013, pattern bought, fabric bought, SAL on flickr joined now to start cutting!

• 4 Houses Cushion, designed,maths all worked out, test block completed, ready to make the real thing now.
  

I think that's plenty to keep me going for a while!

Finish-A-Long Quarter 2 update

Linking up to the Finish-A-Long at SheCanQuilt it's time to review the sewing goals I set myself last April.

Nothing like a deadline to push those unfinished objects to the finish line! Ahmm yup that's what I thought 3 months ago. Except this last quarter, I started more new things than I finished. There was just so many lovely projects going on that I joined in on and a few weekends to Galway and a week in Chicago visiting family ( though I did visit the Quiltology store and bought fabric for a Swoon quilt so not all of it was non-quilting time! )

So here's the round up:

1. Bounce : in April here's where I was

 In June Bordered and Basted - not yet quilted

 Finish = 0

     2. A Dog's life - applique project for myself - no progress, nope, nothing at all

Finish = 0

    3. Karavan Cushions - 2 finished, 1 to go!

Finish = 2/3
  
  4.  Scrappy Trip - 2 blocks completed and given away, no finished quilt

Finish = 0

   5. Strip & Flip quilt
In April this was the pieced top

In July Basted and quilted! Yay

Finish = 1


So all in all 1 2/3 out of 5.  Yup I can definitley improve on that score in the next qtr.  Hope you guys managed a little better!