Goal review

So, now that January is drawing to a close, time to look back and see what I actually got done!  Here's what I had as my goals:

• 5 Farmer's Wife blocks (new ones, using the taupes) -I did three: no 26, Cut Glass Dish, no 43 Garden Path (which I still might yet redo in part) and no 110, Wood Lily
• January blocks for block lotto - done
• Starter block for Cotton Robin - done, but can't show it!
• at least one charity quilt top - one done (a Bright, Scrappy top); I was hoping to do another,  using a .5 metre piece from stash, but didn't manage to do that. 
• red circular flying geese block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge - yes, done. 

That's not bad, especially considering that I also got out the Cat Quilt and worked on that - which wasn't on my goals, but which I really needed to do.  So, February:

• 5 Farmer's Wife blocks (hope springs eternal!) 
• February blocks for block lotto
• 1st Round for Cotton Robin
• at least one charity quilt top (this time, using a .5 metre piece from stash)
• circular flying geese block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge (not sure of colour yet)
• work on Cat Quilt some more

Something different

So, being a bit tired of the cat quilt, I have set it aside for a week or two and pulled out something else to work on - this little roll of strips - there are 10 different fabrics in the roll, so I am using them with some plain white to make some of these drop-dead-simple pinwheel blocks (squares and rectangles only - my favourite!).  I picked this roll up last time I was in the US - the summer of 2010 - so it really is about time to do something with it.

There will be 20 blocks (8") total and any strips leftover I may use as a floating border. I'm only photographed 4, but I think I've made about 10 so far. Given how busy my weekend has been, that's fairly impressive, frankly.

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt: Wood Lily

no 110: Wood Lily:  So, here's the pieced Wood Lily. I haven't taken off the paper yet, but that can happen some time in the evening - lord knows it's going to take long enough to do the rest of the blocks!

Giveaway Winners

OK, finally I've had a chance to draw some names for the various bits and pieces I've been meaning to give away, so here we go:

The Beach Huts pattern goes to Kandi. 

The paper piecing pattern goes to Terri.

The Gazebo kit goes to Ms Hennes.

And the Carousel Card goes to Dolores.

So far, no one wants the cat keyring, so if you do, let me know. Those of you whose name I've drawn already, send me your address! (I'll try to email you as well...)

Cross-stitch update

Although there's been a fair amount stitched this week, it mostly doesn't show, as it's largely the half crossed background that I've been working on. If you look closely, you can see it at the top.  Progress is being made.

Around the World Quilt Bee

Finally got around to finishing the binding on this piece, which is the result of a sort of round-robin project a while back. I made the block in the top left, and each subsequent participant added to it as it came to them. Aside from one or two blocks which are a little odd in terms of colour choices, I think it looks great. And it's finished!

Start of the Lily

A little over half way there on the Lily Block for the Farmer's Wife Quilt. It's not a lot, but every bit counts!

Evolution of a tail

I've been working on the cat quilt again this weekend, but it's not very interesting to show you the same thing time and time again, so I went for a different approach this time, and decided to show you the way the tails are made.  I've started with a piece of "magic paper" - aka tea bag paper - which is a nice, soft sort of tissue  (only stronger) which is great for paper piecing (you can leave it in) with the tail shape (including seam allowance) drawn on it.

Let the paper piecing begin...

...and carry on...

Here's a tail with all the piecing completed - as you can see, there's rather a large piece of red hanging off the edge of the piece. When I'm piecing like this, with lots of scraps, I don't bother to try to cut them down to close to the size needed - I just let them hang over and trim when it comes to the next round. Then I can put the largest trimmings back in the pile for more piecing!

Here's a tail which has been trimmed, but not folded under and pressed with seam allowance. 

And here's a finished tail, though it's not attached to the quilt top, just laid out on my rather dirty ironing board cover.  I now have 8 tails fully completed (though only 4 appliqued to the top) and another 3 or 4 partly pieced. I need 20...  And I have 5 border rectangles done, with another 5 in progress. Only 18 to go!

Wood Lily

So, in preparation for perhaps having a little sewing time next week in the afternoons, I've drawn the next Farmer's Wife Block I need to work on. Anyone who thinks I might be cheating in drawing my blocks - this will prove you wrong.  Oh well, even the blocks with small, fiddly pieces have to be made at some point or other. I do think I'll get out my old laptop and draft up a paper-piecing pattern for this one in EQ (doesn't want to install on this computer as I only have EQ5).  I'm sure it will be much easier to deal with this one by PP'ing than by cutting trapezoids with the templates... Ho hum.

A few more freebies

Before I work out who gets which of the other cross-stitch patterns I recently offered up, I thought I'd offer these as well - I had a little trawl through my cross-stitch patterns and kits (mostly patterns, but a few kits) and pulled out a few I won't ever use. The top one is nice, but it's simply not the sort of thing that appeals to me any more. I think I picked it up in a sale bin somewhere. It's a kit - all you need included.

These two are also little kits - the cat key ring comes with all you need, including the key ring and the carousel horse also a complete kit. Let me know if interested!

Wednesday Cross-stitch

This week I moved back over to the left hand side to work - not sure why, but that's what I did. There's not a huge mount stitched, as once again it was a busy week with several evenings not being devoted to stitching, but there's still some visible progress in the window boxes, plants and the door frames on the left hand house. Slowly but surely...

Yikes.

Very odd internet problems at the moment, can get to a few sites, but not others, including my email and Facebook - apparently, though, I can get to blogger. We'll see if this message posts. Anyway, if you are wondering where I am, perhaps this message will have posted to Facebook and you'll be able to tell from that!

Backing for tops

So I took my idea from yesterday of going through all the finished tops and pairing them with pieces of fabric large enough for backing. An endeavour which has been very successful, if I do say so myself (if only actually quilting the quilts was as easy...).  Of the 35 pieces (I know, I know) which are waiting, all but 8 now are paired with a piece of fabric which will suit for a backing.  As many of the pieces are small (i.e. needing less than 1 metre of backing fabric) this was perhaps neither as difficult or as impressive as it sounds.



These four pieces I bought yesterday all now have assigned companion tops - the blue and green at the back will go with the Splash of Lime top; the black and white batik will work with the Scottie Dog top; the green oriental will nicely back the green rectangle top; the brown metallic piece will go well with the Courthouse steps top.



And of these three pieces, two of them have been set aside for backing - the red one, which was purchased with that intent, and the taupe coloured piece with the writing on it, which will go with the HST sampler top.

If you are interested, all the pending tops can be seen by clicking on the Quilt Tops tab at the top of the blog...

Farnham Maltings

Went to Farnham Maltings today, which is a combination of  a fabric sale, quilt show and various other things. We looked at some quilts, played around with some lacemaking, admired some beading and of course, bought some fabric. 

I was very good and only bought fabric for backings - the top photo is two 5 metre (approx) pieces, and two 3-metre pieces, all of which were £4/metre (great price for proper quilt fabric - over here, that runs anywhere from £10 to £15, when not on sale). The photo above is two pieces somewhere between 2 and 3 metres - can't remember exactly, but they were bolt ends - and the red piece is a 5 metre piece - these were all grabbed for the bargain price of £3/metre.

The only other things I bought were two cross-stitch kits for Alex and Olivia, who both came with me - from the £1 bin - and one £1 FQ with writing about birds on it. OK, I did spend some money, but it's all backing stuff, which is great - that's the area where my stash suffers. I'm not totally sure what fabric will be used for what, except the red will go as backing for the red and white top from the blocks I won in the block lotto back in March.  And the blue and green in the top photo is for the blue and white Splash of Lime quilt.  

What I need to do next is go through all my quilt tops and actually pair them up with backings. I have done this with some of the tops, but not all of them, and I really need to do it with all of them, so at least I know whether I need more backing fabric or not - and perhaps whether I can use any of the medium sized pieces I have in stash to pair with the tops. Perhaps that's a project I'll work on this week, in my lack of free time!

A few cats with tails

I've now finished 5 tails and 3 or 4 of the border strips - I decided that I'd better turn, press and applique the tails as I went along so the process didn't drive me bonkers... Here's the quilt top with the tails turned, pressed and pinned - later in the evening I did stitch 4 of the 5 down before I got tired of doing it. 

Slowly but surely!

Free to a good home

A couple of freebies - the cross-stitch pattern for the beach huts I completed earlier this year...

and a paper-piecing pattern for the Christmas candles. This pattern came with two copies of the pattern, one to keep and one to cut. I cut one of them up, but the other is still there, as are the instructions. You could either cut this one or photocopy first...

As usual, leave  a comment if interested, and in a week or so I'll (if necessary) draw the winners.

Winter cross-stitch

Making good progress on this - I think it's because the background is just half crosses and so stitches very quickly. Also, it's a nice design to work on. If I hadn't lost one night to removing paper from a pp-ed project and one night to going to Les Miserables (not really a loss, per se), I might have got even further with it!

Can you tell what it is yet?

As promised to myself, I have started working on the cat quilt again - this is two tails (I have to make 20) and 1 complete and 3 partial border segments (28 needed in total). The border segments are fine; the tails are easy to piece, but then they have to have the seam allowances folded in and pressed and be appliqued onto the top. That part is going to be less easy, I feel!

Block Lotto

These are my blocks for the January block lotto (we took a break in December, but are back for 2012...). All the blocks for 2012 will finish at 9", to allow for those who wish to, to make an extra block each month and end up with a sampler quilt. I considered doing this, but decided I had too much going on to commit (even mentally) to it. But I intend to play most months (always allowing for unforeseen circumstances and heavy doses of applique...)

Farmer's Wife, Take 2

So, using my new system of drawing a slip randomly to choose which block to make first, and using the new colour scheme of Japanese taupe (and similar style) prints and unbleached calico, I went ahead and tackled the Farmer's Wife project again today. 

No 26, Cut Glass Dish, was actually one I had done before, and though there are lots of small triangles, it's not too hard a block to do.

No 43, Garden Path, however was another story - inset seams - yikes! I may yet take this apart and put the red border on using a different technique as this really annoys me that the corners don't quite meet up perfectly. We'll see.   At least it's a start...