What's On The Design Wall This Week?

It's blue and white, made from some of my smaller pieces from my stash, now pieced as 11in blocks which started as pinwheels and chopped up to produce the disappearing pinwheel block found on the Missouri Star Quilt Co site.  You may have seen this block already as I did a tutorial evening at our Group, its a very versatile block and depending how you place each piece will produce a completely different block - go check it out.  I am pleased with the results so far and best of all I have used up and finished some of my pieces from my stash. Yippee!

Choosing a different project each time I sit down to sew is certainly working for me, well it has these last two weeks.  I am also trying to limit my time on the Internet and my iPad - only picking it up when I stop for a quick cuppa through the day.  I seem to have achieved a bit more this week.  Not just with my sewing but with the housework too.  

The little baby quilt is almost complete. I've only to handstitch the binding and put the label on then it can be posted off to the little one who is now two months old - oops.  I hope she will enjoy playing on the quilt and as she gets older may enjoy a picnic on it too.  I enjoyed working with this fabric - Dashwood September Blues, coral pink Flurries and a Kona solid duck egg blue.  The pattern is a photo I saved from a magazine and reproduced on EQ7.

I have marked more of the spiral triangles on the Toes in the Sand quilt and I got a couple more stitched.  The Autumn Improv Pods have now been sewn together and look quite good.  Here's a sneak preview

Storm Gertrude is still howling outside, she has caused all sorts of chaos, damaging buildings, felling trees and overturning vehicles throughout Scotland.  It's been a blustery day and it looks to be another wild day tomorrow with lots of snow forecast over most of the country.  I think it would be wise for everyone to stay indoors and do some sewing and quilting............there's no point in going out when there's sewing to be done!  Next week I will show you my completed baby quilt and the progress on all the others.  Keep cozy and safe in this wild weather and only venture out if you really need to.

Woops! Missed Another Weekly Post

Well I had an excuse, we were off on a wee extra holiday last week with old friends.  It was good fun catching up with everyone again.  So in fact there was no sewing news to report.  I did make a list of projects I wanted to tackle over the next few months, and I knitted a sock!

This week I have managed to make a start on that list. I have also decided to mix things up a little, instead of working on one project all week I have tried a different approach.  Each evening I am doing something different for a change.  So here is my progress this week.

Monday - I did a bit more quilting on the Toes in the Sand quilt.  This is definitely slow quilting so I'll be doing it for a few weeks but I was getting bogged down with it, or maybe I should say spiralling out of control. 

Tuesday - quilting class, a good evening discussing everyone else's works in progress

Wednesday - the next project was put on the design wall awaiting inspiration

Thursday - I designed a baby quilt on EQ7, my migration kit arrived last week so installed it on Monday and delighted it now works on my new Mac mini!  I didn't realise how much I missed this programme.

Friday - an afternoon cutting and piecing the first blocks of said baby quilt.

All in all a good week, hope you've had fun too. 

A New Year Ahead......

.......... Full of new exciting ideas?  I hope you are as inspired as I am at the moment.  I have had a wee bit time to myself over the holiday period to just sit and think and plan all the wonderful techniques I would like to achieve this year. Maybe I should write them all down in case I forget as the year progresses and I get caught up with other things.  Inspiration is coming mainly from some books I received for Christmas.  

Talking of Christmas I was given a lovely gift from my hubby.  Say hello to Florrie.

I have a few old pieces of sewing equipment that have been in the family a wee while, mainly thimbles, a bone handled stiletto, a darning mushroom etc. even a box of Dorcas pins.  Florrie is the newest addition to my sewing machine family.  Isn't she sweet.  She is about 80 years old and in working condition, however I haven't actually put her to work yet.  The little instruction book which came with her has a little inscription inside the front page saying "this machine belongs to Florrie and Mother" how cool is that!

This year will be a year of challenging projects - I am fed up as I said in a  previous post making quilts just because.  I need to go slowly, read and plan my projects, choose my fabrics more carefully and take time to enjoy.  Well that is the plan so far......... But it is only the 7th January.

Today I am feeling quite pleased with myself.  As always at this time of year it's time to de clutter, tidy up and move things along.  As some of you may know there is a Facebook page called UK Quilters United  which I follow, it's good for inspiration, help and tips and a real friendly bunch of quilters.  It has a sub group called Helping Hands in which the members share and make things for a variety of different charities.  

Well there is always someone looking for something, whether it be scraps, threads, ribbons, etc etc.  One of the admin ladies has come up with a great idea to help share more fairly. She has set up a spread sheet to help place items where they need to be. So if you are making childrens quilts and would like some kids fabrics she will team you up with someone who has indicated she wants to share her kids fabric.  If your group is making fiddle quilts for Alzheimers and someone has an excess of ribbons or buttons etc she will make the match up.  A fair amount of work involved but a great idea. 

My scrap baskets and bin were overflowing again!!  This weekend I decided to finally once and for all empty all my scrap baskets.  I contacted Nicki - my baskets seemed to contain mostly scrappy strips. 

Long story short I have posted off two packages to ladies who will use them up!  Isn't that wonderful - my scraps which I was really fed up looking at -fabrics I've used over and over again will now be put to good use by someone else and hopefully have fun making something out of nothing and useful for folks in need of a bit of comfort. Bonus and a win win situation. Now I can attack my stash in earnest. 

This week I have at last sandwiched the Toes in the Sand quilt, hurray! I even have an idea in my mind how I want to quilt it.  I have also cut the batting for the Hardware quilt so feeling rather smug and happy today.