Imagination

This has been an exciting week, no sewing, no knitting, no chores, but I am exhausted!  but in a very nice way.  We spent this week looking after our little Grandson who is an absolute charmer, I know, thats what every grandparent says about their offsprings little ones.  What adventures we had, we visited the Sea Life Centre which was fun although the turtle which S particularly wanted to see had gone on its holidays, we did however see the sharks, and rays being fed and watched the antics of the otters.   Some time was spent in the playpark where he burned up some of his never ending supply of energy.  He was so tired he fell asleep on the way home.

Catching Fish

Planting Bulbs

Digging up the lawn - oops!

Taking water to water the plants

One of my quilting friends commented when I said I was going to be entertained by my Grandson for a week thought that it should be the other way around and I would be entertaining him.  Well apart from  story time, meal times and bedtime I was well and truly entertained.  He has a very vivid imagination and can turn a piece of pipe into a fishing rod, a pair of rubber gloves into flippers for going diving, and on numerous occasions called out the coastguard and fire engine on his walkie talkie to rescue someone in difficulty - all helped of course by Fireman Sam.

So many questions had to be answered, jigsaws made up and stories read and woe betide me if I got the words wrong.  'Silly Grannie"!!

This will be a quieter week ahead, but I am already missing his little voice saying Grannie what are you doing?

I hope I will be able to continue with Techie's quilt, which can be seen over on Instagram, the fabric arrived for the setting triangles of the Farmers Wifey quilt so I can do some of the cutting for that too.

I am off to bed now to try to recharge my batteries.  Have a good week and enjoy whats left of the long weekend.

Three Finishes

Did you pop over to my Instagram page to see my new project?  I am loving everything about it the pattern and the colours seem to be working well.  I am taking this one slowly and so far so good.  Follow the progress and add a few comments if you like.  It won't appear here until its done and that may be a long way away!

So I am still catching up with the UFOs.  The Farmer's Wifey Quilt is on the wall - I have been waiting for some fabric to arrive for the setting triangles.  I was a bit fed up with this one as its been around a while.  I enjoyed making the little blocks then of course it was put in a basket and left to mature.  I was just going to sash the blocks in a square but I was persuaded the blocks would look better on point.........on point it is.  This is where I am at the moment

I finished the Whirlygig Vintage Flower Connecting Thread Kit this week - this was supposed to be a table runner but as always I had more fabric than needed just for a runner so I turned it into a small lap quilt or child's quilt.  

Whirlygig Vintage 36" x 36" 

I think I may have talked about having fleece and batting leftovers lying around needing used up so this is the second Finish

Stripey Quilt as you Go 25" x 25"

This is another little pram cover or car seat cover.  I cut the fleece and batting, sandwiched them together and used up some of my strips from my leftover basket.  The first strip is laid down diagonally right side up then the second on top right side down, stitched the normal quarter inch seam , flip and press, and continue.  Not sure if this should be called quilt as you go or stitch and flip.  Whatever you call it, it worked for me and made something out of nothing again.  I have had that jelly bean fabric for ages and thought it was appropriate for the binding of this wee cover.

This week I don't suppose I will get much stitching done.  I am off to play Grannie for a few days and have fun with S.  This is the third finish and not quilting.  Its been on the needles a while and when I started this I thought it was going to be a bit big however its taken me a while - I almost gave up as I didnt think the wool was going to stretch far enough - but of course over the summer he has stretched so hopefully it will keep him cosy as the days get cooler as he travels to nursery in the car.

Until next time happy stitching.

Another Basket Empty

The successful stash busting and finishing off UFo's continues.  I am working through a list and that seems to make such a difference ticking things off as I go and feeling good about it too.

This is the quilt I have been working on this week and now that basket is empty.  The half square triangles were made up from some left over 5inch charm pack squares and some Dashwood Studios Flurry in cream. Just to be different I used the different colours for each side of the binding.  This is a very spotty quilt!   I finished it last night, sewing on the binding while watching Netflix and sipping a glass of well earned (well I think it was well earned) newly bottled Plum Gin.

Lots of Spots 37" x 41"

Counting Sheep was gifted to Jack this week so I can now show you the finished quilt. 

Counting Sheep 30" x 42"

Finally for this week I decided that I must do something with the shelf in the wardrobe which was full and overflowing with offcuts of Ikea fleece.  The issue is, the offcuts are not really big enough to back another quilt but they are too big to discard and throw out.  I have been struggling to think of ideas of how to use them up.  I did have a couple of pieces which I though might just work for a little pram cover or car seat cover and this is what I produced - something from nothing - the fabrics were from my leftover bin and I cheated and didn't put batting in, but now I wish I had.  I think its quite cute.

Aqua Cover 25" x 25"

Now if you have been very observant you might have noticed a new tab at the top of the page.  I have joined Instagram -  Blogging is fine but with the very nature of it you have to write a story and sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day, week, month.   My Instagram page has been set up with a view to tracking the progress of any new quilts I make.  It will be a step by step photo record of each stage of the process of my quilt making. One quilt at a time. (although I will be working on others in the background)  Well that is the plan.  So I hope you will enjoy the first quilt in the series of many more and follow my page and its progress.  Its called Refraction and it will be for Techie.

Have a good week and keep cosy and dry, the nights are already getting shorter and the lights are going on earlier I hope you have a quilt cuddle under.

Unfinished Projects

How many projects do quilters have on the go at any one time?  That's a rhetorical question because there is no real answer.  Very few quilters I know only work on the one, in fact most folks have a number exceeding 3 and some have in excess of 10.  At the moment I think I am somewhere in between but I daren't count.  I am working my way through the baskets, my oldest to date is the Farmer's Wifey Quilt, I have started adding the sashing strips so that is progress.

The problem is these are only projects I have actually cut fabrics for and started sewing, this doesn't include the numerous kits, patterns and books with 'to do' quilts in.  it also doesn't include the ones I have seen and taken screenshots of or bookmarked on my iPad.  Without wishing my life away I wish I had more time!  Perhaps its not more time I need, but more inclination to get the chores done so I can get on with the sewing.  Maybe if I spent less time thinking about what I should be doing and actual get on and just do it.  Well the start of a new month and a new week maybe, just maybe...........

I have tallied up the quilts I have made to be delivered to the local care home with the others from our Group.  I have five complete, 

there should have been six but disaster struck last week with the Zipper Quilt below (sorry not a great photo)

which was loaded on the frame and I was getting on fine until three quarters of the way down.  All of a sudden the machine  beeped at me and jammed solid.  The needle was stuck and wouldn't move - I switched off switched on - no joy.  Well long story short after a morning gently coaxing the needle up I managed to cut the tangled mess of threads loose, cleaned it all up and rethreaded, new bobbin, new thread etc. the machine just would not stitch.  Stripped it all back again and watched carefully when I tried manually to take a stitch.  The problem was quite noticeable.  The hook was in the wrong position to pick up the thread from the needle.  So this week my machine will be heading off to the technician who hopefully will manage sort it all out for me - I hope.  

So it is all packed up and ready to go and of course I now have another UFO! which will  just have to wait until my machine is fixed.

Two more of the baby quilts have also been delivered this week - I will show them next time.  Hope the upcoming week is not as disastrous as last week.  Happy stitching