Cabins, kettles and windows

I had a Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage blitz this weekend and did both last week's and this week's blocks. I might not get ahead with this project but I'm determined to at least keep up.

First up were the Grandma's Quilt Block and Haystacks blocks. I think I might have flower overload in the second block.

The haystacks I remember were never that neat. or colorful. 

Next up were Kettle's On (a phrase I can relate to from my childhood!) and Kitchen Window.

I think Kitchen Window is one of my favourite blocks of this project so far. This project is a great example of a skill builder, something I like about well executed BOM projects. Not something I can say about the Craftsy BOM project for this year which I've sort of lost interest in due to its repetitive nature. Perhaps I'll catch up at some point but there's only so many half square triangles I can stomach sewing! 

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to go wrong? There's no milk left for your morning coffee, the handle breaks off your mug and you can't find a parking space?

I had one of those sewing days yesterday. Nothing dramatic happened but there was an endless stream of niggles.

I finished the Pine Needle Basket from the Craftsy Jinny Beyer BOM project and it went fine. Not great, just fine. It took me a good few hours though!

As always with these Craftsy blocks it came out 1/4" too small all around but I can fix that at the sashing stage. French homework is done!

I also finished up the two block 5s for the GenX Quilter's Moccasin BOM. I think I'm almost caught up now (May is block 6). Again these weren't particularly problematic (apart from trying to tear copy paper out of the paper foundation; I'll always use Cadol Doak's paper in the future) but took a good few hours.

Hopefully today is a new day and I've left the trials and tribulations of yesterday behind!

Desert and white oak

Sounds like an upmarket fragrance, doesn't it? Or maybe more like a supermarket brand body spray! Either way, it's the next instalment in the epic sewing week.

The "desert" bit comes from blocks 3 and 4 in the GenX Quilter's block of the month pattern for this year, called Moccasin.

They were fairly straightforward blocks, being shoo fly (or Sherman's March or Church Dash) blocks plus a Bears paw block.

I'm slowly catching up with the BOM - I think I'm only two months behind now!

Next up was the White Oak Basket, one of two for the Craftsy BOM for May.

This month's blocks were a little like French homework - you know that you have to do it but would rather do fun stuff instead. But if you leave it, it's going to be looming over you all holidays. Best to get it out of the way ASAP. Particularly as this month's blocks had 13 pages of instructions; yes, 13!

I'm not 100% happy with the block (I somehow managed to miscut the basket lip fabric so that more than just the border print is visible in some spots). However I know that I'm just being picky and should instead embrace the glory of those partial seams which came together with no problems!

Pine needle basket is the other block for this month. I'll get cracking with that tomorrow.

Windmill Star - I keep getting turned around

I I'm moving along nicely with the Carol Doak's Starlight, Starbright quilt. Next up was Windmill Star which, despite its complicated appearance was  fairly straight forward.

I think I've accidentally ended up using the same fabrics as Carol in some areas - a complete accident for once! 

And see the colour difference in the bottom left corner? The fabrics aren't actually any different, it's a trick of the light caused by....sun! Yes, we actually had some sun shine over the Easter weekend. Dare I hope spring is on its way? 

Bag O' Scraps

Despite the rise of Indian and Chinese takeaway, fish and chips is still a very popular dish in the UK. And, when I was a kid, you used to be able to ask for a free "bag of scraps" when buying dinner. "Scraps" were bits of batter that had fallen off the fish and were almost as good as the main course itself, particularly as they were free!

As a quilter, one of the added benefits of finishing off projects is scraps. Big scraps, little ones. It doesn't matter, they're oh so tasty!

I confess to being a scrap addict - I keep any squares that are 1" or larger. 

This is my current bag and it isn't even my first bag (I gave that one to a colleague to use with her children). I confess it's not sorted, oops. 

I even keep little scrap bags of ongoing projects - it saves fabric and saves on a whole lot of cutting. 

Here's my bag from the FQS snapshots BOM

And from the Craftsy BOM

Don't even get me started on my scraps for the Moda building blocks project. On second thoughts...

And straight on till morning

One of the joys of not being able to watch much television is that I can take my time to enjoy a programme or film. A 24 episode series can last me a good few months. No quick and dirty binge watching for me! So imagine my joy to hear that Netflix in the UK was picking up one of my favourite TV series - Once Upon A Time.

The series will keep me going for some time, as will Carol Doak's stars quilt from Craftsy. I'm steadily working through the blocks. Its a great project for picking up and putting down.

This week's achievement was the Twisted Tulip block.

Easter weekend might bring more of Captain Hook, Snow White and the Starburst block. But probably not at the same time.

Sunday Stash #4

No "new" new fabric this week so I thought I'd dig around in my stash to show some old favourites.

Firstly, a FQ bundle of Token of Friendship by Kansas Troubles Quilters for Moda.

I originally purchased this bundle to make Kaye England's Re-Piecing the Past civil war quilt from Craftsy. I actually only ended up using about 1/4 of the fabric which was in the pattern so have lots left over. I'm thinking of a pieced back but, even then, I'll still have lots to go into my FQ stash!

Next some lovely honeycombs of Bonnie and Camille's April Showers and Miss Kate. Sorry for the blurry photo!

I actually think I have another honeycomb of Miss Kate lying around here somewhere. I really need to tidy my sewing room... The plan for these lovelies is to make the Timbleblossom Juggle pattern with a mixture of the two lines.

Finally, a roll up of 10" squares of Parson Grey's Empire line for Free Spirit Fabric.

I love the Parson Grey design house as their palate is always earthy and masculine, perfect for quilts for guys. No idea what I'm going to do with this yet but I sleep easier knowing it's in my stash!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles's Sunday Stash link up.

Have a great sewing Sunday!

If you loved it, then you should have put a handle on it

Beyoncé, forgive me - I couldn't resist!

This months Craftsy BOM block with Jinny Beyer was a Cherry Basket with handle. I also has appliqué flowers but apparently we have to wait for later in the year for those.

The piecing of the block was fairly straight forward but this month we also had bias bars to consider. I haven't made bias bars before (bias? Eek!) so had to get so Prym bias bars to assist. These things are clever. I must find out what else I can use them for.

The handle was appliquéd on to the block with some fairly basic (for me at least) blind hemming. 

The basket looks a little naked without flowers but hopefully they'll come soon. Roll on April!

Finish it up Fridays

Ah ha! For once, I'm on time for Finish It Up Friday's! Miraculous.

This week I have finished the four twinkle stars from Carol Doak's  Craftsy class. This is the finished quilt

The process for piecing the stars is fairly straight forward and methodical - sew, press, trim, repeat. With four stars to make, there were 32 individual sections to make and then sew together into 16 quarters, 8 halves and finally 4 blocks.

Carol's method of sewing the component parts together requires you to sew each seam at least twice - once to tack it in place and check your points and then a second time to actually sew the seam. If any of your points are off at the tacking stage, you can quickly unpick and retack to fix the problem. In reality I found myself tacking some points numerous times which was time consuming although admittedly not as annoying as having to unpick and resew the whole seam over and over would have been. It did cause me to create a lot of thread waste though as I unpicked numerous seams

Those perfect points came at a price! But they are beautiful. Each of the future stars only appears once so hopefully I won't have the same issue again.

Old blocks, new shoes

A couple of days ago I wrote about changing the pattern for the Craftsy 2014 block of the month. I had it all planned out and only had to sewing in some sashing to finish the new layout. I had it all planned out. It was going to look something like this...

But somewhere between starting the sashing and finishing sewing the final parts of the quilt together, I changed my mind again. I didn't feel that the quilt was balanced enough and would need a lot of border to bring it into balance. So at the last moment, I changed my mind again. Yes I know, that's at least the third time right?!

So, the final design looks like this. 

 Overall it feels more balanced and has the added bonus of no longer needed borders. Win-win!

Blocks of the month (Or "Block of the months"?)

Yesterday I trimmed up my individual blocks for the Leah Day Building Blocks Quiltalong. I had become seriously behind schedule and so ended up quilting all my blocks in the two weeks over Christmas and New Years. By the beginning of January I was done but was thoroughly sick of that quilt! So I put it to one side and worked on other projects until yesterday.

Don't the blocks look better all nearly trimmed?! 

Although my bin did end up looking like an A level textile student's final project...

Leah made her quilt two tone using blue and grey solids. I decided to use white as one solid and then switch between solid colours for each different block. The blocks are backed in a mixture of black and white geometric prints to give some contrast.

Now all I have to do is bind the blocks into a quilt. But that's for another day.

I like block of the month projects because I am, at heart, a lazy quilter. I practice one technique until I'm fairly good at it and then stick to the tried and tested. Block of the month projects force me out of my comfort zone and make me try new techniques and styles. I'm far too conformist (and cheap!) to sign up for a project and then miss bits out. Those circles in Leah's project were fairly rough to start with but by the end they turned out fairly well!

I try to sign up for at least one BOM a year, usually the Craftsy one at least because it's free. This year I'm also doing the Moda Building Blocks run by Simply Solids, the Snapshots and Gravity projects, both by Fat Quarter Shop. So far I've kept up but it's only February.

What is the plural of "block of the month" anyway?

Resetting the Craftsy BOM 2014

Last year I signed up for the Craftsy block of the month and even went so far as to buy the kit.

I slaved away (ok, happily sewed) for 10 months and was at the point of finishing off the quilt when I had a horrible moment of realization - I hated the quilt design. The individual blocks were fine, some were even pretty but together the overall design was too bright and busy for me.

I stuck the blocks in a drawer for a while and had a think about what to do. Luckily I had some left over Kona Charcoal from another project and set about redesigning the quilt to make it more ascethetically pleasing. 

It's sort of ended up as a stained glass window design which was unexpected. But I definitely prefer it to the madcap craziness of the intended design.

I've still got some sashing to do but it's almost ready to go up for sale. The backing kit will be too small now but luckily I've got some left over fence rail blocks to go into the center of the back to widen it out.

What do you think?

I've already started the Craftsy BoM for this year and must confess that I've already broken the rules. I tried hand sewing the first block but my 1/4" seam ended up being more like a 1/2"! So I unpicked it and have done the other blocks on the machine. I know my comfort zone!