This project has me gripped!

I'm really gripped by this quilt, as is often the case when things are going well. I'm able to piece away at my machine with little trouble, and so that's what I'm doing - in every moment that I can!

Some of the fun in this quilt is choosing the fabrics, and I knew I wanted greens with the florals for the next border. This is my favourite green tone, and I was thrilled that it played nicely with the other fabrics. The photo above is a bit crookedy, sorry about that - and I'm too lazy to fix it!

Those two green triangles in the middle - the fabrics I've used in them are from DEEP stash. The bottom one is all gone now, there's not a skerrick left - the top one I stumbled across at the bottom of a green pile while auditioning fabric from my stash. They're both from the Smithsonian Collection which is a line of reproductions from way back when I was very much a beginner quilter. The Smithsonian collections were released in 1995 and 1996 I understand. For my stash, 23-24 years old is practically antique! The print in the top triangle I had in pale blue as well as the green, and the bottom triangle I also had in pale blue and a cream colour. I wonder if there are any shards of those left in my scrap boxes?

And this is where I'm at as of last night. I've placed two sides of the hourglass borders. All the hourglass blocks are made for the other sides, I just need to get them into strips and sewn in place. How fun!

Next is another border using the same shapes as the green border, I just need to decide if I'm going to make it with a different colour theme, or attempt to emulate the green border with a few different fabric additions.

Thursday classes begin again tomorrow, and two of the ladies are also working on this project. I'll snap some pictures to share with you so you can see how entirely different our quilts are. I'm always amazed how quilters can take a pattern and make such different and beautiful pieces of art.

Before I close, I just wanted to let you know that all but the last one of the comments from my last post weren't emailed to me. Fortunately, because it's happened before I knew how to fix it - but it means that I can't respond to those messages. But please know that I love hearing from you, and always respond when I can. Chatter soon! xox

A little progress ...

Just a quickie post today to share that I've added a little more to my version of the Rajah quilt:

The applique has been a little hard on my arm (as is the case with hand quilting) so it happens in small doses, and there is still just a tiny bit to finish stitching down.

Beyond this narrow border are a bunch of pieced borders, so hopefully by the time I need to do a whole lot more hand sewing I'll be fully healed. So next up there's plenty of cutting to do, and lots of time spent at my sewing machine.

Well, that's it for now, chatter soon! xox

Rajah-ish

Hi there friends :-) Not a huge amount of news, but thought that I'd share ... last week I was working on some secret squirrel stuff, I popped it all in the mail on Monday so it could get to its destination in the USA on time ... and realised that I forgot to take pictures so I could share the results of my labours with you later on. Oops! One of the items was a Christmas block for the Quilt Batts annual exchange, so hopefully one of the sweet ladies over there will share a picture with me, and I can in turn share with you. I really need to better taking picture of happenings here!

I can share that after the 'have to do' work was done, I was able to do some more 'nice to do' work too. Rather than the applique designs used on the Rajah pattern, I was inspired to do something a little 'Pendle Hill' like, from the pattern by Di Ford-Hall:

The little pentagon units are so cute - this picture was taken while I was testing to see if they'd all fit along the border, and also making sure I was happy with the placement of the colours. You can see a couple of the other ones scattered around. One destined for another side of the quilt, and the one just out of shot on the left will be for another project - not this one. Nothing is stitched or glued down at this point, and I still had to remove the papers.

And in this picture the pentagon units have been stitched together, the papers removed and I've glued everything in place. I still have to stitch it all down, but it was getting late last night, and I needed some zzz's. The hot weather we're experiencing is quite draining and I find myself very lethargic. I keep telling myself that this happens every year, and it will pass ... it's perfect weather for staying indoors and stitching!

I'm looking forward to the next borders which are very busily machine pieced - it'll be fun to choose lots of lovely fabrics from my scraps.

Well, that's it from me for now - I'll check back in soon with more progress :-)

Happy New Year 2019

Happy New Year to all my lovely readers. I hope you've eased into 2019 doing some things that you love. As I mention each year, it is thought that what you do on January 1st you'll continue doing all year. So to that end I always try and do some things that I love, as well as some things that keep my home running along happily.

I did some sewing, so that's good news for my stitching prospects each day - but I started a new project, and I don't need to be working on a new project each day. 

Anyway, here's what I've begun:

This is  where I'm at with my interpretation of the Rajah quilt that I mentioned in my last post. I'm using the lovely pattern by Lessa as a guide, and I'm changing things up here and there to suit myself. I didn't feel like doing the applique block in the centre of the quilt, so I used this lovely printed block and a border print from the Windermere collection by Di Ford Hall.

It's strange for me to be working on a new project when I'm still working on the quilting of the Phebe quilt, but I really felt like having some machine work when I'm not feeling like hand quilting. I don't think I mentioned it, but I injured my right arm playing tennis a little while back, and hand quilting is hard on it while I recuperate.

I'll keep you posted as I progress with the Rajah quilt - though it might be slow - there are so many things going on right now, not least the planning and preparation for my sweet girl's wedding!

Something I'd meant to share with you in the last post were some little gifts I made for the sweet girls that come to my class:

I enjoyed making the trees from Marcie's sweet pattern so much, and I thought they'd make pretty little Christmas mats, so I made a bunch of them, and I'm fairly sure I'll make more. They were great for using up random strips of fabric, and I'm always thrilled to find ways to use up my scraps!

And in my post from before Christmas, I promised to share a picture of my Nutcrackers, and then promptly forgot ... but here's a quick piccy, because I'll have to put them away soon:

These are just the ones that live on my china cabinet, there are some larger ones on the floor too. I have some favourites, the one with the cloak is really neat, and the music box is a special favourite too.

I just noticed I've made a new years ooops, and I'm too lazy to change it right now - I've neglected to change the date on my photo watermark. I'll have to make sure to do it before the next post. I'm sure it won't be causing any international incidents, but clearly my attention to detail is lacking - I'm still in holiday mode :-)

Thank you to my commenters from my last post - some were set to no-reply so if you didn't hear from me, that's the reason. Equal numbers encouraging blogging and Instagram, so I'll waddle along as best I can. Chatter soon! xox