May Monthly Mini

First up, a big thank you to Terry and Gladiquilts for your lovely comments on my last post. Your email address didn't come to me so I wasn't able to reply to you personally, but I very much appreciate you taking the time to connect. <3 <3

I'm feeling good about my accomplishments this week, I had been dithering over what to make for this month's mini quilt - on Monday I just grabbed some blue and a background and went for it. Nine patches to the rescue!

Once I finished the nine patches, it was my plan to use the same background fabric as setting squares. But I was hit with some inspiration and pulled some Dutch chintz fabric out of a scrap drawer. This was the leftover piece from when I made the Mountmellick quilt with all the broderie perse - it looked like a piece of Jarlsberg cheese with all the holes in it - and it still does, but it's a smaller piece now! It's a much busier looking quilt than I had originally planned, but I still love it! At 19" square it's a little larger than my other mini quilts, but it still qualifies as a mini, right?

Here's a bit of a closer look - warts and all! The blue fabric is a favourite of mine, it was purchased on one of my trips to the USA to visit with darling friends. All the yardage is gone now, there are just the leftover bits from the strip piecing and the binding to go in the scrap boxes. While it's sad to see the end of some fabrics, I always get a thrill when I can use something up.

And a little sneaky peek of the back - it's quilted simply with crosshatching and fairly plain feathers. I'm getting low on that check fabric now, and that thrills me too. It's a favourite, but I can't really use it on the front of quilts as it has some poly content. I just can't press it as hot as I'd like - and I learned this the hard way. It does make for nice soft backings though. Only one fat quarter and a few scraps before it's all gone - I'll endeavour to find a good replacement in 100% cotton.

If you're enjoying seeing these monthly mini quilts, do click over to lovely Wendy Caton Reed's blog, you'll find a list there of all the other sweet ladies making mini quilts. They're always beautiful eye candy!

And for Lily Rosenberry, I've prepped block 11 ready for stitching:

It's so much fun playing with a variety of fabrics in this project, it's always fun to find little shards of the colours I need and be able to put them into the quilt.

I've also been getting more little berries ready:

I need about five hundred to complete the rest of the blocks and the border, so I'll keep busy making them, I won't be finished any time soon!

There should be a few hours this weekend I can spend in the sewing room, so it's my hope I'll be able to make up some more of the Moda Blockheads blocks, and get organised for the Churn Dash SAL. Isn't it fun to have plenty to occupy oneself in the sewing room! Chatter soon xoxox

Churn Dash and Catching Up ...

I am super happy with what I managed to achieve this past week in the sewing room. Sometimes free time just presents itself and I was ready to take advantage of it!

The remaining four blocks for the churn dash top were finished, I also made the last sashing strips and put the top together. It's fun to work from stash and see some last remnants of fabric used up!

Now I need to decide what might be a contender for the border. Here are two that are under consideration:

I'm not sure about either of them to be honest. But the one on the left could definitely be a backing. A border stripe would be great, so I'll rummage around in the fabric closet some more.

While I'm in 'churn dash' block mode - Chookyblue is hosting a Sewalong featuring churn dash blocks. I'm thinking I'll participate, it should be really fun. 

And in other news, I managed to get back up to date with the Moda Blockheads 4 blocks. The only ones I haven't made are the bonus blocks, but I'll get on to those soon too.

Block 6 - Spinning Into Spring by Linzee McCray

Block 7 - Game Board by Lisa Bongean

Block 8 - Wild Geese by Kate Spain

Block 9 - Cross my Mind by Zen Chic

If you're interested in the Blockheads 4 project - click on this link for the archive and check back weekly for new block updates. I'm so glad I decided to participate!

Also noteworthy, I added some pink Elf Heads to my Etsy store:

These are for use with the mmmCrafts Twas the Night ornament series. I've seen them made in a cute pink colourway, how cute to have pink hair to match!

Anyway that has been my quilty/crafty progress for this week - I'm super happy to be catching up on things. When I have a bit of free time, I'm going to take stock and write a list of my UFO's - it's fun to check things off a list - while I'm inspired to get things done I'll get some older projects done too.

Hope you've all had a great week - chatter soon! xox

Ten blocks, yay!

I'm so thrilled to have finished my tenth Lily Rosenberry block today, I have six to go to complete the body of the quilt. So, I laid them all out on the family room floor ...

I love the area in the foreground where all the berries come together, it's going to be the centre of the quilt, and I'm sure will really draw the eye. This project will be hand quilted, and that is something I just can't wait to start. It's a while away though - even once the last blocks are finished, the border will be an exercise in patience, it's filled with those darling red berries too. Stamina ... hopefully I have it!

There were three quilt related parcel deliveries today. I ordered some of the beautiful new Edyta Sitar Christmas fabric. I just fell in love with it and it finally arrived:

My plan is to make a tree skirt for a darling friend. And I'll make one for me too ... because of my love for this fabric collection haha

The second item was some books I purchased from a friend who is scaling back a little:

Both of these books are filled with projects I would definitely love to make. And I certainly have the stash to support that ambition.

The last of the deliveries is some fabric that I discovered was an absolute necessity!

Last weekend I thought it might be wise to cut out the border strips, and then the remaining background squares for the Lily Rosenberry quilt. When I purchased the fabric a while back I decided to use a double wide backing piece as I like the way the script is scattered haphazardly on it rather than directional like on the yardage from the range. I worked out how much I needed and placed my order. The store let me know that they only had two smaller pieces that made up the amount I needed and I figured it would be okay. Well ..... as it turned out, it wasn't okay. Each of the pieces almost had enough for an extra row/border (they're the same width) but fell about 2 inches short. So I had two pieces of 15" wide fabric after I'd cut most of what I needed, but needed them to be 17". This fabric has been hard to find for a while, but fortunately I was able to get an additional metre and it got here in record time!

I keep thinking I should order even more and use it for the backing too, but would that be too blah? I am very undecided. But if I dither over it too long the decision will be made for me I guess!

That has been my stitching week - not exciting, but still great. I'm thinking I'll still be obsessing over applique for a bit yet - while I'm inspired I need to run with it, so let's see what I have to share with you next week! Big hugs, and chatter soon! xox

Seeking motivation ...

This week has seen me lacking motivation to sew. I know my mojo will return, so I've been pottering in the sewing room etc and just doing what I feel inspired to do.

I bit the bullet and trimmed four of my Lily Rosenberry blocks so I could commit to sewing them together. When I shared the nine blocks recently I just laid them on the floor all higgledy piggledy, but these ones are set in stone now:

I'll keep them in groups of four until I've made all the blocks, just so I don't back myself into a corner and get forced to have the same fabrics right next to each other. This is always a problem when working on a scrappy quilt!

And I sashed the third row of the Churn Dash quilt, but I haven't stitched that row in place yet:

I'm really enjoying the soft colours in this quilt. It would be nice to make it bigger, but I will be satisfied to use up two of the fabrics that have been hiding in my stash closet. 

In other news - I have kept my promise of taking a bag a week to the op-shop. I have quite a lot of clothing, so it's still hard to see a difference - but the pile of empty hangers definitely looks impressive. My walk-in-closet was getting to the point where hangers were unneccessary - the clothes were quite tightly packed and almost self supporting! I'd like to send about half my garments away ultimately. It's the right thing to do, there are things I haven't worn in years. Last week I also sent about ten pairs of shoes away. None this week, but next week I'll send some more. This feels very freeing!

I don't have much more to share this week, so I'll close off here - thank you for all your kind comments recently, I always love to read them! Chatter soon xox