能上picacg的梯子

Happy July ! its now the middle of the year and the world is still in the midst of a global pandemic and I still haven't finished my Midnight at the Oasis quilt ... but I AM getting closer !!

I did hope to get the top done by the end of June but I've adjusted my plans - we're all probably getting pretty good at adjusting plans these days - and now I have a new plan !

I finally finished the orange peels and then finished sewing down the appliqued circles on the centre piece - I also changed out one of the triangles in the centre piece as well. I've now sewn the centre block and the orange peel border together and I've added the applique border too !

Now I have to finish sewing down the stems around the corner basket blocks and also applique the flowers to the baskets - I'm hoping to get that finished by the end of this week.

then its onto the Churn Dash blocks - I need to sew another 40 odd 4 inch blocks - I've made a few and its been fun playing with all the fabric combos - how many fabrics can I use in one tiny block ?!?!!

As I've already finished the checkerboard border and the final courthouse steps border, once I sew all the churn dash blocks I can sew all the borders together - so my new plan is to have the top finished by next month's Furtle post - if I can stop changing and rearranging that is !!

Thanks for popping by - I hope you are staying safe and well and enjoying life as much as possible in these crazy times ! I'm constantly thankful for this creative outlet that I love and that I can retreat into when it all gets too overwhelming :)

Linking up to Archie the Wonderdog's monthly Furtle

 

能上picacg的梯子

Wow another couple of months have zoomed by in this crazy year - I'm sure its not just me who thinks that this year has literally flown by !?! which is good and bad too, I suppose !

anyway, it’s time to join Archie The Wonderdog for a furtle around - although to be honest its halfway through the month so I'm more than a little late to the party, especially as I started writing this post for last month's linkup which I missed !!

Like everyone else, I'm finding it hard to make sense of everything at the moment and like everyone else I've been staying at home and trying to stay safe in the current global crisis, although it sounds like we might start opening up a bit by the end of May !

A little while ago I was looking for something to straight sew - something easy and not too taxing on the brain - I think I needed to just sew to keep my mind off all the Coronavirus news and as my current projects all need at least a little bit of focus, I went digging around in one of my UFO boxes and 5 hours later found the fabrics I’d put together to make a Maple Leaf quilt - back in 2015 - lol !!

Even though it was late afternoon I got quite a few blocks cut ready for sewing and sewed a few blocks up - my original plan was for a cream background but I had this Kona Zucchini on hand and I really like how it mixes with all the browns as well as the oranges and yellows :)

At the beginning of April half of the blocks were made - I’m going for a 7 block x 7 row quilt - 63 inch square - and when I put them together on the design wall I thought it looked very busy although I think the alternate row direction above makes it a little less busy !!

so now I’m wondering if it needs sashing and then I thought I could combine with solid squares or maybe use only a few blocks in lots of negative space !! anyway, I’ll continue to ponder as I finish making the blocks with the fabric I’ve already cut :) I'll continue to ponder and make the blocks when I find where I've put them again !!! Honestly, once a project comes off the design wall it seems to just disappear - although I'm sure it will resurface again at just the right time when I need meditation sewing again :)

My Midnight At The Oasis project has slowly been moved from the design wall

every time I had another little project to do another piece was taken off so its totally off now although I am very happy to say I've finished all of the orange peel blocks !!!! so once I put the centre block back together I can start sewing a couple of borders on - yay.

The other project I mentioned in my last furtle is the Hourglass blocks - a prompt by The Ad Hoc Improvisational Quilters. I’ve made quite a few blocks now.

I'm still thinking about what I’ll do with them - I had a thought about columns, a la chinese coins, with solid fabrics in between columns of hourglass blocks and maybe strips in between blocks or chunks of blocks, then I thought about a medallion style with those little pink and grey blocks in the centre - anyway, I'll keep playing for a little while longer with these little piles ... while I ponder !

especially as I've already moved onto another recent UFO -  my sherbet Ocean Waves blocks - I finally tracked down the 3 fabrics I'd "misplaced" and I'm absolutely loving making these blocks - it looks just like the mock up block I made in Electric Quilt !!

I'm looking forward to these blocks becoming a quilt and hopefully I won't get distracted by anything else long enough to get the rest of the blocks sewn :)

Anyway, I must post this before the link closes !!  happy sewing, stay safe, and I hope life is starting to look a little like the new normal wherever you are :)

Classic and Vintage - Carolina Lily block

I'm taking a break from the dominant issue in world news today to show my version of the Carolina Lily block that I made with the free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop's Classic and Vintage series.

It was a fairly easy block to sew together and I used a couple of fabrics that I've used in other projects recently - my favourite OOP Dreamin Vintage in Bloomery for the background, Spark in Peony by Melody Miller for Ruby Star Society for the flowers and Enchanted Sprout Dots by Gingiber for the flower bases and bias stems.

I love making bias stems but I hadn't used them with a patchwork block before so I decided to sew them on by machine using top stitch and I quite like the effect.  I'm planning on making a pillow and machine quilting the blocks so the stem stitches will blend nicely :)

I did initially think about adding a strip border to the block but I'm now thinking about setting the block on point and adding triangles to the sides to make a larger pillow and I think I might just use the background fabric rather than adding a different border fabric but we'll see !!

Pop over and visit the 哔咔可用的加速器 blog today to see all the other fabulous Carolina Lily blocks that were made for this Classic and Vintage quilt along and don't forget that the Fat Quarter Shop has flash sales every single day :)

能上picacg的梯子

my friend Helen who blogs over at Archie the Wonderdog decided to revive her blog last year and to encourage others back to blogging she is hosting a monthly link up called Furtling Around the Blogosphere!

安卓 听说很好玩v1.2.1破解版 有声阅读APP - 乌云资源站:2021-11-28 · 7 安卓 哔咔哔咔v2.2.0.0 绅士本子神器 8 迅雷X v10.1.34.798 SVIP加速去广告精简绿色单文件便携版下载 9 APP开发软件 FileMaker Pro Advanced v18.0.3.317 专业汉化版下载 10 网页视频嗅探下载器v1.0.07会员破解版

and I might have winced just a bit (or was that a wink!) when reading a recent post by Audrey of Quilty Folk ... and I quote ... 

"Don't you just love the people who write a post after being gone for 9 months, tell us how wonderful the blogging community is and how they're recommitting? Then after another post or two they disappear forever. We're like, 'Hey, come back here! We love you!'. But it's no use, they're off over at Instagram scooping up the 'likes'."

Audrey is an amazing blogger, a prolific maker, and an allround lovely person - she makes the most wonderful improv quilts with amazing hand quilting and posts incredible details about the making of her quilts. Oh and she is the mastermind behind Quilty 365 !

Even though I think I haven't made that much to blog about, when I look around I have so many projects on the go and although it is fun to have instant feedback when posting on Instagram I really do worry that the algorithms they use mean that I don't even see the people I love anymore anyway and the advertising is getting more and more !! I do love having all of this blank space to post photos and tell stories, especially as I'm such a long term maker - haha !

As usual at this time of year I'm trying to come up with a plan to get all the projects done - I re-read a few of my previous year's first planning posts which obviously didn't work but it was fun reading :) I'm going to go with the "working on mainly one project for the month" plan for the moment.

I've been working on a couple of projects this year that I'll share soon and recently I've moved forward on my Midnight at the Oasis quilt.

The orange peel blocks have been my slow point - I have a bit of an issue with hand applique that I think is to do with my RA but since I've discovered turned edge applique I'm finding it easier to prepare the pieces and I'm actually getting the blocks hand sewn a bit quicker - I also have my Quilty 365 blocks close by so I've been hand sewing those a little as well !

I really love the little stitches on the back of the applique !

I know I said I was going to work on mainly one project but of course I'm always getting distracted by the latest bright and shiny thing - the above mentioned Audrey is also a member of ‎App Store 上的“TestFlight”:2021-12-11 · ‎TestFlight 可让您轻松测试 iOS、Apple TVOS 和 watchOS App 的 Beta 版本，并在开发者将 App 发布到 App Store 前为他伔提供有价值的反馈。若要成为测试者，只需按照开发者的公共链接或其发送给您的电子邮件邀请中的链接操作即可。TestFlight 会打开，众便您接受邀请，然后安装开发者的 App。 测试 Beta 版App 时 ...

Their first prompt for this year is Hourglass blocks and I've found that I have a large stash of half square triangles just right for making lots of improv hourglass blocks - of course I've yet to start but the ideas are whirring around in my head!!

I'm off to walk the dog and then hopefully a little hand sewing before bed :)

have an awesome week !

welcome 2024

and what a start to the new decade here in Australia - I took this photo the day before new year's eve in Hobart - no filters needed.  Its amazing to think we're already 10 days into the new year and it feels like there's a hush over the whole country.

I had plans for a roundup post in January so I could link up to Helen and Archie's Furtle Around but over the Christmas - New Year break the bushfires, already burning in parts of Australia, turned up a notch and so those plans were put on hold.  By Christmas Day there were bushfires raging in every part of Australia.

photo - http://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/

The town of Tumbarumba where I lived until a few years ago had fires at the edge of town on New Year's Eve and lost the mobile phone tower that night - by Friday the town was evacuated.  Such a scary situation to be in.  Thankfully no lives were lost.

Its such a tragic situation that its hard not to get drawn into the hopelessness. I'm listing a few places if you would like to donate directly.

Red Cross Australia

Wires Animal Rescue

Australian World Wildlife Fund

so instead of planning projects for the new year I started sewing pouches for wildlife and this week I worked on the first challenge for Season 11 of Project Quilting which I'll post about later.

I'll still have a roundup post to show off some of my makes from last year including my finally finished Double Wedding Ring quilt that I started five or six years ago - there are so many Finish Along posts about this quilt its probably the most mentioned quilt here - I might check the stats on that :)

and I'll also post my plans for this year which include finishing my Midnight at the Oasis quilt !

so a belated happy new year and cheers to another year of creativity :)
 

pop and spark !

Popping in to share the table runner I made recently for the Fat Quarter Shop's Jelly Glazed Heart Table Runner Quilt Along.

It's a super simple project to sew together - using just a few jelly roll strips and some yardage for the background.  I've made mine using a jelly roll in Pop by Rashida Coleman-Hale - so seventies with its vinyl records, balloon dogs, and soda pop bottles xx and the background is Spark in Lipstick from the Social range by Melody Miller - it's so luscious and dreamy too xx

To finish the table runner I stitched in the ditch around the jelly roll hearts and then stippled the background - I wanted to make sure the hearts popped and I also wanted to continue the quick and easy theme :)  The runner finishes at 19 1/2” x  68 1/2". 

I decided to go with a striped binding - even though Rashida has designed the stripe in her Pop range to run perpendicular to the selvedge.

I sewed the striped jelly roll strips together side by side and then cut them into strips and sewed those end to end - it means lots of seams all the way around but it didn't actually make much difference when sewing the binding to the quilt and I love how the binding looks :)

It's so quick you could easily make one in time for a last minute christmas gift or maybe it would finish off a gorgeous Valentine's Day table (which is just around the corner ha ha !) or using just one heart would make a really cute pillow or cushion !

The Jelly Glazed Table Runner is a free Fat Quarter Shop quilt along and there's a video tutorial too - check out the Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber blog for all the information and have a look at the other yummy table runners made using this pattern!

I'll be back soon with a plan for more making in 2024 - wow another century - wonder what it will bring !!  I know there's a pink pig somewhere in my near future :)

taking a Swan Dive

I love it when I can use the pattern name as a fun post title but I have to admit I'm starting to feel like the guy in the ad who says "but wait there's more"! 

I've been playing along with the Fat Quarter Shop again for another fun paper project - this time its using 安卓 听说很好玩v1.2.1破解版 有声阅读APP - 乌云资源站:2021-11-28 · 7 安卓 哔咔哔咔v2.2.0.0 绅士本子神器 8 迅雷X v10.1.34.798 SVIP加速去广告精简绿色单文件便携版下载 9 APP开发软件 FileMaker Pro Advanced v18.0.3.317 专业汉化版下载 10 网页视频嗅探下载器v1.0.07会员破解版

its a pack of printed foundation papers that makes two sizes of half square triangles (my mum says they're my favourite block) and they make it pretty easy to be accurate too !

You simply place your two fabrics right sides together and then place a printed paper piece on top, then hold together with a few strategically placed pins and follow the lines - there are arrows printed showing the direction and there are also numbers showing which lines to sew next - its almost like joining the dots !!

Each "recipe" paper makes a 6 inch finished block and there are six different block layout options - if you haven't played with paper they're a great option for beginners.

I used some of Amy Ellis' Wanderlust fabrics as the feature and teamed it with 能上picacg的梯子 for the background and border - I really love that its gender neutral which is fab for a crib quilt !

The Fat Quarter Shop has this free pattern called "Swan Dive" that uses Miss Rosie's Jolly Bar Cake Mix Recipe Cards.  The pattern is in two sizes - to make the crib size quilt you will need a Jolly Bar of feature fabrics and a Jolly Bar of background - they're pre-cut 5 inch x 10 inch rectangles, easy to just sew together and you can make your seams twirl too !

I love the accuracy of using papers especially when there are so many pieces in each block and all that bias - I'm not sure if its much quicker but it does seem so :)

Make sure you check out the Fat Quarter Shop's blog - The Jolly Jabber - to download this fun free pattern and to see some other wonderful quilts using this quick and easy pattern !

哔咔漫画用免费加速器

Are you ready for another block in the Fat Quarter Shop Classic and Vintage Series ?

This time its the Ocean Waves block and it's made with the fabulous half square triangle paper that is sold on a roll !

I really love half square triangles and the new Its So Emma HST paper rolls makes sewing them very easy - paper rolls have sewing and cutting lines already marked so you can make the triangles the exact size you need plus you can make 700 half square triangles from the one roll !!  That's a whole lot of HSTs !!

I've made my classic Ocean Waves block from Basic Grey's Grunge fabric - using Pool and Essence together and I also made a mock up block in EQ8 using a fun bundle of Grunge in sherbet colours.

When deciding on the quilt I initially thought of using the sherbet bundle to make a block from each colour but after I'd put together a few options of the design in EQ8 I decided I liked the look of the multi-coloured blocks so I'm going with the Confetti Ocean Waves quilt although I have put a sea blue/green Ocean Waves quilt on my to do list for the future - I really love the Pool and Essence together !!

I really love the multi-coloured blocks in the quilt - I think the pinwheels show a lot of movement and can't wait for the remaining fabrics to arrive so that I can make this quilt.

If you're looking for an easy way to make a lot of half square triangle blocks, then the Its Sew Emma paper rolls should be on your shopping list - no fuss and very quick and easy to use !

Pop over to the FQS Jolly Jabber blog to download your FREE Ocean Waves block pattern and also watch Kimberly’s video tutorial for a step-by-step guide on making your block!

哔咔漫画用免费加速器

Meet my sweet little Pineapple Fizz ...

This is the fun quilt that I made especially to celebrate Pineapple Day and the Fat Quarter Shop's Pineapple Day Quilt Along !

Using the fabulous new Pineapple Quilt Block Foundation Paper from the Fat Quarter Shop I made a wall hanging from both the 6 inch and 12 inch blocks !

The foundation paper is nice and thin and makes sewing up these blocks nice and easy.

I made both the 6 inch blocks and the larger 12 inch blocks and changed the fabric placement in half of them - I love how different the blocks look depending on the fabric placement - kinda like a shimmer and a shake !!

I used some of my favourite long hoarded Dreamin' Vintage Bloomery fabric (by Jeni Baker for Art Gallery Fabric) and a solid white for the background.

I LOVE this fabric - its such a fun happy yellow and so perfect for making pineapple blocks (even if it is hard to photograph the true gorgeous colour - the colour of the single block is probably closest !!)

I had fun with the free motion quilting and quilted all the background so that just the yellow pops out!

I also made a few more Pineapple blocks using my never-ending scraps...

Rather than using light/dark for each block I'm using warm/cool colours and I'm planning to use four 6 inch blocks to make a large one like the one above and also using the actual 12 inch blocks in a 4 x 4 row designs - I'm making a lap size quilt with a wide plain border to contain all that crazy scrappy colour in the middle!

Pop over to The Jolly Jabber to check out the other Pineapple Day quilts and projects and hashtag #pineappledayquilt on your socials. I hope you find some inspiration to make your own Pineapple Quilt!!