Trying again!

There's been a flurry of activity in my world lately...I've been getting ready for my annual pilgrimage to the Scrub Stitching retreat in rural Australia.

Naturally I'm taking more than what I will have time to sew but it's always nice to have choices, isn't it?!

Tomorrow I fly to Melbourne where I meet up with kiwikid Sue and we will start this year's tiki tour heading north.

I haven't done a huge amount of sewing lately so, as well as the seeing the sights, having some fun, and of course catching up with girls at Scrub Stitching,  I'm really looking forward to some concentrated sewing time.

Last year at SS we received a kit for a wee sewing roll. I pulled it out this summer and was super motivated to finish mine before attending again - and here it is - 

(This is a design by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched.)

Something else I made sure I finished before I left home was a wee Sashiko bear. Sue and I bought one each on our travels last year and challenged ourselves to complete it for this year. 

Another one ticked off my list!

What didn't get ticked off my list was all the quilt finishes I had hoped to take over for Show and Tell! Never mind, there is always next year!

I have to get to the airport quite early tomorrow morning, so will sign off now.

See you next time,

Raewyn

A Fresh Start!

A new year and a fresh start!

Happy 2025 to you all

If everything goes according to plan I am going to have a fun and busy time sewing up a storm this year!!

Last year failed on so many accounts and it can only get better from here on in 😄

And without dwelling on the negatives I'm going to launch in here with all the good stuff.

I've decided to join the Chookshed Chatterers Challenge again this year. This is hosted by Deanna from Dreamworthy Quilts. Each month Deanna randomly selects a number - and we work on that number from our list.

Many of these projects I have talked about at length before....quite a few are from last year's challenge list which barely got dusted off so I will just make a quick list rather than full on explanations for them all.

I want to make PROGRESS on all of these - finished would be great but I'll be happy with progress -

1. International Sisters

2. Antarctica Quilt

3. Wings and Pretty Things

4. On Williams St

5. Hugs and Kisses Christmas Stitchery

6. 2024 Scrub Stitching project

7. Snowflake Lane 

8. Gingerbread Wallhanging

9. Mod Bear's Paw

10. The Great Scrappy Star Adventure

NUMBER 6 has been drawn as the project to work on this month. Yaay, it's the Sewing Case/Roll by Anni Downs we were given as a kit at Scrub Stitching 2024. I've actually been working on this lately so that's perfect!

See you next time,

Raewyn

Triple Treat

Last December I completed a scrap quilt flimsy - I blogged about it *here*. 

It was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's Triple treat leader-ender challenge. Every year she shares a scrap friendly block pattern and invites followers to sew along with her in creating lots of blocks, using lots of scraps and maybe even making a quilt from them.
These blocks started with four-patches which were then sewn together with larger pieces. 

I used 2" squares rather than 1½" as suggested by Bonnie. I found that they were fun blocks to make - it was very satisfying sewing them all up.

I basted the quilt quite soon after finishing the flimsy (which is quite unusual for me) but it had sat waiting for attention ever since.

Until recently. To be honest, I realised that all my basting pins were tied up in quilts and I had none left for anything else!

I chose to quilt it with a basic meander/large stipple. I haven't quilted a big quilt with meandering before but I decided it would be perfect for a scrap quilt. The fact that I wouldn't have to think much, and that it wouldn't take long to clock up the miles also helped!

I got so excited to finish it that I even started sewing the binding on before I had finished quilting it!

Here it is when I'd first finished it; woohoo, loving it! —

And today I took it out into the wild for its official photo shoot —

A pieced backing —

I couldn't resist taking this photo in amongst the Loquat tree 😃

I have started another Scrappy Leader-Ender quilt. Not one of Bonnie Hunter's challenges, but one I saw at our Scrub Stitching retreat earlier in the year.

It is Bonnie Lass by Jen Kingwell —

Another easy and addictive leader-ender project that doesn't use up nearly enough scraps!!

'til next time,
Happy stitches,

Raewyn

PS Is anyone else having issues (again) with Blogger? All comments are coming through with no-reply email addresses. I tested by commenting on myself and even though it looked like I was properly signed in, my email came up as no-reply. OR is it a setting I've inadvertently changed?