Quilty sewing

When I was getting ready for our Scrub Stitching retreat back in April I prepped a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt.

Lots of strips cut (2½" x 16") and sorted into piles and bagged ready to sew —

Here was my progress when Scrub Stitching ended — 

Lately I've been regularly attending the Thursday Stitching days at The Country Yard. I always used to go along but, with family demands and such like, Thursdays had not worked for me for the last few years.

Now I drop Odie off at school on a Thursday morning and carry on to sewing at the shop.

Most weeks I've done the odd block of my Scrappy Trips - depending on what else I was working on. It's been a brilliant pick up and put down project - with the strips already cut and sorted - I've been amazed at how much I've managed to get done!

I planned it with a dark set of squares running through the centre of the block. The block below didn't show up very well in photos as that blue next to the black was too similar (you can see it with some others in the photo above) —

A bit of unpicking and re-sewing improved it a lot. 

Other than this I kept it totally scrappy, and largely unplanned.

At the end of October I had Thursday sewing one day, worked at the shop on Friday and then was back for our once a month Saturday sewing. My machine had a sleepover for two nights so when I rocked up on Saturday it was ready to sew.

And guess what, I finished all the blocks! I laid them all out in the upstairs part of the shop, out of everyone's way and got a good number of steps in going up and down to sew it together!

Done —

After a good press I hung it up properly for a photo shoot —

And made a backing (in my mind, scrappy quilts have scrappy backings - that's 16 less FQs in my stash!)

I was initially inspired by *this quilt* by quiltylove which led me to Bonnie Hunter's *tutorial*.

McGoergeous approves :-)

Back in August I joined in with Lindlee of Plains and Pine when she ran '5 stars 5 ways', showcasing different ways to make the LeMoyne Star. (I can't find the tutorials now so I think it was a strictly limited sewalong.)

I made the 5 stars in 5 ways, vowing to get back to them at some stage so that I would have enough to make a quilt.

Recently I came across a tutorial by Lisa of Shadow Valley Quilts for another method.  A good excuse to pull out the LeMoyne Star box again.

This block went together really well!

I liked my fabric decisions which gave the star a different look to my others (where I was looking at technique more than creativity). But seeing them all laid out, I now have a grand plan of a 3x3 setting, with 3 more like this most recent one (colour-wise) for the four corners. I'll put the 'round one' in the centre. My least favourite - or rather, the most wonky - block will have to go on the back.

But I have plenty of other things that are more urgent so this will probably go back in its box for now! (Unless it becomes a Thursday sewing project?)

Must be off, calves to feed (still!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

I didn't quite make it.....

I had hoped to squeeze in a last minute blogpost before the end of October.

I didn't quite make it!

Never mind, the content is the same :-)

A while ago I indulged in a bit of baby sewing. I've previously made the Twig + Tale Wayfarers for grandies and decided it was time to make some more.

I wasn't sure whether to make one size or another so decided to make two different sizes. 

And then decided to make two of each size!

As you can imagine I had a great old time sorting through scraps from the dressmaking cupboard.

And enjoyed the production line assembly!

(I spy fabrics from ED's tights (1990s) Mum's nightie, ED's trousers (1990s), baby singlets (1990s), my sweatshirt (2000??) —

And had fun photographing them as I went!

They don't take long, once you get into it —

One of each pair was made using an old oilskin coat (oiled canvas) so they will be better outdoors —

And the other two were from lightweight corduroy and denim so they would be a bit grippy.

Just randomly, I came across another 'bootie' pattern and, because it was on special, thought it would be a fun one to try. 

These are the Vasenia Baby Booties  (and I paid nowhere near the price advertised!!) 

[Also found *here*]

More scrap sorting!

These, opposed to the previous pattern, had a layer of thin batting in them which made them harder to turn through. I'm not sure that it was really needed so if I make them again I will miss it out and see what happens.

I found a pair of shoelaces from the 1900s in amongst Mum's things so put them to good use!

And all clothing needs to be modelled —

I made these ones in the larger size so they're still a bit big but will be fine once she's on her feet more.

A couple of random photos to finish off with. A slightly different bouquet picked when I was out on the farm the other day —

And a Lily that decided to grow up under an empty snail shell —

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

A tale of two purples (and more)

It's obvious that not even 31 days of non-stop blogging is enough to get me into a regular blogging habit!!

It felt like there was a lot of  'other' life stuff catching up to do once August finished and here we are looking at the tail end of September start of well in to October already. 

Although it seems like little sewing has been done I have been chipping away at a few projects so some progress has been made. During September I made the Purple Split 9-patch blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Once the month's colour of Purple was announced, I was intrigued to see if I could come up with enough fabrics to make a block. I don't use purple very often and wasn't really sure what I would find.

I did actually manage to find quite a few but it got tricky - as with all colours, who knew there were so many shades? I really didn't like how some of my purples looked next to some of the other ones (mauve vs plum - or whatever all the different shades are called!), so ended up making two blocks —

They are very different from each other. I also admit to purchasing a very small piece of purple to get the last 2 ½" square!!

Back in June, pastel was the chosen colour of the month. I left it out as I didn't know what to do - now that I've made two blocks for September I am back to nine blocks for nine months so that worked out quite well.

And now, for October, the RSC instruction was light or dark neutrals - along the lines of sashings or borders. I'm not ready for sashings or borders so when the urge and a colour family hits me, I'll make another block to add to my collection. (These blocks are 12" finished so I'm not quite ready to make them into a quilt.)

In other stitchy news, I've made a good start on the NZ 365 days kiwi cross stitch. I spent some time going through Mum's thread books and managed to find most of the threads that were needed.

As a reminder, this is the book I bought —

There's a little New Zealand flavoured picture to stitch for every day of the year. The book started with January, naturally, but because of where September was positioned on the chart it was quite easy to start there. When I first wrote this blogpost, this is what I had done —

(Ice-cream, pie, flax flower, Auckland Harbour Bridge and Wellington hills)

And this is where I'm up to now — 

I've not quite finished September so I need some serious stitching time if I'm going to make it within the year - I'm not sure that will happen but because several other friends are stitching it too, I'm hoping that I'll stay motivated to keep going!

I've done a bit of quilting on a baby quilt I'm trying to finish. There's a border of feathers - of course they show up much better on the back than the front! I spotted them in the early morning light one day and thought they looked quite cool —

One reason why I seem to take so long to write a blogpost is that it takes me forever to decide which are the best photos to share! And then another day goes by, and another day goes by.......

Biting the bullet, here's some from the other day when I had two/three of the kids for most of the day. It's been school holidays so Ganma duties were called for.

Lily and George saying hello to a newborn calf - they were very excited as it was one of a set of twins - one boy and one girl - perfect they thought, being twins themselves —

Picking up cousin Odie for a ride out the back (no, they didn't stay on the buggy like that while I was driving!) —

Ganma's idea of fun, climb the hill to look out over the back of the farm —

And back down to the buggy again - you can just see them running down that hill) —

Lily and George wanted to visit the pet calves they had this time last year - they've grown! —

More running, more hills —

And later on, after some food and a play, they 'helped' Gandad bring the new set of twins in —

It was a fun day!
One last picture. I thought Tammy cat looked really cute sleeping here in the kids' room —

'til next time,

happy stitching,

Raewyn