Leaders and Enders

Today I pieced a couple of flags for a bunting sample for work......

I didn't quite follow the instructions which called for hand piecing and hand embroidery. Instead  I foundation pieced the flags and then used my machine to do some decorative stitching, crazy pieced style.

In spite of going rogue, they finished up quite well. I'll take these into the shop tomorrow and we will make them into a bunting, interspersing them with some more flags which have been hand embroidered.

The design we are making is Must be Christmas by Marg Low.

Sewing these gave me a good excuse to do some Leader-Ender sewing. I'm following along, again, with Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Leader-Ender Challenge. This year's block is Four Patch Fun. I'm always looking for an excuse to sew up my scraps and this block is a nice straight forward one.

Bonnie is making her blocks in two colours (plus the background fabric) but because I couldn't make a decision I am using any and all shades of red and I hope that it will look just as effective!

There are several different setting suggestions; I haven't yet decided which I will choose.

(This block comes with very precise pressing instructions - if you follow them, all seams nest and make for a nicely finished block.)

A previous Leader-Ender Challenge I did was Bonnie's 2022 Triple Treat.

I actually finished that one - 

And blogged about it *here*.

In between these two, I made another scrappy Leader-ender quilt which I realise I have not yet blogged about. 

This is a leftover block I found on my cutting bench; from memory, I am going to incorporate it into the label —

It's still unquilted - but it's on the pile!!!

I've just found this photo - I had mentioned it here once, last November!

The pattern is called Bonnie Lass from the book quilt lovely by Jen Kingwell.

Thank you for all your lovely thoughts when I mentioned Mum and her health in my last post. For now I am calling her my Miracle Mum. Less than 3 weeks after she initially collapsed, we broke her out of hospital for the day and celebrated her 88th birthday with a family gathering.

My two girls were able to get down to it and we got this lovely photo —

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?