My quilting thoughts and inspirations sprinkled with a glimpse of life down on the farm

Friday, January 31, 2020

End of January round up

I started the month with a hiss and a roar, with all sorts of planning and thoughts for the year.
As the end of the month approaches, it's time to do a round up of what I've been doing, and see if all that planning is keeping me accountable?!
First up, I committed to Patty's One Monthly Goal. I had a pile of fabric selected and set myself the goal of making it into a baby quilt for a friend of both our daughters.
I aimed for a flimsy but wondered if I might have time to get it to the finished stage as well.
OK, so the flimsy won out!
And the fabric pull changed quite a bit. The above fabrics were sitting on a white print until I remembered a sweet dotty grey print sitting on the shelves at The Country Yard. That came home with me, and a few different blue/greens. I then culled nearly half of what I'd originally pulled.
A straight forward design, guided by the family's love of the sea. (Apologies for the glarey photo.)
In spite of being out each day this week, I managed to sew the last few stitches joining the last rows well in time for the end of the month! Thank you Patty for the extra push to get this done; you can see who else met their goal this month *here*.


Kris of tagalongteddies did a callout for sign ups for OPAM 2020 and once again I jumped in. It really is a great way to keep track of the year's finishes. (OPAM = One Project A Month)
I had a healthy tally this month; as well as the Joey pouches and bassinet sheets previously shared, I also finished the afghan I've been working on lately.
I bluffed my way around the last round with matching-but-not-the-same yarn and am really pleased with the result. The edging treatment is so lovely - I'm sure I said that last time!
If you are interested, details about the pattern, and to see more made in this design are in a previous blogpost *here*. And my yarn hassles (!) are *here*.

I've spent a lot of this month organising and making lists. 
I put Omigosh on my WOOFA list (Working On Or Finishing a UFO). Omigosh is a box of randomly sewn strips - I'll sew two scraps together then toss them in the box. I've been sorting through them, pressing, trimming, sewing and so on. Visit Cheryll *here* to see how others got on with their WOOFA projects this month.
Inspired by Debra of Tuning My Heart Quilting, I have managed 15-30 minute time slots to work on it on most days of the last couple of weeks. There are a few of these types of challenges around, this one focuses on one project which you work on for 30 minutes a day, then put it away and get on with your other sewing. As a result I have completed 5 more of these 4½" blocks —

At the start of 2019 I signed up with Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts to keep track of the number of blocks I made during the year. I lost track and signed out early on, but I'm trying again this year.
For this month's tally I have the 5 tree blocks I shared last post, the above Omigosh blocks and I'm counting 11 blocks for the baby quilt at the start of this post (six fish and five rows since they're pretty basic blocks). So, officially that's 21 blocks for the month. Woohoo, that sounds good to me :-)

My PHD progress is a little less productive - I've been so focused on my planning that I haven't had a chance to work on any of that (very long) list. I have, however, oiled my Sweet 16 and selected threads for the first one on the list - small bites, right?!

I'm just popping in one more photo which I took while I was out on the deck taking my other pictures yesterday afternoon. The countryside is rapidly drying out and brown is becoming the new green. Grass that we had at the start of the month has desiccated.
Must get moving and get my day started,
'til next time,
happy stitches,

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Weekend Greens

I resolved this year to try to use up a few more scraps and decided I would sew along with Angela and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Green is the colour for January and Green is what I sewed this weekend.

I really wanted to sew some blocks to send over to Australia. The Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild has put out a call for 12½" tree blocks. They're assembling them into quilts for those who have lost everything in the terrible fires they're having.
There's been quite a few block patterns shared lately online to encourage people to sew up a block or two.
I decided to go through the patterns I'd come across and see how many of them I could make over the weekend —
These were the first ones I made, Impro(vish) Tree Quilt, by happy sew lucky patterns. I enjoyed making these ones. There's a great video showing us how to draw up these blocks. The rest is adding bits on until it reaches the right size.
Then I made this tree block by bonjour quilts.  Again, another good tutorial. Make a few HSTs and the rest goes together pretty quickly.

The Regenerate block below was kindly given by Anorina Morris of Sameliasmum. Fun to do, her's is finished using raw edge applique, but I chose to do buttonhole stitch instead.
This block below is my least favourite, largely because of the fabrics I chose. It looks better on the pattern and ever so slightly better in real life than it does in the photo! It is a simple foundation pieced block which sews together nice and easily. The pattern is found via the Wollongong Modern Quilt group page *here*.
It's hard to tell but I popped a couple of wee kiwis in the tree trunk so the recipient gets a hint that someone in NZ was wishing them well.

For some reason I ended up making two of the Improv blocks but that's ok!
I used a constant light background fabric though out because I found a decent sized scrappy chunk of it, and I know me, I could spend forever hunting through trying to find different suitable backgrounds for each block!
Here they all are together.
Really, I see I struggle to do Modern as such but I do hope they work in with the other blocks they receive!
I'll post these off next time I go to town.... they want them all by the end of February. That gives them a  month to get there - surely the postal service can handle that time frame!

Not getting posted just yet is a wee pile of Joey pouches I made a couple of weeks ago. A call was put out for them but I think we all jumped on board so well that they quickly got inundated with plenty! I'm happy to wash these and store them away until another call goes out for more.

Time to do a few jobs before I get busy doing an easy Sunday night tea. It's still very hot so I don't feel like moving much but I need to.
'til next time,
happy stitches,

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

WOOFA and PHD update

What on earth is going on down here?!!

That's what the MOML said when he came down the stairs yesterday afternoon.
Here's why!!
I was in the midst of a sort out :-)

I've set myself some pretty strong goals for the year, signing up with Gail's PHD and Cheryll's WOOFA, and still wanting to do more.
I really felt I needed a sort out so that the projects I want to work on are at the forefront in The Palace and those that are taking a backseat are stored tidily away.

Several hours later I had sorted enough to tidy my brain and my room. I now have clear floor space, I've reorganised a few shelves, and the wardrobe, set up a planning folder, I've reboxed projects and so on.
I have, all in one place, my PHD projects. Here they are all stacked up waiting for a year of creativity and finishes. I discussed all these ones back *here*. There's 12 (gulp) in all.
12 finishes for 2020!!

I've also sorted out my WOOFA projects. As I see it, these are the list of projects I want to work on, but I'm not necessarily aiming to finish them. Accordingly I've made a separate list for these items. The PHD list is Must-DOs as far as finishing; the WOOFA list, I'm not aiming quite as high. (I hope that's acceptable, Cheryll.)
Wouldn't be be great though if they were all finished as well!
I have 6 projects on this list —
Pieces of Time —
This wasn't even on my radar but Joanne put it on her list. As we both started ours at the same time, I thought I should pull it out!

Not even a Mouse —

Row By Row quilt —

Country At Heart —

Flash Cat Medallion —
I haven't really blogged about this yet but that will wait for another day!

Omigosh quilt —
Such a long term project. But as I love making the blocks, I don't want this to fall by the wayside. And I want an excuse to sew them, when I clearly have other projects on my list!

Believe it or not, I have a fair few projects that need attention and I am hoping that my approach this year will help me to refine that list. I'm listing both lists on my sidebar.

I must do a sing out to Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl who organised the 2020 planning party which I linked up to in December. The process, although incomplete, really got me thinking and planning. She also arranged for some sponsorship for the planning party and I'm thrilled to be the winner (randomly selected) of the Aurifil collection prize! As Aurifil is a thread I already enjoy using, I'm very happy about that! Thanks Yvonne, and thanks Aurifil!

Okay, that's enough list making and tidying to make my head ring :-) I'm off now to sew-sew-sew ♥
'til next time,
happy stitches,