6 inch Block Swap

These have all been made and sent off to the lady coordinating the swap.  She has even posted that she has received them.  Yay for the postal services - Australian and US.

This is the first 40 I made.  I signed them in different ways using my old pigma pen.

This is the last 20 I made.  These is signed all the same -just around the edge of the centre square - using a new pen.  This pen is much finer than my old one.

So that is 60 blocks made for the swap.  Luckily I just happened to find a post that some people had pulled out - so I kept 4 for myself. 

I have 8 others that I made as test blocks to check the instructions and my sewing and I will make up 1 more in each of the colour ways above so I have a record of the blocks I made and sent away.  I should get 56 blocks back - and if my thinking is correct one of the return blocks will be 1 I made myself.  I don't want to have these blocks sitting around in a bag doing nothing but getting old, so I am going to sew them together with the test blocks plus the extra 'my record' blocks into some sort of a quilt.  So that will give me 56 blocks sent/received, 8 test blocks plus 11 'my record' blocks I will only have to make a few more to make a decent sized quilt.  Five should probably do it.  That would give me a quilt that measures 48" x 60" without any borders.  Once it is together it is not going to sit about as a flimsy either.  I will send it off to my local quilter.

But that is a long way off.  All the blocks don't have to be at the coordinators until the end of September and she won't be sending them out until October.

Patience must be practiced.

1 Poppy

that will be sent along - with some others I hope - to the people running the 5000 Poppies Project.  They are going to display 500 poppies this year at Federation Square in Melbourne on November 11 and then 5000 poppies on Anzac Day in 2015.  It is all to commemorate the 100th year of Australia's involvement with WW1 and to remember all the fallen diggers (Aussie soldiers for the unenlightened).

You can find their blog here - http://5000poppies.wordpress.com

A friend of mine posted about it on social media and it caught my interest - enough to try out one of the patterns available on the blog.  This was the resultant knitted poppy.

The fluffy black was a pain to work with and I don't think I will use it again.  It certainly didn't take long to make and I have over a ball of red in my yarn stash to use for them.  The next 1 I make I may do a couple of more rows to make it wider - just to mix things up a bit.  I may even try out the crochet pattern on their blog.

Cali Mums Quilting Bee - #2

Yesterday I helped 3 of the Cali mums pick out fabric for their Hexagon Lozenge quilts.  1 picked Xmas fabric, the other 2 purples/pinks.  The Xmas one will only be a table runner with 4 rounds around the centre.  That's all this mum is prepared to commit to.

One of the mum's used birthday money and the store discount that was happening at the time and spent more than what she was expecting.  She is doing the same layout as me, needs 29 fabrics in all but has only got 12 so far.  I think she may be re-thinking hers.  Or hers will be a long time in the making as money is rather tight for her.

It was really good helping these ladies with their fabric choices.  And I loved that I could pick fabrics - cause they let me do that - and not have to spend a thing.  Must be what personal shoppers feel like, spending other peoples money.

So on Thursday I will be helping them to cut out their first few hexis and then showing them how to sew them together.  Oh and we have another Mum interested too - so that's now 6 of the Cali Mums getting involved.

I have finished my first lozenge.

I'm really happy with the way it has turned out.  The pic has the lozenge on it's side.  It is about 39 inches (1m)  tall and 25 inches (63cm) wide.  When all finished the quilt will have 8 lozenges and so it will be around 79 inches x 75 inches (190 x 200cm), big enough for a queen size bed.

These are the other fabrics I have gotten together for the rest of my quilt.

I am not too sure about the grey looking one about 1/3 of the way down the pile.  But I had a look yesterday for a replacement and I can't find one.  Maybe I will have to use the wrong side as the right side.  I haven't looked at that yet.

The top 3 fabrics from this pic are destined to be the corners and the half lozenges.  There's a light purple in the other fabric pic that will be the centres of these sections.

Now I am not too sure on how I will make this.  Will I make all the lozenges and all the corner and side bits and then putting them together, or am I better off making each section and sewing it to the section next to it before moving on to the next section?  What do you think?  I know they all have to be done and then sewn together, but I wonder if I might feel like I am accomplishing more if they are sewn together as I went.

Decisions, decisions.