Inspiration and Another New Start.

I got really inspired last week to make another quilt - or at least a flimsy.  This is what inspired me.....

It's called single Girl.   I thought I could use up some of my extensive stash to make it for one of my single girls daughters.  Here's a close up of another one in bits.....

I have also been wanting to make more scrappy quilts using stash fabrics for some time.  I have a lot of fabric and quite a bit of it has been around for some time - some is even vintage stuff that was gifted to me.

This is just 1 of my tubs....

 

So I spent the weekend going thru my fabrics and trimming off the ends to even them up.  I have in the past not cut a strip of a piece of fabric just to get a square - I cut the square out. 

That has left a lot of fabrics with odd shaped ends.  Those trimmings were then cut into 1.5", 2.5" 3.5" 4.5" wide strips,

   

and anything that I did not or could not class as a strip was put in a pile I called snibbles.  I also made a pile of bits that were not strips but were wider than 4.5" but up to around 6".  Confused??

Each of these piles are individually bagged up.  I now need to find somewhere to store them.

I had recently bought 4 pale grey fabrics to make my Single Girl quilt.  I had decided that I would make the curved piecey bit and then applique it onto a pale grey background.  I drew up my own curve - surprisingly they don't match on each side.  These are the pale grey fabrics I got......

And this is the first of my pieced curvey bits appliqued onto 1 grey 9.5" square....

I only used 1.5" strips in this one - it needs more variety in the widths so I will make more curved sections with both 1.5" and 2.5" strips, like this....

At this stage I am not too sure I like my stash fabrics with the grey fabric.  I think the underlying tone is wrong.  Maybe it will look better once I have made up quarter blocks with the other grey fabrics.  Each main block will have 1 of each of the grey fabrics in it.

I have been using my hand drawn 'pattern' to sew the strips together just guessing the angle needed to keep the curve going.  I then sewed a piece of lightweight iron on interfacing to the curved piece, trimmed it and turned it thru.  After finger pressing the seams I used the iron to attach it to the background square and then used a blind hem stitch (don't like that) to permanently attach it.  I think a straight stitch would be better.  I will not attach it by hand.  I have enough hand sewing to do with my Cali Mum's Hexi quilt, thank you.  This is what I have so far....

Speaking of which, I have the next lozenge finished and have made a start on my third one.  One of the Cali Mum's is going really strongly with hers and I feel I have to keep ahead of her.  She has 3 lozenges done so I better get a move on. 

There were 6 of us doing this quilt, but 1 never got around to getting her fabrics, another had her fabrics but is not motivated to get sewing and a third made a start but has also lost motivation.  Might need to see how we can get these girls back to sewing.....

Aussie Hero Laundry Bags

Yesterday I sent of 2 boxes of laundry bags to Australian Defence Force personnel overseas prior to voting.  Got them all packed and the boxes all labelled and taped.......................

and then remembered I had not taken a photo of any of them. 

I wasn't about to cut into all the tape so I have no pics to show.  Bummer!

I will however have some pics of the next few bags that I have/am making. 

The quilt recipient (se previous post) is also to get a laundry bag.  The quilt takes up all the available space in the box so I have to send him another box with his bag in it.  I will also include some puzzle books, some tim tams, some coffee sachets, a lip balm (was about to say lip gloss) as well as 2 or 3 more bags.  That way he can choose which one he would like and hand the others over to those who don't already have one, or pass on to his group's chaplain to pass on. 

I hope that is acceptable and doesn't get me or him into trouble with the powers that be.

Aussie Hero Quilt

Ages ago I was sent some blocks to put together to make a quilt for Aussie Hero Quilts.  I'm talking like at the start of the year ages ago.

I have had one of these quilts sewn together and pinned up with wadding and backing for months too.

Well yesterday I finally got around to quilting and binding it.  It sat there for ages as I had no idea on how I wanted to quilt it and calisthenics stuff got in the way.  The coordinator didn't seem to be in a hurry for them - so I didn't hurry either.

This is it......

I know it's sideways - just tip your head over.

I did straight line quilting on my Brother machine from corner to corner on all the red, blue, brown large squares as well as on all the small squares.  I didn't do anything with the yellow rectangles.  Once I came up with this idea it went really quickly.  The binding went on easily too.  I machined sewn it on - even the folded over bit.  Usually I hand sew that bit down, but I decided not to with this one. 

The label they have to have had already been attached to the backing - now it has been quilted thru it.  This will make it harder to remove.

This quilt; and the other 2; were all sent to me by Jan-Maree.  They are selection of BOM's the AHQ group did and sent to her.  She asked for someone to help put them together - I volunteered.

None of the blocks are my sewing - all I did was sew the blocks together, quilt and bind it.

I hope the final recipient likes it.

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.

6" Block Swap

Yesterday, after a bit of tidying up of the dining room, I put my sewing machine back where it belongs and got out the next batch of swap blocks to finish.

I already had the geese section done and pressed so all I had to do was make up the block.  I now have 30 of these done.  That's me halfway.  I have another 6 weeks to go before that have to be in the mail, but I would really like to send them off at the end of August just to be on the safe side as far as postage goes.  They have to go to the US and I would hate for them to be late.

Update: July 27 - I have done another 10 of these and have cut out a further 10 waiting to be sewn together.  And I have signed all 40 blocks......  I just need to press those signed and trim them to the correct size - they are ever so slightly off.