Some precious stitching time

I had a need to do some mindless stitching and have sewn some string blocks using my scraps. 

Our son moved back in with us for a month and was staying in my sewing room, so when he moved out I set up my machine and grabbed the first things I saw, some squares of paper and some string scraps and I sewed for several hours - such a tonic.

 I love the way your mind can wander when sewing strings as the only things you have to worry about is whether the scrap is going to cover the paper where you want and the contrast between what is on the paper already and what you are adding. I often watch Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Quiltcam while I am sewing or something from TV on demand. If you haven't caught up with Bonnie yet you should give it a try, it is great sewing along with somebody else - technology is just wonderful isn't it?

At this stage I don't know what I will use the squares for, I have a couple of ideas forming but will wait until I have made a few more before I decide.

I have also made some cushions for our window seat and I am quite pleased with them.

That corner is such a lovely place to sit with the sun streaming through the windows, my son nearly fell asleep the other day when he was visiting. It is a favourite place to sit and read awhile or just to think.

What has been under your needle? Leave a comment as I love getting feedback.

Until next time, happy stitching everyone.

Donna-Maree

Orphan blocks progress ...

Hi everyone

I thought that I would let you know how I got on sorting the orphan blocks. Well here is the progress to date.

I had a look in my scrap 2" strip drawer and found snap lock bags full of goodies, things that I had forgotten about. Then I saw some bonus blocks left over from another project that I had trimmed (before realising it was going to take forever to trim them all and stopped) and thanks to the Bonnie Hunter way of thinking - I decided to use what I have and that if my star block was going to be different from the rest, that it will be quite different at least when you look up close. 

On closer inspection there is a bag there with 300 x 4 patches - labelled and ready to go - clearly they are for a project, but I have no recollection which one. Will have to give it some thought.

I will put these aside until I can remember what they are destined for. But it is a reminder for me to label things with more details.

So here is a collection of block parts that I have chosen to use to create the block bearing in mind the colours and contrast that has been used in the original blocks. I think it is going to look okay. 

I love this tray and use it to lay out block pieces - it was going to the secondhand shop when my mother in law was moving recently - I immediately saw its potential.

I used Bonnie Hunters webbing method of joining the block. It has taken a bit of effort to break my original habit of joining blocks but it has been worth the effort - Bonnie's way does definitely makes it easier and more streamlined and a bonus is that the block pieces are always in the right place reducing the need for frogging or reverse sewing.

Here it is all sewn together - when sewing blocks together like this I don't press until the block is put together, as then I can work out which way I am going to press the seams after I have sewn everything together. This is dependent on which way the seams are going and that decision I make as I am sewing.

Here it is amongst the others - can you spot it? Bottom third from the left.

I am trying to sort out what size to make the tramming and the four patches and am leaning towards 2" strips. This is the smallest that I have pre cut stored ready to go, so would prefer to use these.

Right then I need to go and make some decisions - see you soon.

Donna-Maree

Orphan blocks getting sorted...

I do not know where I got these orphan blocks but when I was tidying up the other day I found them and instantly knew what I wanted to do with them. Five of them were joined together with the background blocks that you can see on the left hand side. I unpicked these last night watching tv and I didn't think of taking a photo to show you a before shot. 

However for some reason I thought that there were ten blocks so you can imagine my surprise this morning when I counted them out and there were only nine.

This is how I am wanting to set them with tramming and four patches in between - this is destined to be a central table runner for the dining table. They need the tramming as they are not all created equal and some fudging will be needing to happen. So I guess another square needs to be created - even though the fabrics will be totally different to the other blocks I think they will be okay and I will put the block in the middle so it doesn't stand out too much. Thank goodness for Bonnie Hunter and her sensible attitude about scraps that rubs off on many of us.

Come back soon to see how this project has got on...

Happy stitching everyone and please leave a comment if you have time.

Donna-Maree

An unusual week

This last week has been a very unusual week. The weather is definitely cooling down and extra layers are being worn. There has been a lot of life things going on which has led to a time of re-assessment and reflection.


My night with my stitching group was very enjoyable and I really appreciated the conversations with the discussions on rotary cutters, blades and scraps. 


It seems that everyone is indeed sick of the sight of their own scraps. Speaking for myself, some fabrics seem to be in every scrap quilt that I create and it is a great feeling when I know that I have used the last of a particular piece of fabric, whether it is an ugly or highly prized fabric. At this stage I remind myself that it allows for the introduction of more fabric (which might even require visiting a quilt shop and leaving with a purchase).


Through the generosity of one of my friends who offered a bag of scraps from a quilt that she had done with particular fabrics that she didn't think that she would use in anything else, an interesting discussion started on how we view our own scraps and how when given the opportunity to work with other peoples scraps, we find it exciting and fun. It was decided that next month we would have a scrap swap. 


After much discussion and weighing of fabric, it was decided that for those wanting to participate we would supply one 250gram bag of scraps over a certain size. This first month will be a trial to gauge interest and usability of the scraps and then we would decide where to go from there. I have to say that I am really looking forward to it. But which scraps don't I want any more?


I attended our local club day last Saturday which I thoroughly enjoyed. We had a shared lunch for Mother's Day which was really nice. It was a lovely opportunity to celebrate being women and remembering that many of us are mothers, grandmothers and caregivers. This is often recognised by the significant others in our lives, but this is the first time for me that it has been celebrated with my peers and I enjoyed it.


Our guest speaker was Catherine Davies-Colley who spoke about her recent achievement in completing her Masters of Fine Art. It was totally fascinating and it was over all too soon. Catherine's passion and enthusiasm shone through and she is an incredible lady. Her works are going to be exhibited later in the year locally here, so watch this space for more on that.


To check out show and tell from club, go on over to Leeann's blog (click here). It is well worth a look as we have some very talented and gifted ladies in our club.


Until next time
Happy stitching everyone
Cheers
Donna-Maree