Another past the finish line.

Way back last summer, my boss announced she was going to be a grandma. Straight away, I pieced a cute baby quilt top for her daughter. I used leftover squares from a previous quilt, log cabin-ed round them with some stash cream, sashed them all with some lovely bright green, then came to a screaming halt. I think it was the long deadline that meant it kept getting pushed to the back of my to do queue. Either that or pure idleness!

I decided I wanted to try something different for the final border, and finally picked that scallops could be the finish I was looking for. I'd not done a scalloped oouter border since a quilt I gave to my parents in law several years ago, where the final border formed the scallops without any re-drawing or maths. This one was going to be different. I only had a small amount of matching cream left, so knew I wouldn't be able to make any mistakes.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking on Amazon for a family history book, and treated myself to a book called "The Quilter's Edge" by Darlene Zimmerman, which explains how to draw scallops with the minimum of fuss, so this weekend, off I set with a pencil, pieces of paper and the baby quilt.

You know what? I'm really pleased with the final effect...my favourite part is the way I've got the binding to sweep right next to the bright green at the corners.

What a difference a year makes.

Thank you to Mr C and Mr M, surgeons; Dr G, nuclear physician; and Nurse R, nurse specialist in thyroid cancer.

Breaking my workshop duck

This weekend, it was the regional day of the Quilters' Guild UK. Three of us from Sound Stitchers were able to get to both days events. Saturday morning saw us eagerly listening to a talk by Linda Chilton a spectacularly talented embroiderer, and after lunch was Anja Townrow talking about her quilting journey. I don't know how the organisers had managed to book two such excellent speakers, but I'm really pleased that they did!

Linda showed us some of her pictures, and passed around samples of painted felt, her children's Christening gown, and sample pieces of her work. She told us how she layers up chiffon to produce a misty effect, and kept us entertained with her exploits at craft fairs around the country. After her talk, we had the chance to watch her work on a piece, so we could see close up how she works. To see some examples of her work, do click the link to her website, it's well worth a visit....make yourself a cuppa first as there's plenty to see on there.

Lunchtime gave the chance to shop with Step by Step and Villavin Crafts...and I shopped! I didn't get a chance to get a photo of my first purchase, it was a roll of 9 neutral strips 5 inches wide. I needed them for a commission quilt, so they're all chopped ready for sewing later today. My other buys were 4 half metre peices of Japanese fabrics, and a gadget for making yo-yos...never even thought about buying one before, but it was half price, so why not. My friend Sandra bought the smaller size, so we can mix and match. I also picked up a few FQs of kingfisher coloured fabrics, ready for the workshop on Sunday.

Anja spoke in the afternoon on her quilting journey "From Tulips to Triangles", and kept us all entertained and amazed in turn. She's an enthusiastic speaker, and very self deprecating. Not what you might have expected from such a known "name", there were no airs and she was more than willing to point out mistakes and fudging in her award winning quilts. I'm so glad it's not just us mere mortals who do that!

The three of us were back again on Sunday for Anja's workshop "Pondlife". We had a choice of pattern, and she guided us through foundation piecing, bonding the finished piece to a background and applique. Hugely enjoyable, and though I've done foundation piecing before, I still picked up quite a few tips. We were also encouraged to sample some of Anja's thread collection on a sample applique piece to get a feel for her methods.

Here's my kingfisher,all ready to be appliqued down, trimmed to size and have his borders attached. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I even got all the tree pieces from one piece of fabric left over from the fist bundle of bits that I bought when I first started quilting! The majority of the orange is my own hand dyed fabric, with just the narrow strip on his under belly borrowed from Sandra.

I'm going slightly...crazy?

Way back in November, Sound Stitchers had our first meeting. While chatting about what we all wanted from our group, Janet B showed us some of her beautiful crazy quilt blocks. We decided that we'd all like to have a go at a crazy block, and to make it a Round Robin Challenge. Janet showed us in January how to piece the foundation, brought some more amazing blocks, and inspired us all over again. We've got to bring our completed foundation back on Friday, with one seam and one patch embellished.

Now, I don't know about you, but faced with a 2 month deadline, of  course, I realised I might have other things happen so I completed my block that same weekend, and had it embellished by the following Tuesday.

Yeah right!!

See up there ^^^ where I said "Friday". Look closer...look REALLY close. Yes, that's this Friday. As in 4 days' time...eeekkk! Where have those two months gone? I pieced the block last weekend, and started working on a piece of tattnig to use a a seam embellishment, then prioritised a pair of fingerless mitts that I won't wear till next winter.

Finally got the tatting done, sketched in what I wanted to do on the patch, and delegated dinner cooking duties to my 16 year old son so I could embroider the design.

Here's what I came up with:

Another non-UFO

February Lady cardigan. It's been on my needles for nearly 12 months! My first attempt at knitting top down, but it was straightforward enough. It's also knit in one piece, with picked up stitches for the sleeves which are also knit in the round. Loved making it, I loved the colour, the yarn (alpaca) the swing, all of it!

Yes, I know it clashes horribly with my top, but I couldn't wait to change to try it on. The buttons are hand made ones I bought at a quilt show, and are flower shaped. Each one's a different colour.

I've also made a couple of project rolls, after a demo from Sandra at Sound Stitchers, but haven't had chance to photgraph them yet. I've subtracted 2 yards from my stash though ;-)

Off to Truro Record Office tomorrow to hunt through the archives for long dead miners.

Enthusiasm overflowing!

I don't know if it's haveing counted and weighed the stash or not, or the side effect of having seen lots of fabrics I'd forgotten about, but I've been busy sewing this weekend. Before I forget, here's part of the weigh in:

3.5 yards of 45" wide fabric weigh about 1lb. To weigh the scrap stash, I stuffed a poly bag until it balanced the scales, recorded it, then tipped it into a box. Rinse and repeat!

I finally finished knitting Hannah's ballet cardigan this weekend, and celebrated by crocheting a dishcloth. Not much of a celebration I'll admit, but I would like to improve my crochet work, and who cares if your dishcloth is a bit wonky? 

I've also finally finished the extra quilting on my Dear Jane siggy quilt. No photo of this one until I've buried the ends, but it makes the siggy blocks pop out a lot more. My final finish is from the 2009 BQL Perpetual Calendar Challenge. I'd kept up with the rest of the year's blocks, but didn't get November done in time, so didn't qualify to get December. I posted on BQL to say I'd finished but too late, and Kandy who had organised the Challenge kindly sent me the December instructions anyway. I didn't get around to doing it straight away,...in fact I didn't get around to doing it until I found the instruction sheet in one of the many stash drawers. So today between finishing Dear Jane and starting cooking dinner, I whipped this up:

I loved making it, very quick to do and I love the effect. Even the zig zag edges worked pretty well. Imagine a little block like this with snippets of your latest quilt or as a trial to see how well different fabrics work together.

Off back to the kitchen now, to carry on working on my HST madness quilt.

Admitting it.

Here?

The stash that I bought at the weekend has led to a question from a non-quilting friend on a forum I spend a lot of time on. I mentioned I needed to put it away, she suggested I could use the bottom of my wardrobe. Now, I don't know about you out there, but my stash would almost fill my wardrobe if I ever got it all in one place.

In here?

Which led to the question of how much I've actually got...I know there's 18.5 yards left from Saturday, I know I've got 2 FQ bags full, an ottoman full, boxes of scraps, bigger scraps in plastics boxes and assorted hessian bags with oddments in. But...how much does it all come to?

2 Drawers and the left hand cupboards in here?

I'll make a start on measuring it this morning, and hopefully finish tonight. Anyone care to guess what my final tally will be? I'll start with 60 yards....how about a prize for anyone who posts the closest to my total?

2 boxes under here

A few baskets and boxes in here too