More quilting ........

I had a lovely day of quilting yesterday. I took a class, surprising 4-patch, with Judi Mendelsohn at Busy Bees. The class involved making 4-patch blocks in a stack'n'whack technique to produce simple kaleidoscopes, and I was very pleased to come home with 30 blocks, more than enough for a quilt! So, my quilting today has mainly consisted of cutting sashing and cornerstones to put the blocks together with. I still need to think about borders but I hope that I can get the centre of the quilt done this week.

This quilt in very untypical of my usual style - in fact a couple of the ladies in the class who know me were rather surprised by my 'pretty' blocks - they don't photograph too well, but what do you think?

Posted!

My little quilt for the Four Seasons Swap is complete and winging it's way to someone! I do hope that she likes it! I spend too much time agonising over my choices, but people who have seen it in the flesh assure me that they would be happy to get it, so that will have to do for me.

Now, can I wait for the next round? LOL!

Quilty Weekend

I've had quite a busy weekend here in Wales. We celebrated my birthday and went for a nice family meal out and went to a quilt stash sale with on Saturday. I managed to pick up a few useful bits and pieces, little sample squares ( I can now finish off the quilt I started with some of these once before!), some pale scraps and strips ( my stash is predominantly bright, so neutrals will come in handy) and a couple of larger bits of fabric.

I have managed to get the borders on my Four Seasons quilt, and have completed the quilting. I just need to get the binding finished now, it should be in the post by Wednesday I hope. I will post a picture of the completed quilt once it has arrived at it's destination - I am very pleased with it, so lets hope the recipient likes it!

We spent yesterday in Swansea where DH was running in the Swansea Bay 10K. He had another good run (20Th overall) so the soaking we had from the rain was made worthwhile! LOL!

For my birthday a quilty friend gave me a lovely Moda tin containing the pattern for a mini quilt and a pack of Sanctuary charm squares. I had planned to go onto a ufo when the Four Seasons quilt is finished, but it looks like I may get distracted by this little project instead!

I like the 4 Seasons Quilt this time!

Well, at last I am pleased with these blocks for the Four Seasons swap. I think I was right to forget about the other top - I would have just worried that the recipient didn't like it. And, added bonus, I can keep the other one! I have some fab fabric for the borders of these blocks, which hopefully I can get on tonight before I go for my riding lesson ( have to get my weekly fix of horseflesh!)



I think I'll stay and mooch a while on here looking at some other blogs. I've managed to kick DS off to do his homework, which means that I have Napster to myself. Don't get me wrong, I do like the music he plays ( most of it!) but sometimes I like a bit of nostalgia, so I shall sit here and enjoy the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Armatrading and Roberta Flack.

Aargghhhh!

Why do I always do this!
I started a top for the Four Seasons doll quilt swap, here, the fabrics are out-doorsey and really nice. Then I decided that it wasn't good enough, so now I've done another. I just have to finish 3 more blocks and then I'll show you.
Why do I always change my mind again and again until the last minute? It seems that I am just destined to be the Queen of Procrastination

Unexpected playtime

I've had a bit of unexpected playtime this morning. A bad accident has closed the motorway and caused traffic chaos in South Wales. Fortunately I heard about the problems before I got too far down the road to work and turned back. Some people have been stuck for hours, horrible for them, but not as horrible as for those involved. So, an unexpected day off for me.

Ta Da! The borders are on the confetti quilt! I am so pleased with this one, it is much brighter than it appears in the picture and should look great on the wall. At the moment I am trying to decide how to quilt it. I was hoping to have been on a machine quilting workshop, but it was cancelled, so this one will probably be quilted with straight lines!
I wonder how quickly I can get it done?




Another quilt that was waiting in the to-be-machine-quilted pile is this one:


I took this one to my group on Saturday and have worked out what I'm going to do with it thanks to a friend.

I figure if I post photos of these quilts then I'll have to set to and finish them - too shaming otherwise! LOL!

Distractions!

A bit of a distracted weekend here in Wales. I had lots of good intentions, but ended up getting into the rugby - shame Wales lost. DH is a real rugby fan, he loves World Cup time, so there's a match on pretty much all of the time, and I just cant help getting sucked in to them.
I spent yesterday morning at my quilt group, which was nice. I took some hand sewing along with me, but it stayed in the box - whoops! I did take some photos of 1 of mine and a couple of the other ladies quilts made with charm packs. We are developing quite an addiction to these little packs of squares, but sometimes it's difficult to know what to do with them, so I am trying to create a little folder for the group with ideas in, which is why I was taking photos. Sadly, some of the photos didn't come out, so I'll have to do them again next time.
I have done a bit of stitching. I've been piecing the borders for my little confetti quilt, but they're not quite finished yet ( and now it's time for a glass of wine, so the machine/rotary cutter has gone away!) I should be able to show some progress in a day or two. The Four Seasons quilt is coming on as well - why does it take me ages to decide what I'm going to do - I just keep on changing my mind until time forces me into a decision!
I have also joined a little Round Robin. I have never done one of these before, always feeling a bit nervous about working on another person's quilt. But this is a little one - start with a 4.5 inch block and just have 3 rounds of 2.5 inch borders. Hopefully I shouldn't find it too stressful. This is my little centre block, I decided to go for scrappy as a theme.





I hope that you've had a good weekend too!

Yay! Normal service resumes!

Woohoo! At last I have managed a lovely uninterrupted hour in my sewing room!
It feels great!

I have got lots to be getting on with, but thought I would celebrate the occasion with a bit of fun.

A while ago I saw a little quilt made with free-pieced triangles on Anne's blog
and really liked the idea of not measuring or anything , just going for it.
So, I made these blocks to test the theory ( thank you Anne for the inspiration, I hope you dont mind my having a go too):



Unfortunately I only made 8, and as its just a bit of playing at the moment, I didn't really want to have to make a load more, so I used some of the leftover strips to make a different block for the centre.



I am loving how this is going together, and as soon as I get the borders done I'll show you more.

The fabrics were some small bits that I had dyed ages ago and have been keeping for 'best' ever since. So this little project works on 2 levels, playtime and using up a bit of the fabric stash!

Thank you for the encouraging comments, we had a lovely weekend in Lake Vyrnwy, and DH came 3rd in the half marathon ( out of a field of 1500!).

Now back to cutting out my 4 seasons quilt.....

Not much going on here

Tough week this week, and I haven't managed to get much done in the way of stitching. This is a disappointment, as I do find it relaxing, but I'm sure that I will get into my sewing room next week. It always takes a little while once school starts again to get back into the swing of things and find time for hobbies.

We're off up to north Wales for the weekend as my DH will be running in the Lake Vyrynwy half marathon. He won the veterans prize last year so lets hope he does as well again this year.

I will be back with lots of quilting next week, so please keep coming back. It is nice to see from the counter that someone out there is reading this, and thank you for all of the encouraging comments.

Sidetracked again!

Mooching around other people's blogs, I came across these on Helen's blog. I was suddenly reminded that I have a set of scrappy cat blocks from a swap several years ago, and so off I went in search of them thinking that I could combine the kitties with some other scrappy blocks. I didn't find the little furry creatures ( I know they're hiding in that room somewhere!) but I did find these little blocks instead:



As they are quite seasonal I thought that I'd put them together and create a wall hanging at the least. I will be taking a machine quilting workshop in 2 weeks with Sonia Fox - I can machine quilt sort of straight lines, but that's about it. I know I will need to practise ( a lot ) to become in any way proficient and so a couple of smallish project ready and waiting seems like a good idea. This also gives me goal to work towards as well ( never a bad thing for me, I could procrastinate for Britain! )

As well as putting things off, my other vice is changing my mind! And, so I've done it again. I have changed my mind about the fabrics for my 4 Seasons swap. I would show them to you, but the feature fabric might give it away to my partner. Perhaps when I've made up some of the blocks I'll post a picture.

Today has mostly been taken up with getting ready for the kids to go back to school - who would believe that hair cuts and school shoes could take up most of the day! Still it does mean that we're done and tomorrow can be a bit more relaxing.

Look what came in the post!!

Look at this lovely post card from Kate which my postie brought. This was one of the prizes Kate offered in her blogiversary draw and I was lucky enough to have my name drawn.
I have participated in postcard swaps before and I had forgotten just how nice it is to receive these lovely little pieces of art in the post.
Thank you very much Kate, I think you may have jump started me into joining some postcard swapping once again.

I've had an incredibly busy week at work, and a long committee meeting at my quilt group today, so the stitching has taken a back seat this week. All I've managed has been a little hand sewing, still practising applique and some English paper pieced Liberty stars. I have got some time off though ( don't go back to work until Wednesday) so I plan to make my Fall Doll quilt and do some using-up of stash. Of course I also have to do the back to school stuff with the children, new shoes, stationary and hair cuts, but I should find some time to indulge myself! Wish me luck!