Cushions, scraps and zig-zags

Taking part in the Littlest Thistle's Foundation Paper Piecing for the Terrified (FPPFTT)has been great fun and a steep learning curve, but has also meant that I now have several paper-pieced orphan blocks. So, in a bid to find at least one of them a home I had backed and quilted the Circle of Geese block that we made in Week 4 with the intent that it would become a cushion to go with the quilt made for my son and daughter-in-law. So with no time like the present I set to this morning to add the back and finish at least one project this week!

Initially I had intended to bind the cushion with some of the leftover binding from the Sew Happy Sampler Quilt that all of the fabrics in the cushion came from, but I decided that it was "over-egging the pudding" and left it as is. I am going to use another of the FPPFTT orphan blocks that was also made from leftover fabric from the Sew Happy QAL for another cushion for my son and daughter-in-law, so might use the leftover binding on that instead.

Talking of cushions I discovered when I was working on the sunflower quilt in the previous post that I had had a Dresden plate sunflower left over from piecing the quilt top. As I have yet to make the yellow cushion for my set of rainbow cushions, there are no prizes for guessing where this sunflower will end up :)

I have even more cushion plans in the coming weeks as I have now received the wonderful Indigo fabrics that I ordered recently from the African Fabric shop The fabrics were even lovelier than I had expected.

Originally I was planning to cut and piece the fabrics but having seen them I am now not so sure that I want to cut them up. I have (somewhere!) a pattern and instructions for a machined Trapunto cushion and I am now thinking that that might be better, as you will get the benefit of the full design. Having never attempted Trapunto before, I might be biting off more than I can chew though! As ever, all advice gratefully received!

 This week I have also made a start on the first of the Zakka-style SAL projects, having missed the start I  am loath to fall too far behind. The first project is a tote bag with a zig-zag pattern made from quarter-square triangles on the front of the bag. One of the things that attracted me to Rashida Coleman-Hale's Zakka style books is her liberal use of linen as, unlike quilting cotton, linen is in plentiful supply in this part of the world. QST's are bad enough but QST's in linen that is a whole, different story! I have starched the linen squares and triangles to within an inch of their lives in an attempt to control them, but I am not sure that I am winning just yet.

It took me all afternoon yesterday to get this much done. Ripping out seams on small linen triangles is definitely no joke! The plan is to give the finished bag to my mum for her knitting when we are home next, but at this rate it will be Christmas before it is finished.

Hope you are all having a productive week.

Rockets and Round-ups

Happy April Fool's Day, I hope it heralds Spring wherever you are. Although not yet Spring here the gardeners are out in the parks sprucing up the city, so it can't be far away.

This week saw the last of Katy's FPPFTT lesson, and what a lesson it was! Our challenge this week was to master picture blocks, and in Katy's introduction to the block she tells us that she assumes we now understand the basics, like lining up odd shapes of fabric. Alas, I need to go to the back of the class as not only did the acute angles on a couple of the pieces do for me, so that blocks had to be re cut, but I also managed to piece the windows with the fabric the wrong way round!! Ripped paper foundations were only the beginning of my problems with these tiny windows :) So, here, anyway, is the rocket block in its less than perfect form!

More practise undoubtedly needed! I would never have even managed this much 6 weeks ago, so I must thank Katy for her excellent tutorials, and point out that all mistakes are my own! Despite the obvious errors this piece is now framed and ready to be hung in a prominent place, (well maybe not that prominent!).  Thanks Katy.

As it is a new month (already?) here is my round up of projects completed in March. I am delighted to see that if I get the latest NYB QAL completed later today, I will be completely up to date with all the various projects. This state of affairs will not last of course, so I will make the most of it whilst I can!

My copy of Zakka style arrived in the post on Friday, just in time for the start of the Sew Along tomorrow, so I am really looking forward to cutting into my linen stash for some of the lovely projects in the book. The first project is a tote bag with a HST strip on the front, so the practise I have had with  In Color Order's HST BOM will come in handy!

As I mentioned in a previous post, we spent a couple of days in Tallinn, Estonia this week. The Old Town of Tallinn is more compact than its counterpart in Riga, and, due to the cruise ships calling in everyday in the Summer months, can be very busy in the peak cruising season. So, this time of year is a nice time to visit, the snow has gone but the cruise ship tours have not started yet, so the city is still fairly quiet and easy to get around.

Here is a quick taste of Tallinn

The beautifully decorated staircase is the entrance to the Bank of Estonia Museum and even more beautiful in real life. The patterned tiles were at the entrance to offices and apartments on the edge of the Old Town, and would make a great quilt pattern, wouldn't they? I loved the old (I am assuming it was old!) umbrella being used as a flower holder on an Old Town door, compact umbrellas just don't have the same appeal!

If you have young sons they will probably, like mine, enjoy the name of the Tower in the bottom row. It is called Kiek in de Kok, which means Peep into the Kitchen, but needless to say my sons were not interested in the translation!

The ladies of the knitwear market in the second row are real stalwarts and man their stalls throughout the winter, despite the weather. That is real dedication!

Linking up to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet here ,Sew Modern Monday here
and BOM's away here

Paper and Padlocks

It feels like I have spent the weekend sewing on paper and then ripping it off! It means though that I am back on track with the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT and NY Beauty QAL, thank goodness for that :) So, I can contemplate the next two blocks in the series' without panic, well that is the theory anyway. The NY Beauty blocks take me ages to do, starting with agonising over which fabric should go where, so I am glad that we are going at the rate of one block a week and I greatly admire the fellow NY Beauty blockers who are whipping up 4 of each block every week! Check out their blocks  here

 

I must be learning something in this QAL as the inner arch on this block, with only 9 pieces to contend with felt like a doddle to do and three weeks ago the same pattern was really daunting!  There were even more curved seams to contend with in this block, so I paid a lot more attention to my seam allowances and with only a bit of unpicking the block came out at the right size :)

Like several people in this QAL I am not really sure what I am going to do with the blocks when they are all finished. There are some fabulous cushions being made by participants who are making 4 of each block, and that is something I may think about, but for now I will just keep plodding along with 1 block a week and see what inspires me at the end of the QAL.

For Katy's FPPFTT block this week we were mastering "larger scale complex sectional blocks" apparently, and I took the opportunity to use up scraps left over from the Sew Happy QAL. I suspect it is down to my Scottish heritage but I have a bad habit of trying to make scraps fit when they are really not big enough, so I ended up with seam allowances that amounted to a couple of threads in one or two places! I really will have to learn to be more generous with my fabric pieces :) The finished square will eventually (hopefully in the next two weeks!) end up as a cushion and will go to my son and his wife along with the Circle of Geese block that will also become a cushion. They will then have a cushion each to snuggle under the quilt with, although from what I saw of the weather forecast for the UK last weekend, they won't be needing quilts at the moment.

It must be officially Spring here as the Laime Clock has had its winter woollies removed! So you can see it in all its natural glory.

And just in case you thought that I spent all of my weekend tied to the sewing machine or ripping out paper, I also visited the Fish Market

and walked through the park bordering Riga Old Town

It is a tradition here that when couples get married they fasten a lock to the bridge and throw away the key to symbolise that they will be locked together in marriage for ever. As you can see it is a popular tradition.

As you can also see the locks are engraved with the name (or initials) of the couple and the date of their wedding.

Looking forward to seeing the results of your weekends too.

Linking up to Manic Monday, Sew Modern Monday , BOM's away and Fabric Tuesday.

Circle of Geese and Shades of Green

Determined not to fall too far behind in the two paper-piecing Sewalongs, FPPFTT and NY Beauty, that I have joined, I have been cutting, snipping and sewing up a storm to get this week's FPPFTT block completed. The Circle of Geese block lends itself very well to becoming a cushion, so I decided to use up the last of my scraps from the Sew Happy QAL to make a matching cushion for my son. I thought that I ought to tackle this block first before attempting either of the two NY Beauty blocks, where the capacity for disaster seems even greater!


Mind you, this block was not without its' fair share of mishaps. Accidentally folding a piece under the wrong way and sewing it to the seam was bad enough, but quickly remedied but slicing through the last sewn piece when cutting off the extra seam allowance was really pushing it! Lesson learnt the hard way, concentrate all the time and more haste less speed will need to be my watchword from now on I think, otherwise those NY Beauty blocks are going to drive me mad.

With tomorrow being St Patrick's Day and an England v Ireland rugby game imminent, Irish feelings are running high in our household. Irish stew will, no doubt, be on the menu tomorrow and I have a recipe for a fruity soda bread that I am looking forward to trying out. In addition, the day gives me my first opportunity to use my Shades of Green handbag.

I really went for the Shades of Green theme with this bag. So the exterior is a fine green tweed, the interior is a brighter green cotton and as you can see I have used green satin ribbon to line the handles. There is more green cotton for my yo-yo trim and as if that was not enough green I added a shamrock button! If St Patrick's Day is not the perfect day to use this bag, then I don't know when is :) The bag pattern is from the City bag collection in Nancy Zieman's Trace'n Create bag templates. I have used them a couple of times and found them very straightforward to use. The patterns call for a number of Nancy Zieman products, which I cannot get here, but they are easily substitutable (is that a word??) with local available hardware, so it didn't cause any problems.

Last night we went to the National Opera house to watch a performance of the Ballet Don Quixote, the tickets were a birthday present for my husband from our son. Whilst sitting in the theatre waiting for the performance to begin, I caught myself thinking that I should have brought my camera to take pictures of the interior to post on my blog! Am I becoming obsessed do you think??

If you are ever in this part of the world, I would definitely recommend a visit to a ballet or opera performance. It is not something we did very often back in the UK partly because of the cost (especially if the whole family were going) but also because of the time and effort required in getting to the theatre. In Riga, the Opera House is within walking distance and ticket prices are very reasonable so whole families go, in fact you can see all sections of the society here at a performance from grannies with their granddaughters to students, visiting dignitaries and all groups in between. The dress code is similarly broad, so at the same performance you will see couples in evening dress, little girls dressed up (in flamenco dresses last night!) and students in jeans and jumpers. The theatre looks like I imagine it must have done decades ago, especially the cafe for the interval, where rows of cups and saucers sit on long, lovely wooden counters and delicious cakes are displayed in beautiful glass cabinets. You can definitely imagine ladies at the turn of the century in their finery sipping their tea in these surroundings.


Hope you all have a great weekend, Happy St Patrick's Day in advance!