Beeing Queen for a month

Earlier this year I signed up for the Fat Stash Brit Bee and volunteered to be Queen Bee in April, which seems to have arrived rather quicker than I expected.

This is the first time that I have been in a Bee where I send fabric out to my fellow Bee mates and ask them to make a block (or two) and send them back. This meant that I had to be more organised than usual, and have not only bought the fabric for the blocks well in advance but also decided which block I would like, and sent the fabric out all in time for the first of the month!

Well, naturally, the buying bit was easy!

I bought these primary coloured solids when I went to the Scottish Quilt Show in Edinburgh in February with the intention of asking my Bee mates to make blocks for a quilt for my niece.

Deciding on the block to ask for was much harder! I leafed through all of my quilt books (about a dozen), flicked through all of the quilt patterns torn from magazines over the years (about a hundred!) and browsed blocks and quilts on Pinterest (you can just imagine the numbers!). Up to the day before I needed to send these fabrics out I still hadn't decided upon a final block.

Snuggling under this quilt whilst catching up on the third series of Game of Thrones in time for the fourth series to start next week it came to me. I had a brainwave, or rush of blood to the head or flash of inspiration and not just because the actor playing Jaime Lannister had just stepped into the bath on screen :)

I would ask for HST blocks and make a quilt for my youngest son, who is regularly tucked up under this quilt when watching the hours of sport that he calls research. You would think that having to watch sport for work would mean that you wouldn't want to watch it when you are home but apparently not!

So I dug out some low-volume prints from my stash and stitched up these blocks as examples for my Bee mates.

With that decision made the envelopes were stuffed and in the post before the price of stamps went up today too. Now that was organised :)

Linking up to

Midnight Sun memory

If you are looking to enter the

You will find the Link up here


As regular readers will know the impetus for the Holiday Memories competition was an Arctic Circle cruise that my husband and I took in July this year. The scenery of the Norwegian Coast was truly stunning, but the most spectacular part of the cruise was sailing across a Norwegian Fjord with the Midnight Sun as our backdrop.

There was something magical about standing on the ship's deck watching the clock head towards midnight whilst the sun dipped towards the horizon. If you ever get the chance to experience anything like it, take it, it is definitely a sight worth seeing!

Needless to say this was the memory that I wanted to capture for my own Holiday Memory mini quilt.

I initially thought about using the New York Beauty Block to represent my photo but couldn't settle on the right pattern. Then I thought about some free-form curved piecing but decided that was maybe a step too far :)

When I got the Pillow Pop book for my birthday I found the perfect solution to my problem. One of the patterns, Crystallized, was for a cushion entirely composed of HST's with contrasting warm and cool toned fabric that gave a kind of shimmer/ripple effect.

Using the Palette Builder from Play Crafts I generated a list of fabric colours for my cushion, and set to sorting out fabrics from my stash. Needless to say as I started on the cushion some other fabrics crept in! I had to have some green to represent the Norwegian forests, then some blue to represent the Fjords so my final palette was a bit removed from the original photo, but the memory is still there.

I embroidered a clock face with the hands pointing to midnight in the middle of the cushion front, and echo quilted the diagonal lines of the HST's with a pale grey thread to represent the ripple of the water as the boat sailed through the Fjord.

I was delighted with the cushion cover, which already has pride of place in our living room, and brings a smile to my face every time I see it.

If you haven't yet entered the Holiday Memories Mini Quilt Competition there is still plenty of time as submissions will remain open until 23.59 GMT on Friday, October 4th. There are some great prizes up for grabs, including several randomly drawn, but if you aren't in it you can't win it :)

All the information you need to enter is available here


Check back tomorrow for more details on one of the wonderful prizes up for grabs.

Linking up to

and to the great monthly link-up Beth hosts to encourage us to learn and stretch ourselves with photography at

 

This post is for the colour palette inspiration theme, naturally :) 

Of Mice and (Wo)man

We are still battling the elements here in NE England, which means that I have been snugly tucked up in my sewing room (otherwise known as the Middle Son's bedroom!) for the last couple of days. There is definitely an upside to the bad weather!

Top of my list of projects to work on this month has been the HST quilt from In Color Order's BOM. Last time I posted the blocks were all completed and some shopping was required before I could add the sashing and borders. Having decided that I wanted a cream/ natural fabric for the sashing I found myself leaving my LQS with 2 metres of brown fabric under my arm.

This is what I did with it. The blocks in the sashing are the maroon/gold dot in the blocks, and the inner border is the same gold that is in the blocks. I had plenty of the gold fabric and initially intended to use that for a large outer border, but in the end decided that it would be a bit much. I am really pleased with how this has turned out.

Why is it though that as soon as I looked at the photo I realised that I had missed trimming one of the corners? I must have looked at that top half-a-dozen times without noticing, anyhow at least it was something easy to rectify!

There hasn't been much progress on any of my other WIP's, but that is fine by me.

So my WIP list currently looks like this

• In Color Order HST BOM - Top Completed
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• Tsatime quilt pieced, backed and basted COMPLETED
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 14 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (way behind schedule) 
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks completed and sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (on schedule just!)
• Friendship Bag Swap signed up and partner details received
• Modern Scrappy Bits Swap 3rd Round signed up
• Curved Seams Challenge signed up
• And Sew On BOM - first block completed
• Everything but the Kitchen Sink SAL - no progress

And the mice in the title?

I like to include small items in the package when I send out Bee blocks, so when I saw instructions for some mice pincushions in the winter issue of Making magazine, I couldn't resist having a go.

And these were the result! They are made with scraps of recycled denim and cotton. The original instructions didn't give the mice any tails but I thought that was a bit cruel so added some thin cord to give them back their tails.

If one of your resolutions this year was to get organised check out Taryn's brilliant project sheets. They are available to download here

And finally

The first linky party for New to Me in 2013 opens on Friday, so get ready to link up and inspire us all with whatever you have tried for the first time this month.

Out with the old in with the new!

Happy New Year to one and all, I hope you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013.

New Year is so important to we Scots that we have an extra day's Bank Holiday to enjoy (or recover from!) the festivities. So, although I don't live in Scotland (yet, I am ever hopeful!) I am maintaining the tradition and having a day off from the clearing-up involved with having all of the family home for the holidays.

Fortunately I wasn't responsible for the clearing up involved after this visitor departed :)

Bam-Bam checking out the kitchen!

Another tradition, this time local instead of national, that I also enjoy at this time of year is the Annual New Year's Day wheelbarrow race held in the village. The race starts and ends at the local pub, which is also I think partially responsible for many of the entrants, who decide on New Year's Eve that pushing a friend round the village in a wheelbarrow sounds like a great idea!

These competitors racing towards the finish line look remarkably fresh, so probably didn't indulge themselves too heartily the night before. A very fit friend and his wife, who were watching with us, took part several years ago, and couldn't believe how painful running around with a fully-loaded wheelbarrow could be. Definitely an activity that is better watched than participated in I think, and as you can see so do most of the village :)

With the beginning of the New Year comes new challenges to sign up for and the completion of others, well that is the theory anyway. As someone who is prone to signing up for new things when I still haven't completed existing commitments, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to finish an existing project before starting a new one.

So, with this in mind I have been stitching away at the five remaining blocks from In Color Order's HST BOM. This was the first BOM I ever signed up for, with grandiose notions of having a completed quilt to give as a Christmas present, but that lofty ambition was reduced several months ago. Still, I am delighted to now have all 12 of the blocks completed.

I still have the sashing and borders to add, but I can't decide what to do with them, so if you have any suggestions please pass them on. I have enough of the gold background fabric for the borders, but don't really have anything suitable for sashing, was thinking of a mottled cream/ fawn for that but if you have a better suggestion I would be delighted to hear it.

Now that the HST BOM is out of the way in terms of a monthly commitment I reckon that means I can take on a new one! As it happens the paper-piecing queen, Quiet Play, has just (yesterday) started a monthly paper-piecing BOM, And Sew On, with a sewing theme. The first pattern, Measure Twice, is available for free in January from her Craftsy store so I will be heading off there soon. Having only learnt to paper piece in 2012 thanks to Katy's FPPFTTcourse, I am hoping that during this BOM I will finally crack the puzzle of cutting and piecing shapes at strange angles, which has eluded me so far.

I have just seen that The Littlest Thistle has also announced a new SAL today, called Everything and the Kitchen Sink, which I would really like to do. Looks like I will have to get another project out of the way before the 15th when the first block is posted!

Dresdens, HST's and WIP's

After the excitement of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop post yesterday it is back to normal service today, and a reality check with WIP's.

Not wanting to fall behind again on the In Color Order HST BOM, I set to yesterday to rattle up the July block. Just when I think though that I am finally getting the hang of these HST's I discover that although the points were perfect I had managed to sew the third row on the wrong way round! How unfair was that? Needless to say the points on that row never achieved the same level of perfection second time around :)

Although I have already completed the two Dresden Plate blocks for this month's Craftsy BOM, I really enjoyed putting together the modern interpretation and with the leftover material from the blocks managed to put together another two plates.

I haven't decided yet what to do with them, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.


I have also been pattern testing an embroidery pattern for Rebecca at Sew Festive Handmade and although I can't show you the finished embroidery just yet I can give you a sneak peek. The pattern will be on sale on Craftsy in early August, so I will be able to show you the whole thing then.

Only one of the above projects was actually on my WIP list, so it is not much improved I am afraid.

Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange, Sunflower and Reindeer cushions
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and 
• Padded Hangers  and Key/Coin tidy tutorials posted
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilts, Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
• Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags

Ongoing

• 7 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
• Teatime quilt pieced, backed and basted 
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 14 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived still waiting for inspiration!
• 6 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed (one month ahead!)
• 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed and sent
• Sew Festive Handmade embroidery project 

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Christmas mini quilts
• Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop project 

Maybe it is not looking so bad after all!  Looking forward to seeing how everyone else is progressing.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday  and We Did it Wednesday

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

New Blocks, Loved Fabrics and WIP's

Being back in the UK last week, the opportunity to have fabric delivered within a day was too good to miss. Having signed up for the New York Beauty QAL I have been watching with envy all the fabulous fabric selections being posted in the QAL Flickr Group, so I knew my opportunity to join in had come with my trip back. Unlike my quilt from the Sew Happy QAL, which was always destined to be a present for my son and daughter-in-law, the NY Beauty quilt, if it gets that far!, has no definite destination. In theory, that should have made the fabric selection easier, but it didn't seem to work like that. After browsing loads of websites looking for inspiration I decided to use a fabric I already had, Kona Solid in Hibiscus from Sew Fresh Fabrics as the base fabric. With that in mind I set to browsing with purpose and eventually settled on a FQ bundle of Kaffe Fassett fabrics from Tikki Patchwork and here they are together

I added a note to my order telling them that the fabrics were for a NY Beauty QAL and would be paired with the Kona Solid and I am thrilled to bits with the fabrics they selected. So thrilled in fact, that I am already worrying about messing up such beautiful fabrics with my first attempts at NY Beauty blocks!


On my return to Riga I had another fabric parcel waiting for me, Erin's of Missy Mac Creations Fugly Fabric giveaway had arrived. Isn't in nice to get fabric in the post when you are not expecting it? Erin had offered a very generous 80 charm squares, and I am already mulling over which projects to use them in. Having enjoyed my paper piecing so much recently I bought Carol Doak's 300 Paper Piecing Patterns book whilst at home, so I think that might feature heavily in the projects for the squares, although I also have a couple of bag patterns using charm squares too, so they might get a look-in too.

Didn't Erin package them up nicely?

In amongst all this retail therapy I did manage to get some sewing done too! As well as finishing the Sew Happy QAL, I also finished the third block of In Color Order's HST BOM, compared to the Sew Happy QAL, the gaps between the blocks appearing seem so long, but as I am currently behind with both Katy's FPPFTT and the NY Beauty QAL blocks, perhaps that is just as well. As for the Craftsy BOM, let's just not go there!

So my WIP list is now looking like this


Completed

• Reindeer Cushion
• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart and Orange cushions 
• Orphan Block needle roll 
• Pieced arc tea towel  
• Yo-yo maker purse 
• Padded hangers and tutorial
• Sew Happy QAL quilt (My March WIP of 12 WIP's in 2012!)

Ongoing

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (up-to-date) 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt now basted 
• First and second blocks of FPPFTT completed (1 block behind schedule)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks to be calculated and cut
• New York Beauty QAL fabric bought (1 block behind schedule)
  

Waiting

• Indigo, yellow and violet rainbow cushions
• Sunflower Quilt 
• Last block of Sampler quilt - no progress but it is in the UK and I am back in Latvia!
• Amy Butler bag 
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag 
• Dragon Bag
• Patchwork Block bag
• Christmas mini quilts
• Craftsy BOM which I have signed up for but still haven't looked at yet!

 At least there has been some movement on the list, even if the NY Beauty QAL has only moved from waiting to ongoing because I now have the fabric!

Hope you are all making progress too.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday and Esther's  WOW

Progress and WIP

It is exactly one month since I started this blog not knowing quite what to expect, but determined to join the wonderful crafty blog community that I had been "lurking" in for some time. Much to my delight I have 'met' some wonderful bloggers since my first post who have inspired, encouraged, supported and humoured me in equal measure for the past month, long may it continue!

Another benefit of blogging and one that came as a surprise to me, is the much-needed boost to my sewing. Projects that have been loitering in my cupboard (or sometimes in my head!) have risen to the top of the to-do pile because of commitments that I made publicly on my blog! Hopefully this will continue, although there are so many inspiring and beautiful projects around that it is so tempting to sign up to everything. Fortunately, or unfortunately, having to wait for fabrics to be delivered by post works as a reality check :)

One of the projects that was loitering in my head was putting together a zipped purse for my yo-yo makers. I love using up scraps of fabric for yo-yo's often without any plan in mind of what to do with them. They always come in handy for decorating bags, purses, etc., and even at Christmas bottles of linen water! Until now though the various different makers were tossed together in a drawer, but no longer.

With my thrifty hat on I used up scraps for the patches, the zip was on sale in the local fabric shop and the lining, with pocket, was yet another make from one of my husband's shirts. I am certainly getting great value out of these shirts! Of course, I had to decorate the purse with some yo-yo's too.

I was pretty pleased with the purse, although must admit that I made the classic mistake of forgetting to open the zip when I stitched the exteriors and linings together! Cue some furious muttering and a broken nail before the zip was opened and I could turn out the purse.

With one month gone and today being WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced here is my list of projects completed, ongoing and still waiting.

Completed

• Reindeer Cushion
• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu and Checkered Heart cushions 
• Orphan Block needle roll 
• Pieced arc tea towel 

Ongoing

• 9 blocks of Sew Happy QAL (up-to-date)

• 2 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (up-to-date)

Waiting 

• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt 
• Sunflower Quilt 
• Last block of Sampler quilt - no progress but it is in the UK and I am in Latvia!
• Amy Butler bag 
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag 
• Dragon Bag
• Patchwork Block bag
• Christmas mini quilts
• Craftsy BOM which I have signed up for but haven't looked at yet!

Oh dear, that no progress list is longer than I thought, will have to hope that the sewing boost keeps going! More snow will probably help too, as will being a winner in the Fugly Fabric Party! Erin at Missy Mac Creation's fugly fabric is heading this way as I was the lucky winner of her fabric giveaway, a nice end to my first month of blogging, don't you agree?





Linking to Coastal Charms Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Orphan Blocks, HST's and Needle Rolls

Last month the Pleasant Home Blog's theme for January was using up your scraps and there were some wonderful projects showcased. Although I have not been sewing long enough to have built up enough scraps to consider some of the marvellous quilts shown, like probably all quilters I do hang onto leftover fabrics from my projects, no matter how small, in the belief that they will come in useful for something!


So, inspired by the many projects I have been looking at in the last month, I decided that it was time to "liberate" some fabrics from the scrap bag, and realise their potential :) I spent a pleasant hour going through the scraps, remembering the original projects and trying to image new ones. To my delight I came across an "orphan block" from the very first quilt I made, which was for my eldest son, who was living in Madrid at the time and complaining of the coldness of the winter nights. As I also had some fabric left over from the original quilt too, I realised that there was scope for a new project using the block and fabric scraps.

Sitting next to the scrap bag in my craft cupboard, is the evidence of my infrequent forays into the world of knitting. My nice new knitting needles are jumbled together in a magazine file so it is not easy to find the right size or even a pair when I need them. Something needed to be done, and here is the something!

A shiny, new knitting needle roll made from the "orphan block" and leftover fabric, and lined with fabric cut from yet another of my husband's discarded shirts! They are coming in very useful these shirts of his :) My knitting needles have never been this organised. The needle roll measures roughly 22" wide by 17" high, with an inner pocket approximately half the height. I quilted channels of various widths from the top to the bottom of the roll before binding and adding a ribbon tie. I even discovered that I have purchased two pairs of needles the exact same size, but now that I am so organised I won't be making that mistake again.


By now I was on a roll (apologies for the pun!). Until now my knitting UFO's have resided in the brown paper bag that they were originally brought home in, but it is all too easy to ignore them in brown paper, so if they are ever going to be finished it was time to house them in something a bit more inspiring too. Last year I had made a couple of bags from jeans that were being discarded by my son (I seem to have become a bit of a magpie with my family's clothing!), from the bucket bag pattern by Lisa Lam available here. So I dug one of those out of the cupboard too and, voila, a new knitting bag and needle roll for no cost apart from time, and time spent sewing is never a bad thing.

Although we did venture out this weekend, it was not for long as we have found that when you can't feel your chin, it is time to head back indoors. So I had plenty of opportunity to catch up with the February block of the month at In Color Order's HST BOM, which this month is a Flying Geese block. I have always thought that these were beyond me, but having just finished the Flying Geese block for the Sew Happy QAL, I was feeling much more positive towards them, so set to work and finished that too.

We spent a glorious day last Autumn/Fall in the SW of France listening to the honking of flocks of geese and watching as they flew south overhead, and making this block conjured up those memories. Maybe one day I'll make a quilt from this block to keep that memory!



Linking in to Little Quilt Monday at a pieceful life