Three down, twenty-one to go!

This weekend I decided to forget all of the commitments I have signed myself up for and spend some time working on a project that is just for me. I started my Time for Tea quilt a while ago to make use of a piece of embroidery that had been gathering dust in the cupboard. The first border has been attached for a while and the 2.5" squares for the Friendship Stars I had planned for the second border have been cut for ages too, so this weekend I decided was the right time to make some more progress.

I discovered when I started marking the squares for HST's that I had been too generous in my cutting and had twice as many squares for the triangles as I needed, so I only needed to mark, sew and cut 96 squares! Still, there is a quilt in the Sunday Morning Quilts book that I would like to make sometime that uses leftover triangles, over 500 of them (!), so at least now I have the start of a triangle stash :)

Ignoring the rising heat and then thunderstorms around me, I determinedly ploughed on with the sewing and cutting to produce 72 pieced strips for the blocks.

The fabric is Sunny Happy Skies by Riley Blake and is rightly named, because they are such cheerful fabrics. I had time, just, before the Men's Championship Final at Wimbledon kicked off to get a couple of Friendship Stars sewn up too.

So, progress has been made, but as the title says only 3 down, 21 to go!

Whilst watching Wimbledon my latest project from Made in France, Cross -stitch in Red, white and blue was the particularly apt strawberry pattern. I stitched it on a small hand towel that I bought in a textile factory outlet in Estonia on our last trip there. Fortunately being one colour the pattern was not too complicated as I couldn't have coped with the anxiety of watching Andy Murray's gallant performance and a complex cross-stitch pattern!

Hope you have all had a productive weekend too.

This week's posts on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop are from

July 10

    Jenelle from Echinops and Aster  

    Julie from Bedsheet in the Kitchen

July 12

    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 

    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Rebecca has a Christmas in July event going on at the moment, so if you want to be more organised this year (or in my case just organised) be sure to check out her blog! 

 

Linking up to Manic Monday

Foundations, fish and finishes

Well, we are on the home straight now with the Sew Happy QAL, the second last block and boy, was it a pain in the neck! Nothing to do with Jenna's brilliant video instructions, I hasten to add, but if this had come along earlier in the QAL, I think I would have been running for the hills. I have been struggling with this block for the last two days, and I am glad that it is now finished (and far from perfect, unfortunately!). I think this may prove to be my one and only foray into foundation piecing, in fact, I am sure of it.

Part of the problems I had were, I think, due to having to use up scraps of some of the fabrics to make up the block, as this was all that is left of the lovely turquoise fabrics that I started with. So some of the seam allowances were, I think the technical term is "scant", or in my case, "very scant". In some cases they were so scant as to be non-existent, so seam ripping was called for and another attempt made. When I measure this block against previously completed blocks it is about 1/2 inch bigger all round, now I know that is better than being smaller, but isn't this kind of piecing supposed to do away with that kind of problem??

Actually, I think that the fabric I used for the foundation might also have contributed to my problems as, although I starched it before using it, I suspect that there was a bit of stretching going on, which all the ripping and re-sewing probably didn't help! That probably accounts too for one square of the centre square being 1/8" too small. Aaargh!!!

I had dithered about whether to paper-piece this block (and am now wishing I had!) because I am enjoying Katy's FPPFTT so much, but decided that the whole point of this QAL was to learn new skills, so ought to try the foundation piecing. Well, all I can say is that I have now tried it and won't be trying it again any time soon!

This week hasn't been all bad though, I have finally finished a cross-stitch towel that I have been working on since the New Year. I only work on it in the evenings in front of the TV, which is why it has taken so long. The pattern, again, was from the book, Made in France, cross stitch and embroidery in red, white and blue by Agnes Delage-Calvet and is rapidly becoming my favourite source of cross stitch and embroidery inspiration.

 Stitching and watching, or more accurately listening to, the TV is definitely easier when you are only using one colour!

Speaking of fish, I thought you might like to see an example of the fish for sale in the Central Market here in Riga. The market is actually 5 buildings, which were used as aircraft hangers in a previous time, housing a fish market, meat market, vegetable market, bread market and dairy produce market. In the summer the market spills out onto the surrounding area, but only some hardy souls ply their wares outdoors in the winter.

 
The selection of fresh and smoked fish available in the market is extensive, but these fish have always intrigued me. I have never been brave enough to try them but every smoked fish stall has them so they must be popular!

It doesn't seem like a month since I linked up to Lily's Quilts Small Blog Meet for the first time, but I am delighted to be linking up again. It was lovely to see what other new, and nearly new bloggers were getting up to.

Work in progress - some faster than others!

Halfway through the month is a good time to reflect on my progress, especially in January when by now apparently most resolutions have been broken. Well my resolutions this year were to

• join a Quiltalong
• start Blogging
• make 12 cushions using 12 different techniques 
• and take part in a sewing swap 

Well I can tick the first two as I am taking part in the Sew Happy QAL and this post is evidence of the second.

For the third I have pieced and quilted this shades of green cushion, but have to admit that it was all done before Christmas and has been sitting waiting for more attention since then. However, I have also bought some green linen fabric that I think will be ideal for a cushion back so will plan to have that done for the end of the month! When I started putting these greens together from my scrap bag I had the idea that I could work my way through the colours of the rainbow for the cushions, which won't take up 12 months I know, but at least gives me a start.

As for the 4th resolution to take part in a sewing swap that is still on the agenda but I have a whole year yet to complete that one so that isn't broken yet!

As well as joining up to the Sew Happy QAL I have also decided to tackle In Color Order's HST BOM quilt, I am nothing if not keen, so a happy hour was spent yesterday wading through my fabric stash to put together some fabrics for the first star. This task would have been a lot easier if my fabrics were in any sort of order but unfortunately they are not, one of these days .... (maybe that should have been one of my resolutions!)

As well as patchwork I have also recently rediscovered my passion for cross stitching, not least due to the birthday present from my son of a copy of "Made in France, cross stitch and embroidery in red, white and blue by Agnes Delage-Calvet. The motifs are lovely and as they are in one colour, very easy to do whilst watching/listening to TV in the evenings. I have already finished one towel in red with her Russian Doll pattern, a teatowel in blue with the teapot pattern, a small purse in red with a wildflower pattern and I am halfway through another towel using four fish charts, and there are plenty more charts that I would like to do!

I think these are not bad beginnings for the year, so hopefully will bode well for the rest of 2012.