Bees and Black Cats

The absence of Zakka SAL-related projects in the last couple of months might have led you to believe that I had well and truly fallen off that bandwagon. I would have been inclined to agree with you, until I saw this week's project - the Garland message board. Having already bought dinky pegs with this project in mind and seeing reports from Fiona  and Wendy that it would only take a couple of hours of my time, it seemed a shame not to have a go!

The original project was designed as a sort of shopping list organiser, but my shopping lists are generally way too long to be contained by a few pegs! So I tweaked the board a little to have the bunting spell out a welcome message.

Our son and daughter-in-law are coming out to visit tomorrow, so they have the honour of being the first names attached.

And here it is hanging in the guest room ready for their visit.

The reports were true, it is a really quick project and would, I think, be a nice gift for a new house or baby maybe with the appropriate letters in the bunting. I have missed my Zakka moments (although I haven't missed checking for all the mistakes in the book!), so it was nice to get back into that groove. This is the second last project in the book so being back in the groove will be a short-lived experience. This is the 9th of 24 projects from the book that I have completed, and there are still a couple that I will get around to it at some stage. I don't think I have ever completed that many projects from a single book before, so although I haven't managed all of the projects the SAL has definitely been worth it for me, in terms of getting value out of my book purchase. At times the project a week schedule has been impossible to stick to, but I would definitely join another book SAL in the future, what about you?


Asides from Zakkaing ( the spell checker does not like my new word!) I have also been sewing up and sending Bee blocks before we take on the role of tour guide for our son and daughter-in-law. First up, the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee block colour for September is red, and with my new colour-coded, zip lock scrap system (thanks all for the suggestion!) sorting out the scraps for each block takes no time.

The theme for the Star of Africa Bee block this month was animals. Jen intends to put the blocks together as a book for her children to use for animal spotting on trips to the zoo. My block is not of an exotic animal, however, although there are plenty of those mentioned in the Bee discussions, instead I have produced for Jen a humble Black Cat.

Not just any Black Cat though, the Black Cat of the house of the same name in Riga Old Town. The legend goes that a wealthy merchant sought to join the Great Guild of Riga and was rejected by the worthy citizens. Being a wealthy merchant though, the man (surprise, surprise!) did not take kindly to this rejection and as his house was directly opposite the Great Guild hall, took an unusual form of revenge for the snub. He placed a statue of a Black Cat on top of the tower nearest the Guild Hall, with the rear of the Cat facing the Hall. You can imagine the reaction of the worthy citizens! Several years and a lawsuit later the wealthy merchant was admitted to the Guild and the Black Cat statue was turned to provide a more fitting view for the Guild members!

And here it is! You can see why the view from the back might have upset the worthy citizens :)

Linking up to TGIFF and BOM's away

Hope you all have a great weekend.  

Bee Blocks, Blog Hops and Blustery mugrugs

A few weeks ago the project for the Zakka-style SAL was a Rain Cloud mug rug, which involved a bit of needleturn applique and some embroidery. I enjoyed the project so much that when I had finished my Rain Cloud I decided to make a whole set of mugrugs based upon weather symbols, and last night I finished the last of the 6 mugrugs.

I had great fun deciding upon which symbols to use and then working out what was needed to recreate them in fabric. You can probably tell that the wind symbol was the most fun to do!

In the last 24 hours we have had three of the weather types - bright sunshine, clouds and sun and heavy rain, so, hopefully, that will be it for the time being.

This week's Zakka-style SAL project is a water bottle holder, which will be perfect for taking to Zumba classes when I am back home. I have transferred the embroidery pattern for the handwarmers from a couple of weeks ago but with the warm weather we have been having recently have had no inspiration to actually make them!

Having sent off my blocks for the Sunday Morning Quilt Bee  I have been anxiously checking our postbox for my first ever Quilt Bee blocks.

They arrived this morning and they are lovely, thanks Jan! Time to get cracking on my blue blocks for the July round.

Today, Lynne at  Lily's Quilts has asked bloggers who contributed to her quilts for Siblings Together to write about their input as part of the 100 Quilts for Kids Blog Hop. As you probably know the Siblings Together charity provides an opportunity for children in care, who have been separated from their siblings, to get together in a comfortable, friendly environment. With three grown-up sons, who have always enjoyed spending time together, it is not difficult to work out my motivation for wanting to contribute towards the quilts Lynne was asked to provide. The quilts were for the children attending a summer camp later this month. Living in Latvia it was not practical to volunteer to provide a whole quilt, but, fortunately, some very generous ladies volunteered to put together blocks provided to them. My initial intention was to send 4 blocks, but as you can see I so enjoyed putting these together that I ended up sending 20!

The lovely Judith at Needles and Lemons received so many blocks that she was able to piece together 4 quilts, check out  her post to see the quilts and read about all of the contributors of fabric, wadding, etc who helped to make it happen. I very much enjoyed being part of this initiative, which has highlighted for me all that is wonderful about blogging and quilters :)

Lynn's post about the Sibling Together Quilts is part of the 100 Quilts for Kids Blog Hop. This is what Lynn has to say about the Blog Hop - 

"the idea of 100 Quilts for Kids is simple: Make a quilt or 2. Donate it to a child in need, locally if you can.  Enjoy a blog hop that runs from July 2-September 25, 2012, complete with inspiration and mini prizes.  Join in on a 100 Quilts for Kids Quilt Along (Kick-off post on July 15 at Swim, Bike, Quilt).  Have a chance to win great prizes from sponsors, including Moda, Fat Quarter Shop, Westwood Acres, Rowan , Free Spirit, and Ty Pennington Impressions, among others that will shortly be announced."  

And speaking of Blog Hops don't forget this week's posts in the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop


July 3

Di from Willowbeck Designs

Jennifer from Knotted Thread

July 5

Sarah from Sarah Lou

Catherine from Knotted Cotton

Hope you have all had a great weekend.

Linking up to Manic Monday

A jumble of June projects

I am beginning to like putting together a Mosaic at the end of each month, when I think I haven't actually finished much in a month it is a pleasant surprise to find that, actually, I have been busier than I thought!

The makes this month are a motley selection, and probably a good indication of my "butterfly" tendencies of flitting from one project to another :)

Lots of little projects have fitted in with the travelling we have been doing recently, so portable projects like the crochet flowers and Dorset buttons have fitted the bill. I am most pleased with finishing the Campervan doorstop as it has been many months in the making, it is just a pity that the reason for making it, for youngest son's flat at University, has now disappeared with his graduation a couple of weeks ago! Still, a finish is a finish.

We have no travel plans for the next few weeks, so I am hoping to get stuck into some bigger projects and maybe even finish off the NY Beauty QAL blocks that are haunting the cupboard!

If you have missed any posts in the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop check out the great tutorials here This week's posts in the Blog Hop will be from:

July 3

Di from Willowbeck Designs

Jennifer from Knotted Thread

July 5

Sarah from Sarah Lou

Catherine from Knotted Cotton

 

I have seen sneak peeks of a couple of the projects being lined up and can't wait to see them revealed in all their glory. My post for the Blog Hop is due at the end of the month so I need to get cracking on my post and project for that too, so the NYB blocks might not see the light of day after all :)

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day

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Zakka in the pink

With wall to wall sport on the TV over the weekend to keep the husband occupied (think rugby, cricket and football!) it was the perfect opportunity for me to get cracking on some of the Zakka-style SAL projects I have been stockpiling recently.

First up was the organiser, which was the project for the week just gone. I wasn't too sure about this project at first, but as I had some nice, bright pink and white dotty linen/cotton blend that I had already earmarked for this, I decided to go with it. I am so glad that I did, as I really enjoyed putting this together, which is not to say that it all went perfectly but even the mishaps didn't put me off, so my faith in the Zakka-style book was restored.

The cutting instructions were a bit confusing I have to say, I didn't quite get the difference between inner panel and lining, even after several read throughs, and I lost track of the various cutting pieces for all of the different pockets. It wasn't helped by the fact that there were several errors in the instructions, I think 7 out of the 15 cutting instructions were incorrect, so even although I had marked the new measurements in the book, it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that the rest are right, does it? In the end I managed to cut one of the pockets out wrongly, but, fortunately, too large rather than too small. I was also confused as to where each pocket would end up (I am easily confused as you can tell!) and would have changed the placement around if I had worked it out beforehand, but once the pieces were cut that dictated where half of the pockets would end up. That is not the pattern's fault to be fair, but rather a lack of vision on my part!

As the various branded types of interfacing are not readily available here, as with other projects I end up guessing and using what I think is the nearest equivalent from what I have to hand. So, I backed the exterior of the organiser with a fusible fleece, and re-inforced the centre with a flexible, firm interfacing, which meant that with all the pocket layers there were a lot of layers to sew by the end. My sewing machine coped manfully, thank goodness, which is more than can be said for me as I managed to sew the end of the zip into the binding! It was only when I was hand sewing the binding at the end that I realised what I had done, see what I mean about a lack of vision!

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, I was really pleased with the organiser and I am already thinking I might make some more to give as presents to my daughter-in-law and son's girlfriends. I will try to remember the next time, though, to keep the zip out of the way when sewing on the binding :)

In a rare burst of productivity I also tackled this week's Zakka-style SAL project, a tweed pouch. I don't know if it was a reaction to the unending sport but this was also a pink project. I had some lovely bright pink wool fabric that I had bought a while ago to make myself a Fashionista Bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible book. Whilst I haven't gotten around to making the bag yet, although it is on my to-do list, I could at least make a pouch to fit in the bag in the meantime.

I changed the pattern slightly by using Lisa Lam's method to insert a top zip by adding tabs to the zipper ends, and chose to outline the appliqued hexagons in bright pink rather than the transparent thread recommended. I discovered when I went to unzip the pouch once it was finished that the lining on one side is a tad too close to the zip, so some tugging is required to get past the spot, a lesson learnt for the next time I use the zipper foot!

Just to round off the pinkness of this post, I have been getting more ambitious with the crochet and have purchased these lovely balls of yarn to make a crochet cushion cover.

I shall close this post now before you overdose on pink, normal service will be resumed shortly!

Linking up to Manic Monday , Sew Modern Monday Pieceful Life and Sew Darn Crafty

From Antiques to Zakka

Having polished off the backlog in my BOM's this week was also a chance to cross off at least some of my outstanding projects in the Zakka-style SAL. In my enthusiasm I had visions of completing at least 3 of my outstanding projects but, alas, the pesky Itty Bitty magnets put a spanner in those works! Who would have thought that such tiny little things could be such trouble, and I was only attempting three of them not the full six that are in the book?

Wendy did warn me that whilst the piecing was fairly straightforward, if rather hard on the eyes, the real fun came with the last step to turn in and stitch closed the opening left for inserting the magnets, and so it proved. I can understand the desire to have nice, handmade things around you and it does lift the spirits to see patchwork every time I go to the fridge, but I am seriously doubting whether the trouble involved is worth the end result. My colourful peg fridge magnets are just as cheering and a lot less trouble. The problem lies with the tiny (to me at any rate) 1/8th" seam that is available to work with when trying to turn the last edge under, you are only talking about a few threads between you and a frayed edge - madness! I know that some quilters enjoy working on a miniature scale and produce the most breathtaking work, but having just attempted these magnets I am beginning to doubt their sanity :) Let's just say that I will not be attempting any miniature quilts anytime soon.

The trouble did not end when the seams were finally, if rather messily, tamed as despite having the same number of magnetic layers one of the magnets did not live up to its name and refused to stay put on the fridge door. I had, I thought, tested them all before sewing but I am now thinking that I might have put the sheets in the wrong way round on this one magnet, needless to say ripping out the seam to turn the magnet round was not even considered as an option! Instead, I attached another piece of the magnetic sheet to the back of the magnet and it now sticks beautifully.

Fortunately the second of my catch-up Zakka-style projects was much more enjoyable. When we were in Tallinn last week I bought some blue linen to make the Cloud Mug Rug from the book. I had already received the perfect umbrella fabric for the backing in Hilacha's Novelty and Solid's Layer Cake Swap. The mug rug project particularly appealed as it involved needle-turn applique, which was a new technique for me and also some hand and machine embroidery.

As it turned out I used hand embroidery for both the embroidered sections. The needle-turn applique was quite fiddly to do, but I am glad that I have had a chance to at least have a go at it. Indeed I found the whole applique and embroidery so relaxing to do that I have cut out linen squares for a whole set of mug rugs, which I am hoping to base on the weather symbols in a local newspaper. The third project I had planned, the organiser, I will hopefully get around to over the weekend.

I thought you might like to see another market from Latvia. Last weekend we visited a bi-annual Flea Market some distance outside Riga that one of my husband's colleagues had told him about. The stalls ranged from carefully laid-out antiques and paintings to rugs on the ground with a motley selection of household goods. I had wondered whilst we were walking to the venue why most of the other visitors seemed to be male, but wondered no longer when I saw the stalls below!

The variety of car and motorbike parts available in various states was fascinating to see, as was the strange assortment of purchases being carried out of the market. The men didn't have it all their own way though as these beauties were also for sale

It certainly made me appreciate the speed and power of my modern Singer machine if not the rather bland looks compared to these ornate machines :)

Linking up to TGIFF

Blocks Away!

Well, I am on a roll now with my outstanding BOM's, so have been tackling the April, May and June blocks for In Color Order's HST BOM.

Tackling three different blocks at the same time didn't always go entirely to plan, as I ended up making too many of one combination of HST blocks and not enough of another! Still, that means now that not only am I up-to-date with the BOM, but actually ahead as I now have paired triangles already cut and sewn for July's block, now that makes a pleasant change.

I was wondering as I was making these blocks why I don't feel any real commitment to this BOM and I think it is because there is no (as far as I am aware) real community to this QAL. Reading Lynne's post today on setting up a virtual Quilting Bee it is clear that the friendships made in all of the online QAL's, Bees and SAL's are just as important, if not more important than the actual projects themselves and, somehow, for me at any rate this is missing in this BOM. Don't get me wrong I am enjoying the process of putting this quilt together, and looking forward to the final result, but it just feels like a part of the process is missing? Have you ever experienced anything similar?

Here are my 6 blocks to date anyhow

 Having fallen way behind on the Zakka-style SAL, it is next on my list of projects to crack on with this week. What a difference a week with no travelling makes! Thanks to Wendy I now have the magnetic sheet for the Itty-Bitty magnets, so have been reeling in horror at the size of those tiny pieces, when they say Itty-Bitty they really mean it!

As well as the magnetic sheet Wendy also sent me two lovely, handmade bag charms, and this one will, hopefully, be decorating one of the bags on my WIP list in the not-too distant future! The other one is already in use, hence no photo :)

All of the above means that I have made some progress this week on my WIP list, which is looking like this

Ongoing

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (back on schedule)
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 4 Zakka-style SAL projects completed (So many projects behind schedule!)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks calculated and fabric cut
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued  
• Sunday Morning Quilts Sewing Bee - book in post
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived, waiting for inspiration!

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions 
• Star of Africa Sewing Bee
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag
• Dragon Bag
• Christmas mini quilts 

Hope you are all having productive weeks too.

Linking up to  WIP Wednesday  and We Did it Wednesday .

Points, Petals and Play

Well, second (or maybe even third) time lucky, I have finally got the points to work out on the Zakka-style SAL tote. They are not perfect by any means, but they are a lot better than the previous attempt so at last I can tick this project off my list! The tote will be a present for my mum's birthday next month, so I am delighted to have got it out of the way early, especially given the angst caused by those zig-zags.

Instead of putting in a magnetic snap closure I used a covered button, and I used a slightly different method to make the handles, so I think they have come out slightly narrower than in the original project. Hopefully, these will be the last linen QST's I ever attempt, although maybe I should check out the Zakka-style book before making such predictions!

I am hoping to fill the bag with some nice yarn, as my mum is a keen knitter, so any recommendations for online yarn retailers would be much appreciated. 

Whilst speaking of yarn, I had (yet another!) go at my crochet flower over the weekend, and I am pleased to report that there has been some progress made! The Crafter's Apprentice will be delighted to hear that, I hope, as she has told me that I will get this flower done even if it kills me (or her!). 

As you can see it is beginning to look like a flower, much to my amazement I must add. Now all I have to do is work out how to do the last row to add the petals, as you will no doubt not be surprised to hear I am again looking for help (sorry Wendy!) The instructions for the last row say "with the WS of the work facing, work out from the centre of the spiral" which, amazingly, I understand BUT I am struggling to see where to make the stitches it all looks the same to me on the back. I am obviously missing something and I am hoping someone can tell me what it is. When this flower is finished I promise never to attempt another crochet pattern unless I have checked that I understand every single instruction at least three times beforehand :)

When not being confused by crochet patterns I have been working on my plans for Sew Happy Geek's Play mini quilt challenge. Quilts in the challenge are to be based upon a playing card and whilst some of the participants were simply leaving the choice of card to the luck of the draw, I am not so sure of my drafting or piecing skills to be that casual so have decided to base my quilt on the Ace of Diamonds, and have even been toying with the idea of creating my own paper piecing pattern! You can see why I was trying out the crochet as a bit of light relief :)

I will need to get a move on though, as the deadline for the challenge is May 21st and I will only have a few days between then and now to get any sewing done. This also means that whilst all of the patches have been cut now for the last remaining NYB blocks I doubt very much whether any further will be done to them until later this month. I am so pleased that I signed up for the NYB QAL (thanks Judy!) as even though I will not get these blocks completed anytime soon, I have learnt so much through both this and the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT that I will definitely continue to paper piece now that I have caught the paper piecing bug.

With three Bank Holidays last week in Latvia I had to pick my time to venture to the PO, which operates in a time warp normally anyway, but after a couple of attempts managed to send off my blocks for the Siblings Together quilt, so they will, hopefully, arrive before the May 15th deadline. 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to and linking up to Manic Monday here, Sew Modern Monday here and Sew Darn Crafty here

Warsaw, New York and Japan!

Today's post has a very international flavour to it. I have finally got around to putting together some of my photos from our recent trip to Warsaw, and as you can see we had blue skies and brilliant sunshine for the whole of our time there. The sunshine was great when we were enjoying watching the passing parade with a refreshing ice-cream to hand, but not so great when we were lost trying to find the photograph exhibition at the last of the tenements in the old Ghetto!

As you can see we did eventually find the exhibition (it is the right hand photo in the bottom row), which was a montage of photographs of Polish Jews donated by survivors and neighbours from the Jewish Ghetto in WW2. The last tenement is scheduled for demolition in the next year, so we were pleased to have been able to see this exhibition in its natural installation. The Old City was similar in some ways to its equivalent in Riga, but it was an odd experience walking around an Old Town that was, in fact, rebuilt almost entirely after WW2, but looked as though it had been there for over a hundred years.

Despite some lack of activity on the paper-piecing front recently, partly due it has to be said to trips like the one above, I have managed this week to get back into my NYB QAL blocks. Only one to add to the small, but growing, pile I admit, but I have now printed off all of the rest of the templates, so the spirit is willing! Next week will be the last week of the QAL, which has been interesting and frustrating at the same time. I am delighted that I have even been able to manage half of the blocks within the time frame, but frustrated that each one takes so long to do. Despite all the time and effort put in I will have nothing more than a pile of blocks to show for it at the end, unless I make even more blocks!

And for the final part of my international post, a bit of Japanese Zakka-style! This week's project in the SAL was a small pencil case, which has had some comments about quite how small it was i.e. not long enough to hold full-size pencils! It is, however, long enough for pens so I made his and hers versions, husband's for pens, mine for chalk and vanishing ink markers. I had thought of using mine for crochet hooks, as it is the perfect size, but as I only possess one crochet hook at the moment it seemed like overkill!

They were fairly straightforward to make, although it took me two attempts to sew the final stage as I managed to get the lining on the wrong way round in the first attempt and then the pocket inside on the second! That is when you wish you hadn't used linen for the outer plain fabric as ripping out seams on linen is no joke.

It is not much of a finish I admit, but I am linking up to TGIFF anyway, as this is about all of the finishes I am going to see for a while I think.

Monthly Mosaic

We are just back from a trip to Warsaw and I haven't even had time to sort out the photos or write up a post, but I realised that it was still the first of the month and I had time to link up to the Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts, so rustled up a mosaic!

Apart from my Sunflower Quilt it has been a bit of a slow month I think. With a trip to Ireland for a family wedding and friends visiting from the UK in May, I fear that this month is not going to be much better. What was I thinking of signing up to Jenna's Play mini-quilt challenge, when I am already behind on the Zakka-style SAL and the NYB blocks! I am already resigned to the tardiness of my NYB blocks, but was hoping to be more organised on the Zakka-style! A forlorn hope I feel.

Hope you have more progress to show for the last month than I have!

Progress

With football on the TV last night, I had a great opportunity to crack on with the second block for April in the Craftsy BOM, as my other half would be too occupied to expect any conversation! The instructions for the second English paper pieced block produce a sun-ray block with a "grass" border, but that wasn't going to work with my colours, so I adapted it slightly by taking out the grass border and increasing the rays.

As this class is all about learning new skills, I decided to have a go at machine applique for the blocks too. I have only done this once before with circles and they are definitely easier to do, no corners to worry about! Originally I had planned to put some hexagons between the rays, but it ended up looking very cluttered, so decided against it. It might have worked with very small hexagons, but I have my limits!

The project for this week of the Zakka-style SAL is a small portable sewing pouch with another pincushion. I don't really use pincushions much but made it anyway. I am sure it will come in handy on our next road trip. No zig-zags involved so a doddle compared to the tote project, although I did manage to attach the leather thong the wrong way round so the long end was on the inside! It was a good thing that I had overestimated the length needed.

The interior fabric was a FQ from the bundle for my teatime quilt that was a bit too "babyish" as the quilt is for my mum, but was ideal for this. The embroidery motif on the pincushion is from Aimee Ray's Doodle Stitching.

Next week's project is a pencil case, so should be fairly straightforward too, although some of the pieces seem very small!

Have been measuring and cutting away today, so will, hopefully have more progress to report soon.