Look Out Wallaroo, Here We Come!

I've been hanging out for this weekend for months now. It has been a pretty ordinary six months or so since the last time our intrepid group of girls got together for our sewing retreat at Wallaroo and this weekend couldn't have come at a better time.

So tonight after work (after sneaking out a little early) my best friend and I will be heading off to stay here with four other lovely ladies:

And enjoy the view from my sewing machine like last time!

While I work my way through my scrap box of tiny bits and pieces to make some more of these, along with some string blocks and other scrappy projects.

Fairly sure we'll go for a walk (or two) along the beach too!

 

Can't wait! Here's hoping that by Sunday afternoon my scrap box will be seriously depleted and that I have lots of scrappy blocks to share with you next time!

Castle Ceiling Project Update

My long term handstitched project continues to slowly come together.  I'm making this pattern in blues on a yellow background.

First I made 121 assorted blue Dresden plates and 100 yellow crosses:

The I started joining them into pairs (here are some laid out on the floor to see how they're going to look):

At the risk of permanently cutting off circulation in my knees and really upsetting my back I crawled around on the floor last weekend and laid out all the blocks on a polar fleece blanket (they nearly all fit) and spent some considerable time tweaking the layout to get the right 'random' placing.  With that done I managed to creak my way back to upright eventually and went to bed around 1.30am! 

Had another look the next morning and tweaked a few blocks again and then crawled around on the floor again pinning them to the blanket before rolling it up around a cardboard tube. Phew!

Not sure my knees and back have quite forgiven me yet!

Now I'm slowly joining the diagonal rows together, emphasis on slowly! My eyesight is not what it used to be and handstitching causes me to give up on my glasses and work 2 inches from my nose at times so I can't do a lot at once!  Think its time I bought one of those magnifying lens things you hang around your neck! Has anyone tried one of those for craft work? Are they any good?

Thanks for visiting today,

March UFO Project - Tick!

Last year at the end of August I went on a sewing weekend away and whipped up some pinwheels from a charm pack of  Marmalade by Bonnie & Camille which I won some time back from Kristy at Quietplay.

I didn't really have any particular plan for them but wanted to try the method of putting two charms together, sewing a 1/4" seam all around the edges and then slice the diagonally and stitch together to make pinwheels.  It was pretty much as easy as it sounds but that was as far as I got.

As part of the UFO along at Aunt Marti's blog I bagged these up at the beginning of the year and this month their lucky number (4!) came up. So what to do with them?  First things first I had a look through my fabric stash for any fabric which would co-ordinate with them. Not as easy as it might sound as they are not my usual colours, a little softer than I usually use.

I did however find a great black and cream fabric which seemed to be the best fit, along with a diagonal striped fabric.  After a bit of fiddling around I decided placemats and a table runner would be the way to go.

I had hoped to bind them in the black and cream but unfortunately I only had enough for the block sashings so chose a cream which matched the backing fabric as well, so they are reversible! 

Front (above) and back (below):

I had some fun with the quilting on them, trying a spiral in each pinwheel. I hadn't tried a spiral before and they turned out okay, a few wobbles here and there but on the whole I'm happy with them.

I used my usual all machine stitched binding method (see tutorial at Missouri Star Quilt Co here) but used a stitch I haven't used before for the top stitching. I had thought that this stitch seemed to face the wrong way around but in the end I quite liked it so I might use it again! I used a variegated thread in black, grey and white.

 Here's a close up of the topstitching on the back:

Not sure who these will go to yet (they are certainly not my colours) but I'll put them away and find the right recipient during the year.

So UFO No. 3 ticked off for 2014 - yay!

Thanks for visiting today,

A Bit of Swap Action!

My QBSA partner for March was Pauline in NSW who requested any block in any colour.  Well, pretty wide guidelines don't you think?! I contacted Pauline to make sure she hadn't received a lot of blocks in one colour or design and she told me she didn't mind what colour or style as she used the individual blocks as mug rugs or placemats. What a great idea, it would be a good way to have practice pieces for free motion quilting I think.  She did mention that she had received quite a few star blocks so I thought I'd find a non-star block.  I used the Antique Tile block and had a lovely time fossicking in my drawers (fabric drawers!) for some interesting fabrics and this is what I came up with:

If you would like the block pattern I used this one from Quilters Cache.

I have a few of my Scrapalicious blocks now in white and so this month I updated my option to include the choice of making it in black or white. Pauline was nice enough to send me one in each colour so now I have my first black block:

Here is the white block Pauline sent me:

Apologies for the slightly murky photos there. My camera decided to use the flash for one and not the other, not sure why but didn't have time to figure it out!

I'm thinking I might alternate the blocks in black and white but I'm not 100% sure yet. I might end up making two quilts if I don't like the look of the two colours together!

Well, that's it for me for now. I'm currently working on my March UFO project which is to use my pinwheel blocks I made at a sewing retreat last year in a project.

 Stay tuned, I'm nearly done, just the binding to go!