Night Birds: done for now

Not much sewing got done last week, but I got off to a quick start this week, largely thanks to notes I had made on my phone.  Just before it all went into the box I had climbed on a chair to get a good look and seen a few things I wanted to tweak.  The notes read "replace bottom with dark, replace top Carolyn Friedlander with dark and make thinner to room for strip under wee star." 

So my first step was to look again and see if I agreed with myself,  which I did.  Here's the before and after.  

Then a column of stars and geese and just like that I was done. Now I am going to have a cup of tea and feel pleased with myself.

Low level multi-tasking

I may not be able to work on more than one quilt at a time,but at least I can occasionally work on several different bits of that single quilt simultaneously.  I am now playing around with the last 3 columns of this.  Correction, the last 2, since the right-hand end is pretty much done.

I've got plenty of bits and bobs so it's just a question of shuffling them about until I like where they land.

I've got a lot on this week but am hopeful this might get done in the next fortnight, since I'm itching to have a go at the current AHIQ challenge, Red is a Neutral.

Reaching for the stars

Actually it's more like reaching for the fabrics to make the stars.  I've run low on my geese and stars, so time has to be spent replenishing the piles.  I don't mind this: cut a bunch, sew a bunch, no stress, no brain strain.  Sometimes it's a fine way to spend an hour or two, especially when you can pause occasionally to pop into the garden and hack back a shrub that's got too big for its boots.

While I get on with that, here's a pic of progress to date.

I'm happy with this.

What if?

I played around with breaking away from the columns I've been working in.  I was pretty sure I wanted to stick with them, but sometimes it's good to ask the question.

I liked how the bottom of this version looked, but couldn't find a satisfactory way of organising the upper half

 So I went back to my original plan.  

Out of sync with myself

Habitually, I sew, blog, sew, blog.  Works just fine.  But every so often I forget my camera, or the sewing seems so unremarkable I don't bother to blog it and then I get myself into a bit of a pickle.  That's where I am right now.  My sewing got ahead and then I couldn't figure it all out, so here's where I am right now.

New quilt in the hoop and a lesson

The next quilt up is the one I tend to refer to as "Playing with Scale" though really that's about as dull as a quilt name could be. I think it's jumped the queue, but it came to hand and I couldn't be bothered to overthink, so just got on with sandwiching instead.

I was keen to maintain momentum this year.  That's just a fancy way of saying that I wasted a lot of time in 2018, just fiddling and faffing and browsing online, with no one to blame but myself but this year I want to do less of all those and more quilting again.  Well it didn't work quite like that.  I found a new-to-me batting that I fancied trying out and ordered some as I was binding the Hourglasses. Ten days later and I was twiddling my thumbs and feeling rather grumpy, so I rang to check the status of my order.  It had gone out the previous day and was with me 24 hours later.  

Now, I am not telling you this to complain about slow service.  Rather it gave me pause for thought.  We get so used to things happening so fast nowadays that it becomes an expectation.  But lots of things I need come from small, independent shops rather than huge concerns and it's not always possible for them to be as quick.  One pair of hands can only do so much in a day, after all.  I shall try to be more patient next time, or plan further ahead!

The batting, by the way, is lovely and soft, slightly flatter than the others I have used but none the worse for that.

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching