At least I'm quilting

I'm still not feeling the piecing, though I have made four more blocks.  I could just sew them together and call it done but really I'd like to find a way to make myself love the end result so I'm letting it stew.  In the meantime I am fiddling about with scraps, doing a bit of dressmaking and quilting Taking Flight.  I'm well along the way with the quilting - everything inside the blue border is done, so I've just got the border itself and then one more round of blocks outside it.

I decided to try something new-to-me in the border and am drawing, freehand, a winding stalk with little leaves, which echo the pieced leaves in the body of the quilt.

 Here's a view from the back.

I wasn't sure if this would be okay but I rather like it.  Good think really since I definitely don't want to  do any unpicking!

A quick detour

I am still thinking about my map quilt, but haven't done much.  Instead I have been putting a bit of extra time into the hand sewing, since I have a quilt heading towards done.  I have also made two cushions (or pillows).  I've never tried this before but it's been kind of fun.  

Here's one with a pillow (or cushion) pad, though not one that's quite big enough, just one that was lying around.

 And a second one, which is smaller.

I have one more of these in the works, but I'm still quilting it.  

Of soup pots and quilting

I guess most people will know a version of the story about the old woman and the soup pot that was never empty.  Well, I was coming  to think this quilt was like that, only in reverse.  I quilted and I quilted but it was never done.  

But the end is in side, though still not close.  I have one big piece across a corner and then just the bits around the edge.  So I am pushing on.

I have been looking at it so long I've genuinely got no idea of whether I like it or not.  

Just as I am struggling to get back into the swing of stitching post holidays, I am struggling with blogging, so I am linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching in an attempt to just get on with it.  I'm thinking that checking out what other people are doing might help me to regain some momentum.

Back to it, almost

When I was younger I liked spontaneity, impulse and the sense of freedom that they can bring, but as I have grown older I find, more and more, that I also love routine, the rhythm of ordinary day-to-day living.  I have come to understand that, for me at least, it is this regular pattern to things that allows me to keep going and to fit in the things that are most important to me.  To be explicit, I am not talking about the regular, humdrum, family life stuff, although I think it holds true there too.  I am talking about how it is that I find the time to exercise (swim Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm, yoga every possible evening at 6pm and so on), or learn a language, or sew. Not only that, but the habit then keeps me going when I might otherwise stop.

Holidays, of course, break these routines and that is a good thing, in that time away can give an opportunity to look at things with new eyes.  It can also be a pause that it is hard to escape from.  When I am in my routine I just keep ticking along but sometimes, as now, I find it hard to step back into it.  The sheer effort of picking all that up again seems too much.  So I come back from my break (if you want a tiny taste of what I've been doing you can check out the AHIQ blog) and look at my piles of fabric then just wander off to make a cuppa.  I know I'll be fine once I'm up and running, but it's clearly going to take a few more days to get there.

In the meantime, I have at least a small bit of quilting to share.  I took my individual lighthouses away with me and thanks to a particularly nasty wasp sting which left my foot too big for my shoe, I have almost completed one.

At some point soon, once my sewing mojo returns, I will try turning it into a cushion.

Enough is enough

I am still quilting, and quite frankly I've had enough.  It's time this was finished.  In fact it should have been done weeks ago.  It's not that I'm in a hurry exactly, but every time I sit down to quilt the phone rings, the cat is sick, the doorbell goes or I unexpectedly have to take my car to the garage because the manufacturer has decided my airbag might explode and hurl pieces of metal at the passengers.  Like buses, my interruptions are all coming at once.  

But I'm putting an end to all that and I'm announcing it here because that seems to work for me.  I only have this tiny  bit left to go and I am going to finish by next Sunday, and if that means we run out of shampoo, or milk, or that I forget to put the bins out, or to clean, or cook, or that I have to stay up all night next Saturday, so be it.  

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Quilting update

This is just a quick update on the quilt currently in my hoop.  The big central circle is done

and now I am working my way outwards.  This picture gives the impression that the plain blue quadrant is not done, but it is; for some reason the stitching's just not showing up here.  

Someone asked about scale so here's a picture with the hoop, which  is about 23".

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

Yellow Birds - all that's happening here

There is still literally no piecing happening here, though I am determined to make time for a bit tomorrow, if only so that I have something to share on AHIQ on Tuesday.  Trying to look on the bright side, I am telling myself that at least my hand quilting hasn't ground to a halt and Yellow Birds is coming along nicely - maybe half done.  

A couple of progress pics...

 and I am linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Final circles done and dusted

Isn't it amazing what a little application can achieve? This is the last of the quilts that sprang from last year's Quilty 365 challenge (you can see the others here and here).

The back is pretty simple.

I started making one circle a day on 28th May 2016 and finished putting it together on 14th December 2016.  Quilting started on 8th September and I finished today, October 18th 2017.

It turns out to be the smallest I have made, at 50" square. I did spend a while thinking about ways to make it bigger but it felt done, and I'm still okay with that decision.  It's made from a pile of Oakshott charm squares and another pile of old shirts, wool wadding, hand quilted using a Madeira Lana variegated blue thread.  

Definitely Sunday

Sometimes in the summer I find I lose track of which day it is - usual routines breaking down and all that stuff.  As a consequence I haven't done a Slow Sunday Stitching post for weeks, despite having the best of intentions.  Today, however, I am on the ball!

All at Sea is coming along nicely.  In fact, the end is in sight.  I'm still quilting, but now it's just those bits around the edges that didn't make it into the hoop.  I know this bit always takes longer than you'd think, but nonetheless there that finish is, waving to me in the distance.  I even have my binding made, ready to go.

Still quilting

I'm thinking it's about time for an update on All at Sea.I'm still quilting, though to be honest I'm going through one of those phases where I'm easily distracted.  There is progress though.  I'm maybe 2/3rds of the way through, possibly even a little more.  It feels like time to knuckle down a bit now.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts today.

Retracing my steps

I am making slow progress with my hand quilting.  A combination of hot weather (gone now) and the usual distractions of family life has meant I've lost that habit of doing a bit every day; my quilting times seem to have been used for other things. That's fine, and I'm probably halfway through this anyway, but I'd like to give it a bit more attention.  However, I think I'm about to take a break from piecing for a week, maybe two, so I'm hopeful that I will be able to catch up a bit.  

Since I last posted, I have gone back and added a bit to the first couple of lighthouses I quilted.  I wasn't quite happy with the light beams - too much unquilted area in the middle of them.  Here's one I haven't tweaked yet...

...and here's one with an extra line down the middle of the beam.

I like this better.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

One door closes...

another one opens, and it turns out that behind every door is a top waiting to be quilted.  Next in the quilting queue was All at Sea, which was nicely backed and basted and ready to go as soon as I finished the denim circles.

Not much more to say about it yet, but here's a picture.

As usual, I'm sharing this for Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.  

Denim done and dusted

The denim circles are finished.

Here's the back.

And the funky binding.

I started this on 8th November 2015, as part of Audrey's Quilty 365, but got impatient and finished it on 6th May 2016.  Looking at it now, the little coloured strips in some circles mean I can still identify those that mark family birthdays and a handful of other significant dates that happened in the 6 months that I was making the circles.

I started quilting it on 16th April and finished it yesterday, 8th May.  I have no idea how it got done so fast.  The lines of quilting are not widely spaced - they are one or two finger widths apart -  so I can't explain it that way.  In any case, done it is.

The front is made from recycled denim (doesn't that sound a bit fancier than 'old jeans'?), recycled shirts and tiny scraps of every blue fabric I could lay my hands on.  

I used Sew Simple's Supersoft Eco Blend wadding ( it's a 70/30 blend made from 100% recycled material) and quilted it with Aurifil Lana 12 in 2 colours.

Finished size is 66" x 55".  

All it needs now is a name.

Slow Sunday binding

The long and short of it: it's quilted and now I just need to do the binding.

That's what happens when I take a break from piecing!

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Decisions, decisions

Yesterday evening I thought I knew what I was doing.  Well, to be fair I seldom know exactly what I'm doing, but I knew where I was starting.  I wanted to use this pile of  fabrics, and although I'm still tweaking I'm not far off where I want to be.

I also knew where I was starting with block choice.  

But when I pulled my fabrics out today to get on with it they didn't want to co-operate.  In fact they wanted to do something else entirely.  I'm getting the urge to turn them into blocks I hadn't even considered.

Now I'm happy for the quilt to tell me what it wants from time to time, but I've never had one think it could do that before I'd cut so much as one tiny strip and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I will probably do what I'm told, but would like to maintain at least some pretence I'm in control, so am giving it 24 hours to stew and then I'll decide.  

In the meantime, I'm still quilting!  At this rate I'll get a whole quilt finished before I start piecing again.

Linking up today with Linda and Julie for Sew, Stitch, Snap,Share.  

A home for my needles

I won a needle-case in a giveaway on Doris's blog.  Doris is a bit of a whizz at hand stitching so I thought I'd show it off here.

My favourite thing is the rows of little knots. 

It has also motivated me to sort out my needles.  I still have them all over the place, but all the ones I use for quilting are now housed in here, and that makes me feel happy.  Small pleasures.

I'm still quilting away and now that I've left the idea of tieing this behind me, I am loving how the stitching looks on denim.  As I hadn't planned to quilt this, I used what came to hand, which, as it happens, was more Aurifil Lana (earmarked for something else, but what can you do?)  I'm using a very dark blue and a lovely light sandy colour, just for a tiny bit of contrast.

I'm making good progress, but know that's mostly because I'm still not piecing. When I start again (this week) things will slow right down.

Speaking of piecing, next Tuesday is AHIQ link up time, and the launch of our second challenge theme, so do check back here then, or visit Ann to see what everyone's getting up to. 

I'm linking up with Kathy again for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Next quilt in the hoop

It's denim circles next, though mostly because I am still waiting for the wadding for All at Sea to arrive.  Once it does, the circles may go on the back burner; it will just depend on my mood.  

I was certain I was going to tie this quilt.  I do love a tied quilt, admire other people's but have never tried it myself, and this seemed like a good candidate. I got as far as having a go but for some reason just wasn't feeling it.  I thought maybe I needed thread of a different colour - I should have taken photos to get some feedback, but it was just a cream-y sort of colour.  Anyway I cut it all out and tried again with a really pretty, and strong, linen thread, space-dyed in a soft green-y blue and a warm light brown.  Didn't like that either. I considered keeping going, but am not so keen on the idea of spending, say, a couple of weeks doing something I then think looks wrong.

This was really disappointing, but I'm not going to dwell on it right now, though I will try again on another quilt.  For now, I've just sorted out some different threads and have made a start on quilting this one. 

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching, and wishing you all a very pleasant Easter weekend.

Quiet Quilt - done and dusted

All finished.

A close up.

Binding.

And a shot of the back, as it blows away from me.

Details:
75"square.  

Quilt and backing made from stash fabrics.  I can't identify them all but there is some Oakshott (that bronze colour solid), some grunge (the blue-y bits), some Lotta Jansdotter (the black and white stripe), some Janet Clare, I think some Lecien Japan...

Wadding is Sew Simple Eco Blend (70/30 cotton/polyester, all recycled), which I toy with occasionally as an alternative to wool.

Quilted with Aurifil Lana, which is a rather lovely 12wt wool thread.  It's the first time I have used this and I would be happy to use it again.  

I pieced this what seems like ages ago, between 9th October and 14th December 2015.  Okay, that doesn't just seem like ages, it is ages.

Quilting started 12th February, finished 13th April 2017.

Some of you may remember I went off this for a while and it missed it's allotted turn for quilting as a result.  Happily I like it now!

Linking up with NinaMarie for Off the Wall Friday

 and 

Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop

234 little squares to go

Actually, I just made 234 up.  I know I have fewer than 30 of the 9 patches in this quilt left as I only counted yesterday, but now I can't remember exactly how many.  234 is in the ball park though so I'm calling it poetic licence.

Since I've either finished, or almost finished my most recent piecing, I'm going to take a week's pause, give some thought to a couple of other projects I have on the go and try to get a good chunk of this out of the way.

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Still doing what I'm doing

I'm just quietly stitching away, trying to get a bit of quilting done each day.  Having said I would be able to keep track of exactly where I was, by counting my squares, it turns out that's not as easy as I thought, so I haven't bothered.  I can say I'm about twenty big 9 patches down, so that's still 60-odd to go.

I'm also making slow progress with my Alabama Chanin-style piece.  This is going slower than I would like, because it turns out that if the light isn't good I'm finding it hard to tell the difference between the stenciled bits and the fabric.  I wanted the stencil to be close to the base colour, but hadn't though this might be a catch.  With the benefit of hindsight I should have chosen to go just a shade or two lighter, but it's a bit late to worry about it now, so I just stick with doing it in daylight.

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.