Starting as I mean to go on

I sneaked this out of the box for just a couple of hours, but long enough to add a column down the left-hand side and a wee strip across the bottom.

Night Birds: done and dusted

Despite my best intentions the current piecing has gone back into its box for a day or two, but to my utter astonishment I find I have a finish to share.  This is my second finish of the year but we won't dwell on that for too long. Instead I shall just be feeling mighty pleased with myself for getting all the way to the end of something.  

So, in that spirit of self-congratulation,  here is the front of Night Birds,

the back,

And a tiny bit of the binding (a very old Kaffe Fassett stripe from stash)

I started this on 12th December 2018 (oh my goodness, so long ago!) and finished the piecing on 27th February 2019.  I don't actually know exactly when I started the quilting but I'm guessing maybe July this year.  Whenever it was started, I finished on Boxing Day, December 26th.  

As usual there are lots of shirts in this, some fabrics from stash, some bits from the scrap boxes.  I realise that the stamped words aren't visible in the photo above, due to the lovely sun, but they are there - a collection of words that mean evening/dusk. 

I used organic cotton wadding, quilted with a selection of perle no. 8.  As is my habit I didn't buy threads specially but used what I had that seemed to go.  

I am super happy with everything about this quilt, right down to the fact that the sun was shining on it when I took the photos. Most of all I am happy to end the year with a finish.

Kitchen sink

I know it's Christmas Eve and blog-land is pretty much closed down, but I don't want to take another couple of weeks/months off so I am blogging into the void.

I was still tinkering around with coins and medallions and I couldn't get something I liked.  Being in a "throw the kitchen sink at it" kind of mood I made some little house blocks and mixed them in.

On the right,

or maybe on the left?

Or make a few more and use them on both sides.  

It turns out I'm also adding in blunt sawtooth bits and pieces.  At least with all these bits and pieces I won't get bored!

Rusty and indecisive

I am soooo rusty.  No one to blame but myself, of course, but this is going to be a quilt of stops and starts.  

I kicked off thinking that maybe I would head towards, if not an actual medallion then something in that neighbourhood. Though this start looks more like Chinese Coins.  

So maybe this is a Coin Medallion, if that is a thing.

Maybe this?  I don't have many birds though, so maybe I won't use them all this early in a quilt.   Decisions, decisions.  Medallion?  Coins? Maybe I want another element.  Maybe it's too early to tell.  I shall try very hard to get on with it and not fuss too much.  

Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but mountains of spam to delete

I'm not going to waste anyone's time with excuses, or vows to do better.  I haven't been sewing, so haven't been blogging and the whole things makes me fed up!  Then I sign back in (that's right, I haven't even been into my email account for months) and what do I find? That's right, hundreds of spam messages.  So if what you are after is cleaning services in Dubai, or fishnet stockings, or baby clothes then clearly this has been the place to be.  If you were after quilting, then not so much.

Whilst not blogging or sewing I have continued to homeschool, though thankfully for all concerned that stopped in September when normal schooling returned.  I have also sold a house and bought a house, with only a month between these two events. 

So now here I am, working my way into a new place and trying to rebuild old routines. To which end, here's a pile of fabrics which might become a quilt.  

With reference to an AHIQ challenge which I set many moons ago, I decided that what makes me happy right now is bird fabric and that particularly mucky yellow-green colour,so that's where I have started.  It might be a bit of a bumpy start, since I am out of practice, but fingers crossed...

No scrap left behind

Right down to the wire is customary practice for me now, but this time I can barely see the wire in my rear-view mirror.  Literally every last piece is being utilised and I'm drafting in any extra bits and bobs that catch my eye too.  Blocks I tried and rejected are now a shoo-in for this quilt.  In fact, anything goes if it fills a bit more space.

Here are a few examples: this one has much bigger triangles from the mucky green fabric with the little rows of sprouts.  It's the one thing I still have a lot of, as it was only going into the black hst blocks.  

You can also see triangles pieced from two fabrics...

 here's another one of those...

I have lots of little hourglasses, as a consequence of cutting without reference to a ruler or any form of measurement.  I'm making them bigger, like this one

 or using them in groups, like here.

I'm rather enjoying the challenge.

Coming up for air

I have been sewing.  In tiny moments, here and there.  It doesn't ever feel like much at the time, but I think that when I add it all up it does amount to something.

This is where I am up to with the hourglasses.

It doesn't look like school will be going back before September, so my aim now is to establish a routine that covers all the other stuff but builds in more coherent sewing time.  Sometimes I take this out of the box and can't really recall what I thought I would do next.  That was okay for a while but now it starts to irritate me.  Let's see if I can do better.