F²F² September round up

It’s been a patriotic sort of colour month this September.

Moira’s colour scheme of red, blue and gold with a white or cream background has produced a fascinating collection of designs for her American Hero Quilts. We’re all past the post in time this month, and it’s a great set of blocks for Moira’s good work on behalf of US service people.

Head over to the new F²F² gallery page to see the range, it’s really impressive. Scroll all  the way to the bottom, new images are added at the end.

October is my month, woo hoo! I’m very excited to see what everyone comes up with for my Dark Navy/Hot Pink/Bright Orange colour scheme.  For inspiration, take a look at my images on the members’ colours page – the brighter the better, as far as I’m concerned🙂.  I’ll be adding the photos of everyone’s work as usual, so please send them to me as you get them done – the pleasure of seeing what’s coming will outweigh any small lack of surprise. I dearly love a squishie, and now there’s going to be a whole bunch on the way!

Till the next time…

The other sort of travel kit

In just over 3 weeks, we’ll be hitting the road north.

The Husband and I, Miss Scarlett and her trailer are off on a camping trip. We’re heading first for Townsville for a couple of days and then for Atherton, up on the cool tablelands above Cairns, in Far North Queensland. Into our newly refurbished motorbike trailer will go tent, camp bed, chairs, lamps, basic cooking equipment and food, bedding, water, fuel and other bulky necessities. Clothes and personal kit will go in the bike panniers, top box and tank pack. It’ll be warm, so warm clothes aren’t needed, but we’ll definitely have the waterproofs along, given that it’s spring and we’re coming into the Wet.

Somewhere in that lot, I’m going to need some sewing. What – you thought I could go on holiday without sewing? Some mistake, surely…

Clearly, it will be hand sewing, and given that we’re camping I can’t pack my super-duper LED magnifying lamp, so the embroidery’s out. So yes, you guessed it, time for hexies once more. BIG hexies.

I have a pack of large hexie papers, and a lot of lovely large pieces of scrap left over from the Hatbox Quilt blocks, and some of these will fit in with what I have in mind. I’ll need lots of 5 inch squares of my floral prints, mid to pale colour palette, and at various scales. The hexie flowers will have a dark centre, either navy or black. Some will have all the same petals, others will vary. At night, when accuracy will be hard, I can assemble hexies. During the day (assuming I get any down time off the bike!) I can stitch the hexies into flowers. I’ll stop short of trying to sew flowers together; I need to keep the kit small and manageable, given how much space is available.

I’ve no idea yet what these will be for, but I’m sure there’s a hexie quilt of some description in my future.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival: time to vote!

Me again…

Just to remind you that all the entries are in and voting is now open, so if you’d like to vote for The Cloths of Heaven quilt I posted about 5 days ago, and the Bookcase Quilt 4 days ago, now’s your chance.

You can go to this post, or you can click on the logo button below. Once you’re there, go to the Original Design Quilts category for The Cloths of Heaven, or the Small Quilts category for the Bookcase Quilt, and find the familiar image to vote.

There’s loads of brilliant work there to enjoy, and plenty of inspiration in all the categories.

Go on, get clicking on those little corner hearts and voting. It doesn’t have to be for me!

Keeping my nose clean*

On long, quiet evenings when the Husband is on night shift, I often cast around for something to do, mostly to keep myself out of the biscuit tin (cookie jar).

In this situation, there’s a strong tendency on my part to get into mischief (snacking, rearranging furniture, ‘tidying’ things that I should have left well alone…) unless I keep busy with legitimate projects. So I’ve made myself some handkerchiefs. I showed you the fabrics a while ago, and expressed the intention of doing so, but like so many things, it fell by the wayside of more interesting or urgent projects. Last night, lacking the Husband’s company and any other undemanding sewing project, I got out the lawn fat quarters I’d acquired, cut 12 inch squares, and got cracking.

I do like a narrow hem and mitred corner on a hankie, and these lovelies have them, thanks to careful scoring/creasing and corner trimming. The creasing of the fold lines really is key to producing a nice tidy mitre. I’ve also found managing the narrow (¼ inch) hem and sewing line 1/16 of an inch from the fold is considerably easier if you use a walking foot. I could probably have bought hankies for a fraction of what I paid for the fabric, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun, and I wouldn’t have ended up with the lovely scraps.

Now all I have to do is wait for an opportunity to give them a test drive. Shame nose-blowing season is over in the Southern Hemisphere… gloat, gloat😉

*Slang for staying out of trouble, in case English isn’t your first language!

SAL 35: Halfway through the alphabet

Yup, I’m half done with the letters.

That’s no indication of how far I’ve got with the whole thing, mind you! Lots of frivolity and exuberance still to come… But amidst work on the trailer, work on the Grey Nomad quilt, work on my Tiny Picks top, and landing a new Gluten Free Bakery customer and cranking out lots of samples, I did manage to get a measly two two whole letters finished

Where we were before.

And where we are now.

And as always, the other lovely ladies in the SAL will also have something nice to show you, so do hop over there to take a look. Don’t forget about the difference in time zones; if you’re seeing me first, you may need to drop in to theirs a bit later to give them a chance to get their posts up. Not everyone posts every time, but there’ll still be something worth seeing there.

Avis at http://sewingbesidethesea.wordpress.com
Claire at http://claire93.wordpress.com
Gun at http://rutigt.wordpress.com
Carole at http://aslightobsessionwithbooks.wordpress.com
Wendy at http://thecraftersapprentice.blogspot.co.uk
LucyAnn at https://lucyannluna.wordpress.com
Jess at https://everthecrafter.wordpress.com
Sue at http://sewingmagpie.blogspot.com
Constanze at https://textiledreamer.wordpress.com
DebbieRose at https://sewrosey.wordpress.com
Christina at https://petalsandpins.wordpress.com
Susan at http://susanpblog.wordpress.com
Kathy at https://livinginrapidcity.wordpress.com

See you next time, on 16 October!

Let’s go round again

Today is my third anniversary with WordPress.

We all know that blogging can be a thing of transient tastes and enthusiasm. I tend to think long and hard before following, because that blogger and all her/his works will become part of my daily routine, and it seems rude, somehow, to simply jump off the carousel if I get bored! I have unfollowed, but only a few, when it became clear that our tastes, ideas or opinions were beginning to diverge too much.

My following figures have grown slowly and gently, sometimes decreasing, mostly increasing, a few at a time, and I am content. I feel no great need to push for an increase.

Of my nearly 400 followers, some are still with me since the beginning, and have become old friends. Some are more recent (only two years, instead of three!), and are also now good friends, but I thought I’d acknowledge the ones with true staying power🙂

So here we go, the 9 oldest and still active followers. They’re a varied bunch, but I hope you find something to enjoy there, as I do. Click on the links to go and see what they’re all up to.

https://gwenniesgarden.wordpress.com

https://newboudoir.wordpress.com

https://wombatquilts.com

https://thesnailofhappiness.com

https://gardenerjen.wordpress.com

https://thetialys.wordpress.com

https://thepinkrosebakery.com

http://www.modflowers.co.uk

https://buzyday.com

Blogger’s Quilt Festival: entry 2

I hadn’t planned to show a second one, but after Ann reminded me about this quilt I changed my mind!

Another entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival for 2016, which you can check out by clicking on the link, or on the button to the left. This one is the Bookcase Quilt. Although it’s another original design, I already have one there, and this one is just small enough to fit into the Small Quilt category in the Festival.

This quilt was made for a niece who’s living and working in Australia just now, having fallen in love with the place on a previous visit. She has a wonderful blog called The Unlikely Bookworm, and writing, books and reading form such a huge part of her life that the theme for a quilt for her was a total no-brainer. I’ve managed to incorporate a number of her own possessions into the finished quilt, as well as book titles she’d read as part of the BBC Big Read. If you zoom in a lot on the image, you’ll be able to read titles on the orange and white ‘Penguin paperback’ spines. Obviously, the design has evolved between the fairly dull paper original and the end result🙂

This little 60 inch square quilt is intended to have an interesting life; on her bed, on her lap, on the beach, on picnics, and perhaps sometimes doing duty as a yoga mat. Already it has kept her cosy in her first chilly Sydney winter…