My Creative Slump

 I've been in a creative slump for the last few weeks.  I've spent many hours looking for inspiration (time wasting).  I did finish sewing the blocks together for my Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt top.  I can add it to the pile of tops waiting to be quilted.

After spending a few weeks struggling with the blocks for the Orca Bay quilt I'd started, I finally decided that it needed to be put away again.  I've seen many photos of finished Orca Bays on Bonnie Hunter's Facebook feed.  They look really fabulous but I found mine just wasn't going well.  I was getting very frustrated and realised I wasn't enjoying the piecing at all.  An eighth of an inch can seem huge when your triangles aren't matching up like they're supposed to.  I eventually decided that if it was making me unhappy it just wasn't worth working on at the moment.   It made me doubt my abilities and question why I was bothering to sew anything at all.

Once my anxiety took over I found it really hard to focus on any quilt related activity.  I guess thats the down side of not belonging to a quilt group any more, I did enjoy the inspiration I got from stitching with friends.

I have decided to start a new quilt and this churn dash is my first trial block.  I have a gorgeous quilt pinned on my pinterest board thats a churn dash in pinks/reds/oranges I love the colour combo so I'll see how it goes.  I didn't want anything with too many triangles, I'm all triangled out at the moment!

 The last couple of weeks we've had a few visits from these lovely ducks.  I don't know how long ducks live but we've had a couple that have visited us over about the last ten years.  Living next to the wetlands its not such a strange occurrence to have ducks around, they are lovely birds and they do enjoy a swim in the pool.

This was too funny, Ruby sat next to the pool for about 20 minutes absolutely fascinated with the ducks.  I was sure I was going to have to fish her out at some stage, she did get a bit too close to the edge but the ducks weren't worried.  We have been having some very extreme weather lately, terrible winds for days at a time, a day over 30 when its not summer yet and then this week it has been very wintery, cold and raining a lot.  At least we haven't had the dreadful weather they've been having in N.S.W.  It's hard to believe they've had such terrible bush fires this early in the season.

Hopefully next post I'll have some progress to share, progress on anything would be nice.

Happy Stitching,

Debra.

Clue No. 5

Here are my blocks for Easy Street clue No. 5.  I had trouble finding time to do any sewing this week.  I'm sure I'm not the only one in danger of falling behind.  Lucky for us Bonnie made allowances for this happening and when I finally did manage to get my cutting mat back out it didn't take too long to get the pieces cut and then sewn today.  At least I don't have long to wait for the next clue.  Click here to see the progress being made on the East Street Mystery.

I hope everyone had a very happy peaceful Christmas.  I went to my parents house with Jack and Aleisha for Christmas lunch, we had a really nice time together.  I haven't felt very Christmassy this year and didn't really do much decorating at home.  I will have to try and do better next year.

Now that Christmas is over I'm planning to get stuck into some sewing.  The list is long as always I hope I have something to show for my holidays!

Happy Stitching

Debra.

   

Hitting a bump in the road on Easy Street...

This week hasn't gone as I'd planned and I haven't been able to do as much sewing as I'd hoped.  I guess that's bound to happen at some stage. 

I was surprised and disappointed when I came to join my geese together, I thought my geese where looking really good.  When I put them together I realised they weren't as good as I thought and some were quite wobbly.  I sewed the pairs of geese together and then I squared them up so that they measured 31/2" like they were supposed to.  They didn't have to be trimmed very much and they do look better now.  I have a few with missing beaks etc. but I'll let them stay.  I think that's part of the joy of scrap quilts, they don't have to be perfect.  (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

I got these flowers at my work Christmas lunch from the Committee who run the Op Shop.  Aren't they lovely?  The day of the lunch was very hot and I thought the flowers mightn't survive the ride home in the car.  Tomorrow is my last day at work till we close for our Christmas holidays.  I'm very excited about having 3 weeks at home.  I'm looking forward to doing lots of sewing and maybe a bit of scrapbooking and journaling as well.  Of course I always plan to do heaps more than is humanly possible.  Maybe I might manage to finish something!

I put my string blocks back up on my design wall to see how they look.  I finished sewing the corners on another dozen of them on the weekend.  I might start sewing them together so I can get a better idea how many more I want to make.  See how that big black spot in some of the corners really stands out?  I'll make sure they are distributed all over the quilt before I start stitching blocks together.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the next clue for East Street is tomorrow night, must be time to do something with the green fabrics.  If you want to see how the other Easy Street quilters are going just visit Bonnie Hunters blog here.

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Having Fun on Easy Street.

 Hi there, as you can see I'm up to date with clue no. 3 for Easy Street.  As I don't want to make the quilt as big as Bonnie's I'm guestimating the amount of blocks for each step.  I've made 50 of these blocks.  I'm really pleased with the results I'm getting from the 2 rulers Bonnie uses and the colours are combining really well.

I had a fairly quiet weekend and managed to fit in a few hours of sewing.  I made a few more of the scrappy trip around the world blocks.  I managed to catch a bit of Bonnie on Quiltcam.  Her night time quiltcam is afternoon here.  Jack caught me watching on my ipad as I made his lunch, much headshaking and sighing followed.  It's hard being the son of a quilt tragic!

 Today I received half of my black and white order of fabric, gotta love seeing the Aust Post delivery van pull up out the front.  Again more sighing and head shaking from No. 1 Son.  Taking a bit of adjusting to having him home now school's finished. 

I'm really loving these fabrics I ordered from Canton Village Quiltworks.  I don't need to worry about running out of black and whites any time soon!

It was a really lovely sunny day today and not too hot so I decided I might spend a little time stitching outside.  Guess who broke the chair!!!  I had just sat down when the leg broke tipping me and my sewing backwards onto the paving.  I'm very lucky I didn't hit my head, my back was a bit sore, it really gave me a fright.  

A few weeks ago when I set my table up outside to cut some fabric, the leg on the table collapsed.  Now I really need Santa to bring me a new chair.... or maybe I'll stay inside till I lose weight or it's safe to go outside again.

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Crumb sewing and Easy Street

 Hi there,  I've been working on the 2nd clue of Bonnie Hunter's
Easy Street mystery quilt.  I've got about 1/2 the geese sewn.  I'm using the Companion Angle and Easy Angle rulers to cut the triangles for the geese.  Thanks to Bonnie's really good instructions and video I've found they are working really well.  I had tried using the rulers previously and wasn't really happy with my results, it makes a big difference with some clear instructions.  Thanks Bonnie!

I've also been working on a couple of other projects at the same time.  Not such a good thing when I accidently cut my 2 1/2" strips into 2" pieces cause I got mixed up with measurements.  Easy mistake if you're not concentrating on which project you're working on.

 It was really sunny earlier this morning, here's Dougal enjoying some rays.   There are big grey clouds out now, its only going to be 18 degrees today.  A good day to stay inside, I'm hoping to get my christmas decorations put up today.

I received my copy of 15 Minutes of Play by Victoria Findlay Wolfe I've been reading her blog for ages and really love her work.  I decided I'd have a go at using my crumbs to make some blocks, Victoria has a couple of suggestions for sewing "made fabric".  I made these 2 blocks using telephone book pages as foundations.  When I do string piecing I like using foundations.  It was a bit tedious getting all the paper out so I might have a go next just at stitching the fabrics together. 

I thought I'd show you my earliest patchwork fabrics before I cut them up to go into my scrap strip bins.  I bought these fabrics when I had my first patchwork lessons at eighteen which makes them over 30 years old!  Back then I went to a local ladies house to be taught the basics of hand piecing and I made a variety of cushions for my Grandma and my Mum.  I was very keen on brown obviously cause all the cushions were brown!  For some reason I didn't make a quilt, back then I don't remember anyone making lap quilts or wall quilts.  I think the idea of making a full size quilt must have been too daunting so I didn't do any more patchwork until I had my daughter 11 years later.  (Maybe I didn't want a quilt all done in browns).  I do remember driving my Mum and I to look at the local quilt show that was held every year in peoples homes.  Times sure have changed.

Do you still have pieces of your earlies fabrics in your stash?  I wonder what the colours where?

Happy sewing

Debra.

Fabrics for Easy Street

 Hi there, as you can see I've made a bit of progress on my scrappy trip around the world top.  I'm liking the colours of the blocks better, there's a bit more prettiness in the fabrics.  There's more pinks and less yellows which helps I think.  I would really like to add some much brighter fabrics but my challange was to use my old fabrics so I'll keep going with them.  The colours are a lot deeper in real life and I don't think the pattern really shows up much except from a distance.  I've decided I want to make it with 3 pattern repeats square so that means I've got 21 more blocks to go.  That should help eat up all those 2 1/2" strips. 
. 

I had the house to myself over the weekend Jack has gone to Byron Bay for "schoolies" (end of school holiday with his mates).  It has been really great to get my kitchen table back and get all of Jacks study things packed away.  I was able to do some fabric cutting on the table.  I've cut about 3/4s of my older fabrics into strips.  It will be fun to make some more quilts with them.

I decided I wanted to do Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt called

Easy Street.  The colours she has used are lime green, aqua, purple, grey with black and white prints for backgrounds.  I loved her colours, I knew I had plenty of the lime greens and purples but I really didn't think I had much aqua/turquoise or grey.  I surprised myself when I went through my stash that I did have enough aquas, and although I did have greys they were very dirty greys and I decided against using them.  I've gone with orange instead and I'll just have to hope it works out okay.  I like all those colours together so it should be right.  Thats the fun of a mystery right? 

Here is the first clue.  2" strips made into 4 patches.  Instead of greys I've got my orange fabric, it is a good contrast against the black on white background fabrics.  I don't want to make my quilt as big as Bonnie's so I won't be making as many blocks as she did.  There is 71 4 patches so far.  I'm aiming to do as she suggested and make some of each step so I don't get left behind and I will have part of the quilt done at the end.  Last years mystery is still in a box waiting to be finished.  What's another UFO here or there?  Most of the fabrics I've pulled out for this quilt are older ones too so thats a bonus.  I won't count the 8 or 9 metres of black on white prints that I ordered this week to replace the ones I'm using.  Some fabrics are just staples right?

Happy Stitching

Debra. 

 

Scrappy Trip Around the World progress.

Hi there, I'm still busy cutting up my basket of old fabrics.  It's going to take a while to get through them but there's no rush so I do a few every day or so.  I've got so many strips I'll have a headstart on quite a few scrappy quilts.

The photo above shows the blocks I've finished so far for Bonnie Hunters'  Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt.  I'm liking how it is turning out.  I am finding it a bit challenging working with the colours in these older fabrics.  It is an interesting exercise to see if I can "pretty" the blocks up.
. 
Here is the link to the Bonnie Hunter pattern.  Her patterns are very easy to follow with plenty of photos.

I've sorted out a bit more of my stash but I'm not quite finished yet.  I've got a stack of storage boxes in the hallway and I'm still not sure where they are going to go.  Might be a hop skip and a jump to an episode of Hoarders!!  I haven't bought any fabric for about 3 or 4 weeks which is a record for me I'm sure.  I am trying to be good but its not easy.

I went out on Sunday with Tracey and we had a really enjoyable day.  We went to our favourite scrapbooking shop in Mornington and kidded ourselves that we weren't going to buy very much.  We now realise thats an impossibility.  They have so much gorgeous paper and all kinds of creative arty stuff.

It really is hard to find time to do everything I want to do.  I bought a nice selection of supplies (I do realise the money I didn't spend on fabric I spent on art supplies) hahaha. Then because it was 2.30 and we hadn't had lunch we decided to stop at Lintons Nursery on the way home for lunch and a look around.  There were lots of people out enjoying the lovely day.  The cafe was very popular and our lunch was really good.  We had a wander around outside and admired the plants then spent quite a while inside where there is a really great selection of homewares and lovely gifty things.  I did manage to resist buying anything, there were lots of things I would have liked though.  Remembering I should be downsizing helps.

That's all for now its getting late and I have work tomorrow.

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Scrappy Quilts

Hi there,

I've had a busy couple of weeks but I have managed to fit in some stitching.  This scrappy quilt is one of my favourites.  It is one of my early ones and uses a lot of the fabrics that I have just cleaned out of my stash.  I still haven't quite finished my cleanout that I started 2 weeks ago...

 Here is Jack at his
Valedictory dinner, he received 3 awards I was very proud of him.  It was a lovely night, Jack has really enjoyed his time at school.  We went out for tea tonight to celebrate most of his exams being over.  His art exam is next 
Thursday then thats it.  I'm hoping I might find some more time to sew while he's away on holidays. 

Here's what I cleared out of my stash, the fabric on the chair went to the op shop.  I'm going to cut up the piles on my ironing board and use them for more scrap quilts.  I'm ironing them first so it is going to take me a while to get these all cut up.

There are a couple of quilts I want to start making using these scraps.  I've started Bonnie Hunters Scrappy Trips Around the World.  It should use up quite a few of my 2.5 inch strips.  It is a bit strange cause I've gotten used to using my bright fabrics and these will be very different.  I might get some photos taken for next time.

Till then Happy Sewing,

Debra.

Hand Quilting and growing veggies.

I can't believe September's over already, so here is my final post for the 1 hour a day stitching challenge that Bonnie Hunter here was hosting. 

I didn't make it last week cause I worked a full week, I usually only work 2 days so my routine was out the window.  Needless to say I missed a couple of days of stitching.  I did try to make up the time when I could so I think I did fairly well. 

Because this quilt is so large I hadn't spread it out to check on my progress since I started in the first week of September.  I was surprised today to see that I've got half the blocks quilted.  To tell you the truth I was a tiny bit disappointed as I'd hoped I might have been close the finishing them all. 

I tried to get a close up of the quilting pattern in the hourglass blocks, it doesn't really show up very well though.  I have to mark the rest of the blocks using the quilting template, not my favorite part of the process.

I'm not very happy with some of the quilting, some of the straight lines look like the thread has pulled too tight and there are a few wrinkles in the wrong places but I hope when it is finished and gets washed it should look better.

I'm going to try to keep up the quilting, it will still be a couple of months till the weather heats up so I should by able to get a lot more done.

I decided I wanted to try growing some herbs and vegetables.  I'm no gardener but I really would like to be able to pick some fresh herbs to use when I'm cooking and some salad veggies would be great over summer.  I didn't want to get too carried away to start with so I bought some Coriander and Continental Parsley and a Tomato plant and one Strawberry plant, and some Cat Grass.  I thought the cats can have a special plant of their own, they're supposed to like eating it.

My parents came over yesterday and my Dad helped me plant the seedlings and gave me lots of advice on gardening it was very helpful.  I'm going back to get another couple of plants tomorrow.  We had big discussions about snails and Dad insisted that the sugar straw would keep them away cause they don't like crawling on it.  It worked last night I went out about 4 times during the night and there was no sign of snails but earlier on tonight I went out to find a snail in the middle of the Coriander and a slug in there as well.  There was another slug and a couple of snails on their way over.  I don't want to lose my plants before they've had a chance to grow.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I was very excited, this flower on my Strawberry plant appeared after I brought it home it is very pretty.

I'm hoping I might find time tomorrow to mark the rest of the blocks on my pink lemonade quilt, if I'm not on snail duty.!!

Happy Stitching,

Debra.

Hand quilting challenge update

I'm enjoying the hand quilting challenge that Bonnie Hunter  started.  It has been a week and we are supposed to show our progress.  My blogging skills are still a bit dodgy so I will do my best to link to Bonnies post, just can't guarantee I'll get it right.

 As I explained in my last post the back of my quilt got stained in an unfortunate incident during a teenagers sleepover.  You can see above the size of the stain, it is quite large.

 I decided that before I did any more quilting I needed to fix the stained backing.  Luckily I hadn't quilted that area so I'm hoping it will look ok when it's all done. 

I used four different fabrics for the backing, this piece is used on one edge of the quilt.  Luckily I still had the fabric and I'm pretty sure it's not going to look out of place.  I decided to cut away the stained fabric then applique the patch over the hole.  It took about 2 hours but it still counts as handwork and if I hadn't joined this challenge it might never have got done.

Its not easy to get a good photo of the quilting, I've done more straight lines and some more of the motifs.

I have decided to have a go at quilting without a hoop.  I watched an episode of The Quilt show online that demonstrated the technique.  My quilt was already basted fairly closely so it should work out okay.  I've found it much easier than using a hoop and I don't think you can see any difference with my stitches.  It sure helps when quilting such a big quilt. 

I think my total hours so far has been 12 which includes tonight.  I'm very happy that I'm making progress, thanks Bonnie!

Debra.

Hand quilting challenge

 I've just been reading Bonnie Hunter's post on doing an hour of handwork during September to coincide with it being Sewing month.  Bonnie has challenged her readers to join her in working on an old project you might have hanging around.

This quilt has been waiting many years to be finished, I've had it sitting in my bedroom all winter waiting for me to do some more hand quilting on it.  As I've missed winter and we've moved onto spring maybe I better get a move on.

I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it, bought the book and knew straight away that I had to make it.  The book is called Pink Lemonade and Other Delights by Linda Johnson and this quilt on the cover was called Pink Lemonade.  At the time I'd made special quilts that I hand quilted for my Mums 60th Birthday and my Brother In Laws wedding present.  I decided that as I was 38 I could start a special quilt for my own 40th birthday.  I felt 2 years was a  reasonable amount of time to finish it.  Hahaha.  I think I'd started the quilting by the time I turned 40 and now as I edge towards 50 it is definitely time to try finish it.

There have been quite a few obstacles along the way and I think I've learnt some very valuable lessons as well.  One important lesson is don't leave anything you're working on folded up in the corner of the lounge room when your teenage daughter has a sleepover with 10 of her closest friends.  I discovered after the sleepover that someone had spilt coca cola on the back of my quilt!!  It was such a dilema I wasn't sure what to do, it was partly quilted but the stained part was only basted.  The fabric wasn't prewashed or the cotton batting either.  I decided  to leave it in the too hard basket and now that its well and truly set I'm going to cut stained piece of backing off and applique a new piece on.  Luckily stain didn't get to the front of the quilt.

 My other important lesson was don't mark quilting lines on quilts late at night.  I was trying to mark lines for cross hatching in middle applique block, never realised before I started how tricky that could be.  I came close to ruining the centre block because I was using pencil and realised my lines were going to be crooked.  I was determined it wouldn't beat me but after 2am is not a good time to be doing it!!

 This is such a large quilt 87 3/4" x 87 3/4" that I found it very challenging to quilt by hand.  Don't think I want to make quilts this big again.  It seems to be a pet magnet too, they all want to sit on it when I work on it.

I still love it though so I would really love to get it finished.  I found the hour glass blocks were a bit tedious to quilt, I'm looking forward to getting to the borders and doing them.  More cross hatching though, does anyone have a fool proof way of marking cross hatching??

Maybe by the end of September I'll be well on the way to finishing!!

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Cupcake Party

Hi there, I had a very enjoyable afternoon today.  Harry and I were invited by a friends daughter Emily to a cupcake party to raise money for the RSPCA.  

 It is the first time Harry has met another Spoodle,  after a wary introduction  they were soon running around playing and having a great time.   That's Harry on the left and Max on the right.  All four dogs had a great time running around playing.  It was very entertaining, they were all very cute to watch.

Max didn't want to share the water bowl with anyone else.  Isn't he adorable?  On the right are Bailey, a very handsome Cockerspaniel cross and Sparky, Emily's Pugalier.  Sparky sure lives up to her name, she's non stop run run run.

Here are the lovely cupcakes Emily made for afternoon tea.  I had a chocolate choc chip cupcake it was delicious.  I never met a choc chip I didn't like!

One of Emily's friends wins the award for most interesting pet, she brought along her six month old Ferret.  She was really quite cute, if a bit hard to photograph in her cage.  She couldn't come out of her cage cause Max got really scared when she first arrived and barked for about 15 minutes.

 At one stage Harry fell into the garden, he might have been pushed....

 Last night I finally got the last 2 sides of the inner border sewed on.  What do you think?  It's only taken me about 4 months to get this far with this border.

This morning I had a very exciting time.  I was checking out my facebook page and saw that Bonnie Hunter had her webcam on and was streaming live while she sewed.  I'm sure everyone is familiar with Bonnie and her Quiltville site.  She has only been streaming live for a week and I didn't know if I was ever going to see it. 

Yes, I am a total quilt nerd!!

I spent the rest of the morning watching Bonnie sew while I sewed along as well.  Luckily I had trimmed more of my string blocks last night so I stitched the white and black corners onto them.  Here they are on my design wall below.

The absolute highlight of my morning was when Bonnie had a break for a few minutes I sent her a comment on her Quiltville blog.  When she came back and stopped stitching for a few moments she read out and answered a few of the comments.  I was watching when she read my comment out!!  It was so cool and so amazing.  I'm in my sewing room in Melbourne Australia and she's in her sewing room in North Carolina America and she's reading out loud something I wrote minutes earlier.  The internet is awesome!!!

I just love her scrap quilts and her whole quilting philosophy.  She is incredibly generous with her ideas and has a lot of fabulous patterns you can use on her website.  I got her latest book in the mail last week and there are a few quilts calling my name.

Must go now, I think bed is calling my name.


Bye for now,

Debra.