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.

Slow Progress.

 Hi there, I have been making progress on a few of my projects.  I finally got my Scrappy Trips laid out.  I've made more blocks than I'll need but any extras will be great for the backing. 

On the weekend I finally got my sewing table sorted out so that I could start machine quilting a quilt.  This quilt has been basted for about 2 years.  I just couldn't decide how it needed to be quilted.  I think I've figured it out, diagonal lines and maybe double horizontal lines.  It's not the type of quilting I enjoy doing, I'd rather be doing free motion but I don't think it will suit this design.  If I ever get it finished I'll take a photo.  

As we all know the minute a quilt comes out so do the cats.  I'd only done one row of stitching when Ruby plonked herself in the middle of the quilt putting an end to any more quilting for the night.

I've been making slow progress on my Jubilee quilt.  I'm up to the applique border but its taken me ages to decide what I was doing with it.  I'm appliquing my initials on one side of the vase and the year will be on the other.  I'm not sure if the initials are too big.  I think I might have to shrink them down a bit.  Applique seemed like a good idea but it's taken me a very long time to get my ideas sorted out.

These photos were taken in the shade, it's been hot here again.  The colour is a bit washed out.  This is the longest summer ever, we've nearly had 1 month of Autumn and the heat just hasn't stopped.  We have some cooler weather forcast for the end of the week, I can't wait.

Happy Stitching

Debra.

A glimpse of Easy Street

 Here is a photo of the lovely canvas work picture that my Mum made for me for my 50th birthday.  The colours are much richer in real life.  I had no idea that she was making this and I really love it.

 I have finished the blocks for my Easy Street quilt.  I laid them out today to pin them for stitching together.  I'm glad I decided to do the 9 blocks instead of 16.  If I add a border I will still want to be able to quilt it myself.  I like how the top is looking so far, I need to start looking in my stash for a suitable border fabric. I was disappointed I missed the deadline for the last link up on Bonnies blog, there are some really gorgeous versions on the link up.click here to see the link ups for Easy Street.

  I'm back at work now, those 3 weeks flew by way too fast. 

I realised that it is over a year since I've done any machine quilting, mainly because I have a quilt basted that I just couldn't figure out how I wanted to quilt it.  I seem to have a lot of projects that come to a halt when I get stuck.  I'm hoping this year I might get a few of these projects finished.  I was disappointed that I didn't finish my Jubilee quilt in time for my birthday.  That is another quilt that came to a halt cause I couldn't decide on the applique borders.  I'm tempted to forget about the applique and do a pieced border.  My main problem is that although I can envision what I want to draw I have no artistic ability.  I've spent many hours trying to draw the shapes I want and searching the web for help.  I think it is time to admit defeat and give up on cats and dogs frolicking through a vine and just have a vine and a flower or two.  Time to get on with it!

I haven't been able to lay out my Scrappy Trip around the World blocks for a while, my design wall has size limitations.  Here it is on a queen size bed, I think I need 13 more blocks to finish it.  I pinned a whole heap of them together last night so I'll be able to keep working on these too.

Till next time,

Happy Stitching


Debra.x

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. 
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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.