New FO - A Trio for June

It's JUNE....even if I am a bit flat, there is still so much to love about June. The weather is just the way I like it..........COOL! (Actually a bit COLD over the weekend)...and it is also that time of year when the Quilters Trail is happening.  The last two Wednesdays saw me and my like minded friends travelling all over South East Queensland visiting shops, learning some new techniques and picking up free patterns.  We visited the same shops as we did last year which you can read about here and here. .............If you want to

click the pic to find more NewFOs at Cat Patches

 With so many ideas and patterns floating around I thought it would be a good idea to get started on some of them and so here are my NewFO's for the month (note the plural NewFO's)

Firstly, while we were at Heavenly Patchwork in Clontarf,  Lisa introduced us to the EXPLODING BLOCK by doing a quick demo with a layer cake.  There were no handouts so I wrote down the name of the block to google when I got home.  You can find the YouTube video from the Missouri Quilt Co HERE.  I didn't have a layer cake handy so pulled together some fat quarters and gave it a go.

This is one of the easiest blocks you will ever come accross and so quick to sew up.......if you haven't heard of this one......go and take a look.

I haven't had many days at home since I started this so here is what I have so far. It is the sort of thing you want to start putting on the design board as soon as they are sewn.

This won't be a very big quilt but please note how different it is from my usual colour scheme of blues.

My next start this month was a little stitchery pattern that I picked up at The Country Quilt Co in North Ipswich.  This is a lovely little shop set up in an old Queenslander house with lots of inspirational quilt and stitchery samples hung up on the walls.  When I saw this Teddlywinks stitchery, I just had to have it.

It came in handy this week when I went along to my 2 chat and sew groups because I didn't have any work to take along except this preprinted pattern so all I had to do was pick up a needle, some thread and scissors.  EASY! It will be my chat and sew project until it is finished.

 I mentioned that we were given some free patterns on the Quilters Trail and Marilyn came up with the idea that we ( with Lorraine, Zita and I) should get together to try one of them out.  We picked the Mug holder and spent the morning trawling through the instructions and preparing all the pattern pieces..........so many pattern pieces!

I had problems from the start.....the pattern requirements were two fat quarters but I couldn't get all my pattern pieces out of the fat quarters without piecing some bits together, then I wasn't paying  attention and accidently cut a notch out of my main fabric. I was not sold enough of the compressed fleece so had to borrow some from Marilyn........at least we could giggle about it all. We stopped for lunch and then started sewing  the project, step by step, together.  The instructions (with pictures) had lots of mistakes and were so hard to follow but we muddled along until we got to the part where you have to insert the compressed fleece pieces and then it all fell to pieces as we all found the pieces too big to fit together.

We all persevered and top stitched the wadding into their sections but I just knew it wasn't going to work when I had finished.  Zita's wasn't too bad but Marilyn and I had the same problems (so it wasn't just me). By this time I also realised that there were problems with my machines tension again so, even though we had a wonderful social day sewing together, when I got home I started reverse sewing and removed the wadding pieces. I trimmed them up a bit until I was happier with their fit and redid the top stitching.....still not perfect but so much better.

Then I got to the strap........oh, dear! I just couldn't manage this. My sewing machine couldn't handle the thickness of the fleece and the strap was so narrow that the feed dogs couldn't grip it.....when I broke a needle, I gave up so there will not be a handle for my Mug Noodlebox.

I was planning to add this finish to my gift drawer but I have since changed my mind and I will definitely not be making this again.