FNWF - Got there in the end!

I really wanted to spend the DAY stitching.....you already know where I am going with this....it is a recurrent problem......darn hormones! I was not the only one under the weather.  Lila, my sweet puppy girl wasn't feeling herself either, much more subdued than normal and she has spent the whole day in her bed. She is still eating and isn't vomiting or got any bowel motion issues (I think I put that quite delicately, don't you?) but I am keeping an eye on her anyway. As for myself I have spent most of the day moping around while nursing a headache, residue from a migraine I had on Wednesday night, but when it got close to 3pm, I decided it was time for us both to get some fresh air so we all headed off for a, shorter than usual, walk. And would you know, it worked......headache gone!

On returning I was sure I could squeeze some block preparation in before needing to feed those at home on a Friday night and then I would start making some more blocks for the exploding block quilt that is on my design wall at the moment.

Looking at it there, it seems to be mostly pink and orange, so I will add the yellow and I also hope some green will balance it out a bit more.  I picked a green fabric from my stash that isn't part of the FQ range selected for this project but I think it will work.

I had to stop for teatime......you gotta feed them when they are hungry.....and then got around to sewing some more. I am so glad I got there in the end and stitched with everyone else.

The quilt has grown but it is too dark to photograph my design wall now so I will snap a shot tomorrow before blogging this post.

So here it is.  I am not sure I like the colours butted straight up together like that so I am going to add another round. Here is one I made earlier with an extra round. What do you think?

Now for my favourite bit.....heading off to see what everyone else got up to. Click on the button to take you to Cheryll's place at Gone Stitchin'

I Read This....About Kings and Queens

There may not have been a whole lot of sewing going on in my neck of the woods over the last month but I think I eased the reading drought.

Here are a couple novels I can add to my Shelfari bookcase as read

During May I read UNEASY LIES THE HEAD by Jean Plaidy.  This book follows the life of Henry VII and his Plantaganet Queen, Elizabeth. I had watched the TV Mini Series, The White Queen, adapted from Phillipa Gregory's novels so reading this book seemed like the next step in the saga.

I had already half read this book but soon realised that I needed to start again, thinking I would be able to skip bits and quickly catch up to where it was bookmarked but found I remembered very little so reread it all. The book also follows the young King Henry VIII as he grew up in the Royal Nursery. I really enjoyed this book and was really keen to get my hands on another Jean Plaidy novel.

This time I picked up a novel about the life of King John Plantaganet. THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS by Jean Plaidy. What a thouroughly nasty, vindictive king he was.  Self indulgent and taking pleasure in other people's misery made him an extremely unpopular king. He ditched his first wife to marry a 12 year old girl whom he abducted from the home of her betrothed.  He was so besotted with the girl, spending all day in bed, he neglected his Kingdom and King Philip II of France took advantage of this and reclaimed French land belonging to the English Throne. Philip was poised to invade England as well but the Pope stepped in and John was able to hang on to his crown.

This was the first time I had read about this earlier family of Plantaganets and I really want to get my hands on the other novels in this series that follow John's brother, Richard Lionheart and his father, Henry II.

I can never read these historical novels without getting waylaid by people or events in history and usually have a pile of historical refererence books on my bedside table as well just so I can relate to the true facts surrounding them.  

And believe it or not, a map of London to find the areas that I am reading about. My trusty little travel map is very helpful. Of course it has all changed so much since those days but many areas have names relating to the old sites like Moorgate [Tube station], for example, which was the name of one of the gates of the walls once surrounding the City of London.

For now I think I have satisfied my thirst for historical knowledge of my homeland and my next book will take me on a very different journey.

 

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.

FNWF did not go as planned

I really needed a little Friday night sewing this week......but it was not to be!

First, my plans of starting sometime in the afternoon were thwarted by a visit to the Dentist (forgot to factor that one in), then some shopping for the long weekend. I just got home and was grabbing some lunch when I got the "mum's taxi" call out so off I went to collect my pick-up. While there, the two-who-share-a-house mentioned they were going camping in opposite directions for the weekend but neither of them had thought about what would happen with Clover so I arranged to collect her later when I did the return taxi run.  Of course, I only just got home in time for the daily dog walk with my own girls and then the usual evening routine follows that.

So, eventually, I had got myself settled for a bit of R&R with needle and thread in front of the ABC (my very fav Friday Night viewing) with a yummy BIG cup of hot chocolate.

when Hubby came in to say he had the pick up call from the train station.  I had to go with him because I couldn't leave him to handle Clover in the car on his own. It was not a quick in and out trip......the times were wrong so we had to wait an extra 20 minutes for the train to get in and by the time we got home with little miss Clover, I was over it. She is worth it though......just look at this photo I snapped this morning.........Isn't RED just her colour?

Needless to say, I didn't sew a stitch but as I was sitting idle in the train car park, I thought of you all being very industrious with your own needle and thread. All is not lost, I did make some progress on my Bric-a-Brac this week so I still have something to show.

I will be popping along shortly to Cheryll's blog, Gone Stitchin' to catch up with those who most likely managed a stitch or two more than me.  Why don't you join me?

Click pic to find link

Mid Week Catch-Up - The Mystery

Today was the first Wednesday of the month and that means that I joined my usual posse - Marilyn, Zita, Lorraine and Helen - for a morning of sewing on our mystery quilts.

Miss Pfaff  was a dream machine and behaved herself like a pro .unlike last month, but I was the one not much in the mood for sewing today.  I had a dull headache and so only managed to sew one and a half of my 2 prepared blocks.  I am still not sure if the second block works but I am not really bothered today. Perhaps I will look at it again tomorrow.

 

Even my photographs are a little "off" today!

Only one more block to go and then I will be sashing them and adding a border before I fmq it on my handi quilter.  The other girls are making 3 more blocks for their quilts and they will be doing a quilt as you go method. 

Weekend Roundup

What a great feeling it is to release a quilt from the Handi Quilter frame! I agonise over the quilting for weeks because my confidence is still not up there. I scour Pinterest for ideas which are definitely within my skills range and if you do follow me on Pinterest.....apologies for pinning so much regards FMQ. While I was doing this, I came up with an idea that would help me come up with a fmq plan as well as practise the design.

Here is my tip: I photocopy some parts of my quilt (black & white is more economical) and then I start filling in the designs with a Frixion Pen - this is the lower left corner of the quilt. If I mess it up or am not happy with what I have drawn, I go to the ironing board and.....hey Presto....the heat removes the pen marks in seconds and I am left with the blank paper "quilt" to  re-hash the design again . This quilt had two main areas of quilting.....the borders and the applique blocks.

With my design decided upon, I got to pinning the quilt into the frame. If you are not familiar with the Handi Quilter frame system, the backing and bottom end of the flimsy is pinned on to the leaders and then you baste the wadding and top end of the flimsy to the backing. (gosh, I hope that makes sense) Basting the top to the sandwich is an endless source of frustration for me.  The man who instructed me to do this showed me a method that I just couldn't get right and everytime I have to do it,  I unpick and sew several times only to find it puckering as I quilt. GRRRRRRR!

Well, I am going to get it right if it kills me! Back to the internet where I found an official Handi Quilter tutorial on loading the quilt. The instructor suggests pinning the quilt at regular intervals and then basting it using the Manual function rather than the Regulated......well HE didn't mention THAT!
Guess what.....It Worked! 

Don't you love these pins I used to anchor the fabric. I got them for my birthday.  I'm sorry, I am not sure I can exactly remember who sent them.....but I LOVE them so it's a big Thank You to whoever sent them.

Design planned, quilt loaded and threads chosen. Cream for the blocks and matching blue for the sashing and border. I briefly thought of using the variagated blue but went with the solid in the end.

And so to the quilting.....

I used that planned curly ball design on the first applique block but then decided to try something else

This is apparantly known as McTavishing......not bad for a first try, without practise. But is took so long so maybe something a bit quicker.

so a few blocks have this loop-de-loop and some have McTavishing and some have the curly balls. I stuck to the sashing design but I did mark the quilt so it looked a little more uniform

I also marked the borders to fit the design in but in hindsight, I wish I had not made the marks so far apart. The design looks better closer together as in my plan.

and lastly, the flower to fill in the corner of each border and just so you know I decided not to go with those little pebbles in the narrow pink border.

Far from perfect but that doesn't worry me! I unpicked and redid the bits that worried me. Now it will be put to one side for a couple of weeks as I want to try something with ric-rac for the binding and I need to go shopping for that.

Because this project is technically a BOM that I started way back in 2010, I am linking in to

click pic to find link

and also ,because this is almost the end of an unfinished WIP,  I am linking in to:

click pic to find link