In my Sewing Room

Happy Halloween to those that celebrate, we don't but we use to. Our daughter's birthday is 31st October, so of course all birthdays growing up were Halloween themed. I still put up the bunting and a flag I bought in the USA some years ago, and this year we have a flag pole to put it on.

With a visitor staying the past few weeks, not a lot of sewing happened. I have just finished a quick applique onto a sweater (granddaughters word - I call it a jumper 😊) for my granddaughters Halloween costume for a school charity event. Tuesday is going to be 34 degrees here (93F) and she will be wearing a 'sweater'. The Character is Mabel Pines - a Disney Character apparently.

October's Rainbow Scrap Colour is neutrals. I really did not have time to even get our the scraps and start, so I simply carried on with the aqua blocks from September.

In the past three weeks I was only able to complete Block 5 of Moda blockheads5 - Southern Star designed by Jenelle Kent. I'm 2 blocks behind now and a new pattern will be released on Thursday (my time) I really like the way the purple blocks are turning out.

The Christmas picnic quilt and bunting will also look great.

This last week I started Bonnie Hunter's new sew along - Star of Hope. I'm not sure what I will make, or who I will give it to ..... that's something to think about in the future.

Link Up Parties: 

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

Peacock Party 

 

 

Chilhowie Mystery Quilt Nearing Completion

So happy to be at the quilting stage of Chilhowie Mystery Quilt, designed by Bonnie Hunter. I look forward to making the mystery quilt every year. This quilt is for another granddaughter, who has a birthday is coming up.

Bonnie has named it Chilhowie after a town in Virginia. The name Chilhowie is a Cherokee word meaning 'Valley of the Deer. The original colours of the pattern were the colours of the Chilhowie area.

I used all the same colours suggested except for one. I replaced the orange suggested with pink. I thought with orange it may look more like a Halloween quilt. I do really try to stay away from pink, purple and teal/aqua quilts as I have so many, but the colours look beautiful together.

I made only half the number of pieces the pattern said to make as I wanted a smaller quilt. A few steps in we were to make sets - I knew then that making half wouldn't work so I started making half plus one. That gave me the right number to make a smaller quilt.

The top is all done and I have pinned the 3 layers together to start the quilting this weekend. I even have the label ready to go on.

Link Up Parties: 

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

Peacock Party 

Beauty Pagents

Happy New Year : Recent Sewing.

Happy New Year! A tradition in our family is to watch the Sydney Fireworks from where ever we are. They never disappoint.

The biggest achievement was finishing Briars quilt. A quilt that I English Paper Pieced  the top, and machine quilted the finished quilt. It is now, almost, in England with my darling granddaughter Briar. The pattern, Paper Lanterns was from Sue Daly, and was released during lock down - yes, that's when I started it. I love this quilt and will make it again, in different colours. I feel the flowers around the centre are too busy.

With overseas family staying with us for the month of December, I didn't spend a lot of time in the sewing room. I did, however attempt to catch up with Focus Cutting Sewalong - not all caught up yet, but getting there - AND the new Focus Cutting Sewalong is starting next week.

Block 36 and 37 was the remember Queen Elizabeth II. Block 38 was posted last blog, or the one before.

October theme was cotton, an interesting topic. 39, the earliest cotton.

 40 was for World Mental Health Day. I like to use hand sewing as one of my mindfulness activities.

Block 41 - World Cotton Day -what better way to depict world cotton day but with fashion.

Block 42 - precious cotton. All my fabric is precious, and this fabric I now have very little of, so I guess it is more precious.

Block 43 is the the brightest cotton, well I have a lot of bright fabrics.

I have also been working on Bonnie Hunters 2022 Mystery, Chilhowie. Keeping that for next time.

Link Up Parties: 

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

Peacock Party 

Messy House Catch Up December

I like this time of the year - Christmas and Bonnie Hunter's Mystery. A few years ago we would always have Christmas on the Bellinger River. Being the middle of Summer it would always be a cold yummy lunch - that we would graze on all day. The mystery quilt would be sewn before and after Christmas day, with a view of the river.

This year is different for EVERYONE! We will still have a lovely cold seafood lunch and a hot Christmas Eve chicken dinner, but the sewing view will probably be a view of Netflix 😏.

The last few weeks has been all about Grassy Creek Mystery, although I am not using green, so may have to change the name. Clue one was to be grey and gold - I used grey and aqua.

Clue two was fun and easy to make. It was suppose to be gold, neutral and green. As I had changed my gold to aqua, the greens didn't really go together, so I changed that to purple. I really am trying hard not to use pink - getting out of my comfort zone.

Then along came clue 3 and more neutral with red and orange. What to do. The red is good with the colours I've changed but I wasn't so sure about the orange so had to audition all the different oranges I had with the clues already made. I had used most of my neutrals on clue 2 so a trip to buy more white on white fabric. Of course I bought more than the whites, got some more aquas, reds and some lovely panels. I had to unpick a whole section because I made a mistake - oops! After a few night sleep thinking about whether to use orange or green or a different colour I decided the orange would be okay with what I have.

Now to move onto clue 4 this weekend.

I have been posting each week, but now that we can freely travel the country I'm going to try to keep up with a post twice a month, with my travel blog in between.

Here's my Link Up Party List - enjoy.

Whoop whoop Friday

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

A Pageant of Finishes

Peacock Party

Ringo Lake part 4

Finally caught up and ready to start part 5 tomorrow.

After I posted to Bonnie's Part 4 Link up Party with my parts 2 and 3, I had a look at some other links and came across some great ideas and lovely colour choices - BUT I'm not changing my colours now 😏. One of the random links I came across was Vireya's Blog - wow, I'm so glad I did. Vireya shared a way to make unit 4 blocks without using cut triangles. Vireya also includes a link to how to make  this unit in a different way. You will have to use Bonnie's measurements in the adjustment, and it worked. I followed Bonnie's suggestion of cutting a cardboard template to check on one block and double checked using my triangle ruler. So, I continued to cut out the pieces and sew the units.
Ready to start part 5. It really pays to see what others are doing. You can see Bonnie's Monday Link Up here.

I also had time to make a few more fabric coasters, and this time I adapted the method. I will post about that in another blog post, when I've taken photos of the process.

 

Mystery Quilt Time of the Year

I often spend my Saturdays, when I'm at home, catching up on YouTube quilting shows and one was Missouri Star's Jenny, and I happened to come across a 'Fall Shenanigans' wall hanging.  Even though we do not celebrate Halloween in Australia, it is our daughter's birthday, so parties were always Halloween themed. So out came the Halloween fabrics and in a day I made the top - who knows how long it will take for me to sandwich and quilt it!!!!

I have always looked forward to this time of the year - Halloween and Christmas. Not only is it getting closer to Christmas, a happy time, it is Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt time!! A time to create a beautiful quilt, step by step and spend a calming time sewing. Not all sewers would agree as at times Bonnie's Quilts can be quite involved, but never the less, I do enjoy the stress relief these mysteries have provided over the years.
Now that I'm retired, the joy of the mystery is still there, as is the relaxing, calming, peaceful time that it brings.
This year Bonnie's mystery is titled 'On Ringo Lake'. You can find the fabric requirements and instructions here. First impressions - I was very happy with the colour choices. I usually change Bonnie's colour suggestions, but this year I had all the fabric on hand - although I almost changed the browns for dark purples, but as they didn't look as good, so I went back to browns.

 Part one was released on Friday, and compared to other years this clue is quite easy - thank goodness. (This is not a whinge Bonnie 😊).

Bonnie's mystery is the start of the mysteries. I will still have two New Year Mysteries, (including Merry Mayhem's - with fabric and cutting instructions released today) and the Super Bowl mysteries to make - and I'm looking forward to it. We will be away on a cruise the next few weeks (woo hoo), so I'll be playing catch-up mid December. (See my travel blog: Are We There Yet?)
To see what others are doing go to Bonnie's Monday Link up.

These past few weeks at my machine....

What a busy, busy few weeks this has been. Sadly sewing took the backseat. This is the longest we have been at home in the last three years.

With still culling school stuff, and trying to down size what we have - not fabric, of course - and Peter renovating an investment house to sell - now that we are both retired - it has been a very hectic month.

However, I did manage to piece the back of En Provence, including a large hand drawn label, and sandwich and quilt it. The quilting caused a problem. I had to change the needle, the needle plate, the thread, the bobbin, and still it did not quilt as it should have. In saying that, I persevered and finished the quilting. Now all that is left is the the hand finishing of the binding. I'm not sure if I will sell this one or keep it - it is my colours 😊💜.

I also caught up with Simply Colorful 'Row by Row' and I am now waiting for next Friday and the last clue. This will be a cot quilt, maybe 😊.

I am thinking about re-making the dark 'racing car' block and reversing the light and the dark.

I just don't think it fits with the other blocks.

What do you think?

I thought I would tell you what I do with binding. I cut either 2.5 or 2 inches of fabric, sometimes on the bias, and sometimes not. I then sew the strips together and fold and iron. I then carefully roll the strip onto an empty cotton reel. If I have a lot of binding I will put the wound up reel into a tea/coffee cup. For En Provence I didn't need a tea cup, I simply put the reel under my extension tray and it feed it through to the quilt.  

I have always believed in an anchor cloth when sewing projects, and have been making random leaders and enders, mostly from off cuts from projects.

I hate to waste fabric.

Here are some off cuts from 'Row by Row' mystery when squaring the blocks - not going to waste these. Not sure what I will do with them either!

These are some left over triangles from a Halloween project - must finish that quilt too 😖 - they will make a lovely border or mug mat.... or maybe they will be perfect for my jacket!!

 Off on a road trip later this week, so hand sewing will be in order.

 

En Provence Mystery Quilt

Regular readers know I love mystery quilts. This time of year I am doing Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville's mystery, (as well as others - busy time for mysteries) - this year inspired by the beautiful landscapes of France. As in previous years, I am doing half size, and Bonnie's colour choice recommendations are 'my' colours - well, except for yellow. I substituted the yellow for light pinks 😊.
 Bonnie's mystery starts at the end of November every year, and I started doing them back in 2012, with the Orca Bay Mystery. Although I had made mystery quilts previously from magazines, I do believe that Bonnie's mystery quilt really got me hooked.
This time of year there are many mysteries on-line so I find it easier to have a list of fabric requirements and a quick note about each unit made. I store this with the fabric in a box so it is always together for when the next clue comes out.

The first clue was a neutral 4-patch. Now that I have finished the top, except for the border, I have many 4-patches left over, so I may incorporate in in the border.

Part 2 was magenta & neutral units, followed by part 3 -a 4-patch lilac & purples.

Part 4 was a purple and neutrals unit same as part 2.
Part 5 was purple and neutrals half square triangles.
Part 6 was green, lilac and neutrals. I almost changed the greens for teal, and although I like the way the greens look, I still think teal would have been a better way to go.

So all units complete, well half of them, it is time to start to put the units together.
I swapped the yellow for pink, and for me it looks 100% better. I really don't like yellow!

I really like the way the units have come together, still think teal would have looked better.

I thought about having a thin magenta inner border, followed by a 3" outer border, but after auditioning it I didn't like it. I think I will incorporate the left over neutral 4-patches and make a neutral border with a magenta binding. 

As I made the quilt with half the units Bonnie suggested, I decided that a single bed topper would be what I complete. That leaves me with two central blocks. I will use one on a jacket that I am making, and the other as a table topper or caravan stove topper. Sold lots of caravan toppers, helps pay for petrol as we travel Australia.