Roll the Dice ......

I have been working on catching up with ModaBlockHeads, and once caught up I didn't know what to move onto, as I have so many UFO's.

Some months ago a blogger friend of mine Jenny, mentioned in her blog about rolling the dice to decide what to sew next. Great idea..right! Well, I had so much difficulty trying to work out which 6 UFO's to put on the list, that it has taken me this long to work it out, but here it is

1. Caravan Quilt top to quilt
2. Brown Bag Mystery to finish
3. "???" baby quilt to start
4. Row by Row top to quilt
5. Halloween Mystery to finish
6. "?????" baby quilt to start

As you can see I have two quilts to start, two quilts to finish, and two quilts to quilt. Happened by accident, but still I think it will be a good idea to keep this pattern. I will still be doing Farmers Wife blocks by hand, and Moda BlockHeads each week, as well as any other mystery quilts that take my fancy, but when not doing these I will be choosing one of the above, and if I can't chose I will roll the dice.

Also interesting with the above, 1, 2, 4 and 5 are all Simply Colorful mystery quilts or inspired  by Simply Colorful.

So, as I have caught up BlockHeads, I am going to continue with 2. Brown Bag Mystery.

This time last year I was in the middle of this mystery and two things happened. One, I needed a fabric panel that was difficult to find in Australia; and two we booked a last minute Trans-Pacific Cruise. OK, I'll find the panel in Hawaii, or so I thought. No luck, so move on. The half complete quilt has sat in it's box on my sewing table for a year.

A few months ago while walking through Spotlight 

(OK, deliberate visit to Spotlight to buy more fabric that I don't need),

I came across a purple graduated fabric, so as it was like the panel I needed, I bought two metres. Now I am ready to go - after I find the final clues - and start pinning all the templates onto the purple fabric - woo hoo!! Luckily I saved all the clues so spent a great deal of the afternoon tracing and pinning the labels onto the fabric.

 

Once labelled I cut each piece and I'm ready to go onto finishing Clue three.

The only problem now is the pattern is so complicated that I need to adapt the English Paper Piecing to make the blocks more machine user friendly. To do that I need a printer, and ours is out of ink. So to wait for Peter to come home with new ink.

Maybe I'll cut out some Farmers Wife pieces for hand sewing on our next trip.

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.

 

2017 Week 11 update

This past week I've finished unpacking and washing from our last trip and I've been able to start and catch up with Simply Colorful Row by Row mystery.

Block One

Block Two

Block Three

I'm doing a crib size and in green, as green seems to be the new mum's choice for baby quilts.

 So then I started, or should I say continued with...Peace and Love Mystery quilt from Love Shack Quilts.

Block 8

Block Nine

  

... and did I show you the fabric I purchased in Lautoka?

Not bad at $4.50 and $5.50 AUS. Now I've started making bags I'm going to make a 'cruise' bag for myself and my sister.

Happy 2017

I'm not one for New Year resolutions, I like to make plans and set goals to achieve all through the year. One goal is to update my blogs more regularly, well, at least two of them (not sure I will continue the third). As in previous years I have been busy working on mystery quilts. I have been doing Bonnie Hunters Mystery quilt every year since Orca in 2011 and usually complete the last clues while camping beside the Bellinger River. Not this year. Camping got too expensive at $92.50 a night, so we decided the stay home and maybe have a city break at $99 a night at Southbank - much better value!
Anyway, how many mystery quilts can one do at a time? Over Christmas /New Year I was doing 5 different mysteries. The only problem was because I like 3 colours, I always try to use those colours. Doing 5 different mysteries with the same colours, when the clues came out at different times was very difficult. I had each mystery sorted into boxes, and moved fabric from one box to another when needed. I got a little scared that I would run out of some fabrics as the clues came to an end - but so far so good.

The mysteries I was/am doing are:

1. Simply Colorful Brown Bag mystery - this one I started first in September, but had to stop in October as I needed a special panel. I couldn't source it here in Australia, so needed to think of something else to use. I think I know what I am going to use now, but this mystery has been on the back burner, although it does have a lot less purples than it did.😇 

2. Love Shack Quilts Peace Love Mystery was started 15th October. The clues come out every two weeks, and I'm pleased to say I am all up to date with this one.

3. Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mystery 2016 - En Provence - started 25th November, and I am determined to finish the top TODAY!!!! Bonnie has wonderful quilt patterns and her mysteries are always large quilts, so I only do half the required number of units and if I have to make more to complete the size I want (like today) I will.

4. Quiltbug's Blooming Rails New Year's Eve mystery was a two day quilt with clues coming out by the hour during NY eve and NY day. I have only done this mystery a few times over the years, usually I don't hear about it until after the event, but my friend Cleary is great keeping us quilting buddies up-to-date with happenings. I have everything cut except the panel (a bit scared) and have completed the first couple of steps. Will get around to it - watch this space!

5. Merry Mayhem Mystery Quilt is run every New Years Day - which is 2 January here in Oz. The first clue comes out about 2am our time, so by the time I get up the first 3-4 clues are already out. This years mystery is #140 Nifty Thrifty, and I started doing it scrappy. By the time it came to put all the units together, it didn't look very good scrappy, so I ended up making four table toppers that will be great for caravan stove toppers as well. This is the only mystery that I have completed so far.

So that is what I've been doing, and am doing for the rest of this month at least - well that and Farmer's Wife blocks.

Simply Colorful Mystery Quilt Along

You all know I love mystery quilts. The hardest part is choosing the fabrics, as it is a mystery and one doesn't know how it will turn out - it's a mystery!!

This new mystery by Lynn at Simply Colorful named Oh Baby Baby Mystery Quilt, started a few weeks ago.

Above is my first choice of fabrics. I wasn't sure about the grey fabric, and asked the Simply Colorful Facebook Quilt Along group if I should change it to white or cream. Lynn thought white or cream would work better, so below is second choice of fabrics.

I had the fabric laid out for over a week before I decided to change my fabric choice yet again. 

I have my favourite colour choices, I am always buying pinks and purples and teals. So to change fabric choice again was hard.

This was my final choice, so I started cutting.

Part one finished.

Parts one and two.

Part three complete. I started this mystery at home and will finish it while travelling along the east coast of Australia.

I love sewing, and I love travelling.

Farmers Wife and other quilts

I'm back, and hope to make this a more regular blog. Those that have been with me from the beginning of my blog journey know that I was fitting it in with all the 'other stuff' that a career working mum has to do.

I would always spent the first week of school holidays sewing, and the second week planning for the term ahead. Weekends and evenings were spent marking, planning, making resources, etc. etc. EXCEPT for Saturday! Saturday was my day for me stuff - like sewing. With so much to do, it was the 'me' time that went first, followed by the family time - but that's an episode for one of my other blogs.

Studies have revealed the stress-reducing benefits of sewing, proving a stitch a day could help keep the doctor away. I accidentally came across this quote on FaceBook, it comes from Bookwerme-Sparkpeople page and after reading that article I knew I had to make the time to sew, and do other things I wanted to do. The balance cannot be all work! (Again, another episode for one of my other blogs) Another interesting read by Quiltfool, explains what I mean. 

Sew ... I mean ..... So I wanted to make another quilt for the van, so I revisited Simply Colourful, where I was first inspired to make my caravan sewing machine cover, and came up with these blocks. I added some trees similar to Simply Colourful and some patchwork for the in between blocks and made a lovely quilt top. Just need to finish it now.

 

I have been kept busy each day during 'me time' by making some Christmas presents (can't show them yet) and some caravan place mats to sell.I made a two sided banner to hang on the awning of our van. 

The banner and the lap quilt were appliquéd, and before I made the lap quilt I worked out the layout using PowerPoint.

 

  

It worked out very well, and although I changed the bottom left hand corner to make it easier to put all sections together, it went together very easy.

 

I was happy with the appliqué but thought I would spend some time and work out a piecing template.

I'm very glad I did. It was so much easier to cut and sew.

I made a pink set of two, and a blue set of two.

We had family visiting for a week and I made little wall hangings / place mats for our two nieces in Victoria. It was good to use my embroidery machine again - it's been very neglected.
 

I also enjoyed doing string piecing using the pink and blue strips I have been collecting. One can see in the photo further up, my pink strips container.

 With family coming I also needed to clear off the dining table, which for some time has been collecting my sewing and school resources.
We often desk dine or eat TV dinner style, so clearing the dining table also meant moving my sewing stations around. I now have my ironing centre with my embroidery machine, and so far, so good. 
 I'm now waiting to start the Farmer's Wife quilt along in a few days - watch this space.

Happy sewing

Allison