A new plan

Well tomorrow is the first day of September and what with the kids returning to school and the start of the dark nights drawing in seems like a good time to try something new.

Lately I have been a bit cheesed off with the amount of UFO's lurking around my room. There are umpteen new quilts I want to make - every day my list gets longer - new quilts in magazines and especially in Blogland. These quilts are calling to me but I cannot ignore the MANY abandoned quilts I have so I have been thinking ( god help us all - lol ).

From tomorrow I am launching my "Quilt of the Month". Briefly put this means that I will dig out one UFO and work on it as much as I can for that month. Now I'm not saying that's all I will do as I know I would never stick to that and there will be other things I need and want to do. But what I plan is to have this UFO out in the open and whenever I get chance I will do a bit. I will show photos at the start of the month and at the end to see what progress I have made. Who knows I may even get something finished ?

So Septembers Quilt of the Month is as follows.

Originally it was like this

then after deciding I didn't like where it was heading it ended up like this. What a lot of unpicking !!

Anyway I thought it needed an injection of something to jazz it up a little and now it looks like this. I love that lime green.

It has sat in a basket for a while so now it's time to do something about it. This is English Paper Piecing so will be great for picking up in odd moments.

Do you see the start of the dark blue round the edges ? I think this will work.

There are 4 variations of blocks here and I intend to make up a few more then start joining together.

The hexagons are quite big so are not too fiddly. After posting this I will cut some more papers ready.

Anyone fancy joining in with this - feel free. I may put a side bar of links if anyone is interested. I know there are other lovely ladies doing a finish of the month but for me this is just an idea to make some progress on larger quilts.

And definitely next post I will show the one I am preparing for hand-quilting throughout the winter months.

Have fun xx

Wonders will never cease. . .

that's one of my mum's favourite sayings when something unexpected happens - lol !

All those squares are now a top. Took a bit of doing - starting off in one corner with one square and working my way to the other corner - strips getting bigger and bigger. I think the longest strip had 45 squares. There is probably some easy-peasy way of strip piecing this that takes about 2 hours from start to finish and if there is - I DON'T want to know about it !!! Such a lot of pressing in this and I even used PINS - something I don't often do. I worked out there are 1011 squares in this .

Here it is in it's just completed state

and here it is with borders.

I loved how it looked without borders and dithered for a while as to whether to leave it like that but in the end I added quite a bright pink inner border and used some scrappy bits for the outer and in the end I was glad I did. It's a better size now.

This photo has come out too bright - the earlier ones are truer.

I won't quilt it yet - it's on the pile.

But I am preparing a quilt at the moment ready for hand-quilting during the winter. I will show you that next time.

I bought a quilting magazine a couple of weeks back and there was a picture of a new range of fabric that I loved. I am trying hard not to buy much new fabric but I had to have this.

This features 2 things I love - owls and apples. Strange but true :-)

And lastly a bit more cross-stitch. I have signed up for a few swaps and this will end up in one of them I think.

There is so much inspiration out there on the net - we are very lucky - this little chart was a freebie although I can't put my finger on it at the moment to let you know where I got it. If I find it I will add it later.

Bye for now xx

Wish me luck !

Missing in action once again. This time I have a valid excuse - we have had a few days away down in London. All had a fabulous time and although I optimistically sneaked a box of hexagons in my case I never found the time to work on any.

We went to Legoland which was brilliant. The lego village was amazing. I was even brave enough to go on a few roller coasters with Jason and Patrick. Must be getting daring in my old age - lol !

We also went on the London Eye

It was a clear day and we got some terrific views. Hotel was lovely and food wonderful but now back to reality and a huge amount of laundry :-(

All around my room are funny strips of fabric -

these are on my desk

these are on my sewing machine

these are draped off my noticeboard

and this just keeps getting moved about.

So wish me luck - hopefully next post I can show some progress.

Now I am absolutely hopeless at naming quilts. Usually they just get called things like Mum's green quilt and Jess's pink quilt. Well I am breaking the mould with this one and calling it The Wonder Quilt. I am wondering how big it will be as I haven't a clue. And it will be a blinking Wonder if I ever get it done - lol ! My sewing time is a bit limited just now with the kids school holidays and Jason working from home. And every time I sit down and sew some-one or something needs my attention. Anyone feel like renting a garden shed out to me ???

Have a good weekend xx

Back . .

Thanks for all your well wishes - both patients are on the mend. Patrick is still sore and waiting for his stitches to disappear but otherwise fine.

Before I show you my latest project here is a photo of those little hexies from a few posts back.

I was inspired to make this by Pascal . She had a beautiful table runner made and I just fell in love with it. Pascal's was larger and used dresden plate blocks instead but it planted the idea. I decided to use hexagons instead and dipped into my japanese style fabrics. The background grey fabric I had to buy - no grey at all in my stash. The little blocks are 4 inch finished. I hand quilted this and am very pleased with it. It has a new home on my china cabinet and I keep checking that the kids haven't put loads of stuff on it as they have the habit of doing.

I also finished a UFO but have forgotten to take photos of that.

I was itching to sew and after receiving a couple of magazines I decided to start a little something new. I blame the next episode entirely on DH Jason. I was showing him a quilt in one of the mags and mentioned that I really liked it and may start searching for fabrics. It was done in dark, country colours ( which I love ) and Jason said something like - It looks very like a lot of others you have done. He had hit the nail on the head. I do tend to go for these sort of quilts and so I decided to branch out a little and use something different. I was aiming for light and pretty fabrics so pulled these from my stash.

After a time I put together a block. I could just imagine this quilt.

I hated it. Actually this looks a lot better on the screen than in real life. It is so wishy-washy. I just knew that a whole quilt of these would not look how I envisaged it so needed another plan. Trouble was I had already cut 5 million 2 and a quarter inch squares.

After a bit of sulking I made a few of these with some of the fabrics but that wasn't doing it for me either.

Then I decided to add a few marbley type fabrics and began to play. Here's what I'm going with -

After getting this bit done I'm going to add to it with 2 fabrics each time. Here are my next lot ready to go.

I haven't a clue how big this will end up - til either I run out of fabric or momentum - wonder which will be first lol ! I won't use all of the different ones in this.

I am very much enjoying this and in fact it was an effort to pack away and make food for the hoard. I would love to wait til Jason is asleep and have an all-nighter but don't think I could take the pace - lol !

Just off to see if Ellies quilt place BOM is up yet. I'm a bit behind on this but will catch up soon.

Enjoy your weekend.