Post retreat report

Our spring In-Town Retreat is over and for me it was productive.

As I wrote in my previous entry I finished a quilt top and made my RSC red crumb blocks for March.  I also went through a combined package of swap blocks from two swaps in 2003 & 2007, photographed each set of blocks with the labels showing who made them so I now have a pictorial catalogue of the participants and their blocks. They are now back in their envelope together with the sashing and cornerstone pieces.  Perhaps I'll get them all put together at our fall retreat?

These are the blocks that I made way back in the mists of time.

After that I worked on a foundation paper pieced New York Beauty pattern that I started in April 2016 at the annual Stitch Your Art Out Retreat. The pattern is from Stone Valley Quilting and goes together very easily with excellent, easy to follow, instructions.  Of course I am not doing mine at 48" square as per the pattern but have decided to make it at least big enough for a double (full sized) bed, so I need to make 48 or 64 quadrants.  At the SYAO retreat I made two  complete quadrants.

This week I have made another 19 paper pieced arcs.  I am using a mixture of batik and hand dyed fabrics in a wide variety of colours.  The backgrounds are the hand dyed fabrics and the points are mostly small scale batiks.  I shall use larger scale batik fabrics for the inner and outer parts of each block.  My aim is for lots of colour and contrast. So far I have worked from my stash including the last scraps of some of those fabrics. I am sad to have used up those pieces but pleased with the results.

After all that sewing I went back to knitting and on Saturday was instructed in how to turn the heel on my new socks and I am now happily working up the leg on the first one.
 

There is one knitting finish to report this week too - I finally completed sewing up a sweater for my elder son, now I need to send it back across the pond to him.

This week I need to work on sewing the binding down on my second table runner and make and sew on labels on both in order to achieve my March OMG.

Today I am linking up with:

Quilting is more fun than Housework: Oh Scrap!

Busy Hands Quilts: Finished or not Friday

Confessions of a Fabric Addict: Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday

Underground Crafter: Knitting Love Link party #19

FLOF and In-Town Retreat

FLOF? what is FLOF? I hear you mutter. FLOF stands for For the Love Of Fiber (Fibre?) which is an annual event that the Centre Knitters Guild run each year at the American Philatelic Society in Bellefonte, PA.  After I added it to our electronic calendar this year my husband asked the same question and I replied "It is an event that turns your money into yarn!"  I'm not sure he appreciated the sentiment.  Once again this year there were many luscious yarns and somehow 3 skeins of sock yarn, a full pound of roving (for felting), a project bag and a neat little gizmo for keeping my stitches on my dpns as I carry my projects around came home with me.  The vendors I supported were:

Unplanned Peacock Studio
Shirsty Cat Designs
Gurdy Run Woolen Mill
Sunshine Lily Crafts

Don't expect to see any completed projects from my new yarns any time soon as I am still fondling the two beautiful skeins that I purchased last year!

From Tuesday to Friday this week we have our in-town retreat and the first day has already been productive.

I finished the top for Christa's Colors, having decided to go with the black sashing.  This will be about 54" x 74" once it is quilted and bound.  It isn't off the UFO list yet, but at least has moved onto the flimsy list from the piecing list.

I also made my red crumb blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I am all caught up on that too.

New year, new effort to keep up with the blog

Well, my blogging efforts in 2016 came to a dead end when my rhythm was broken by travel and other things. I also went through a fallow patch in my crafting.  Attempting to grow things in our tree covered shady garden took over my creative efforts over the summer months but my drive picked up towards the end of the year and I started making stuff again, which has inspired me to put my fingers back on the keyboard ("pen to paper" just doesn't work) and bring my blog back to life.

Here are some of the things I made and grew last year. We also took a trip to New Mexico in November and enjoyed the sunshine and wide open spaces.

So far this year I have been working on Bonnie Hunter's En Provence mystery quilt and my OMG (one monthly goal) for February is to turn this collection of pieces of fabric and sub-units into a quilt top/flimsy. I have at least done ALL the cutting (but not all the pressing and trimming....)

I also want to take part in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and my plan is to make dresden plate blocks in the various colours.

Update: I had these done by Tuesday evening:

So that is the purple done for January, next aqua/teal/turquoise for February....
 

What I finished in the rest of 2016

So what did I finish while I wasn't blogging in 2016? In no particular order.

In October the pink elephants quilt was completed and sent over to the UK.

Free motion quilted on my home sewing machine

Quilting detail - easier to see on the flannel backing

The whole quilt - in the end it measured 54" x 74"

In August I finished a sweater for my younger son that he took with him on his trip to the UK and Switzerland. I sewed up the last seams on our way to the airport in July and then made him model it in temperatures of over 30°C/90°F! Also some flannel PJ pants for my elder son.

Another knitting project completed was my fair-isle hat (for me!) started in April at the Stitch Your Art Out retreat, finished later in the year. The pattern is a Really Clear design and it was much more straightforward than it looks as it was all made "in the round", so all knitting with no purling after the initial ribbed edge. I have worn this a lot during the chilly weather as it fits so easily in my handbag.

October saw another quilt finished, the Frugal Block quilt I had been working on back in January was quilted bound and labelled for its recipient, who will get it soon.

More "help" from Smokey

All done! 64" x 84"

Quilting detail

The last October finish was a set of Halloween place mats and table runner for some friends that got married that weekend.  I found them as I unpacked and quilted them in glow in the dark thread, the table runner design uses three disappearing 9 patch blocks made from a Moda charm pack, with some of the rest of the charms used as the borders for the place mats.

December saw three cushion covers finished based on a Moda bakeshop project, one was a gift and the other two stayed home with us.

I think that was all the finishes for the year! In the end it was quite productive.

Burning the candle at both ends

Last week was another complete wash-out for all things sewing and craft related, even Storm Jonas didn't dent the pressures of other stuff that had deadlines and so had to be done.  In fact he only brought us about 4" of snow which was starting to recede within 24 hours due to the temperatures hovering around and above freezing.  I keep telling myself that the recent efforts will be worth it in the end.

There was a glimpse of hope this week on Wednesday when, in between loads of laundry, I managed to insert an extra piece of fabric into the backing for my table runner, get it pin basted and started on the quilting.....

After that it was time to head out for an evening of ten pin bowling. Although a complete novice in September last year, I now bowl twice a week - Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings. Ostensibly this is exercise, but it is mainly good fun, an opportunity for some gossip and a way to make new friends even though my scores are nothing to write home about. Further efforts on the quilting front, and a trip to Stitch Your Art Out for the binding fabric, led to completion of the table runner on Sunday evening. Here it is in place:

Sadly my OMG is just not going to be achieved this month, nor probably next as I know I will be away for two of the four weeks February graces us with. My knitting will travel with me so I hope to have something to show next week.

Busy but not with quilting

Somehow the last week has vanished with me barely finding time to sit at my sewing machine.  A whole lot of other stuff just barged in and pushed out most of my home based plans, so I don't have much to share with you this time. A concerted effort on over the last couple of evenings has led to me completing the top for a wintery (but not Christmassy) table runner.  This was made using some shimmery almost white fabric I had in my stash, together with most of a charm pack and some grey strips from the scrap strip box.  The pattern is, once again, from the Moda Bake Shop with a few extra blocks and skipping the pieced border, as the charms I excluded were largely black and bright red which didn't suit the colour scheme of the charms I had already selected.

Does using just one fabric from the scrap bin and a charm pack make this scrappy? I'm not sure to be honest, but I hope so, so I am linking up with Oh Scrap! for this week anyway!

Keeping track

This year, now things are somewhat more settled, I am going to take a leaf out of Nann's (With Strings Attached) book and try to keep track of how much fabric I use over the year by counting up on a month by month basis.

As do most quilters, I have a stash of fabric acquired over the years, some with a particular project in mind (not necessarily started), some because it was just right for a current project (and now there are left overs), some received as a gift or in a swap, some because "it was bargain" and some simply because I liked it. My intention is to "shop the stash" before heading out to the quilt shop for more fabric, which may or may not be successful, I tried it last week and still didn't have what I needed, so went out and bought 5 new FQs which don't count in the accounting because I bought them last year!

I also intend to create an ongoing list of completed quilts, some of which are already flimsies (quilt tops ready for sandwiching and quilting, some are complete collections of blocks waiting to be sewn into quilt tops, some are just a few blocks needing more to be made and some are only ideas or uncut fabrics.

First up to be worked on is Circle in a Square, which I started in a class in the Bernina Connection in Phoenix AZ in December 2007.  The class handout, my chosen fabrics and a handful of completed blocks came to light in the Big Move and thanks to some excellent, and most appreciated, detective work by the shop owner and the designer I now have a photo of the finished class sample to guide me. Of course, I can't do things the easy way and am making a twin sized quilt rather than a wall hanging (hence the 5 FQs in the last week of 2015) but hope to make good progress over the weeks.  As of yesterday evening I have assembled all 77 blocks for the centre of the quilt.

Today I am linking up with:
Design Wall Monday