February 2020 goal achieved!

On Friday 7th Feb I posted and linked my One Monthly Goal, today I achieved it.  All those flying geese are now firmly sewn into their blocks, ready for trimming and setting into the final layout.  At least one block has some of the background fabric 180 degrees out of phase, but in the end I left it like that.  If it had been 90 degrees out it would have been ripped out and resewn as that really would have grated on the eye.

Here are all 43 blocks sat on the yellow sashing and brown cornerstone/border fabrics.  The yellow colour is in the pattern of the cream "sky" parts of the flying geese, and it was that sky fabric that turned out to be uni-directional.  The border brown has red details in it to go with the red in the main blocks.

More trimming, cutting and sewing will happen after my next business trip.  Just for once I will not be changing time zones or crossing international borders for a site visit!

So nice to achieve the One Monthly Goal after a looong break!

2020 quilting again!

After a long hiatus I'm back, though I make no promises for this to be a regular or common occurrence.  In 2018 I travelled a lot with work which means no sewing machine and 2019 felt particularly fragmented with travel and personal stuff.

During this period I have been doing some quilting and knitting as well as dyeing both fabric and yarn - I'll probably write about those in future postings.  For quite some time my quilting mojo just up and left me, but during an enforced cleaning and voluntary reorganisation of my sewing area I seem to have found it again. Since then I have finished a baby quilt (always good for some instant gratification), made another 2 baby quilt tops and sandwiched them - a shout out to the Tuesday QBs where I was able to use big tables and extra hands made short work of the pinning, and I have also got my teeth back into a commissioned quilt.

Ah, yes, the commission, this has taught me a lot over the last year and a bit.
1) when possible work with colours that spark joy in you - if they don't they may sap your mojo
2) buy more of the fabrics than you think you need for the quilt - there may be extra items like pillow shams to consider
3) don't choose directional fabric when you are making hundreds of flying geese!

All that brings me to February's One Monthly Goal.  This month (which for various reasons means the next 7 days) I aim to turn these:

into another 20 of these:

which should be sufficient to complete the main panel of this quilt.  As you can see LOTS of flying geese!

I'll report in after the end of the month with my progress!

Frankenbatts

As anyone who has read more than a couple of my blog postings knows I hate throwing usable fabric away. This includes batting (wadding in the UK where batting is what cricketers do!), especially now I have nearly used up my big roll of Soft and Bright by the Warm Company and need to splurge on a new one.  I started using this batting in my quilts in the UK because it behaves nicely and washes and dries easily, if line drying a quilt it doesn't hold too much water (weight) and in the tumble dryer it dries very quickly.  Anyway, I am down to my last couple of square yards in big pieces and didn't want to cut into them for my cushion covers. I dug in my bag of trimmings from the edges of quilts and came up with this:

My cushion covers measured up at 21" square, so I cut the long strips into 23" lengths and zig-zagged them together:

I just butt the edges together.

I use the longest stitch length and the widest width.

This seam will be invisible once the quilt is finished.

After a little time spent sewing I ended up with these:

Which are just the right size for my Dresden plate cushion covers, inspired by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge:

And my pile of batting trimmings is much reduced, though still enough to make another small Frankenbatt:

The cushion covers are now finished and in place on our sofa, much more in keeping with the weather than the Christmas ones which can have a few months rest.  Completing these was my stated One Monthly Goal for July and I achieved it by the 5th!

The zips/zippers (another word that gets change just a little bit crossing the Atlantic) were inserted by following this excellent tutorial from DIY Home Decor.

Today I am linking up with:

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

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework: Oh Scrap!

Quilting plans for July

Wow July is here already! With the warm weather and more time in the garden my quilting mojo usually takes a back seat over the summer, so to prevent that happening too much this year I am setting myself some moderate goals for July.  For my One Monthly Goal I want to finish a pair of cushion covers that I started only last month.  They need the centre circles for the Dresden plates adding, then quilting, making the backs and final assembly.

To help me get nice round centre circles I bought this set of pressing tools in San Antonio last week:

The heat resistant circles range from 2.25" to 4.5" diameter in quarter inch increments and there are two of each size.

The next project is not my stated OMG but I still want to get it done in July, this is my sunflower wall hanging that now needs sandwiching, quilting and binding.

If I get those done I'll probably move on to quilting Christa's Colors which is a UFO from last year and is already sandwiched and pin basted.

June OMG achieved

I have cut it fine, but my June One Monthly Goal is done! All things being equal it would have been finished early this week, but a trip out of town to Texas put paid to that plan and I spent last weekend frantically quilting the last part of the border and getting the machine sewing of the binding completed. Then with a push and a shove I squeezed the quilt into my suitcase on top of my tools, toiletries and work boots. A few quiet evenings in my hotel saw most of the hand sewing done, but I still had about 18" left when I checked out this morning in Austin TX. A quick Google found the Honey Bee Quilt Store so I headed there and was able to sit at their project tables and put in my last few stitches.

On my hotel bed, nearly done

At the Honey Bee, all finished

The Honey Bee Quilt Store

Photos added 1st July 2017 after I got home as the blogger mobile app was not co-operating with me at all as I tried to use it while away.

Back on Etsy at last!

Over last weekend I spent some time getting various ducks in a row and I am now back on Etsy as AhasakiDesign.  So far I have relisted some of my pre-existing items and will be adding new things over the next few weeks.  This is our company logo - a raven, which has meaning to my husband and myself.

This week has seen my sunflowers fully appliqued onto the background, next steps are sandwiching and quilting.

Having been infected by the Dresden plate bug I decided to make some new summery cushion covers for some of my throw pillows so I can wash and store the Christmas ones that are still being used.  The green plate will also have a yellow border and the centre circles and the backs will be yellow too.  So I'm still using up scraps and left over binding strips in colours for three different months of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

Today I am linking up with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017

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?

Sunflowers!

On the wall over our dining table there is a space where I display a "seasonal" quilted wall hanging.  So far I have one each for Christmas, Spring/Easter and Hallowe'en. Three of my scrappy yellow sunflower Dresdens from last week are now well on their way to becoming a Summer wall hanging.


The border fabrics feature bees and musical symbols as this is partially a tribute to Manchester, where I lived for twenty five years, and which was visited by such tragedy in May 2017.


Today I am linking up with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017

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?