Sunday Stitching..these boots are

red...well aren't they always red on Tom's feet?

Now although Tom is so very close to being finished as it is General conference next weekend my larger project , last seen in my post the-sands-of-time. is more likely to come out to be worked on.

Sampler quilt - Honey bee

Moving on to the next block, now this one is part machine sewn and part hand applique. 

First a nine patch, with a border 

Then for the applique

This is the lay out

Fiddly as I found it, needle turn did give a much nicer edge and it is OK for T.V sewing that is what I intend to do.

Gifted stuff

I have, depending on your point of view a bad or good habit of  accepting gifts of "material" in various forms. I may at the time have no idea what it will go with or even what I will do with it but regardless 9.5 times out of ten if I am asked do you want some material the word yes hurtles out of my mouth. 

That can lead to the gifted whatever it is spending some time as loft insulation before a project for it arises.

So a bit of "see what is in this bag" sorting in the loft and I came across some green material with  little pink and yellow flowers.  I can't recall when I was given it or by who, although I wonder if it was amongst remnants from a craft play scheme, or perhaps not.

It had been a duvet cover, with a slightly different pattern (more flower heavy) on one side to the other. Each side had a very large circle cut from it (cloaks from the crafts, or had someone been making round tablecloths?) So what I had was the corners and some edge bits.

Such an irregular shape it was hard to fold and I figured the best way to deal with it was to emulate some scrap quilters method and just cut it into squares of a set size.  No project yet in mind but they will be there all cut when I do.

Used the 6.5 " square ruler for that and the rotary cutter.  Produced 80 squares and bits. Oh some fair sized bits, too small to get a 6.5 square but to my mind too big to throw away and too big to add to my Bits-A Quilt.  Also as the idea here was to reduce if ever so slightly the loft insulation, putting the bits back  was not going to meet up with that.  So what to do with them.

I have mentioned before that the local council at the annual show often gives away cloth bags as part of their push for less waste (not that they did this year) and I have received those bags.  Indeed it is one of those bags that featured in my post in-to-2017 although the pictures in that post are all of the decoration and not the bag. 

The original bag is cream cotton with the statement "Love Food, Hate Waste" on it in green  with the O as a tomato on one side and "Recycle" on the other.  I had managed to get one of the bags stained with red onion and it would not wash out . So I figured I would used the bag as a lining, the scraps as the new outside for the bag.  For handles I would use the hemmed edge from the duvet. The old handles will come in handy as ties for things in the loft being stored in rolls.

I sewed the bits together  in wide strips the width of the bag until I had one section  double the height of the bag.  Sewed the sides together.  Turned it right side out, slipped the original bag inside then turned the hem over the upper edge.

For extra strength I machine stitched round the top of the bag just below the inner hem (it was a bit too thick to sew on the inner hem itself.

A strengthening row of stitches to the handles and then  added them by hand also. And this is the finished bag.

So all the bits used up then? Alas or perhaps joyfully no.  I have bits left which I hope might stretch to another bag, perhaps with some other bits and pieces.

This is a picture of my joining hem for the outer and inner bag.

 and how the handles are attached, just in case you wondered.

Sampler quilt Needle turned

Well I got it finished, I think I am finished with it...when I come to put the whole top together I might decide it needs another colour in the middle to bring the blocks together.  I did see a variation in the book with a circle in the middle so that remains an option.

The sewing method did grow on me a bit as I progressed and it did produce a smoother  looking edge that the previous turning method so I am not counting it out just yet. Indeed the next pattern in the book is a combination pattern  with the possibility of repeating this method.

I notice that the book has two patterns left to go (not including the skipped one) so once they are done I will have to come up with two more, one to replace the bias binding patch and one to bring the number up to twenty.  The book did allow  for a repeat pattern. 

Sunday Stitching--finding my feet?

well Toms feet. Both shades came with the kit which is a bonus.

funnily enough one of the talks today was about methods of remembering the points made in talks and conference addresses. So in this instance Tom's feet, well they should remind me of that.

Sampler Quilt needle turn aplique

This was a bit scary, the book said to have a seam allowance of  1/8 inch.

What! I have only just got used to the quarter inch stitch that the book calls for in the other patterns.  My safety net is a half inch seam allowance (try not to shout or tut too much at that, each to their own) so this was a bit of a shock.

I read and read the instructions in the book on this method,  left it, went back and read it again and nope just not going in.  Time to turn to the internet and you tube. 

First video Shiny Happy World Dot Com  there is an advert before it starts but you do get the option to skip the advert. On this one it starts straight in on the needle turning.  Other ones I found start much earlier in the process  with  marking out and cutting the shape before getting to the stitching part, some took a good nine and a half minuets to get to the sewing method.  After I watched this a time or two I thought I had it in my head.

Then foolishly thinking to reinforce it I watched another, and it looked a different sewing method mind it had a good technique for points., nice sharp points on stars.Cathy Van Bruggen Designs.

I note both of these, and others that I looked at but have not put in a link for as they took soooo long or were not as easy to watch, had much wider seams.  Mine are cut larger than recommended (too scary) apart from the sections where the edges of the pattern do not allow for anything but almost nothing!

So first to practice the stitch on something other than my block, a scrap on a scrap and see how I get on.  And if I get the hang of it, well lets be honest, if it feels reasonable, I will then move onto my block.

One of the videos I viewed suggested a heart made a good practice shape as it has curves, outward and inward points so that is what I used .

The points turned out better than the curves and there were some other issues however I did feel I could make a start on the block itself.

Sampler quilt - Hawaiian Applique

Crocus Design.

At least that is the chapter heading for this block.  Not the next in the book, the next one was Stained Glass Patchwork - Tulip block.  It required bias binding to make the leaded part of the stain glass.  After some consideration I am skipping that one.  I don't feel like making the bias binding or buying a tool to make it.  I expect I won't go back to it and will replace it with something else that is new.

Anyway back to this one, it is based on a particular style but the author diverges from the traditional in both the use of a patterned fabric instead of a solid and the design which she has based on a flower that grows in England rather than the more tropical.  Mind she does note many have told her it looks more like a tulip than a crocus.

I did consider using the technique to make a pattern of my own  however as I was skipping to this pattern on the grounds of ease complicating it trying to come up with a design of my own did not feel right.

This is it tacked to the backing , it is waiting for edges to be hemmed and at the same time to be sewn to the backing square.  That should sharpen the image.

Crocus pattern?

At the moment, pre-hemming it feels a bit too much of the centre colour  and I am considering the possibility of adding a circle to the middle of a different colour (more deviations from the source style) but I will wait till the hemming is done to decide if that is needed either for this block or for the quilt overall.

Sampler quilt..wild geese?

Well here is my attempt to turn two large and eight small squares into eight big triangles and sixteen little triangles.

I am going to show you the pictures I took of the stages and the the end (sort of) result.

Here we go

Big squares with little one's on the corner

Touching corners trimmed off

Then you sew a line quarter inch either side of the diagonal in the middle

then cut on that diagonal line.

small squares in the other corner , then a similar set of sewing and cutting.

gets the components of flying geese...well sort of gliding not quite falling  geese

sew together the units

and again and you get the wild geese block

Oh looking at that I am getting so much better at taking pictures as this looks so much better in this picture than in reality (makes a change) as the points look better than they are and squaring up the sides to fit into the quilt is not going to be as easy as cropping the photo.

Now on reflection I can see the merits of this method and that it will be much quicker than cutting out individual triangles and sewing them together.  My only concern with it is if you go wrong then you have gone wrong on several pieces and not just one.

I remain more unique than perfect in my quilts and ever hopeful that once I get to the quilting, the quilting will help to hide or correct a multitude of uniqueness.  

Sunday Stitching.. still Tom

The two blues were in the threads with the pack........so that was nice and relaxing.

and felt like quite a lot of progress.

Sampler Quilt Flying Geese

Wild Geese, a start.

Now like the previous Triangles the instructions for this block took me several reads before I understood enough to make a start.  I will have to re read each step as I go to get it right.  At least I hope I will get it right.

So the pieces are cut out...........

.......... the sewing should prove interesting.

Sampler quilt.. Rose of Sharon

Well this is an applique block.  I have done many an applique before but my way of doing it is a little different.  I did smile at the instructions telling me to take care to work out the sewing order and which piece went under which.  Doing that for this block was a great deal simpler than doing it for  the centre panel of Monument Dragon.

However that is not to say I found this block either easy or relaxing.  The geometry is less forgiving than a dragons coils and my finished piece has a rather unique take on symmetry.

I had thought I had a bit of fabric left from card trick to include in this one so there would be at least two uses of it in the quilt.  But alas I was mistaken.  It is making me rethink that block yet at the same time I am not sure I can be bothered to redo.  I guess only time will tell when I get to the end of the patches in the book.

oh I had marked the outline on with washable pen, it all came out just fine, here it is before washing in cold water.

I think the colours show a bit better on this picture. Next up is flying geese.  Not tried that before, then that is the whole point of this sampler quilt journey.