Wordless Wednesday part2 - Peepo! with (Granny's) Monster UFO

Wordless Wednesday - Mom's Monster Quilt

Another Wordless one... - Pennants Collage

Wordless Wednesday - Purple Pennants

Just 3 More Leaves

Just...

 3 more leaves to stitch down

and then I need to decide on berries...

If I'd followed the pattern...

I'd know how many berries I need,

BUT, I appliqued far too many leaves

so I will have to see if the berries

suffer the same fate :)

 The papers are still in:

 I English Paper-Pieced the bulk of the quilt,

 And I like to leave the papers in

until I'm almost ready to quilt.

But that's just the way I do it...

A Finish For February...

A Finish?...Well almost... :)

The binding IS on...

And it has been beautifully

custom longarm-quilted by Chris!

A case of the quilting making the quilt indeed!

(Picture heavy because I wanted to show the gorgeous quilting...)

BUT...

And here's the 'but'...
when I started this quilt in the 1980's

I didn't know what I was doing...

And so I backed each block with batting

and muslin and handquilted it in pearl cotton...

Meaning that when I tried to handquilt it,

it was too heavy going,

The quilt also ended up too large

after I'd joined the four large blocks and put borders on...

Chris kindly helped me unpick my handquilting...
And did a great job of echoing the stars with her custom quilting...

But (and here's that 'but' again!)

she couldn't quilt over my quilting
as it would have been impossible to get a needle through it!!!

So, although it's quilted

AND bound!

It needs some attention to the unquilted bits:

Not much, in my opinion, ahem :)

But enough to fix the 3 layers together

However, a finish is a finish...

Well almost! :)

Rose-Stars: Over Halfway!

As I'm only planning

on making this quilt...

...single bed size...

...I think it's fair to say...

...that I am well over halfway!

Giving my Longarmer Nightmares!

I am very lucky to have found

a lovely lady who offers

a longarm quilting service

very close to where my MIL lives.

This is handy for 2 reasons:

1) I can drop the kids off at 'Grandma'

while I pick up and drop off

quilts at Chris... and

2) 'Grandma' sometimes collects quilts

from Chris if I'm not passing for a bit.

 

Before I tell you the terrible thing

that I have done to Chris,

let me tell you about her new blog:

www.longarmchris.co.uk

which is as lovely as she is

(am I sounding a bit too smoochy here?

- I don't mean to. Chris really is great,

but my latest offering for her to quilt,

is well, it's um... well let's just say that

when I blogged about it in 2007,

I titled the post:

A Blast from the past a.k.a. the Mother of all UFO's)

 

Yes, I wanted to finish

the darn thing and I went seeking help,

advice, anything...

 

Well Chris, Bless her!!!

Helped me unbaste and unquilt

the monster and it's now waiting in line

for it's chance on her Gammil.

 

My oldest UFO may someday

be a useful quilty object!

Chris probably slept restlessly last night,

but I slept like a log!!!

 

Wordless Wednesday - Second Rose Star

Find the pattern here:

http://summerfete.blogspot.com/2012/01/rose-star-tutorial.html

Not Ready to Tackle a Monster Yet!

First, I need to categorically state that this is:

my Mother's English Paper-pieced UFO from the 1980's.

The Autumnal colour scheme is definitely not one of my choosing at all,

and the design has just spiralled out of control! ;o)

I assumed it was a Lone Star, but actually it's not star shaped at all

apart from the centre 8 diamonds....

(With the miserable weather I have not been able to lay it out

in its entirity (all 8 sections) on the grass for a photo)

.

It should have been brought back in (in my opinion),

but it extends to infinity (do I sound overwhelmed here!? LOL)

A few years back Mom bought a whole lot of green fabrics

to tie the 'star' back to the centre

and for me to square it off, but I am not sure that that's going to be possible

with the sheer size of the project...

Unfortunately, most of the papers have been removed

to make it lighter for travel

so getting it star shaped again could be tricky.

Plus I'm also thinking 'Is it a waste to unpick all this work?'

and should I maybe just square it off with a rotary cutter (Heaven Forbid?!?)

In the meantime, my sewing room looks like a dump

and I am unable to get in to sew

- the big tidy up for Mother's visit saw all sewing related clobber,

from around the house, dumped in the sewing room, making access

and movement limited :o(

The cat still likes her spot though!!:

The Monster has arrived!

My Mother has arrived safely from Cape Town to stay with us

while we await baby and hopefully for a few weeks after baby's arrival.

With her came 'the Monster'!:

An English-Paper-Pieced Lone Star that she worked on years ago.

A few years back I made a start on trying to finish this quilt top for her, but also didn't get very far...

I suggested Mom bring it over this year and we make another attempt at getting it completed.

As the weather has turned and it's rainy outside (and I have been instructed to rest)

I decided to just take a quick sneak pic of it.

More to follow when I lay it out and get my head around working on it again....

**********

Yesterday, we celebrated the boy's birthdays at a Farm party.

It was great fun and the unseasonally 27 degree centigrade weather was not wasted

on all the families that attended.

What bliss being able to sit out in the sun!

On the way home we passed our kindly neighbour

who had rescued a poorly hedgehog.

He and his wife are great animal lovers and have a veritable animal rescue centre at their house

so here's to a speedy recovery little hedgehog!!!

'Square'-ing Hexagons

It seems that once a project reaches a certain size

and needs borders or just general finishing

it just slides into the UFO pile...

Then sometimes a comment from someone

asking if I had indeed finished a particular project

is just what I need to get going on it again...

Well I would really like to finish my hexagons

and have it on our bed, but it was just getting so bulky

and I was stumped with how to 'finish' it.

Then I had a brainwave LOL.

I thought if I want to get it longarmed by Chris 

I need to put some borders on or square it up...

I love cream on cream fabrics

and so I just started putting some cream scraps

over irregular sized papers.

The papers are 3" in width, but vary in length...

I sewed a few cream pieces together

and then attached them to the hexagons

which I squared off just by folding them over...

As I was photographing the borders,

I noticed this 'rogue' fabric.

I thought it was sufficiently neutral,

but alas it sticks out to me....

Although I have almost finished one and a half sides,

I have only used it twice so far

so I think I am going to unpick it

and replace it with one of the other neutral ones...

I am planning on piecing the backing from left over rose fabrics.

I have already started cutting them, but not machine piecing yet.

I also am planning (once it's quilted)

to bind it in some red spotty fabric or something of that ilk...  

I love sewing hexagons together by hand

so I imagine I'll either be doing another one

or something else with papers

(or I may even finish my Carolina Lily

- now wouldn't that be something LOL!)

How many?

Q. How many new projects can you start and never finish?


A. Too many!


Q. How many UFO's can you then dig up and start thinking about again thanks to reading quilting blogs?


A. Only one (this week!)


Q. How many fabric pieces can you get over papers while waiting at the hospital?


Only seven! :-(

But I can starting putting 20 kgs of weight on my leg so hopefully I am slowly on the mend :-)