Please Miss, I've done my homework ...

... the other weekend Scrappy and I went to a meeting of the Yorkshire Modern Quilt Group.  One member was demonstrating how to do a mock piped binding by machine which looked very effective, and easy, and would be a wonderfully quick way of finishing quilts.  Hmm, not so.  Or at least, not in my case.  I'm not even going to show you a photo of my first attempt.  So I tried again the next day, and I'm not showing you a photo of that effort either.  Anyway, a few days later we got together and had a sewing (and chatting, and eating) day and we'd decided to have another go. I was still not happy with my efforts and we think it was because we were tucking the ends of our binding in to finish it, and that was making for an awfully lumpy, bumpy bit.  So we made another decision.  The next time we get together, we are going to have another go, but this time we will try joining the tails of the binding instead.  So, I've done my homework and have a little mug rug all ready to go, together with the mock-piped binding and I'm actually ready early cos we're not meeting up till next week.  Here's the one that's ready to go

I know I said I'm not showing you my 3rd (or was it 4th) go from last week, but here it is, just for a laugh

By the way, why is it that when you look at something, it's fine, until you look at a photo of it?  Can you spot the deliberate mistake?

A bargain ....

... or was it?

A couple of days ago I was in the supermarket with my father.  Amongst the items on his list was butter and it turned out that the brand he wanted was on special.  Buy 2 for £5.00 the poster shouted.  Only thing is Dad didn't want two.  So he picked them up anyway, and said he'd give the other one to me.  About five minutes later it suddenly dawned on him that his one packet of butter had just cost him £1.40 more than if he'd just bought the single one.  Hmm, maybe not a bargain after all?

And that, Dear Reader, is why you might have seen a middle-aged lady and her father stopped dead in the middle of the bread aisle of a well-known supermarket the other day, laughing their heads off like a pair of fools.

Sylvia's quilt ...

Today I am turning the spotlight on a quilter called Sylvia.  Sylvia is a friend of Gail, and Gail is the sister of Lynn.  It seems that Sylvia fell in love with Gail's version of my pattern, 3D Noughts and Crosses and decided she had to make her own.

Apparently, Sylvia started quilting at about age 9 or 10 in Zimbabwe where she used fabric from old, worn out clothes.  She learned to sew in school and it was all done by hand!  She learned more from the missionaries at the mission hospital in the bush when she was there at about age 17 but didn't have a sewing machine until she came to the US in 1988.  Gail asked Sylvia about her colour choices for her quilt and apparently purple is her favourite colour and if you enlarge the photo you will see that all the fabrics have purple in them to some extent.

I think this is a stunning quilt, thank you Sylvia for making it and also for allowing me to show it on my blog.

I have a question ....

... and I would really like to hear your opinions.  If you are buying a pattern, do you like to see a pretty, "posed" photo of the quilt on the front like this

or would you prefer to see a flat shot such as this

Finally, just because I can, here's a photo of a lovely azalea in our garden.  In real life it is actually a much deeper pink, but I am a useless photographer, and this was the best I could do.

I'm back again ...

... (did you even notice I was missing?)  We had a super holiday, travelling round Britain on one of these

(only kidding, we were on steam trains, but I saw this at one of the stations and thought it was great fun) seeing wonderful scenery and eating wonderful food. We've been from London, down to almost the tip of Cornwall, up through Wales to the top of Scotland, over the sea to Skye, back down the other side of Scotland and then down to London again. We went with our friends from Cornwall again this year, and as an added bonus Scrappy and her husband were there too.

We got home yesterday, and now the diets start and the washing machine and iron are working overtime. Soon I'll get back to pattern writing and then I can get Big Bertha out and start quilting things like Coloured Boxes and Tubix.

 

Of Men and Quilts ...

... Rewind about 3 weeks, and the conversation between Mr Fixit and I went like this:

Me: We're going on holiday in about 3 weeks, do you need any new clothes like shirts? (which can be roughly translated as "We're going on holiday in 3 weeks, you need to buy some new shirts").

Mr F: OK I'll think about it.

All quiet on the shirt front until last Monday at about 10 pm,  when Mr F comes out of his study and proudly announces: I've ordered some new shirts.

Me: Do you think they'll be delivered in time, considering we're going on Friday? (rough translation: It's too late, they won't arrive by Thursday)

Mr F: Hmm.

So today I went out and bought him some new shirts!

So on to the quilts part of the title.

Here is Tubix as a flimsy, which is also going to be a pattern once I've written it up and it's been tested - any volunteers?
Edited 24 April:  Thanks so much everyone, I now have enough people who volunteered to test this pattern for me.

I've called it Tubix because it looks like square tubes and sort of reminds me of the Rubix Cube.

Also, it occurred to me that I haven't shown you my (unfinished) version of Colour Boxes that I wrote about here, so here it is

NOW what's her excuse ...

... for her silence you're all wondering aren't you?  Well, I've had a virus.  Strictly speaking, I haven't had one, but my computer has.

Yes, my lovely, shiny new laptop got infected.  This virus is actually a browser hijacker, which, once it's in, overwrites the default search settings on the computer and sends you off to some very dodgy sites instead, so whilst it doesn't actually steal my information or anything, it can send me to sites that might.  This is also a piece of malware which changes itself so that virus scanners such as AVG, which I use and Malwarebytes, which I also use (did I hear someone mention belts and braces just then?) do not detect this nasty little thing.

There are symptoms that tell you you've caught the virus though.  You might notice that your default search engine is changed or you are frequently being told the site you want can't be found.  I found it by accident when I noticed that a lot of sites were taking an age to load and if I looked at the bottom left hand side of my screen it said "waiting for partner18.myadvisor,com".  I then googled and was not happy at what I found out.

There are several ways of getting rid of it.  The first is to try running a virus scan, but that's unlikely to do any good.  The next is to start changing your computer systems files, but I didn't feel confident in doing that.  The fairly drastic version is to do a complete factory reset of the computer. Since mine is quite new, I wouldn't lose anything (except my time), so this is the option I went for.  The final solution is to pay a man to do it for you.  Downloading the current version of Windows 8.1 took an age (4.5 hours) plus about the same to do the 93 updates, so that was a whole day.  Then I had to reinstall all my own programs, run scans, check everything worked OK and so on.  I finished installing the final bit of sorftware this morning, and here I am again.

So that's my excuse.

Grrr........

Eight blocks made early this afternoon ......
Eight blocks to be unmade late this afternoon!

I have sewn, pressed and trimmed all eight blocks before realising that I have sewn the two centre pieces in upside down in every block.  That means the whole block hast to be unsewn every time. How could I not notice such a glaring mistake earlier? 

I hate it when that happens.

Thought for the day ...

There was a comment on my last post asking how I can sell the pattern for Wimbledon Squares when the same quilt has been around for ages and can be seen all over the internet? This raises an interesting point and so I thought that rather than replying by email as I would usually, I would put my reply in the form of a blog post so people can join the conversation if they want to. 

I agree the block is not necessarily original, however, if you look at almost all patterns, you will see that they are based on traditional block designs that have been around for many, many years.  As Harry S Truman once said “there is nothing new in this world, except the history we do not know”.  However, what hasn't been around is my version of the pattern.  A designer does her own calculations on fabric quantities, writes her own instructions and draws her own diagrams for how to make the quilt, from how to cut the fabrics and sew them together to make blocks, through to adding the binding to make the final quilt.  All of this is in her own words, and has taken up her time, and that is what she is selling.  In short, I believe that any designer who does this has the right to expect to be paid for her work.

I also think that quilting would stagnate if designers were only allowed to produce patterns using blocks that have never been seen before.

The commenter also stated that she has made quilts like this without a pattern, as have I and many other people, I am sure, but I doubt that a beginner would be able to do that.  If we don’t help those beginners by giving them straightforward patterns with instructions, they won’t be able to increase their abilities and confidence and they might well lose interest and drift away and then there is a danger that the art of quilting will gradually die out.

I think my friend Nancy summed this up by saying “none of us ever got up on our legs for the first time and ran a marathon”.

Wimbledon Squares gets tested ...

... this is another of my designs which is now becoming a pattern.  Here is my version, which I made several years ago.  (Memo to self: get a decent photo of this quilt to replace this one where it's scrumpled up to fit on a washing line.)

This time my testers were Donna, Rita, Susan, Janette who all did a wonderful job with this pattern for me and the resulting quilts are all very different.

Donna and her constant companion and helper Ms Cha Cha Cat, made this version, which she has called Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly.  They have made this for Donna's niece, Bailey, who loves all things pink and purple.  There is a little funny story about the fabrics in this quilt.  They have all come from a range called Henley by Makower.  Now Makower is a UK company, and Henley  Royal Regatta is regarded as part of the London Social Season and would be attended by people such as Lady Mary from Downton Abbey.  All very appropriate considering I live in the UK, don't you think?

This very dramatic version, called was made by Susan.  When she had finished, Susan took this quilt and another one she has made, which you will see in a minute, for a drive to find suitable backdrops for some great photos. Who remembers the Wombles of Wimbledon Common?  Well Susan obviously does, as she's named this "Wombling On".  Once I read that I couldn't get their theme tune out of my head for days, and now it's back again.

Not content with making one quilt, Susan then decided to play around a bit with the pattern  and Autumn on Wimbledon Common is the result.  I was blown away by this version as it is so different and so clever.

Now, this one has made me laugh for several reasons.  You all know my friend Scrappy?  Well, she decided to challenge herself to only use three fabrics instead of the three hundred and thirty three she would usually go for.  That was amazing enough, but then, the other evening, just as she was finishing the top, I had an email from her saying "wasn't I clever, to chose one fabric with tennis balls on it?".  I was with her when she bought the fabrics, and although they aren't really tennis balls, they do look very like them.  So she is calling her quilt Wimbledon.

There are still more quilts to show you, but I expect you're fed up with the sound of my voice by now, so I'll just say thanks so much to Donna, Susan and Scrappy for the great job they have done on my behalf and leave you with the Wombles song

Red Sprinkles becomes ....

... Honey Bee Sprinkles, Blue Travelling Sprinkles and The Dragon Princess, thanks respectively to Nancy, Joanna, and Nancy again who have been pattern testing for me.

Here are some pictures of their versions of the pattern

First up is Nancy's Honey Bee Sprinkles.  I love the different colours and the bees in some of the blocks are gorgeous. I think the red border does a great job of keeping them all under control.

This is Joanna's lovely blue quilt.  She has already quilted and bound it, and has donated it to the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge.

Then, be afraid, be very afraid, cos here come the dragons.  This version was also made by Nancy who has called it The Dragon Princess because apparently she had a story in her mind about a Princess who falls in love with a Dragon she finds in her rose garden.  If you look closely you will see that Nancy has only used three fabrics in this version.
Edited to say there are 6 fabrics, the dragon had obviously hidden some when I first looked at the quilt!

I would like to thank all of my wonderful testers for doing such a great job for me.  There will be more posts showing the testers' quilts coming up, so, as they say, watch this space.

Normal service ...

... can now be resumed, I think.  I have three four good reasons for having been absent again for the past week.

Firstly, on the day I was writing my last post I had a tickly throat and the odd sneezle and by the end of the day I had developed a horrid, dasty code id by dose.  I still have the sore throat and a cough a week later.  It's been years since I've had a real cold like that, so I've felt very sorry for myself, although the manufacturers of paper hankies, throat lozenges and cough mixture are very happy about the increase in their profits.

Secondly I lost my virtual voice.  Most of you have heard me whinging for months now that my laptop was preparing to give up the ghost, and last week it got so that I had to give in and buy a new one.  That has meant I have had to go from using Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, and that, let me tell you, is a massive leap.  So much so that, after a couple of days I ordered myself a Dummies Guide to Windows 8.  There seems to be very little similarity between the two systems so far, and I have to tell you that I do NOT like it.  I will persevere though, as I have been told that once I get used to it I will like it - yes Lynn, I'm blaming you if this doesn't work out!  Just as an aside, would you all like a bit of a giggle at my expense?  Well, the day after I got this new laptop, I wanted to uninstall the preset virus checker programme, McAfee, and install AVG, which we prefer.  Mr Fixit helpfully produced the CD for me to insert, and that's when I realised something.  Putting it politely, I had nowhere to stick it!  Yes folks, I had bought this super-whizzy new laptop with loads of memory and an extra fast brain, but it doesn't have a disc drive!  Heyho, I guess I'll now have to buy an external one.

The third reason is that I took off for a brief trip down south to visit my DS, DDIL and DGS3.  Grandson 3 was performing in a concert at the local theatre which was lovely and I so enjoyed it, but I didn't really have any time to blog about anything.

The fourth reason is that yesterday was Mothers' Day here in the UK, so I treated myself to an even lazier than usual day.  Mrs Nomad came round in the afternoon with a Yankee Candle and some chocolates, and my son gave me flowers, so I was a spoilt mother.

yesterday ....

...  was the monthly meeting of the Yorkshire Modern Quilters, a group which I thoroughly enjoy belonging to.

This month a number of us were making sewing caddies.  The pattern is a free one which can be found here. It was a fun day, but along the way, there was much wailing, whining and sulking (and not just by me, in case that's what you were thinking).  The main problem we were all having was with our bottoms! Variations of the problem ranged from having left it at home ( most of us did the cutting at home before we met), cutting it the wrong size and sewing it on the wrong way round so all the seams would be on the outside - and yes, that last one was my error.  Anyway, by the end of the day there was quite a collection of cute little caddies like these,

 and this is Scrappy's

and here is mine

Ignore all the loose ends that I haven't yet sewn in but I couldn't wait to put things in it and see what it looked like.

It was a great day, and thanks must go to Quilthaze and Janet for organising these for us.

What's missing in this picture?

Our bird feeder, that's what.

The other morning we got up and opened the curtains to find that some toe-rag had come down our drive in the night and helped themselves to it.  Amazing really, it's been standing outside ageing in all sorts of weather for about three years now, so it's not as if it was all shiny and new looking. We've walked around the are to see if it's lying around somewhere but it's not and it's certainly too heavy to have just blown away.

It makes you wonder what goes on in some people's minds, doesn't it?

How do you know ...

... when it's time to stop sewing for a while?

When you find yourself telling someone you'll meet them at two and a half instead of two thirty!

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, yes I actually did that once.

Helping the economy ...

I may have been quiet lately, but I have still been helping the economy out a little bit - well, it's our moral duty to do so, isn't it?

First off, I bought this gorgeous bundle of summer.  Aren't the colours just so wonderful?  I have no idea what I'll be doing with these, but for now they are looking lovely just sitting on a shelf.  Don't you love it when a package also contains some little extras?  Jodie from Fort Worth Fabric Studios always seems to include a little treat with her packages, and this time I got a cute little notepad, and also a sachet of white chocolate drink.  I drank that yesterday, and it was yummy. Jodie has a great eye for colour, and puts together some very tempting FQ bundles.

  

About a week ago, my friend Scrappy and I went on an expedition.  Next week we are going to a sewing day where we will be making sewing caddies, so that was a good excuse to go shopping.  Actually, I already have the fabric I need for that, but I also needed some for a bag I am going to make and also I needed some to go into another quilt I am making.  So, off we went on a train to the seaside, where there is a really great shop that sells fabrics like Moda very cheaply cos they are last years ranges.  This is what I bought.  We had a fun day and had lunch out too although there are no photos of that - we ate it too quickly!

Oh, and while I've been writing this the postie bought me another package.  There is no photo, but it's some Kona white and Kona black fabrics.

Hello? ...

... Is there anybody there?

Probably not, cos I've been so quiet.

Why?

Well, I could tell you that I was abducted by aliens and taken off in a spaceship to live with little green space-people, but you probably wouldn't believe me.

I could tell you that I won a large fortune on the lottery and have been on a world cruise, but you probably wouldn't believe me.

I could tell you that I've been busy doing a total spring-clean of both our house and Dad's, but you certainly wouldn't believe me.

So what have I been doing?

Writing patterns, spending time with family and friends, helping the economy out a bit and generally just living a normal life.  Tomorrow (I hope), I'll show you one or two fabric purchases that I might have made recently.

No comment ....

Him: Darling, do you need help?

Her: Yes dear, you see that bag of potatoes?  Would you peel half and put them in the saucepan please?

What can I say?

(A friend sent this to my husband, but there is no credit so I don't know where it originated, sorry.)

Hexies and runners ...

... yesterday I spent the day at Scrappy's and the intention was to eat, chat and sew.  Well we did the first two items on the agenda, but the sewing didn't happen somehow.  By the time we'd had coffee and cake, chatted and compared quilty purchases we'd made since last time we got together, it was time to eat again. This time it was lunch, which was a wonderful pasta dish with salad (very good for us) and yummy home-made bread (maybe not quite so good for us as the salad?) Then we decided to sew.  Well that was a mistake.  I was going to finish some applique prep work and then actually start putting it together, but ... I had forgotten my little applique iron and felt that using a full size iron was just a recipe for burnt fingers.  Scrappy meanwhile was busy making a Heartfire block - yes, I seem to have passed on my love of that pattern - until she realised she'd just cut and sewn a strip that was 1/8" too narrow.  Out came the seam ripper and we both decided we weren't meant to sew that day.

Anyway, here's a picture of her hexies so far.  The picture quality isn't great cos I was taking them with my phone, but I think you get the idea. Aren't they wonderful?

This next photo is of a wallhanging she's making.  The pieces were cut using the Go cutter and in real life the colours are much more vibrant. I absolutely love this.  Do you think she'd notice if I "borrowed" it when it's finished?

Thank you ...

.. Woww, thank you, I now have enough volunteers to act as pattern testers.  I have been gobsmacked by how generous everyone has been with their time.  Blogging friends really are great.  Now I must stop playing on the computer and go and get writing.

Help wanted ...

I need one or two willing and unpaid volunteers who would be willing to test a couple of patterns for me.  

A friend wants to sell them in her pop-ip shop and obviously I am thrilled at the idea, but there is a snag. The designs have never been written up as patterns as I just drew them up in EQ7 and then made them up as I went along, so this is where I am hoping a couple of you might step in to the breach.  Is there anyone out there who would be willing to test the patterns for me? My friend Scrappy has already volunteered, but I can't expect her to do everything.  

The two designs are Red Sprinkles and Wimbledon Squares and could both be done from jelly rolls, FQs or even scraps from your hoards.  Both quilts are quite simple to make, and the main requirement is that you would need to be able to set to work quite quickly.

 

Happy Valentines day ...

... and Happy Anniversary to Mr Fixit and I.

Handy Household Hint ....

... number something or other.

I don't know about you, but whenever I buy stuff from the supermarket, I always put the new stuff behind the old, to make sure I use it in order.

Well, it's just occurred to me that I don't really need to do that with toilet paper!  Doh!!  I've been carefully doing that for years.

Red and White ...

... Inspired by the Red and White Quilt exhibition in New York a few years back, and also by the EQ challenge, SewCalGal is holding a Year of Red and White Quilt Challenges during 2014.  You can follow the link here to read all about it.

Between 3 Feb and 9 Feb, she is hosting a linky party called Show It where people are invited to show any red and white quilts they have which were made prior to 2014 and you know me, I can never resist an invitation to a party, so I thought I'd join in.

This quilt is called Red Sprinkles and I apologise to my regular visitors who have seen it before.

I designed this quilt using EQ7 during 2013 and used some red fat quarters I had bought a few years earlier when I was on holiday in New England. It measures about 50" x 72".  Originally it was going to be larger, but then I realised that I did not have enough of the border fabric for a larger quilt. See, that's what happens when I buy fabric just 'cos I like it - it's much safer to design the quilt first, and then buy the fabric. I (or rather Big Bertha) quilted it using a sort of bubbly pattern with a variegated red/purple/gold thread and here is a close up so you can see the thread I hope.

I was going to show you my Snowmen quilt next.  This is a redwork quilt which I made a couple of years ago, but would you believe I cant find any photos of it, nor can I find the actual quilt, but I can show you a picture of it as I was assembling it,

I wonder which cupboard I've tidied that into?  

Thinking of redwork, there is this one too

Finally, I was going to show my Red Rings (formerly known as Red Wreaths, and before that known as Christmas Wreaths,) but I realised there were two problems with that one.  Firstly, the border is not just red and white and secondly I finished it just last week, so I cant. I did blog about it a couple of posts back though.)

Today is ...

... 2 February, which means that it is Candlemas Day here in the UK and Groundhog day in the US.

According to folklore here

 If Candlemas Day be clear and bright, winter will have another bite

and also

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair, half of winter's to come and mair

It's also Groundhog Day and US tradition says that if a groundhog peeps out of his burrow and sees his shadow then he'll go back into his home and winter will continue for another six weeks.




Uh oh, when I look out of the window, I see blue skies with some little fluffy white clouds - not good.