They're off ...

... to South Africa tomorrow.

What are?

The charity quilts Scrappy and I have been working on.

First, here are photos of my two quilts complete with bindings now, then there is a group photo of the charity quilts that Scrappy and I have made, all of which are off to South Africa tomorrow.

Bon Voyage.

Yippee ....

.... last night I paid for my place on a five day quilting retreat in October.  This is at the same place as last year, right on the coast and about 60 miles from home, which is a very easy drive. We went there last year, and the food is fantastic and there will be plenty of time to sew, walk by the sea and eat.  I am really looking forward to it and planning what I am going to work on.

Then in January we are going on a weekend retreat. This is being organised by a member of the Yorkshire Modern Quilt Group and is actually being held about 15 miles away and very easy to get to.  More projects to plan for that.

We didn't buy much ....

.... really.

 Yesterday Scrappy and I had a day out.  We went off to a new-to-us shop called Simply Solids based in Huddersfield.  After Scrappy spoke to the girls in the shop a few days ago, we found that it was going to be easy to get there by train and bus, so we bought our train tickets and were ready for the off. We had reserved our train seats and were in Coach B.  Scrappy would get on the train at her home town and I would join her at the next stop.  My, not unreasonable, question was, will Coach B be near the front or the back of the train?  Scrappy gave me a bit of a look and pointed out that the train only has three carriages, (which, if I'd thought about it, I would have known,) so it would be in the middle.   That really set the tone for the day I think.  Early yesterday morning I had a text from her confirming the time of the train and the carriage.  That was because, when she got up she kept thinking the train was an hour later.  Anyway, she caught the train, I caught the train, and we settled down for a good chat.  We were having such a good chat in fact that we almost missed our stop. When we got to Huddersfield we found the bus station for the next stage of our adventure and we had a need for coffee so we went into the cafe, certainly not a Costa of Starbuks and definitely a bit of a greasy-spoon type of place, but we were desperate.  Well I don't know what we were drinking, but neither of us could detect a taste of coffee in our cups and the milk was powdered (I know that cos of the lumps of powder in it).  We didn't finish the coffee. Then we clambered on to a bus (an adventure in itself for me, the last time I caught a bus was in 1972) and in a few minutes we were at our destination.

In we went, and although it may be small, it had loads of fabrics so we dived in happily.  An hour or so later we had finished and paid for our fabrics (oh yes, and look at the lovely, re-usable bags we were given). I have to say that Scrappy was outraged when she found I had spent more than her, but nonetheless we left and went across the road for lunch at Ruddi's Vintage Tea Rooms.  The quiche we had was gorgeous and so were the scones with strawberry jam, not to mention the lemonade - all home made and sooo tasty. We did order coffee after lunch, but were both so full up we couldn't finish them! While we were eating Scrappy decided she couldn't cope with the idea that I had more fabric than she did, so we went back to Simply Solids and she added some more fabrics to her stash. When we left the shop we were told we should catch the bus just round the corner rather than right outside as there were more buses running that way, so we set off and guess what?  Just as we turned the corner, a bus went past us going on the route we had chosen not to use. Typical.  Never mind, another one came along a little later.

When we got home, we enjoyed a cup of tea with a cake each which we'd bought from Ruddi's so we could share them with Mr Fixit, we played a little with some blocks on the design wall, and then it was time to take Scrappy to the station for her train home.

These are our purchases. Looking at this photo, can you guess which pile is Scrappy's and which is mine?

Sale time

Summer's coming to an end and with cooler days on the way, we quilters start thinking serious thoughts about new quilts.  Craftsy are clever, they know this is how our minds work, so they've decided to give us a helping hand by holding one of their great sales.  To go shopping, simply click here,  but don't hang about though, it's only on for 3 days. starting today and closing at 11.59 MT on Sunday 23 August.

Small print: this is a sponsored post, so if you buy anything, I receive commission. Thank you.

Rescue operation ....

... Remember the other day I had a little bit of a problem when I was quilting and found that I had rather less backing than top? You can read it here if you are interested. Well, today I mounted a rescue operation.

First I made some flying geese, then I cut up the rest of the pieces into strips and sewed everything together into three rows,

then I sewed the resulting piece to the end of the backing

and this is what the back looks like now. Pheww.

Sweatshop Central ....

...  that's what was going on at my house on Wednesday.  Do you remember that Scrappy and I had been making some charity quilts?  Well one day, Scrappy had a good idea.  Wouldn't it be nice, she said, to make a tote bag for each quilt?  Yes, said I, and it would be great if they had a block on them the same as the quilts themselves.  Hmm, yes well .....

They were both good ideas, until it came to Wednesday when we were making them.  We decided we don't like making totes, but, by the end of the day we had finished them.  (If you look closely, you will notice that the idea of putting blocks on them didn't last too long.)

The day did not go without mishap.  Don't you hate when you are sewing a long seam, get to the end and then realise you've run out of bobbin thread?  Yes, so do I.  Especially when you put a new bobbin in, start the seam again, sew along merrily then realise you had run out of top thread a while ago!

What the $%&*#~ ?

Bertha's feeling much better now.  She had a few days in hospital but when she came home she was worse than ever.  I was very worried about her, but I left her alone with Mr Fixit and his big screwdrivers for a day while I went to play with Scrappy, and when I came home, she was all better.  To celebrate I put this large quilt on the frame and spent the next day quilting it, but .....

....  I got it wrong.  Measure twice, cut once, "they" always say. What a shame I didn't listen.

I actually made this top, and the backing about a year ago, which means I have no more of the backing fabric left so I'm going to have t.o improvise.  The quilt is my version of a Missouri Star tutorial which you can see here.





By the way, I've now joined the current century, and started a Pinterest page where I will show all my quilts. The board is by no means complete yet, but I am working on it.  If anyone wants to see them, they are here

Boys and ...

... their toys.

My son has been here this weekend with his family. He brought his latest toy up with him

and he and Mr Fixit went out to play. Don't you just love the looks of concentration?

 It's a drone, and it's fascinating to watch it wandering around and taking photos. Ooh look, it's our house

Bertha's been a busy bee ...

... she's also been a pain in the you-know-where, and kept having tension hissy-fits.  I've taken the tension thingies apart several times, cleaned and oiled everything I can get to, changed the bobbin, changed the top thread, changed the needle and even tried swearing at her, all to no avail, so, tomorrow Mr Fixit is going to take her apart to see if he can see a problem.

Anyway, this is what we've been doing.  Do you remember a few posts back I showed you a quilt that Scrappy and I had made together as a charity quilt?  We both loved the pattern so we decided to each make another one.

This is Scrappy's version.  I quilted it with a pale pink thread, and think it looks great.

and this is mine.  I love how we both used different layouts, and they are also both different to the original version we made.

Here's a close-up of mine, showing the quilting that I did in pale yellow thread.

Finally, this is another charity quilt and I used a quilting design that I think is fantastic as it gives a 3-D effect to the quilt.










All-in-all, I'm feeling quite smug that I finished these, despite Bertha's attempts to put the kybosh on it all.

No words needed ...

It's been ...

... a good week.  (I can hear you thinking "thank goodness for that, maybe now she'll stop moaning.)

Let's start with the en-suite.  It's finished (almost) at last and everything works. Pheww. The decorator is starting on Tuesday.

Then, last Tuesday, Scrappy and I took off to the seaside for the day.  We didn't see the sea though, but we did see lots of fabric.  This is what I bought

and they will be used to make two quilts. The jelly roll just jumped into my basket and insisted on coming home with me. Scrappy bought about four times as much fabric to also make two quilts. When we got off the train, the first thing we did was visit Costa, where we had lovely coffees and cakes, after our shopping we had yummy sandwiches at a Thornton's coffee shop, then we caught the train.  I had a 40 minute wait for a connection at Scrappy's home station, so guess what we did?  Yep, we went to Costa.

Then on Friday my friend Mrs Flum came a-visiting for the weekend.  Bilbo was supposed to be coming too, but sadly, could not make it at the last minute.  They were going to be here for the weekend.  Scrappy came for the day too on Saturday, and the three of us spent a lovely relaxing day hand-sewing and chatting, only interrupted by food at regular intervals. In the interest of total disclosure, I must admit that Mrs F actually sewed down the bindings on two quilts for me, and even buried all the ends. Thank you.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot.  Scrappy has got her own back on the challenge I gave her earlier this year, (you can read about that here) and issued a challenge to me: make a quilt with NO WHITE in it.  I can't even use a fabric with teeny weeny bits of white in the pattern.  This is not going to be easy for me.

Tomorrow I have to face the music, well all right, the scales, at fat club.  Wish me luck with that.

Hmm ....

.... more practice needed I think!

In my own defence, I hadn't touched my machine since my last post, so maybe it's not too bad?  One thing's for sure, it can only get better!

On another topic altogether, about 2 months ago we (OK, I) decided that we should really have our en-suite revamped and made a bit safer for Mr Fixit, so, design agreed, quote agreed, start date agreed, what could possibly go wrong?  Well, if I tell you that 6 weeks from the start date, it's still not finished, you'll understand why I'm tearing my hair out.  It all went well on week 1 and the first couple of days of week 2. By the way, this is only a small en-suite and the whole job should have taken 8 days. Then, we had to wait for a plasterer.  Really?  Sorry bathroom company but should you not have got this job scheduled better than that? 6 days we waited for the plasterer.  Then the electrician had to follow on to do his thing with the shower pump, the new lights and the extractor fan.  When he left early in the afternoon he said the plumber would be in later to connect the water and then we could use the shower.  Whooppee, we thought.  Silly us.  The plumber didn't turn up so Mr Fixit turned the water back on and went to have the inaugural shower.  Bit of a problem here - it leaked from the water flow control, and I don't just mean a bit of a drip I mean water under pressure. Still, we were both determined to have showers that night so we carried on.  Next problem - we could only have either hot or scalding water, the cold didn't seem to be working and the water would only come from the small hand-held shower head and not from the lovely big rain shower fixed head. Oh, and by then I had realised that they'd fitted the wrong extractor fan. Next morning, first thing, guess who I was on the phone to?  To give the company their due, the boss was with us within half an hour. He fixed the leak, he fixed the cold water but what he couldn't do was fix the flow from the large shower head.  It turned out that we needed a different pump so off he went to order one.  A couple of days, he said and he also promised that the extractor would be changed when they fitted the new pump.  Two weeks passed with almost daily calls from me to them until finally, yesterday, the boss called to say the pump was being delivered that day and he's be up on Monday to change it himself. We'll see.  I can tell you I'm not holding my breath though.

I had planned to have our downstairs cloakroom revamped next, but right now I don't think I can face that!

FMQ progress

I can definitely see progress here.  I bought some gloves at the weekend, as several of you suggested, and I think they helped. The first photo is the front, and the second shows the back.  My stitches are beginning to be a more consistent size, shame I can't say the same about my loops!  All in all though, I'm feeling optimistic today that one day I might become almost a passable quilter.

More playing ...

... does this woman ever do any housework/cooking/etc?  How come she gets to play so often?  That's what you're all wondering isn't it? Well the answer is that when you've got the builders in it's not worth doing things like dusting or vacuuming and it's best to plan meals for the slow cooker that do two days.

So, now we've sorted that out, let me show you what I've been doing. Yesterday was our monthly meeting of the Yorkshire Modern Quilt Group that both Scrappy and I belong to, and I decided to carry on with my ideas for the slice and insert block that I've been playing with lately.  This is what I came up with

By the way, they're not really all puckered, they're creased from where I had them all scrumpled up in my bag when I came home last night and I couldn't be bothered to iron them before taking the photos, sorry.  I'm not sure I like either of these versions, but I had to try them didn't I?

Oh, and Just in case you think I've given up on my free motion quilting, here's a little pile of sandwiches I've just made

Today's playtime ...

... resulted in this block which is a variation on yesterday's.  It uses 14, yes 14 different fabrics.  I love it.

I made it by cutting strips from different fabrics, sewing them together and then sewing them into a tube, cutting rings from the tube and opening them up at various places on the rings and then slicing and inserting them.  I really had fun with this.

It's playtime ...

... in my house.

We've got the builders in, refitting our en-suite.  They're making lots of noise and creating absolute havoc, so, what's a girl to do?  Go and play with her sewing machine, which lives at the opposite end of the house.  So, this is what I've tried out today. (Oooh, I've just realised the strips match the colour on my book cover and also on the blog background - I must like turquoise.)

It's a little bit puckered, but that's cos I forgot to change the tension back from where I have it for my free-motion quilting adventures.  I really like this block and I can see all sorts of possibilities for it.

So, in the last month I've had a go at machine applique, free-motion quilting and now this.  I'm obviously in the mood to experiment.  What next I wonder?

Free Motion Quilting ...

... I'm planning to regularly shame myself by showing the results of each lesson from my Craftsy course as I complete it.  I am hoping that over the time I am doing the course, I will get better at it. Heaven only knows, looking at this first example, there is plenty of room for improvement .  This was almost finished before I decided to quilt my finger in as an additional design feature.

I am very happy with the tension, but not so happy about the fact that the fabric is drawing in a lot, and unevenly.  Maybe that's something to do with me not pinning enough, or is it something else?  If any one can make any suggestions, I'd be very grateful.

I am finding it tricky to work out the relationship between the speed of my hands and my machine to give me decent sized, consistent stitches, but I hope that will come with time.  I am also giving myself shoulder ache if I do too much at one time as I guess I'm tensing up too much.

Anyway, without wittering on any more, here is the piece from Lesson 2.  The first photo shows the top, and the second shows the bottom.  There are good bits and there are bad!

Well, who'd have thought ...

... that free-motion quilting can be a dangerous sport?

Well it can.  I managed to try and quilt my finger!  I just missed the nail but went through my finger. It hurt, but I was very brave and luckily I didn't break the needle. 

It did put a stop to my FMQ antics for today cos it keeps bleeding, so, since it's cold and raining here today, I decided to console myself with a lovely cup of hot chocolate with some cream on top, and a good book

 

Free Motion Quilting ....

Who? Me? Yes that's right, me.

Last weekend I decided it's time I really tried to do some FMQ rather than always relying on Big Bertha to do my quilting for me. I know, I must be mad, but there we go.

So I bought a Craftsy class called Free Motion Quilting Essentials by Christina Cameli and off I went.  I watched the first lesson (twice) and made my sandwiches and played with my tension until I was fairly happy.  I decided to really ask for trouble by using two different colours of fabric and two different colours of thread, so that I would always be able to see if my tension was good, so I used white fabric with a burgundy thread for the top and grey fabric with white thread for the bottom. Then I watched Lesson 2 a few times.  I did the muscle-memory training thing that is always recommended, and then off I went with my machine.  Here are the ugly results that prove a) I have a long way to go, and b) that my muscles seem to have a very short memory!

 Hopefully the next time will show some improvement.

Create something ....

Edited: apparently some people can not see the picture on my blog, I am sorry for that.  I do not know the reason but will try and find out.  In the meantime, if you can't see it, click here to go to this sale.

Craftsy want to encourage everyone to create something that defies all expectations, both our own and other people's. Therefore, for this weekend only, they are giving us the chance to learn something new, by offering great savings on ALL their online-video classes, and don't forget, once you've bought a class, you will be able to access the lessons for ever and ever. Don’t delay though, this sale ends on Sunday - shop now by clicking on the picture above!