Too many WIPs - Progress report

I became a finisher.
Now, I have returned to my earlier self and procrastinate.
I started to piece some drunkards path blocks - I want to make two lap quilts for a couple of friends, but I'm wavering on the layouts. Here are some possibilities. I might make them mirror images, one with the dark quarter circles and the other with the light. Any ideas?

Matchy matchy

Not matchy

The start of a mirror image
I need to commit to a couple of things, one of which is to finish stuff before I start anything else. Other current WIPs are:
Waiting to be basted and quilted

This one is boring - well it was but the photo has disappeared. Bad blogsy.  Put it back now!

Lovely tone it down

Long term project

Still working on this shawl

Owl tea cosy for my sister

APQ Tone it Down - blocks eleven and twelve

I had a big sewing session last night and this morning.  Blocks eleven and twelve are now done - It takes about four solid hours of sewing to complete two blocks - that is with most of the pieces already cut.

Blocks so far...

I've also completed a few more flowers for my hexi quilt.  I only make these on the train, down at the dog park and at night time if I watch a bit of telly.  These hexis have one inch sides, excluding the seam allowance, and I've been sewing them together with a running stitch.  This is more my style - lots of loud colour.

I'm still painting our little sitting room - it is bright yellow.  So, lots of things in progress.

Prizes received and finishes achieved

My little prize packet of Aurifil threads arrived.  Lovely colours.  I also won a $50 voucher from the fat quarter shop, through the 2012 FMQ Challenge hosted by SewCalGal.  Sadly, postage to Australia has increased a lot, so I had to pay about another $20 to get a colour card for Kona cotton and two charm packs of Kaffe Fassett fabric.  All the prizes have lovely bright colours.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished my sister's quilt, a red and white double nine patch on point.  It's taken about five washes to try and get the dissolving thread out, and the lines from those stitches still show.  Hopefully a few more washes and they'll be completely gone.  My sister will be coming up for a visit in a couple of weeks, so I won't post it to her but wait to give it to her when she arrives.
Here it the back of the quilt, hanging on the clothes line.  Its the first sunny day we've had in a couple of months.

Here it is lying on the floor - the ripple in the side is only due to the clothes line.  The border is actually flat - hooray.

Border quilting

First alternate motif

Second alternate motif

On the train to work yesterday morning, I also finished hand sewing the binding to my mother-in-law's GMFG hexagon lap quilt.

I also started an improv star quilt as a present for someone.  It didn't take long to piece and I've started to quilt it in the last couple of days.  Progress to date.

More progress

The week didn't start off very well, with my bad Billie dog pulling me off my push bike and slamming me into a wooden bollard.  I suspect I might have a small fracture in my ribs, although they didn't find anything in the x-rays at the hospital.  I've also got skin missing all down my left arm.  Bad Billie.

Today I finally finished quilting the blocks in the body of the double nine patch quilt for my sister.  Hooray!  I've started on the feather border, using high tech tools to mark the curves for the feather spine.

 I've sewn one spine so far and one side of the feathers.  I'm still undecided on what to do with the corners and whether or not I should complete the other side of the feathers.  I quite like it this way.  Maybe piano keys on the inner side of the borders or maybe nothing.  I'd love to hear your suggestions.

 I've also quilted some more of the GMFG blocks.  The real colour is somewhere between these two photos.  I think my favourite quilting block so far is the green one, which I quilted using a chrysanthemum quilting design by Angela Walters.

Australia day long weekend progress

What an eventful long weekend. On Friday night, we had DH's wine tasting. Cyclone Oswald was just starting to make an appearance in SE Qld, so it was raining, but not too bad. On Saturday, I continued to quilt motifs on my sister's quilt, but kept having trouble with the washable marker, as the marks disappeared soon after marking, due to the constant rain, heat and humidity. Sunday morning was no better. It started to rain very heavily throughout the morning and I had to stop to dig trenches in the front yard to get rid of the water pooling on the high side of the house. I also moved lots of things from a concrete ledge to the floor under the house, as lots of water was coming onto the ledge.

In the early afternoon, we went to see if our neighbours needed help moving furniture, as their bottom floor was going to flood. By the time we got back, the bottom of our yard was a foot deep in water and was rising at a rapid rate.

Went into high drive after this, as we were worried that under the house might flood and moved the washing machine, sewing machine and a million other things upstairs. By night time, we were both very tired, but glad to see that the water was draining away and would not reach the house.

Another flood is about to hit Brisbane, while further north, lives are likely to be lost from more flooding.

Today, I moved things back downstairs, as our flooding comes from a local creek in high rainfall and not from the Brisbane river, which is due to peak tomorrow. We have had about 300 ml of rain in the last couple of days, with almost 200 ml on Saturday.

I really needed to do some quilting, so started stitching in the ditch of the GMFG hexi quilt for my MIL then quilted some of the flowers. I know lots of people think that hand pieced hexis should be hand quilted, but ..... Forget it. This one will be hand pieced and machine quilted and bound.

Pics are below. Good luck for tomorrow everyone and I hope not too many houses are flooded. Many have already lost power and phones.

WIP Wednesday

Quilting of the white blocks continues.  I drew a couple of motifs for my sister to choose from and ended up going with this one.

Given that there are 6 x 5 white blocks, and the linear nature of the motif, I decided to quilt this motif on alternating white blocks and maybe use a wreath type motif on the other white blocks.  This would help to disguise any wonkiness in my quilting the first motif as I wouldn't have to line everything up perfectly.

 

I quilted the large motif five times in the first two rows and then thought, why not use the central part of the motif for the other blocks?

Using Don Linn's method to mark the motif onto tulle and then onto the quilt, I tried out the smaller motif.  I didn't quite like its placement, so removed the marks with water.  To my horror, some of the permanent marker was left on the fabric!   I emailed Don to see if he had come across this and he replied that he had not.

As the quilting is nowhere near finished, I tried to spot remove it, to no avail.

I decided to try and hide it by quilting over it and I've now almost completed two rows.  Here are pictures of the quilted motifs.  I'm going to have to try and find another method for marking motifs without a template, as I just can't run the risk of this happening again.  I had the same problem on a section of the border of my mother's quilt.

Finishes or WIPs

Hooray
On Wednesday, I had a few completions.  First, I finished the continuous curves on the double nine patch.  I've now also finished off all the SID in the borders and basted the outside border.  Here is a pic of the basted and continuous curves.  The basting of the nine patches was done with water soluble thread, but with the heat and humidity we've been experiencing, I had a lot of thread breaks.  Hopefully it will wash out.

I hope the basting washes out!

continuous curves

I also finally finished adding the last row of flowers to my grandmother's flower garden.  It has taken ages since we got home, as I have only worked on it on the train to and from work.  Next up is basting it.  I have to have both quilts finished before the upcoming birthdays in late March and early April, and have to send the late March one off to ensure it reaches my sister in time.

I'm glad to have finished this flimsy.  So, two sort of finishes and WIPs this week.

I'm now planning possible quilts for my niece and nephew, both young adults.

Lying on a queen size bed

Hanging in it's own glory

The last stitch

Done on the train home today.  Have to iron it before the pretty pic goes up.

GMFG update

I'm busy back at work and trying to complete the Dresden plates quilt before Christmas - I don't think that is going to happen.

Since arriving home, I've sewn all the white hexis around the full perimeter of the GMFG quilt and have been sewing the half flowers for the last row. I'm now joining the last row together, before I can attach it to the rest of the quilt. As all my hand sewing is only happening on the train to work and back, my progress is slow. I live too close to town as its only a 10 minute trip!

Here is a photo of my current progress. The colours are much truer now that I can upload photos from my camera.

Final full flowers

We have been in Bangkok for three nights, on our way home.  I found a fabric shop in Edinburgh with some quilting fabric.  The woman behind the counter wasn't very friendly, but I bought some plain fabrics so I could make the final flowers using fabric I bought in Amsterdam and Ljubljana.

My final full flowers are below.  My phone is so frustrating as it washes out all the colour.  The blue flower has delft blue in the outer petals.

I've been quiet as I've been joining all the original flowers together.  All I have to do now is join the last four flowers to each other and to the rest of the flimsy, sew together two half flowers (don't have the fabric to do that until I get home), add in the two missing petals that I lost on the train and finish off the white border at the bottom of the quilt.  

Ill post a picture of the full flimsy when I get home and can upload a photo from a real camera.  It should only take a couple of fullish days, so maybe at the end of next week I'll definitely have finished the top.  I'm not sure if I'll finish it with straight edges or do a hexi border.  Any ideas?

York quilt museum and another hexi

I had a bad migraine when I woke up, but continued sightseeing with dh.  I found that there was a quilt museum in York and we duly toddled off on that general direction.  Dh went to the pub nearby for a York ale, while I paid my six pounds for the museum entry. 
I was disappointed.  There was a display of one quilters work over the years which were essentially contemporary art quilts with mostly straight line quilting, which I wasn't really interested in, and a small room with whole cloth quilts.  That took my attention for a little while.   The attached shop didn't have much on offer either
never mind.  I started and finished another hexi today, apart from the white hexi borders.

New hexi

I finished all of the hexis for which I brought fabric from home and have been joining them together over the last week or so. We went to lake bled yesterday and I decided to use some of the fabric I bought in ljubljana to make a new hexi on the bus trip there.

I only finished the first red row, even though each trip took over an hour.

The red fabric is soooooo tightly woven it burred my needle and it was so difficult to push the needle through that I now have a bloodied hole in my index finger!

Anything to do with the place we visited?  I am looking forward to finishing this flower so my finger can heal.  It's taking me twice as long to stitch this flower.

Update from Ljubljana

We arrived in Ljubljana yesterday afternoon and I joined more flowers on the train trip.  I've now got five sections to join. Those missing petals are really annoying me.

Once again, these colours aren't true - the shaggy rug in the background is lime green!

Grandmother's flower garden quilt progress

I haven't posted for a while as dh has been unwell with a gastric problem and I've been the driver from Serbia, through Romania and Hungary.  Most of our time in Hungary was spent with dh in bed or organising a doctor, so not much sightseeing in Szeged or Pecs.  I finished the final flower and half flowers then started to join them.  We've had two nights in Zagreb and are off to Maribor, Slovenia in the morning.  Here is my progress so far.  With a three hour train trip tomorrow, I should be able to join a few more flowers.  What will I do if I finish sewing before we get home?

Sorry about the grainy photos - I have to take them with my phone to get them up on the blog.

Cluj-Napoca hexi

We've spent two nights in cluj-napoca and I sewed one hexi and one half hexi, but haven't sewn on the white borders.  We are off to Oredea this morning - only a couple of hours drive.  I should finish off the white borders in Oredea and maybe start on my last full flower  and two half flowers.