A Foggy Start and a Productive Day.

 My days off have come to an end, back to work for me tomorrow.  I've enjoyed my three days. I've been busy in the kitchen, completed chores and errands and I've had fun sewing and quilting. 

Today I had cookies in and out of the oven before 8am. 

Treats for the team at work tomorrow.

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While they were baking I got busy on the quilting frame.  It really didn't take long to finish quilting the hexie quilt. 

While I worked, the sun climbed into a foggy sky.

By the time I was finished, the fog had receded a little and the sun was able to shine in on my quilt.

It's only a small quilt. A nice size for a cot or a lap on a cool evening.

I put the hexies to one side, completed some chores then went out to meet a friend for a cuppa. That was fun. Once I got home it was time to work on the memory quilt again. I got the sashing strips sewn to the other sides today and took the time to press them all.

Here they are, all sixty blocks pressed and waiting to be trimmed.

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After a late lunch I trimmed the hexie quilt and had a look for binding. I was lucky and found three blue binding off cuts from previous quilts. I sewed them together and sewed them on. By the time Tony came home I was settled in my chair closing the binding by hand.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks. It has wavy edges. I'm not quite sure what happened there. Never mind, I wasn't aiming for a prize winner. Just a little something to keep me busy and to keep someone warm. 

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Was it last week? Or the week before? That I laid out my goals for August.

By my count, I have achieved them all.

1) Progress on Lest we forget.     ✔

2) Progress on Down in the Garden. ✔

3) Progress on the memory quilt. ✔

4) Christmas Ornaments. ✔

5) Get a quilt onto the frame. ✔

All of that and I still have time left. 

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Back to work for the weekend. Then I'll have two more days off.

More time to sew and play.

I hope your weekend plans include some sewing.

Another Busy Day in the Happy Room 🪡

So here I am, day two of my rostered days off, and though it’s only 2pm, it’s already been another busy day!

I had my chores done by 8.30, then I took myself into the happy room and got busy with the Fun Machine. It was still loaded with a quilting needle and red thread, so I set about adding some more quilting to Lest We Forget.

I’m happy with my progress, and all of the poppies are now quilted. I do still need to work on the leaves and add some final touches before binding this one. 

And I won at thread chicken! The bobbin was just about to run out when I cut the last thread. Talk about cutting it fine!

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Next, I set about cutting the sashing fabric for the memory quilt.

I got one piece sewn onto each block before calling time on that project for the day. It was time to head into town on an errand for Tony.

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I was home just in time for lunch, and while it was cooking I loaded a scrappy hexie quilt onto the frame.

After eating, I set to quilting a meander design. I quilted until the bobbin ran out.

Are you seeing a theme here? LOL.

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Now it’s time to sit in my comfy chair and stitch some more flowers onto the final Down in the Garden block. I made good progress yesterday and hope to get lots more done today.

And with that, I’m off to do some more stitching. 🪡

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Oops! I did it again.

 And here we are at my three days off. I do love this part of my roster. Three whole days to do my thing. Well mostly. The chores do get in the way.  I got busy early this morning and got todays chores done and out of the way.  Then it was time to play.  I got the last of the memory quilt blocks cut and laid them onto the fabric I plan to use for sashing strips. 

I wanted to check that none of them became invisible.  I think they will all be fine. Tomorrow's job will be cutting sashing strips. I have three pieces of each of these fabrics and there is more should I need them.

I left things there as I had to go out to see my chiropractor. 

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Once I got home it was time for some lunch, then I settled in to do some work on Down in the Garden. I spent most of the afternoon sewing up a storm, I'll show pictures soon. During a break to make and drink a cuppa I had a look at facebook marketplace and spied a bargain!

Two more grocery bags, filled to bursting with pretty fabrics.

Of course I made another donation to Sue's grandchildren's bank account. LOL

Again another mix of larger cuts, fat quarters and smaller pieces.

Two bags full.

And once again there were WIPs.

This one looks like fun.

After sorting through both bags, I put them onto my cutting table, ready to be put away another day. Picked up my needle and got back to my down in the garden. While I was out this morning, I called in to see one of ladies from my local club, she had the thread colour I had run out of.  It's a good match. I'm happy about that. The final word has been stitched and now it's back to the flowers.  I'll post an image soon.

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Sunday Progress.

Chooky had a zoom session this morning, so I settled in with my Down in the Garden stitchery. While we were chatting, I realised that I was going to run out of the charcoal brown thread used for the words.

(Once again, blogger has made my image weird. Hopefully if you click on it, you will see what I can see in real life).

Janice appeared quick as a flash with some of the right colour on a bobbin which she has promised to send to me. Thank you Janice.  

Yes, I know there is a shop in town that probably has it in stock, but this BOM kit is over ten years old and possibly the latest batch might be a different shade/dye lot. Hopefully Janices thread will be the perfect colour.

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Once the zoom session was over, I got on with a couple of chores then as there are no grandchildren visiting this week.  I wandered into my happy room and worked some more on the memory quilt. I've mentioned that most of the fabrics are polyesters. Very lightweight and floaty. I've been using a medium weight iron on interfacing to help stabilise them. I cut it to just over the required size and press it onto the fabrics, using a piece of baking paper to protect my iron from any issues the heat might cause.

So far, there have been no issues and I'm happy with how things are going.

The ladies name is Lynn and she attended Timaru Girls High school. Two old school shirts were in the bags of clothing I was given. I cut out the school logo and stuck them onto the plain black back taken from one of the shirts. Clearly, they are different ages so I will make sure they are well separated on the quilt. 

As a young lady at the school, she was in Kowhai House. (Koh-fy).

Kowhai is a pretty yellow flower that grows here in NZ. I went digging in my stash convinced I had a piece of Kowhai fabric but could only find this small piece.

I could make it bigger using some kiwiana off cuts in black, or I could try to find a fat quarter and cut a piece the size of the other blocks. Lynn later returned to work at the school, so it really does have to feature in the quilt. 

I might also have a look out for some Hockey fabric, as she was a lifelong fan of Girls High hockey teams. 

I don't have to make a decision today. I have a few more pieces to cut. The interfacing is already fused; they just need trimming.  

The next job will be to start laying the prepared pieces onto the fabric I purchased for the sashing strips. I want to be sure it is the right one, before I start cutting. But that is a job for another day.

 

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It's time to cook some dinner then I might get back to my stitching for a couple of hours. 

A very productive weekend.

Back to work tomorrow. 

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A Little Stitching and a Lot of Temptation

 After a busy few days at work, I finally have my weekend off. And it’s club week, so I packed up the easiest project to take along with me — my Down in the Garden stitchery. 🪡

If you remember, I left it here last time, having only just started. After the official meeting and the usual chat, I got stuck in and started stitching. I took a few breaks to have a look at what everyone else was working on, because that’s always part of the fun.

We broke for lunch, which naturally led to more chatting, but I was soon back to my stitching. I packed up a little early as we have a 60th birthday party to attend this evening, but I’m very happy with the progress I made.

While I was there, I also had a dig through the storage area. There was something I was sure I had seen in there before…

And yes! That big quilting hoop came home with me on loan. Sadly, there was no stand with it, but I’m going to have a play with the hoop before deciding whether I want to invest in a stand of my own.

I’ve been working on the Poppy / Lest We Forget quilt just in my hands, as my largest cross-stitch hoop wasn’t really up to the job. Well, I don’t think so anyway! 😆

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Every meeting has a Show and Tell, although it was a quiet one today with only six of us there, and just two people bringing things to show.

Raelene had this fabulous motorbike/blokes’ quilt that she made for her husband to take camping.

It’s backed with an old woollen blanket, and some of the squares are made from his old T-shirts. I love that idea — a proper camping quilt with a bit of his own history stitched into it.

Lynda brought along a rather more long-term project: 365 — a block a day.

And she had hand quilted it!

She said the quilting only took 3 months!  🪡

Oh, my goodness. That 365 is calling to me.

Naturally, I had a little look on Pinterest…

And now it’s calling even louder. 😂

Do I need another project?

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Probably best not to answer that question.

A Productive Couple of Days.

Back to work tomorrow, but my two days off have been busy! Yesterday I posted a list of projects I wanted to make some progress on this month, so let’s have a look and see how I’m doing so far…

(((But First A little Blogger grumble…

Before we get into the projects, I have a small Blogger-related rant. Because apparently my perfectly good photographs are not good enough for Blogger.

It has decided to squish, blur and generally make a mess of some of my images. 🙄 So, if a photograph looks a bit odd, it’s not the original image — Blogger has had a little fiddle with it.

The images are clickable, so if you want to see what I actually photographed, give them a click and you should get the proper version.

Honestly, Blogger. They were perfectly good pictures before you got involved…)))

Normal blogging content shall now resume..

1) Lest We Forget

No more of that big stitch hand quilting for now, but I did take it through to The Fun Machine, where I made a start on working some details into those big appliqué flowers.

It was all fun and games until the bobbin ran out. Never mind, it was almost time to stop anyway!

2) Down in the Garden

That almost-finished block is now complete. 

And I’ve made a start on the final block. This one has no pretty fabrics at all — it is entirely stitchery.

I’ve only made a start, but this one might keep me busy for a while longer! 

It feels good to finally be working on this last piece. I can almost see the finish line now.

3) The Memory Quilt

I started with a huge pile of fabric pieces that I had cut from clothing last week.

And over the two days I’ve made great progress. I’ve been cutting medium-weight interfacing, fusing it into place and then cutting the blocks.

I still have a few more fabrics to work with, and I also have some large offcuts tucked away in case I decide I need a few more pieces.

4) Christmas ornaments

Yep, I even made a start on those too!

No pictures though. They are always secret, remember? 😉

5) Load a quilt onto the frame

Well… I only had two days off! I had chores and grocery shopping to fit in as well as all the fun stuff. 😂

So, loading a quilt onto the frame didn’t happen this time.

Back to work for three days tomorrow, followed by a busy weekend off. Hopefully, though, I’ll manage to pick up some hand stitching in a quiet moment.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my progress. Not everything on the list got done, but quite a few things moved forward — and that’s what counts. 

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It's Never Too Late....

I haven't set any goals since I completed two quilts to take with me to the Isle of Man. So, I think it's time to get back into the game.

The first week of August is already over, but hey... a girl can be late. 😂

During this month, I would love to make some progress on the following projects.

1. Lest We Forget — The Poppy Quilt

This one is getting there. It needs a little more hand quilting, some more machine work, and then binding. I would really like to see this one moving closer to the finish line.

2. Down In The Garden

There are less than two blocks left to hand stitch, and then I can put the whole thing together. I'm looking forward to getting to that stage, because assembling a quilt always makes it feel like a real quilt rather than a collection of bits living in a project box.

I have been struggling to picture it quilted but now I'm thinking I might like to try some hand quilting on this one too. 

Oh dear.

It really has got me.

I've been bitten by the hand quilting bug!

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3. The Memory Quilt

A colleague gave me a pile of her mother-in-law's clothing, and I need to turn those clothes into a memory quilt. This one is obviously going to be a longer-term project, but I'd like to at least make a start on it.

And, interestingly, this is the only one of my August projects that mainly requires The Fun Machine. The other three projects involve mostly hand stitching or hand quilting, so perhaps this will be my excuse to get the machine out and give it some attention. It does seem rather unfair to leave the poor thing sitting there looking pretty and unused. 😂

4. Christmas Ornaments

I need four more Christmas ornaments this year. I already made three and took them with me to the Isle of Man, so four more need to be made.

5. Get a quilt onto the frame

I have a whole pile of finished quilt tops waiting patiently, so for this one, any top will do. I would simply like to get one loaded onto the frame and quilted.

There is something slightly ridiculous about having a pile of finished tops waiting to be quilted while another lovely machine sits underneath a pretty dust cover doing absolutely nothing. I think it's time to put it to work!

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And note that I didn't say I wanted to complete anything.

Progress would be good.

I'm trying not to fall into the trap of deciding that every project needs to be finished before I can enjoy the next one. Sometimes a little bit of stitching, cutting, quilting or planning is enough to move things forward.

So that's the plan for August.

Make progress.

No promises about finishing anything. 😉 

One Big Stitch Led to Another....

 A few days ago I showed you my very first attempts at big stitch quilting. My success with Tommy gave me the confidence to think, "Perhaps this is how I should finish the rest of the quilt."

After a rummage through my stash, I found some Pearl Cotton #8 threads in just the right colours. That felt like a good sign!

To continue the remembrance theme, I made a simple cardboard template based on the familiar paper poppies we wear on ANZAC Day and Armistice Day. Using the template, I marked poppy shapes around the quilt before stitching around each one in big stitch quilting.

Happy with how they looked, I turned my attention to the appliquéd poppies. Echo quilting around the flowers is subtle and I think it worked well.

Then I reached the leaves...

The leaves were cut with lovely wavy edges, which look beautifully realistic, but they aren't nearly as much fun to quilt around. Trying to keep my stitches neat while following all those little curves is proving to be quite a challenge. They had me wondering if I need to rethink my plan for quilting them. My stitches aren't as even as I'd like them to be, but I keep reminding myself that this is my first ever attempt at big stitch quilting. 

Perhaps this quilt isn't quite ready to wave the white flag just yet! Even so, every new section teaches me something, and I'm still convinced that big stitch quilting is the right direction for Lest We Forget. I may just need to be a little flexible as I work out the best way to tackle those troublesome leaves.

One stitch at a time...

Meet Tommy.

 So today was the day.

I wasn't supposed to be working on Lest We Forget today, but it happened anyway. And I'm so very happy that it did.

I spent some time this morning cruising the web, looking for ideas to fill some of the black and white spaces. I wanted something that would add interest without taking away from the poppies.

Then I came across Tommy.

You know the classic black silhouette of a soldier, standing in the "Rest on your arms reverse" pose? That was the one.

I had quite a large space to work with in the black section, so a printed template wasn't really going to work. There was nothing for it — I would have to draw him by hand.

I'm rather pleased with my efforts.

Next, I set about quilting him using my walking foot and black thread. I couldn't really see him from the front of the quilt. He looked great from the back though. I wanted something subtle... but perhaps that was just a little too subtle.

I decided I would think about it while I worked on filling the other spaces.

Poppies of course.

The first one was great.

Then they went downhill faster than a runaway train. 😂

Some unquilting took place, followed by a rethink.

And then I went off on a slight tangent. My brain came up with the idea of big stitch quilting... and that's when Tommy showed his true colours and my first ever efforts at big stitch hand quilting.

I loved what I was doing.

I see a lot more big stitch quilting in my future.

I really didn't need another handwork project, but it seems I have one anyway. Tommy may be keeping me company and keeping me busy for some time yet.

And you know what? I'm perfectly happy about that.

As I have been working on this quilt, I have found myself calling the soldier in the black panel Tommy.

Not because I have randomly given him a name, or because I have become attached to a name for the sake of it. I call him Tommy because that is what he is.

In British military history, "Tommy" (from "Tommy Atkins") became a familiar name for a British soldier. Add in the tin helmet, the rifle, and that unmistakable First World War silhouette, and the name just comes naturally. When I look at him, my brain simply says, "That's Tommy."

But I think the quilt itself should still be called Lest We Forget.

Why?

Because Tommy is the figure within the quilt. He is one of the characters in the story. The poppies, the soldier, the quilting, and all the details come together to tell that story.

Lest We Forget is the message the whole quilt conveys.

There will still be poppies dotted about in those blank spaces. Hopefully, they will be created with big stitch quilting too. I still like the idea of some echo quilting around the flowers and leaves, but now I think that may become another opportunity for some hand stitching.

I really didn't need another handwork project. Honestly, I have quite enough already! 😂 But it seems that Lest We Forget had other ideas.

Tommy may be keeping me company, and keeping me busy, for some time yet.

As for the barbed wire in the borders...

I make no comments and absolutely no promises. 😂