Zoom, zoom.

As I'm sure many of you know, Chookyblue had one of her wonderful Zoom sew alongs yesterday.

It was great fun as always. We hit a record 19 ladies all sewing, chatting and zooming along at the same time.

I'm not sure of the total number of people who popped in throughout the day.

Some looked in for only a few minutes and others stayed longer.

Chooky and I were there at the start and the end. 

Just over 15 hours.

It was good to see what people were working on and catch up on all the gossip.

We even had some enabling happening with one particular craft shop getting more than a few mentions. LOL

And Chooky and I were encouraging Sylvia to do a Lucy quilt.

I achieved quite a lot. 

First up I finished sewing together the last of my 2 inch hexes.

(I trimmed the edges and put the border on today, with many interruptions.)

I have really struggled to get a good photo of this one showing it's true colours.

Maybe when I get around to quilting it.....

So that done I picked up my crochet and did some of that, before digging out my Gail Pan Bring me flowers project and I later returned to my crochet.  

It was a wonderfully productive day.

I'm saving other photos for another day, as I'm about to make a start on my secret Christmas project and may not have much to show and tell about for a few days. 

Go along to Chookys blog to see who else joined the Zoom along. 

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I have a busy week ahead at work, but hoping to find time to play too. 

More secrets...

Sew, I'm busy with a secret project.

But here is a peep at the pretty colours.

And just to prove I'm not all about secrets, here is an update on my hexies.

It's grown since I took this picture. LOL

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I'm working this weekend and spending time with Tony before he goes away on a course.

 

Progress is slow.

So I'm settling into my new shifts at work. Not really a huge change for me. I start two hours earlier and finish one hour later, I often used to cover this shift for a colleague, so not a huge change really.  

I have also signed up to do some study to add another qualification to my list. And it will earn me a pay rise. 

A colleague had an app on her phone and was taking pictures for a project, look, she has cartooned me.

It's a very rare day that I see a photo of me that I like, the original of this one was ok, and the result is even better. Liza tells me there will be a whole wall of cartoon staff members and some of the residents too.

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Thanks to a stinker of a headache last week I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. My Christmas ornament did make some great progress on Saturday and I hope to get back to it later this morning.

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And now the stuff I can show.

Look my Batik hexies are growing.

I am very much enjoying this project and sometimes I intend to pick up my ornament but find myself holding this instead. LOL

Maybe I should move it away out of the room until I have completed  my ornament. LOL

Perhaps I'll add these two flowers on first.

The colours don't look bright enough in these pictures. It's a bit of a grey day here and not really very good for photos.

The hexies were pictured by the window, but my crochet blanket was spread out under the lights and looks a bit closer to it's real colours.

I'm down to the final balls of yarn now. One last ball of variegated greens then I'll add a solid blue border and edge treatment. Being 100% wool, it has kept me very cosy while I was working on it.

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My final little piece of show and tell today is the completed background for an applique project.

The pattern for this piece calls for freezer paper, lots of freezer paper, which is ironed onto the background fabrics, before you cut and sew them. Drawing the shapes onto the freezer paper and using it as a template to cut all those bias edges and then stabilising them as I sewed them together made things very easy. 

The applique will not be as fast or easy. There are lots of wriggly edges.

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But first I'm off to work on my Ornament. 

 

I'm Biased

Oh my goodness, I had fun today cutting all these bias edges.

What you see here is actually the back of all the pieces, as the front is covered in freezer paper pieces.

The freezer paper certainly made it a lot easier to cut all those bias edges.

The paper also made it nice and easy to sew those edges together too.

Here you see the first two columns all sewn together.

(That grey splodge in the white is just a water mark and is gone now).

I had fun playing with this today and hope to get the other half put together tomorrow.

These beautiful bias pieces will be the back ground for some applique. 

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LOL As you can see, I didn't yet get around to quilting my Red Berries quilt, it makes a good design wall to pin things to.

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My hexie projects are progressing, I'll post pics of those soon. 

 

Still Hexed

My two days off were wonderful. I did minimal chores, went out to lunch with Tony and sewed!

I have finished May's Christmas ornament and will make a start on June today. Yay! I feel like I'm all caught up.

It's not all been about ornies though. I went along to the local Patchwork and Quilting club on Wednesday evening. It was a very quiet evening, with lots of members choosing to stay away for various reasons. I had been invited by a friend Angela. She said to bring along a project. So I opted to take along some hexies.

The lady sat next to me had never seen EPP before and asked what I was doing, so I put on a quick demonstration showing how to glue baste the pieces and made the wee red shape you see here. 

Angela joked that at the speed I work, it might be my show and tell next month! LOL

I'm not that fast and besides, this will be a long term project.

They are smaller than the batik hexies I showed last week, and they are to be a scrap project. No pretty flower garden design, just random scraps all sewn together.

I may even hop back onto the RSC wagon.

Or maybe not.....

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Another project that is progressing quietly in the background is my latest crochet creation.

I pick it up and try to work at least 15 minutes a day. 

I'll spread it all out on the floor soon and take a good picture, but for now here is one I snapped quickly after I put it down at bed time last night.

All of the yarns in this one are variegated.

It was supposed to be an exercise in just using what I had.

But I ended up buying more.

Ooops!

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Well that is my news.

Now I'm off to prepare for my next ornie. I have some cutting to do and I'll need to go shopping for thread as I am running low.