Hotter but successful

Today has been really unpleasant heat wise. With the UV warning I tried walking the dog earlier. He declared it too hot and I got sun burned, all before breakfast. He did enjoy cooling down innthe pool when he got home though, and the rest of the day we had to play inside, which he enjoyed and the cats critiqued.

I finished the fun quilt that was on the frame and decided to load another of mine. This one had hung on my sewing room wall for something like 20 years. Maybe a smidge longer. I hand pieced it when I was working my last office job. It feels about time to get it quilted and bound. I think I even know where the binding fabric is. It isn’t a big quilt, about 40″ square, but it also isntnas flat as I wouild like. So my plan is to quilt the background areas quite heavily and use a double wool wadding. I am not quite sure yet how I will quilt it. A couuple of areas have told me what they want the rest hasn’t. I am debating a metallic thread for some of the which in the ditch. I know that can cause issues, but I think with all the colours in this quilt it might blend better than any normal colour. I guess most people would use invisible thread, but I really hate how that catches the light, and to me it’s not much more subtle than the metallic. Alternatively I could use multiple lines of black and have a subtle stained glass look. I will leave the decision for the morning.

Piecing wise not much will happen until we cool down a bit. I do want to try and find my summer quilt, which I can do downstairs. My Monday quilt needs a lot of pressing as I go so that is on hold. I guess I will finally catch up on some of my quilting for now.

Getting back on track, and a little cooked

I feel I really shouldn’t be having a problem with the temperature. This house is so much cooler than the old one and my workspace is the coolest place not the hottest, but it is still too hot for me. It is making exercise between very difficult and impossible, still I am trying and I am sure that counts for something. I did spend time playing with the dog ijn the pool earlier which helped. Before you think that is too glamourous I should mention the pool is about 15cm deep and 1.6m in diameter. It is however still coolish water which in this temperature is worthwhile. I even changed it today so not full of bugs.

I also shipped out my first ombre Monday mystery kit. This customer has chosen black to go with the ombre, I think it will be a very striking quilt.

I took 2 pictures to try and show the range of the ombre. They shade right across the fabric, and I think that will give a lot more variety for this kind of quilt. How big will the quilt finish, I  can’t say. 8m of fabric should be at least a big single and probably a double. It will depend a lot how much applique and how small the pieces are. The 4m of background and 8 half meters of ombre are £96. I will be selling them until I run out.

I have a fun star quilt on the frame, and I think while it is so hot that will be most of my sewing time. My sit down sewing spaces are both too toasty to be much fun. It’s a shame as Tuesday’s class came up with lots of fun ideas for 2″ with squares, but those ideas will just have to wait for now.

Stay as cool as you can and drink plenty of water.

Monday mystery solo robin

A new week. I have decided this will be a good one, so that’s how it will have to be. I have a lot planned for today which does often improve the run of the day. Lots of small jobs that will move life on. I did manage to get some of the household jobs done yesterday. The gutter that has been annoying me is fixed. The pond is refilled and the potatoes banked up. It looks like today will be a hot one which makes working so much more attractive. My work space is the coolest place in the house, such a differnce from my old house where my work was in the hottest space.

So are we excited for the next step? Don’t forget you can join in at any time. Make a starting block at least 9″ on at least one side and start following along. Feel free to ask in the comments if you get stuck or join our Tuesday discussion group at 2.30pm. To join just leave a comment on this post and I will send you a link. We meet on google meet, which opens in a web browser on a computer but will need an app on mobile devices.

This week’s techunique is,

Include squares

And the border size is

Add 2″ to each side of your quilt

Perhaps not the most exciting, but I have to say that sounds a wonderful starting border. I am not so sure I am a fan as one of my outer borders, but I do have some small squares I wanted to use up so maybe this will be how. In a small border I think how the squares are spaced is going to be a key consideration. That may be coloured by the size of the border I have to fill, do you feel differntly on a shorter border? Will the squares be straight, on point, or just slightly wonky? Will the squares fill the width of the border or be tiny embroidered ones? Maybe someone has square sequins or buttons. They could be folded like the center of bow tie blocks. Lol there was me thinking this one didn’t have many options. I do love how this makes me think.

Another border done

Yesterday I managed to finish the traditional borders. A total of 10″ on opposite sides. I went with 5″ each this time, as that worked well with the blocks i had left over and i think added to the Traditional feel. I used the sashing to move the stars about more, I hope it will give more of a feel of twinkling and constellations.

With this and the previous border there is only sashing to one side of each block. I deliberately attached the two sides of this week differently to each other. I think the differnce is quite hard to see, but  I discovered I preferred the offset version. You may also notice the colours of the stars sometimes match up. I made the decision to go With random colours and that’s just how it landed. Yes I could have spent a lot more time trying to work out  a layout that didn’t have the same colours close to each other, but really does it matter? I think not, with so few colours they won’t ever be really spaced out anyway. To be honest I am kinda amused by how many lined up. I must be more predictable than I knew.

I have started on the folded borders. I got one block together but I am not sure if I like it. I left it to mature to see if it will be better when I go back to it.

What a week

Sorry for the gap in blogging, it has been a crazy week. A lot of my regular tasks have fallen by the wayside. My journal isn’t set up for the week, my floors aren’t swept, my sewing hasn’t happened and I have missed 3 or 4 days of exercise. The fact I don’t know how many days says a lot in itself.

It has been an educational week. I did get my new whiteboard and built it in time for Tuesdays class. We came up with some very interesting design options during it. Modern is quite a wide design technique, I am really looking forward to seeing what comes from it. I have had numours deliveries this week, which really been quite inconvinient. Still what happens happens and there is not a lot I can do about timing so I just need to deal with it. It was just a pressure I could have lived without this week.

The main time drain has been work, which is good. However I have been reminded why I put in a rush job charge and I will in future make sure to use it. I felt at the moment with less customer quilts on the go I could just leave it off and work on. The issue is when there is a very tight deadline it impacts all of life not just other customers. It also means I can’t take the breaks I should and end up doing my joints damage.  As I said educational. I need to put in the extra charge to cover the losses in other areas and in productivity after the job if I overdo things. I think it also causes us to think more about what is urgent. Iknow I weigh up differnt delivery options on orders. It is rare I take the expensive next day options becasue while I might like it sooner I don’t really need it. I hope I am not the only one who considers it and is tempted though. Now I need to quarentine everyting it does add a little more pressure too. I have to think ahead better.

Today I have more deliveries. I hope while I wait for the first I will be able to sort out my journal. Then some sewing before my second delivery. Oh and I still need to look at the shopping that arrived Monday and work out what order it needs eating, yup I am that behind. Hopeless huh.

Enough chatter, things to do

Monday Mystery Solo Robin

Yesterday was a bit of a wreck. Or at least I was a bit of a wreck yesterday. I woke up achy and my hands especially didn’t want to play. One thing I have got better about from Covid is looking after myself. I really can’t afford to damage things, so I tried to rest my hands as much as possible. Easier said than done, you use your hands a lot. That meant that my quilt is still sitting with half of the 10″ traditional on while the other half is laid out on my ironing board. Maybe this evening I will be able to do a bit more. Today is going to be pretty full on. I have deliveries due and an urgent customer quilt to progress. I know it wont be finished today but I want to get as much done as I can.

Just a reminder, you can start this quilt at any time. Just make or find a starting block which I reccomend is at least 9″ on one axis. Then follow along at a pace that suits you. No one is checking up on you, though I have to admit I would LOVE to see what you are creating please. Do what you can when you can. If you would like to play along but don’t have the fabric I am offering fabric bundles. Either 8 half meters of ombre fabrics or 20 fat quarters and 4m (more if you think you want a really big quilt) of background colour. To collect or courier, collection will be socially distanced or totally contactless.

Now on to this weeks mission, our border size is,

Add 4″ to two opposite sides of your quilt.

Well poop I was hoping for something bigger, I am near the end of my quilt and a nice big border would have done it. The technique is,

Modern patchwork

Hmm, well that needs some thought. OK I have been awake far too long already today which also meens too little sleep, but in 4″ that will need some consideration. I supppose I could just add negative space AKA a plain border of background fabric. I think negative space is one of the big features of modern quilts. We will be having a design and planning class for this border 2pm tomorrow. If you would like to participate please comment on this post and I will make sure to send you an invite. Now i had better go and make the white board for that call.

4″ stars

The 4″ to at least 2 sides of stars is finally done. I actually thought I might get it all before breakfast but only 3 sides were on at dog walking time. Still it feels great to have it on. I had intended to make 60 of these stars, I guessed that was about what I needed (I was close it’s 62) but when I changed my technique I ended up with more half square triangles than I needed. I made them all up so they will now get used in the next border which is traditional patchwork.

On to the next border.

Finally a border

This morning I finished trimming all the washed blocks and got ,y first row together, this is one of the 4″ star borders. Hoping that tomorrow I will get that week done and maybe the 10″ traditional as well. It should all go a lot faster now I am just joining up the blocks. Once I have those done I can also get onto the 12″ of folded patchwork. I realised it is 3 weeks since I last added to the quilt, that’s nearly a month. I am so looking forward to it growing a nice chunk this week. It aught to be pretty satisfying. I will try to remember to photograph it after each week.

Today was pretty productive. I got some longarming (auto correct makes that lingering I am offended) done, bread made, pizza bases for lunch and spares in the freezer and some lemon biscuits. We tried the rhubarb rhubarb ripple icecream after dinner, and that seems to now be our winner. It was a very lucky experiment, and we will repeat it. Right now I think it is time for bed and hopefully I will be up bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning to sew sew sew. Oh and do laundry, if the weather forecast is right.

A new beginning

Yesterday we tried our first online quilting lesson. I think starting with a design and planning session was wise, it is the easiest to do camera wise. Hardware for online video is very hard to get atm, and until I can figure out what we need I don’t really want to overspend. Now I at leaast have proof of concept. People enjoyed being able to connect as a group of quilters, that was a biggie and I am pleased that worked. Being online allowed a student further away to come back to class, that’s pretty awesome too. I rather hope that as I put more classes together my students from other countries may be able to join us too, although I am aware time zones may make this tricky. I will continue with the Tuesday discussion group for the Monday quilt project. It also came up that some people would like to take part but are short of fabric, so I am proposing making up some kits for the quilt. This is a rather lose definition of kit, it will be  bundle of fabric that I think will play nicely together. I am thinking of doing two options. Either a bundle of eight 1/2m pieces of ombre fabrics with 4m of background. There will be choices of bachground. Or a bundle of 20 fat quarters with 4m of background. This is essentially what I am using in my quilt. In either case there should be enough for a good size quilt but yes at some point you will run out and yes then you have to stop. As I am still not leaving the house I would either be looking for people who can pick up their bundle of fabric, socially distanced of course, or I would need to find a shipping company who will collect from me. I think Hermes does this but I am also aware they are not the greatest company. We will see how this goes, but the offer is there is there any interest?

This weeks discussion was a bit of a challenge as well as it being new to all of us, folded patchwork is a tricky technique. We did however cme up with a lot of ideas. From paper aeroplanes to cathedreal windows, there are actually a lot of things you can do within this instruction. We did cover that just putting a border on badly and getting a tuck in it would technically count. I think I have decided what I will be doing for mine. I think I am going to do a variation of the folded flying geese technique. maybe for yet more friendship stars and maybe for a few pinwheels which might look somewhat star like. Having 12″ will give me some space to play at least. In related news I have finally finished making the 100 3″ friendship stars. I can say I am really sick of them. Getting fed up with making them made me very worried that I would have poor acuracy. I could see issues in some of the blocks. Having now put on most of the sashings for the 4″ stars border I am much happier with my blocks. they are a thread or 2 off but pretty good. I think they looked more worrying becasue they are so small. A thread or two on a 12″ block will but much less obvious than on a 3″ block. Either way they are done and the actual border assembly looks like it will be a lot quicker than making the blocks. If all goes well I may be adding all 3 of the outstanding borders this week. Wish me luck.

Monday mystery solo robin

I am still fighting my mountain of stars. I have to admit the pile is looking impressive but I have another 30 to do then I can assemble both of the last two weeks. The assembly at least should be quick. I can’t say I enjoy making large batches of the same block, and squaring up 400 half square triangle units really isn’t the most exciting thing to do. On the other hand I am really looking forward to the borders themselves. I think they will look great.

This week we will be having our first discussion group for the instructons. You aren’t obliged to make the quilt if you take part it will be more about design and construction ideas and planning. A large part of this project was to give people something constructive to think about each week. I think it is far healthier to be pondering quilt design than everything that is going on in the world especially if you are trying to sleep. So if you would like to join us leave me a comment and I will look at adding you to the meeting.

I guess we now need to see this weeks challenge. We do need something interesting to give us food for thought. The technique this week is

Folded patchwork

Well that counts. There are a lot of options with that. Not sure how galaxy I can go, I think there might be folded stars, maybe time for me to do some research. How much room do we have to play with, border size this week is

add a total of 12″ to two opposite sides of your quilt.

That’s good, lots of room to play. For me that may let me space out my blocks as though my stars are getting more spread out on the edges of galaxy. It might also allow for bigger more intricate blocks. This could be a good one. It may also be my last week on this quilt. I will have to check my size, which means I also really need to get these flipping stars finished. Ho hum, have to see how today goes, I have a customer quilt that needs loading before I can even think about my stars again.