Points, Petals and Play

Well, second (or maybe even third) time lucky, I have finally got the points to work out on the Zakka-style SAL tote. They are not perfect by any means, but they are a lot better than the previous attempt so at last I can tick this project off my list! The tote will be a present for my mum's birthday next month, so I am delighted to have got it out of the way early, especially given the angst caused by those zig-zags.

Instead of putting in a magnetic snap closure I used a covered button, and I used a slightly different method to make the handles, so I think they have come out slightly narrower than in the original project. Hopefully, these will be the last linen QST's I ever attempt, although maybe I should check out the Zakka-style book before making such predictions!

I am hoping to fill the bag with some nice yarn, as my mum is a keen knitter, so any recommendations for online yarn retailers would be much appreciated. 

Whilst speaking of yarn, I had (yet another!) go at my crochet flower over the weekend, and I am pleased to report that there has been some progress made! The Crafter's Apprentice will be delighted to hear that, I hope, as she has told me that I will get this flower done even if it kills me (or her!). 

As you can see it is beginning to look like a flower, much to my amazement I must add. Now all I have to do is work out how to do the last row to add the petals, as you will no doubt not be surprised to hear I am again looking for help (sorry Wendy!) The instructions for the last row say "with the WS of the work facing, work out from the centre of the spiral" which, amazingly, I understand BUT I am struggling to see where to make the stitches it all looks the same to me on the back. I am obviously missing something and I am hoping someone can tell me what it is. When this flower is finished I promise never to attempt another crochet pattern unless I have checked that I understand every single instruction at least three times beforehand :)

When not being confused by crochet patterns I have been working on my plans for Sew Happy Geek's Play mini quilt challenge. Quilts in the challenge are to be based upon a playing card and whilst some of the participants were simply leaving the choice of card to the luck of the draw, I am not so sure of my drafting or piecing skills to be that casual so have decided to base my quilt on the Ace of Diamonds, and have even been toying with the idea of creating my own paper piecing pattern! You can see why I was trying out the crochet as a bit of light relief :)

I will need to get a move on though, as the deadline for the challenge is May 21st and I will only have a few days between then and now to get any sewing done. This also means that whilst all of the patches have been cut now for the last remaining NYB blocks I doubt very much whether any further will be done to them until later this month. I am so pleased that I signed up for the NYB QAL (thanks Judy!) as even though I will not get these blocks completed anytime soon, I have learnt so much through both this and the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT that I will definitely continue to paper piece now that I have caught the paper piecing bug.

With three Bank Holidays last week in Latvia I had to pick my time to venture to the PO, which operates in a time warp normally anyway, but after a couple of attempts managed to send off my blocks for the Siblings Together quilt, so they will, hopefully, arrive before the May 15th deadline. 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to and linking up to Manic Monday here, Sew Modern Monday here and Sew Darn Crafty here

Warsaw, New York and Japan!

Today's post has a very international flavour to it. I have finally got around to putting together some of my photos from our recent trip to Warsaw, and as you can see we had blue skies and brilliant sunshine for the whole of our time there. The sunshine was great when we were enjoying watching the passing parade with a refreshing ice-cream to hand, but not so great when we were lost trying to find the photograph exhibition at the last of the tenements in the old Ghetto!

As you can see we did eventually find the exhibition (it is the right hand photo in the bottom row), which was a montage of photographs of Polish Jews donated by survivors and neighbours from the Jewish Ghetto in WW2. The last tenement is scheduled for demolition in the next year, so we were pleased to have been able to see this exhibition in its natural installation. The Old City was similar in some ways to its equivalent in Riga, but it was an odd experience walking around an Old Town that was, in fact, rebuilt almost entirely after WW2, but looked as though it had been there for over a hundred years.

Despite some lack of activity on the paper-piecing front recently, partly due it has to be said to trips like the one above, I have managed this week to get back into my NYB QAL blocks. Only one to add to the small, but growing, pile I admit, but I have now printed off all of the rest of the templates, so the spirit is willing! Next week will be the last week of the QAL, which has been interesting and frustrating at the same time. I am delighted that I have even been able to manage half of the blocks within the time frame, but frustrated that each one takes so long to do. Despite all the time and effort put in I will have nothing more than a pile of blocks to show for it at the end, unless I make even more blocks!

And for the final part of my international post, a bit of Japanese Zakka-style! This week's project in the SAL was a small pencil case, which has had some comments about quite how small it was i.e. not long enough to hold full-size pencils! It is, however, long enough for pens so I made his and hers versions, husband's for pens, mine for chalk and vanishing ink markers. I had thought of using mine for crochet hooks, as it is the perfect size, but as I only possess one crochet hook at the moment it seemed like overkill!

They were fairly straightforward to make, although it took me two attempts to sew the final stage as I managed to get the lining on the wrong way round in the first attempt and then the pocket inside on the second! That is when you wish you hadn't used linen for the outer plain fabric as ripping out seams on linen is no joke.

It is not much of a finish I admit, but I am linking up to TGIFF anyway, as this is about all of the finishes I am going to see for a while I think.

Monthly Mosaic

We are just back from a trip to Warsaw and I haven't even had time to sort out the photos or write up a post, but I realised that it was still the first of the month and I had time to link up to the Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts, so rustled up a mosaic!

Apart from my Sunflower Quilt it has been a bit of a slow month I think. With a trip to Ireland for a family wedding and friends visiting from the UK in May, I fear that this month is not going to be much better. What was I thinking of signing up to Jenna's Play mini-quilt challenge, when I am already behind on the Zakka-style SAL and the NYB blocks! I am already resigned to the tardiness of my NYB blocks, but was hoping to be more organised on the Zakka-style! A forlorn hope I feel.

Hope you have more progress to show for the last month than I have!

Paper and Padlocks

It feels like I have spent the weekend sewing on paper and then ripping it off! It means though that I am back on track with the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT and NY Beauty QAL, thank goodness for that :) So, I can contemplate the next two blocks in the series' without panic, well that is the theory anyway. The NY Beauty blocks take me ages to do, starting with agonising over which fabric should go where, so I am glad that we are going at the rate of one block a week and I greatly admire the fellow NY Beauty blockers who are whipping up 4 of each block every week! Check out their blocks  here

 

I must be learning something in this QAL as the inner arch on this block, with only 9 pieces to contend with felt like a doddle to do and three weeks ago the same pattern was really daunting!  There were even more curved seams to contend with in this block, so I paid a lot more attention to my seam allowances and with only a bit of unpicking the block came out at the right size :)

Like several people in this QAL I am not really sure what I am going to do with the blocks when they are all finished. There are some fabulous cushions being made by participants who are making 4 of each block, and that is something I may think about, but for now I will just keep plodding along with 1 block a week and see what inspires me at the end of the QAL.

For Katy's FPPFTT block this week we were mastering "larger scale complex sectional blocks" apparently, and I took the opportunity to use up scraps left over from the Sew Happy QAL. I suspect it is down to my Scottish heritage but I have a bad habit of trying to make scraps fit when they are really not big enough, so I ended up with seam allowances that amounted to a couple of threads in one or two places! I really will have to learn to be more generous with my fabric pieces :) The finished square will eventually (hopefully in the next two weeks!) end up as a cushion and will go to my son and his wife along with the Circle of Geese block that will also become a cushion. They will then have a cushion each to snuggle under the quilt with, although from what I saw of the weather forecast for the UK last weekend, they won't be needing quilts at the moment.

It must be officially Spring here as the Laime Clock has had its winter woollies removed! So you can see it in all its natural glory.

And just in case you thought that I spent all of my weekend tied to the sewing machine or ripping out paper, I also visited the Fish Market

and walked through the park bordering Riga Old Town

It is a tradition here that when couples get married they fasten a lock to the bridge and throw away the key to symbolise that they will be locked together in marriage for ever. As you can see it is a popular tradition.

As you can also see the locks are engraved with the name (or initials) of the couple and the date of their wedding.

Looking forward to seeing the results of your weekends too.

Linking up to Manic Monday, Sew Modern Monday , BOM's away and Fabric Tuesday.

Catching up at last!

Having finally started on the backlog of blocks for the Craftsy BOM , I am determined to get up-to-date before April arrives. So, you can imagine my delight when I realised that one of the March blocks was a foundation pieced string block, and the block that I have yet to catch up on for Katy's FPPFTT is a paper-pieced string block! Two blocks with one stone, that is my kind of catching up :) True to my resolution to avoid foundation piecing at all costs, the March Craftsy block instantly became a paper-piecing project!

The HST blocks, which were the February blocks, in the BOM were a mixed bag to be honest. Each of the 2 blocks used a different method for creating the HST's. The first, for the Chevron Block, involves drawing diagonal lines on squares and sewing either side of the line to create 2 HST blocks when cut on the line, whilst the 2nd method, for the Balkan Puzzle block, involves sewing all around 2 squares with a 1/4" seam and then cutting the squares twice on the diagonal to create 4 HST blocks. In Color Order's HST BOM also provides these 2 options for creating the HST blocks, but until now I have only ever used the first method, which In Color Order calls the "traditional" method. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained, perhaps now was the time to have a go at the "alternative" method! There have been several comments in the HST BOM about the bias edges created by the alternative method, and although I am not 100% sure that they were the cause of the problems, I have to admit that the Balkan Puzzle block was ripped and re sewn several times before I could get the points matched up in any kind of order! I am obviously a traditionalist at heart :)

Still, with only the Spider's Web block to go for the Craftsy BOM and the end of the month over a week away, things are looking hopeful for a clean slate to start at the beginning of April. Now, if I can only get this week's NY Beauty Block and FPPFTT block completed this weekend, I will be so up-to-date I won't know myself!


In other catching up, the lovely Claire at Sewing Over Pins kindly passed on a Liebster blog award a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't managed to get my act together sufficiently to a) thank her or b) pass the award on. As you are probably aware the  Liebster award is given to blogs with less than 200 followers and as a recipient of the award I should thank the award blogger in a post, list the names of five blogs I follow who fall within that category who I feel deserve to be noticed, advise the five bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and copy and paste the blog award on my blog. Since Claire nominated me for the Liebster award I have been lucky enough to win a giveaway at Ellison Lane Quilts and a Bonus Prize in Sew Happy Geek's QAL, so I am hoping that I am also passing on the luck too!

So here goes, I have nominated the following bloggers who are all relatively new bloggers like myself, and who might not have already come to your attention.


Amy at the cute life :)  Check out the progress of her Fire and Ice quilt!

Catherine at Knotted Cotton Look for her photos of the cutest tree house doors you will ever see! 


Karen at Practically Pippy See if you can help her with her Stale Stash Swap!

Caroline at Quilting in the Cold   A fellow quilter in the frozen north, who is just beginning to thaw out! 

Judy at Sew Rip Repeat Another NY Beauty blocker! 


Sarah at Silly Banana Sewing A fellow Scot in exile! 


Hope you are all having a productive week too. Have a great weekend! 

Riga Bundle and WIP's

One of the things I would like to do whilst we are here in Riga is to make a quilt that is based on the amazing buildings that surround us, like the one below. I often wander around the city, especially what is known as the Art Nouveau district where we live, thinking that the wonderful plasterwork on the buildings would make great quilting patterns, if only I was a proficient quilter!

Whilst I can't attain the giddy heights of intricate quilting patterns, I can at least dream about the fabrics that I would use. To help me in my daydreams, and perhaps provide a start for a quilt, I have been enjoying myself selecting fabrics for the FQ bundle contest that I'm a ginger monkey is currently running on her  blog . In conjunction with Pink Castle Fabrics, one of her Sponsors  they are inviting participants to put together a FQ bundle of their choice and post their selection on I'm a ginger monkey's blog. Two winner will each win their bundle and the bundle will be listed in Pink Castle Fabric's store.

Here's my selection:

The fabrics are:

Top Row

Free Spirit Designer Solid in Jade

Dumb Dots in Citron

Pezzy prints Mono Pez in Gray

Second Row

Secret Garden Vintage Ironwork in Leaf

Echo Spring Buds in Gray

Half Moon Chevron in Yellow

Third Row

Outfoxed Leaf Stripe in Green

Prince Charming Frog Prince in Indigo

Free Spirit Designer Solid in Saffron

Fourth Row

Secret Garden Lock and Key in Mint

Metro Living Lattice in Marigold

Metro Living Circles in Pewter

All of the FQ Bundles are very different, and it is just fun seeing what fabrics people have put together. I would happily have any of the Bundles in my stash! 

As it is Wednesday again (they come around so quickly sometimes!) it is time to have a look at how I am getting on with my WIP's and link up to Freshly Pieced's WIP's and Esther's WOW. 

Thankfully there is some progress to show this week, the Craftsy BOM has finally moved up to Ongoing :) Naturally, now that the Sew Happy QAL is finished, I have added a new project to the list. The Zakka-style SAL, which starts next month, is 24 small projects (I think, the book hasn't arrived yet!) so, in theory, shouldn't be too much extra sewing!

Completed

• Reindeer Cushion
• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart and Orange cushions 
• Orphan Block needle roll 
• Pieced arc tea towel  
• Yo-yo maker purse 
• Padded hangers and tutorial
• Sew Happy QAL quilt (My March WIP of 12 WIP's in 2012!)

Ongoing 

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (up-to-date) 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt now basted 
• 3 blocks of FPPFTT completed (1 block behind schedule)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks to be calculated and cut
• 2 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed (on schedule)
• 3 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (I block behind schedule)
  

Waiting

• Indigo, yellow and violet rainbow cushions 
• Last block of Sampler quilt - no progress but it is in the UK and I am back in Latvia!
• Sunflower Quilt
• Amy Butler bag 
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag 
• Dragon Bag
• Patchwork Block bag
• Christmas mini quilts
• Zakka-style Sew a Long (starts April 2nd) 

That is certainly enough to be going on with I think. Hope you all have made some progress too this week. 

Paper Piecing Blocks and Beauties

Five hours of rugby on the television on Saturday was the perfect excuse to get stuck in to the backlog of blocks I seem to have amassed lately.

First up were the first two blocks of the NY Beauty QAL. I am using a Kona Solid in Hibiscus and a FQ bundle of Kaffe Fassett fabrics for this QAL. Even although these are the first blocks to be done, I am already thinking that I don't have enough fabric! When I read the initial instructions for the blocks the fabric requirements were 10 Fat Eighths of the main fabric and 1 and 1/2 yards of the background fabric, so that is what I bought, but having done the first two blocks (and read the introduction to the QAL again!) I now realise that this yardage is only to make one of each block.

Having seen the photos posted to the QAL Flickr group I think the real beauty of the blocks is only really seen when there are 4 of each joined together. So for the minute I am making one of each block, but I suspect that I will have to go back later to make 3 more of some of them at least.

I really enjoyed the paper piecing of these blocks, I found the rhythm of pin, sew, cut, press quite relaxing, but the curved seams were another business all together! The second of the blocks above came out a good 3/8" smaller than it should have been, which was I think down to a too generous seam allowance on the curved seams. More practice needed I think!

With the backlog of NY Beauty blocks out of the way, the next target on my list was the Craftsy BOM that I have managed to ignore since signing up in January. However, having discovered on Friday that I had won a $25 Fat Quarter Shop gift certificate in Ellison Lane Quilts' Craftsy BOM Giveaway, guilt kicked in and I finally got around to watching the video for the first two blocks, and wondered why I had put off starting this BOM for so long! As I had also promised my son, the recipient of the SH QAL quilt, another, bigger quilt for their bed, this seemed like the ideal time to start another sampler quilt for them.

A quick trip to the factory store and I had my 4 metres of solid fabric in pale turquoise to go with the several metres of Amy Butler Daisy Chain fabric, which I have been hoarding since using them as linings for these bridesmaids bags used at my son's wedding.

Two blocks down, four more to go to catch up!

 

Of course now that I have just finished the Sew Happy QAL, there is a gap to be filled, so naturally I have signed up for another project. This time, though, it is not a Quilt a Long but a Sew a Long for Rashida Coleman-Hale's new Book, Zakka Style hosted by LR Stitched I really enjoyed Rashida's earlier book, I Love Patchwork and had debated whether to buy the Zakka Style book when it was published in the UK, so it only took a minute to decide to sign up for the Sew a Long! There are, apparently, 24 projects in the book and there will be 24 different bloggers hosting the Sew a Long, which starts on April 2nd. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get the book in time. 

Linking up to Sew Happy's Manic Monday Link Party, Canoe Ridge Creations Sew Modern Monday and What a Hoot's BOM's away Monday

New Blocks, Loved Fabrics and WIP's

Being back in the UK last week, the opportunity to have fabric delivered within a day was too good to miss. Having signed up for the New York Beauty QAL I have been watching with envy all the fabulous fabric selections being posted in the QAL Flickr Group, so I knew my opportunity to join in had come with my trip back. Unlike my quilt from the Sew Happy QAL, which was always destined to be a present for my son and daughter-in-law, the NY Beauty quilt, if it gets that far!, has no definite destination. In theory, that should have made the fabric selection easier, but it didn't seem to work like that. After browsing loads of websites looking for inspiration I decided to use a fabric I already had, Kona Solid in Hibiscus from Sew Fresh Fabrics as the base fabric. With that in mind I set to browsing with purpose and eventually settled on a FQ bundle of Kaffe Fassett fabrics from Tikki Patchwork and here they are together

I added a note to my order telling them that the fabrics were for a NY Beauty QAL and would be paired with the Kona Solid and I am thrilled to bits with the fabrics they selected. So thrilled in fact, that I am already worrying about messing up such beautiful fabrics with my first attempts at NY Beauty blocks!


On my return to Riga I had another fabric parcel waiting for me, Erin's of Missy Mac Creations Fugly Fabric giveaway had arrived. Isn't in nice to get fabric in the post when you are not expecting it? Erin had offered a very generous 80 charm squares, and I am already mulling over which projects to use them in. Having enjoyed my paper piecing so much recently I bought Carol Doak's 300 Paper Piecing Patterns book whilst at home, so I think that might feature heavily in the projects for the squares, although I also have a couple of bag patterns using charm squares too, so they might get a look-in too.

Didn't Erin package them up nicely?

In amongst all this retail therapy I did manage to get some sewing done too! As well as finishing the Sew Happy QAL, I also finished the third block of In Color Order's HST BOM, compared to the Sew Happy QAL, the gaps between the blocks appearing seem so long, but as I am currently behind with both Katy's FPPFTT and the NY Beauty QAL blocks, perhaps that is just as well. As for the Craftsy BOM, let's just not go there!

So my WIP list is now looking like this


Completed

• Reindeer Cushion
• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart and Orange cushions 
• Orphan Block needle roll 
• Pieced arc tea towel  
• Yo-yo maker purse 
• Padded hangers and tutorial
• Sew Happy QAL quilt (My March WIP of 12 WIP's in 2012!)

Ongoing

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (up-to-date) 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt now basted 
• First and second blocks of FPPFTT completed (1 block behind schedule)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks to be calculated and cut
• New York Beauty QAL fabric bought (1 block behind schedule)
  

Waiting

• Indigo, yellow and violet rainbow cushions
• Sunflower Quilt 
• Last block of Sampler quilt - no progress but it is in the UK and I am back in Latvia!
• Amy Butler bag 
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag 
• Dragon Bag
• Patchwork Block bag
• Christmas mini quilts
• Craftsy BOM which I have signed up for but still haven't looked at yet!

 At least there has been some movement on the list, even if the NY Beauty QAL has only moved from waiting to ongoing because I now have the fabric!

Hope you are all making progress too.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday and Esther's  WOW