Gossip Time

Last weekend I had a big run on piecing for Gossip in the Garden.

Marking up all the periwinkle star pieces with dots for joining.

Pinning and piecing.

Laying them out on my bed (must get a design wall!)

Part 4 all finished.

These periwinkle stars were a pest to make but it was worth it in the end.

And a couple tucked away for a later section.

Then it was onto Part 5. I just love all the block names.

A bit of starch always helps.

Shoofly block

Another shoofly block - same layout but  what a difference!

Nice colour combination.

Fork pins - another favourite tool.

Patch star variation block

 

Good ole Nine-patch

Pieced squares

 And I finished one of the stitchery phrases.

Well I'm up for another weekend of sewing, off to my sister's today and then an Appliqué Guild meeting at Kaye's on Sunday. Hope you have a great weekend too!

Lucky me!

I've got into a Brenda Papadakis workshop at Quilts in the Barn - Yay me! 

I started collecting blue Liberty fabrics last year with the idea of one day making a Dear Jane quilt. 

I was inspired by this quilt made by Julianne who has kindly let me post the following pics from her blog -

Dear Jane is making me Nearly Insane.

I haven't seen this quilt in real life but I don't think this photo does it justice. It was pictures of the individual blocks like these below that really caught my attention.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure you can see why I was inspired!

I never would have dreamed of having the opportunity to take a class with the famous Brenda. Thanks to Linda the 'one day' Dear Jane quilt will now be happening :)

Finishing this secret sewing block was a great opportunity to practise sewing with Liberty fabrics. They are truly something else! Beautiful to needle turn and they don't fray so you can afford to have a small seam allowance to turn under. I was glad that I already use fine no. 11 straw needles and fine Superior thread.

Do you have an exciting sewing experience to look forward to?

FNwF

Did a bit of this and that yesterday and had an early start to Friday Night with Friends.

I worked on machine piecing some Periwinkle Star blocks for Part D of Gossip in the Garden.

They have a cute name and look cute but I have to admit that for me they are a chore to make.

So I put them aside after adding a few to the pile and moved onto preparing the stitching for Part D but I failed to centre the design properly so had to try and erase the writing and soon abandoned that unpleasant task.

Luckily my Sew Laugh Love stitchery is always ready to pick up when I don't have anything else prepared.

Thanks for all of your help with my CCCQ colour dilemma, I have decided to add some green, probably blue-greens. This might be a good bridging fabric, red with some green and blue elements for my next block.

I hope you had a productive night.

CCCQ Colour Dilemma

Well amazingly I have been working on the CCCQ BOM for two years AND I've managed to keep up - only just. For some reason I didn't make block #19, I think it was because I couldn't decide if I liked it or not. Sharon is having a break next month and won't be issuing a pattern so that will give me a chance to catch up.

Anyway as we move into the 3rd and final year (phew!) I'm thinking about future directions (workplace jargon slipping in there, sorry). When I see other blog posts of the CCCQ blocks in beautiful green and red I often have a twinge of regret that I'm doing mine in blue and red. 

Some of my CCCQ blocks

This red and green Baltimore quilt was one of my favourites at the Castlemaine exhibition earlier in the year, it was just stunning.

Baltimore by Barbara Walker

The quilt below has me thinking that I could do the next year's blocks in red and green to satisfy my need for red and green broaden my colour scheme.

1860 Album quilt ~ Michigan State University Museum's collections centre

I love using Google images and Pinterest for this type of research

Old Otterbein Quilt ~ Winterthur Museum 

I just love blue and green together, what do you think about adding green at this stage?

Or should I stick with blue and red?

Has anyone seen other examples of blue, green and red in album style quilts?

I would love your help on this.

Tonight I'm linking up to

Hope to see you there!

Hearts and Roses

I have finished Block #22 for my CCCQ.

I'm really glad that I decided to add the red rosebuds to 

the original design.

Linking up to other Block #22 photos on Sharon's blog here.

I've also been working on a bit of secret sewing.

Liberty fabrics on a linen/cotton blend background - 

a luscious combination!

I've been assured that the recipient doesn't read my blog so here's my contribution block pinned up ready to sew.

Thanks for the encouraging comments on my last post, you'll be happy to know that I've decided to stay as 'Wheels on the Warrandyte Bus' :)

Transformation

Just as a butterfly transforms from a caterpillar into a butterfly I have recently transformed from being a bus commuter into a car commuter.

Gossip in the Garden Part 4 mini-block

Not good for the planet but the change is helping with my sanity. I'd had enough of catching 4 buses per day and spending hours of precious time commuting. Sewing made it tolerable but the buses have become more and more over crowded so I often had to stand. I even tried sewing whilst standing up one day but that was just getting ridiculous!

I'm trialling getting to work early and leaving early to avoid the worst of the traffic. Not sure if this is giving me more or less sewing time. You definitely can't sew and drive but I have more time in my day. Does this mean I should change the name of my blog???

Other transformations include CCCQ Block #22 - I have changed it slightly from the original to include some rosebuds.

CCCQ Block #22 - in progress

I have also experienced a transformation of sorts with this EPP bag. I actually thought I was making a purse but it's turned out to be the size of a hand bag. I made this to learn how to EPP (mission accomplished) so I'm only going to have the pieced tumblers on one side.

Have you had any transformative experiences lately? 

Supersize me

I've had a play around with my blog layout so that I have less empty space on the sides and a wider area in the middle. This has allowed me to have extra large photos, hope it's not too much. I find that when I'm reading other blogs I'm always stretching or clicking on the images to see the detail so I thought I would just 'supersize' mine.

I can't seem to get my header to sit in the centre, any ideas? I use Blogger and the layout is Picture Window.

Anyway onto sewing...I finally completed the last block of the Comfort Quilt, yay!

My last post on this quilt received comments encouraging me to hand quilt it sashiko-boro style. It would look great but the time involved is putting me off. So I'm still pondering on this.

I have finished a mini-block for part D of Gossip in the Garden. 

Because I changed the border to yellow on the basket block last week, I thought I'd better add a yellow border here as well to help balance out the whole quilt.

I have also prepped block #22 for CCCQ. An 'odd botanical' as Sharon describes it. I have slightly altered the original - all will be revealed.

We are off to Phillip Island for the Queen's Birthday long weekend  - one advantage of having a monarchy ;)

So on that royal edict I shall bid you all adieu.