UFOs

No not the flying spaceship ones - the ones clogging up my sewing room.  My UFOs Works in Progress are many, in fact at Sewing Club last week I was struggling to remember exactly how many.  So its time to face the music and count them up and maybe try to maintain a little order and a lot of progress.   

First up are those that really should be finished if I just got a move on:

1. Red Hippo Bag - just needs a handle and some buttons sewn on, no excuse really . . .

 
2. Crazy Sweetness Quilt - needs a little perseverance to finish the quilting and binding

  Then there's the ones that need a little more work to finish:

3. Baby Girl Coin Quilt - needs ironing (a lot),  backing, basting, quilting, binding, someone to have a baby girl to motivate me to finish it.

4. Sampler Quilt - needs quilting (I just can't decide how to do it) and binding.

5. Wild Oddyysea - needs everything except cutting done to it!

And then there's the long term projects which I have convinced myself don't really count as UFOs do they?

6. Red & Aqua Little Windows

 
7. Nine Patch

8. Tilda Hexagons - which I will be working on until I am at least 83 and a half!

And finally the newish projects that are distracting me from the oldish ones:

9. Christopher's  Quilt - deadline Christmas

10. Tilda Red Quilt - deadline Christmas/Valentine's Day?

Hmm seems rather a lot listed out like that - I will try for an update in a few weeks which hopefully will keep me motivated.  Though knowing me as I cross one thing off the UFO  Works in Progress list, I will almost definitely add another.  Just as well I'm not listing all the quilt ideas running around in my head . . . . .

Bee Blocks catch-up

Finally catching up on my Bee Blocks!  For Bee Quilted I made this Robot Block for chez-j  using the Quilt as you go method.

In August (yes I do know it is now October!) Lynne in Fresh Modern Bee 2 sent these beautiful Whimsy fabrics and requested Union Jack Blocks for which she has a fantastic tutorial on her blog.

These are the blocks I made - for some reason the first block is actually better than the second!

I had never done paper piecing before and these were definitely challenging but that's why I joined this Bee and I actually quite enjoyed them.  I can't wait to see the finished quilt.

For September Jessica in Fresh Modern Bee 2 sent these beautiful solids and black and white spots.  She asked for modern pieced rectangles.

These are my 2 blocks.  I loved making these.  I have never worked with solids before or made up a design for a block so this was great fun.

Spaced out Squares Quilt

I'm back and I've finished something hurrah!   A proposed visit to a friend and her 8 week old baby who I have already seen twice with no gift spurred me on to finishing this:

 

Fabrics are mostly from David Walker's Robot line with a couple of tiny polka dot orange and yellows thrown in.

(Unfortunately I finished it late at night and it was really dull the next morning before I had to give it away so some of the photos aren't brilliant).

 For the backing I used the red robot print from the front.

I quilted it in red thread 1/4 inch from each seam line.

I love love love stripy bindings!

Sewing Catch-up

I have finally had a weekend that didn't involve a budget airline flight to a wedding or 30th birthday party and therefore some time to sew.  I have made a start on my Fresh Modern Bee 2 block:

Tried to keep a track on my scraps with some more 9 patch cutting and piecing:

I love seeing all the little pieces and remembering the projects I used them all in.

I have been working on some of my UFOs -  more quilting on my Sweet Quilt (renamed Crazy Sweetness due to the "fun" I am having quilting this!!!):

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Almost finished this fun red hippo bag:

And because I made so much progress(!) on my UFOs I got to start 2 new projects - a large quilt made from Oddyssea Charm Packs:

And a robot baby quilt:

 

I love sewing weekends!

Sunday Stash (The Festival of Quilts edition)

Hmmm Make Life - an entire Fat Quarter stack, yummy, yummy.  I have drooled over this for ages and had considered ordering one from the US before finding this at the quilt show.

This is my bargain of the show.  I love Wonderland but got into it a little too late and can't find it much anymore.  I spied the 2 yards at the back of the photo and as I was buying it the lady said "these FQ bundles are half price now".  I glanced at them expecting the usual not very popular colours or ranges and spied the 8 fabrics at the front all in a bundle for £10!  

A bundle of baby boy blues and browns (just because)

Anna Griffin Lizzy (I bought this as part of a kit so I have a plan for it). 

Amy Butler Love Fat Quarters (I had to buy something - I met her and she signed my book . . . . )

It does look rather a lot all stacked up together . . . .

Bee Blocks (finally!)

Fresh Modern Bee 2 on Flickr is my first ever Bee.  I started really well for June but slipped behind.  I finished my blocks last week but having lost my camera/computer connector thing, eventually had to buy another one today.  

Susan aka Chickenfoot sent these beautiful fabrics and requested wonky square in square blocks. 

I have never done wonky before and loved making these.  No pressure to get seams matching!

This was my first block which isn't quite as wonky and then I used the scraps to make the block below (which needs another square added to it to make it the right size).

 

I also decided for this Bee that I would use my pink scraps each month to make the same block for myself (with a tiny scrap of that month's fabric too).  At the end of the year as well as my own Bee quilt hopefully I will have a sampler of sorts with a block from each of the months.  June and July's blocks are below.

I am also in a second bee which uses the quilt as you go method -  Bee Quilted.  This Bee runs from the 15th to the 15th so I'm not quite as late with these ones!  The first month was Tracy who sent fabrics all in a different colour way to each person and asked for pinwheels.

I made 2 mini pin wheels and framed them.  I opted for simple straight line quilting.  I love this type of close quilting but don't think I would have the energy to do it for an entire quilt.

I made the scraps into a second block but didn't quilt this one.

I'm off to work on this month's blocks now!

Festival of Quilts - Birmingham

I am back from my first ever trip to the Festival of Quilts at the Birmingham NEC.  WOW - it was amazing, I found it overwhelming at first.  Expect a few posts about it but for now just some sneak pictures.  (And if my husband is reading, these bags do not contain far too much fabric that I bought!)  For the rest of you pictures of said loot to come!

This is the Amy Butler part of the Rowan stand - I met her, she was lovely and signed a copy of her new book for me.

There were lots of amazing quilts entered in the competition - this one really caught my eye - its Avocado and Pink Rosalind Gregory & Joan Herrington and is called Where have all my shirts gone? and is made from recycled men's shirts.