Sew Over September

Sew over September….

In fact, sew over 2020 – it’s taken me quite some time to become disenchanted with lockdown, but I think as the weather improves, the urge to get out of the house, travelling further than the allocated 5km to the nearest supermarket increases.

It’s not so much the wanting to visit the Grandbabies interstate (which I do – I really do), but even the desire to travel within my own state, to visit my sister (5 hour drive), to visit my bestie (1.5 hour drive), a day trip down the coast, into the hills, across to the other side of town – is almost overwhelming.

If the general populace behave themselves, lockdown will soon be over, and although a grand Halloween Party is unlikely, we should be able to gather the family together for a celebratory meal at Christmas…

In the meantime, I walk around the block and spy into other people’s gardens, this lovely display of proteas, or the gumnut blooms which look like ballerinas, or even the lorikeets feeding on a seed block are distractions.

Meanwhile, stitching and sewing continues.

My Halloween quilt now has a border of monster teeth.  I am extraordinarily pleased with how well these worked out – especially the rounded corners.  It is now sandwiched and being quilted on my home machine – really trying not to overthink how this is quilted…just point to point and in the ditch for the main part.  Once this is done, I can return to my other project… the honeybee quilt.

For stitching this past week, I’ve been concentrating on the 2020 SAL and am near the finish on both colourways. 

The Lilac version is the original chart and I’ve added beads along the way.  The blue version had to be adjusted because I didn’t calculate the length of the fabric very well and would have run out of fabric.  This will be beaded on completion of the rows, which is only another couple of evenings worth – I’m not certain if I will put it away in rotation for another 3 weeks or shuffle out my rotations completely and finish it!

I really have to get a move on with some Christmas stitching, as am participating in a couple of Christmas ornament exchanges with currently nothing but ideas spinning in my brain to show for it.  So as it is a lovely sunny day – I will heave myself away from the computer and go and plan my next week’s worth of sewing and stitching.

Nearly forgot to empty out my ort pincushions, these sit next to me and I tuck away all my stitching orts to pop into my TUSAL Jar.  By the look of this, I have been stitching...have emptied them now and will start afresh for this week.

Hoping everybody is keeping well – what are your next projects that you are planning?   Drop me a line and let me know…  (Jo – I read your blog..  I KNOW you have about 60 projects on the boil  - lol  )

September Saturday - sharing my stitching with you all.

Hello friends,

This week seems to have soared past so quickly, with little to show for my crafting.  I’ve prepared fabric for a pieced border for the Halloween quilt and will slowly put that together.  The intention is for the border to resemble monster teeth.   I had intended to work a scrappy ‘teeth’ border using the orange, green and purple, but then thought that as I had enough of the cream spiderweb fabric, that would be the only fabric in the pieced border.  I’m not going to overthink this, but work on a simple border.  A simple background fabric, possibly with a scrappy panel for the back of the quilt, whatever I feel at the time.  I have gone beyond the drafted pattern and now this is growing organically.

I feel also the need to work on my HoneyB quilt for my car.  I had put this aside, but now that I know my new car is in the same state, waiting on the docks for lockdown to be eased, it is closer to the dealership and therefore to me.  I’d better get this quilt done in time.

My brother has asked for a simple Australian themed baby quilt.  Although It won’t take long to stitch a simple block quilt, it may take longer to source the appropriate fabrics.  That is a WIP in my head only at present.

I did finish the August row of houses for my Temperature SAL.  The last couple of days of August warmed up noticeably and the first week of September were very warm.  This has been a good exercise, and although happy with the colours used, next year I think I will diversify the shades a bit more – probably one colour per degree rather than the one colour for two degrees this year.  I think I might even look at a different colour range per 10 degrees – eg Blues for 0-10,  Pinks for 11-20, Greens for 21-30, Yellows for 31-40, Reds for 41-50.  That should make for an interesting flock of sheep.   I feel that the predominance of 9-14 temperatures we’ve had between May and June will then show up better than the mish-mash of blue/teal shown this year.

Next weekend I should be able to show you a mostly finished sampler.  After last month’s issue with running out of fabric, have changed a fair bit of the chart and released September’s section to some friends earlier – so there’s not so much pressure to have it finished this month.  But that is THIS week’s WIP – so no peeks today.

I’m off to play in my sewing room today, see if I can extract some of the ideas from my head onto fabric and finished…  everywhere I look, I see a half finished project, so it’s is really not time to start a new project…   See you all back soon!

 

Stepping into Spring and Stitching

Hello Friends

Gosh in these times a week is screaming through so quickly – it is now a week

into September and well past time to update you on the life in lockdown.

I have joined Steptember, a charity program encouraging all to walk 10,000 steps each day to raise money for Cerebral Palsy.  My work is running with teams of 4 and our team is named Thunder Pandas – random name picked out of a hat by a 5 year old.  That works for me!   I am 12 months out of a knee replacement, so my personal goal is anything over 6000 steps each day will be good.  I started the first 5 days with over 8,000 steps each.  Yesterday I walked around my neighbourhood and looked at gardens.  I found this cute flowering gum – no idea what type, but it was pretty enough for a photo. Today is a rest day and have spent it catching up with technology – weeding out emails etc…  

Stitching and sewing has been busy.  I have been working on the Halloween Quilt – as shown last post and have now finished the top.  This was a methodical process of quilt, rather than organic and I have enjoyed putting this one together - particularly as it is the first one made using my new cutting desk.  I plan to use a simple 2” border on it and bind it using strips from the leftover fabrics.  I’ve lost the intensity to finish this and might move back onto my bee quilt while I figure out the next quilting project.

On the stitching front, I have finished ‘O’ on my Floral Sampler – Oriental Poppy – This is slowly, but surely progressing towards a finish – Only 11 more motifs, so surely I can finish it sooner than 11 months away…. Perhaps as the 2020 Sampler is now winding down, I can increase the rotation time on the Floral sampler. 

I have started the August row of the 2020 Temperature sampler, it is part of this week’s rotation.  I am looking forward now to stitching the end of August and beginning of September because Spring certainly has Sprung, with kookaburras in our garden.

 

I have also made a start on my Christmas Heirloom Tablecloth for the 2019 square.  I’ll reveal the whole design later this month when it is finished.   It is a quick stitch, but there are so many other stitchy things that have a deadline.

 

 

 

One thing that does not have a deadline, are my scrappy hexies, all in a box for when I’m waiting for an appointment, or taking part in an online meeting.  They are growing steadily and when I run out of templates, will have to look at just WHAT I plan to make with them.  

I must also stop rummaging around in my basket of finishes, because I keep finding things that need framing, made into a cushion or similar.  While I have my Halloween fabric out, have found a couple of old Halloween finishes which need contemplation…  I think one will become a cushion and the other a notebook cover.

 

I hope you have enjoyed your visit today – please come back again soon.