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  )

A flurry of finishes (and starts) from Frigid Frankston - aka Covid Craft Collection

Greetings this weekend from a frosty, frigid Frankston.

In the height of stage 4 lockdown, it is the perfect weather to hunker down and get well involved in the craft room.  This is why I chuckled at a group of pictures of lockdown Barbies – gardening, cooking, home-schooling etc..   and had to admit that I’m THIS Barbie!

Now onto Show and Tell.

I finished the simple and sweet Jardin Privé ‘Spirale’ and as I had been staring at it in my hoop, knew I had to finish it in the round.   This is the result and I’m really pleased with this little mat.  I revisited making proper bias binding for this, not just cutting 2 ½ inch strips for quilts.  I always like to try different techniques with each project.

My lovely high-low office desk has now been installed in my sewing nook and to celebrate (and try it out) decided last Saturday that I HAD to make something. 

I dived into my pile of 2 ½” squares and made a simple disappearing 9patch mini quilt, using up scraps for borders and binding.  A simple cross hatch quilting to finish it off and it was finished in one day  This will end up in the gift box for a random somebody this year.

On Sunday, I decided I needed another little fabric box to store my quilt clips –

so much nicer on my desk than a plastic bag.  I might make another for the quilting safety pins, but for the time being, they can live in their plastic bag – if I change it now, I’ll never find them!

Next on the project list was my SAL for this year, stitching the August section on both the lilac and blue fabric.  Now somewhere along the piece, I mis-counted the fabric on the blue fabric and the whole chart will not fit.  So I’ve made an adjustment and will stitch that in.  The lilac will continue as per the original chart. 

I’ll add these to the SAL page during the week, as those on my facebook group stitching along have now got the whole chart.

And onto the NEXT Project  …..   yes shutdown means a lot of production.

I saw the tutorial for this onJordan Fabrics last year and loved it – so bought the pattern and this has been sitting for nearly a year on the back burner.  Night Flight by Basic Grey.  I have so much Halloween fabric (or so I thought) that  this would be a simple project.   Well, it turns out I have not as much as I thought, and as I’m on a personal challenge to use up my stash and not buy more fabric (as if!) – decided to use some of my batiks to fill out the colour range – particularly the green. 

  I spent an afternoon reading the pattern and creating a small spreadsheet of colours/size cuts/distribution and determined that while the pattern is written to make 320 HST in 2 at a time method – I don’t really like this method and worked out that I would cut my fabric in order to use the 4 at a time method and spend the time to press and trim each one.    So yesterday, I spent 5-6 hours cutting all the fabric, using my lovely new hi-low desk set at (hopefully) the right height.    Today, after writing this to you, my fabric friends will be spent making the 320 HST required for this project.    I tend to leave my patchwork for weekends and stitch on weeknights, so there is no rush to finish all this in a weekend.

I leave you now to continue on my stitchy weekend.  Come back again to see the progress.

As July 2020 comes to a close - a roundup of Stitching events...

Hello Stitching friends… 

Not much progress in July

I do not appear to have much stitching news to share this past week or so. I, like so many Australian stitchers have been putting my time into sewing cloth masks for family and friends. I am fortunate in that I do not need to run a cottage industry to gather spare coins to pay my bills. My household is still employed and the Covid crisis has not impacted us greatly. For this I am thankful and I know there are a lot of people out there who are doing it tough.

 

I recently celebrated 15 year work anniversary. I have been a contractor at the same site since 2005. I was gifted some (amazing) chocolates and two bunches of flowers, one from my employers and one from the business I have worked with for such a long time. Work practices have changed substantially since I first started as a junior with an accountancy firm in 1981. Few people seem to want to hold onto a job for more than 5 years, leaving to acquire more experience with multiple companies. I just have a talent at longevity and am good at the role I currently hold. Along with the flowers was a very lovely bonus gift card. I have put the $$ to good use and have ordered the final components for my sewing nook

 

I love my little vintage laminex dining table – it seats 4, but has extending panels to seat 6 comfortably, and was perfect for my little flat when I moved in 8 years ago. It moved with me to this house, and as I did not intend to need a dining table, designated my little table to my sewing area as a cutting table. Now most of you quilters will know that a dining table is not the best surface to stand at for any length of time cutting fabric. This little table has made-do for the past 3 years, however when I decided at the beginning of this year to organise my life – I put a lot of thought into replacing this table. I looked at work benches at both IKEA and Bunnings, as they were the right height – but golly they were industrial in finish and just not quite right. Lo and behold, in OfficeWorks I discovered a manual high-low or sit-stand desk. It is the right length and perfect depth to hold my cutting mat. I can still store my fabric tubs underneath it. The hole cut into the edge for computers is perfect for the ironing power cord to feed through neatly. I can fit a small pressing station to the side of it, leaving plenty of cutting surface – best of all, I will be able to set the height correctly so a tired back will be a thing of the past. To round out the purchase, I have ordered a new ergonomic chair to replace my current chair which will sink down at the most inconvenient times.

 

I have also ordered a pressing mat – to make the pressing station, so my ancient concave ironing board can hide back in the cupboard waiting for me to iron clothes… I’ve been making do with an old towel folded and covered with a linen tea-towel as a mini pressing mat, but am looking forward to trying out something a bit more professional. I’ll give an honest review, once I’ve used it for a short while.

 

I have been able to make a few more ¾” hexies and am loving my little project box. There is no plan yet just what to do with these, but I’ll keep making them. Not sure if I’ll use these as the centre of grandmother’s garden flowers or as the outside petals, keeping one central colour. It all depends on how many I make and just what colours I have when I’m ready to stitch them together. Or they might become something else….. I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not sure…

 

I am proud of myself this weekend, for putting some serious time in and working on my online Scout Training. I’d been putting it off for months, but set myself this weekend to work on it in earnest. I still have some hours left to work on this, but have broken the back of the training.  Once completed - I should have earned my Wood Beads as a Leader of Adults

ready to sail!

Checking my stitching rotation – this week I will bring out Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. I’m up to stitching blocks 6 and 7 – the sailing ship in the middle. This has been a long time WIP – as most of the projects I’ve been working on this year.

 

As a result of my recent fit of tidy – sorting through my specialty floss I do have another alternate WIP – this scrap of fabric fits three of these hearts nicely. I am using Colour Streams silks and am enjoying the process. I’ll adjust the patterns to suit myself as I go along. I do know I have a wide range of beads in my stash to choose from This will most probably end up this life as a pillow.

 

I hope you have enjoyed your visit with me today. Whether you have dropped in though Bloglovin’ or through your reading pane on Blogger – or even followed one of my unashamed links on various forums – please leave a comment – introduce yourself. Please leave a link to your own blog – are you a quilter, a stitcher, an organising guru? What is your passion? Let us get this blogging community a little tighter and get to know one another…  I leave you today with a closeup of my lovely flowers - a bottlebrush and a sea holly in particular