Gisborne Quilters Meeting

Last night I went along to my first (hopefully of many!!) evenings with the Gisborne Quilters.

After the obligatory bargaining with DH he agreed to letting me go.  He is concerned (understandably) about me taking the car out alone especially at night in the cold and wet when my wrist is still definitely worse for wear.

His other concern was his pants! The button fell off (again!!) and since I'm a quilter I apparently do repairs!

I came up with what I felt was a very generous compromise - I offered to take his pants and sew on the button as my first order of business.

He had 2 objections - the first was that he didn't trust me (totally understandable given what happened last time I mended his pants! )

I was so furious at having been asked to do mending that I appliqued little dogs all over his pants including a very strategically placed fire hydrant

His other concern was that bringing mending would not be a good first impression (bless his heart!) I couldn't care less and promised him faithfully I wouldn't desecrate his pants but off I went leaving his pants at home! woohoo!

Upon arriving and being welcomed by fellow patchworker Sue we waited for Tania to open the room and Donna arrived shortly after.  We were quickly overcome by gas fumes from the faulty heater so Donna very kindly offered to host the evening at her house.

We bumped into Lorraine and Rosie who followed us while poor Tania went home as she wasn't well but she did present us with a fantastic newsletter first.  Thank you, Tania!

At Donna's house we got comfy and Donna kindly make us all hot cups of tea and we got down to business.  I pulled out some of the applique blocks from my Aster Manor Sampler to see how I'd go.  I hadn't touched hand-piecing or applique since I was in plaster and really hadn't sewn at all since my altercation with the soap dispenser .  It took me a while to get into the rhythm and remember how it all went but things progressed quickly.  I was shocked to discover my stitches were a lot better than before - pretty much invisible and a perfect straight line on the back!    I can confidently say that a plaster cast up to the armpit is NOT conducive to hand piecing and being without it was almost certainly the key to my new found success!

At around 9:30pm we headed home.  Usually on the homefront we're lucky to have our Energiser Bunny alseep by then (and true to form he was still awake when I returned!) so any evening sewing I do at home usually doesn't even start before 9:30 it does mean I can come to the meetings and be home at a reasonable time so the 6am starts on school mornings can still happen.

Once I got home I finished off the evening with a few hours of unpicking the Handbag quilt.  It was pieced and quilted while in plaster (LAST year!).  It seems like I've been in plaster for almost 6 months together between April 2009 and May 2010. 

Anyways my progress is definitely not worth photographing (yet!) and my successful stitching was balanced with dodgy placement so some of the tulips will be lop-sided but my excuse is the stems were stitched in place while I was still in plaster (yes that old excuse again!

Hopefully I'll come along again next week!

Dear Jane gets a mention

But hardly more than that!

I've been meaning to take some pics of my fabrics so I can keep tracks of what I have and what I need more of.

The quality is awful since it had to be done with my phone but here goes.

The browns and tans:

Yellows and Oranges (definitely need more of these!

Blues:

Pinks and Greens:

Reds and Purples (a few more purples I think!)

And lastly the Fabric Inspector pays a visit:

I'm really looking forward to starting this quilt but ideally I'd like to join a group because I know I'll lose my mojo otherwise and I want to hand piece it and would like to finish at least one of my hand pieced UFOs first!

Meanwhile there is still a bit of shopping to be done before I have all my fabrics! ;-P

Friday Night Sew-In

Heidi hosts Friday night sew-ins and I'm participating for the first time!  The next one will be on Friday 23 July.

I'm very excited to have set aside a block of time to get some of those UFOs on my list done.  The deadline for the 3 UFOs by 31 Aug is fast looming and I'm getting decidedly uncomfortable!!

I haven't decided yet what I'll be working on but I have a little time.

Details for the Friday Night Sew-In can be found by clicking the pic below:

A dinosaur sized headache

Well it's pretty obvious I need neither more fabric nor potential projects but 35% off all fabrics at a quilt store proved too difficult to resist.

I walked out with a dinosaur panel and 3 half-metre pieces of various dino print fabrics.

I didn't have the faintest idea what do do with them except that I could throw them together into a really quick quilt for Maxie since his applique car quilt wont be ready any time soon.

I knew I wanted to use the printed dino fabrics to their best advantage and not cut them up too small and the finished blocks would have to be 11" to fit around the panel.

I decided on a modified version of the block used in Lorna's 12 FQ quilt and today decided to do an alternate block - double 9 patch.  These 2 blocks mixed up with various sized pieces of plain scraps from my stash should give me the look I'm after.

I'm much relieved to have decided on a pattern since this plan for a quilt has been bugging me for a few weeks (since buying the fabric).  Must be a guilty conscience!!

I only have a few more fabric pieces to wash and then I can start cutting.

The next hurdle will be to excavate my sewing table from under all the debris of neglected UFO, magazines, patterns and other random finds.

I'm rather impressed at the resurrection of this blog.  Admittedly it's infinitely easier to type than to quilt at the moment and I feel I'm doing something sewing related.

Failing all that, seeing the growing list of UFOs might just shame me into finishing one or two!! :-O

Lorna's 12 FQ Quilt Class

I attended this class at Quilter's Bazaar.

It was run by Andrea and the thing I really loved (apart from how quick and easy it was to get finished!!)  was that I basically recycled one UFO along with some additional Stash-Busting and transformed it (OK still in progress!) into 3 charity quilts!

I have one completed top using Lorna's pattern (with borders), A second top with 3 out of 4 borders attached and the third quilt will be done using another pattern but there is plenty of fabric left!

I'm not intending to quilt these anytime soon.  I'm too sore still to wrestle quilt tops around the machine but finished tops are better than a pile of chopped up fabric in the too-hard pile!!

Here's the link to Lorraine's blog entry about the class:


Lorna's 12 FQ Class

I'm yet to photograph my version of the quilt but will get around to it...eventually!!

Hand piecing class

I figured since I enjoy having a portable project on the go that I should do a hand piecing class to learn properly.

It was a matter of bumbling my way through and hoping for the best before.

The class was run by Mary of Drapers of Mount Macedon and my first class was on 13 March - 13 days after my major wrist op and 2 days since I was put in plaster - well past my elbow!!

I managed well enough although I would have been happier if my points matched more often but then again I was effectively doing it one handed so I decided to cut myself some slack.

My delicious Aster Manor FQ bundle was used to make the quilt and it's turning out nicely!

Here is a pic of my block from Mary's blog:

I NEED more fabric!!

OK so I've spent the weekend planning the colours and layout of my DJ.  It means I'll need a few more FQs in certain colours!

I popped into Quilters Bazaar today and picked up my remaining colours.  There will be a DJ class starting late March so it's a bit earlier than I planned.  I need to think more about it!

OK I've succumbed...

I picked up a repro FQ pack today so I guess I'm officially doing a Dear Jane.  I don't yet know when.  I also picked up an Aster Manor FQ bundle for my hand piecing class.  I hoped not to have them both running at the same time but I might not have a choice.

Will post some pics of my lovely purchases soon!