Beehive Catch up

Yesterday I actually had time to sew! It was like an Easter miracle, I got up in the morning and B asked if I wanted to sew today? Did I want to sew? Heck Yes! No need to ask me twice.

First up I had to finish of some Wanta Fanta blocks for our January Queen Bee. Yes I am soo late in getting these done, but they are done now and they will be in the mail today.

Then it was onto this month's Queen Bee's block and she picked Tic Tac Toe in Aqua's, Navy's and Low Volume. I love the tic tac toe block, it is SO EASY to put together I don't even need to refer to the cutting or piecing instructions anymore. I can put this baby together with my eyes closed, well almost!

And since I was on a roll I thought it was about time I pieced together my blocks from last years Beehive. I still need to make four of those blocks, but the 12 I already have are pieced into rows so that they are ready for my last four blocks that I am hoping to get made this week.

And with that, I am all caught up with my required sewing! We for the next three days anyway, before I start on next month's Queen's blocks. I've had a sneak peek of her block and it's one I haven't made before. I excited to give it a go.

#30blocksin30Days Update

Hello! Is anybody out there? I haven't blogged here for over a month, and that might be my longest break from this blog ever.

Life has been busy and I've been spending a lot of time over at And Sew We Craft not to mention sewing a quilt block (most) days for the past almost 30 days.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can find my list of 30 blocks here.

I'm a little behind on schedule, only 3 days actually and I hope to be all caught up tomorrow. But I thought I would share a few progress shots of my blocks.

So there you have it, my progress so far. I am hoping to have the quilt top all finished early next month but who knows when I'll get to quilt it. I'm hoping to do a 5 x 6 layout with sashing so this will be the biggest quilt I've ever quilted. And it will be all MINE! 

When was the last time you made or done something for yourself?

I'm linking up with Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday and And Sew We Craft for ASWC Together. 

30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days for my 30th Birthday!

Okay, I wanted to do 30 days of something to celebrate my upcoming 30th Birthday (it's on November 28th for those of you playing at home) I had all these ideas and then thought why don't I just do something completely outrageous and wild like make 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 DAYS!?!

Note that my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek right now! The only thing wild and outrageous about making 30 quilt blocks in 30 days is the thought that I might actually keep up to date and finish them all!

Anyhow, I'll be posting my updates daily over on Instagram and it would be cool if you wanted to play along. I'll be using the hashtag #30blocksin30days


And here is the list of blocks that I'll be making:

1. Tic Tac Toe by Blossom Heart Quilts
2. Ribbon Star by Fresh Lemon Quilts
3. Another Star Block by Fresh Lemon Quilts
4. Two Colours Star block by Fresh Lemon Quilts
5. Churn Dash Block by Cluck Cluck Sew
6. Patchwork Wheel by Don't Call Me Betsy
7. Be good to your heart block by Diary of a Quilter
8. Disappearing 9 patch block- here's a fab tutorial if you've never made one.
9. Radiant Ring Block by Don't Call Me Betsy
10. Friendship Hexagon Block by Don't Call Me Betsy
11. Divide and Conquer Block by Don't Call Me Betsy
12. Magic 8 Ball by Blossom Heart Quilts 
13. Quatrefoil by Clover & Violet via Blossom Heart Quilts
14. Homebase by Blossom Heart Quilts
15. Another 9 patch because we've hit the halfway mark and I'll need something easy!
16. Starflower Block from Ellison Lane
17. Cross Block Tutorial from Ellison Lane
18. Tic Tac Toe by Blossom Heart Quilts- Yes Again! This block is SO easy to put together
19. Make an improv block- There are no rules it just need to be 12.5 inches unfinished.
20. Economy Block finishing at 12.5 inches unfinished- this post from Cat Bird Quilts has the calculations for this block size. 
21. Sailboat Block from She Can Sew
22. Dutchman's Puzzle from She Can Sew
23. Friendship Star from She Can Sew
24. Snowball block from She Can Sew
25. Rolling Diamonds from Knotty Gnome Crafts
26. Woven block by Sew Happy Geek
27. Churn Dash Block by Cluck Cluck Sew- I know AGAIN, but you could make a churn dash plus block instead...
28. Wonky Star Block- There are two tutes for this one, a vid from Missouri Star Quilt Co and a written tutorial from fibre of all sorts
29. Radiant Ring Block by Don't Call Me Betsy- Yeah, yeah, another repeat. Have you even tried to find 30 blocks that you'd like to make???
30. Birthday Cake block by Fat Quarter Shop! I'll be changing this block a little because I want to make only 12 inch blocks, but it seemed a fitting block for the final day!

And Yippee that's the end. Happy Birthday to ME!


So I'll be kicking this thing off on Thursday the 29th of October so I'll be finished the day before my birthday. I'm trying to be realistic here as I really don't think I'll have time to sew ON my actual birthday so I figure I best plan for that.

So... wish me luck! I think I'm gonna need it.

Blocks, Blocks and More Blocks

This week has been a pretty good week sewing wise. Whilst I haven't done much, I have done a lot more than I have managed in a long time. 

I joined the Sew Delicious Quilt Block Boot Camp a little while ago and then promptly got left behind as the weeks went by and I didn't sew ANYTHING! But this week I've managed to do week 8 & 9's blocks.

Actually I've done 6 of week 8's Churn Dash Blocks (tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew) . But with a twist, I turned the half square triangles on the second block of the same fabric to create a completely different block all together. 

I like how they have all turned out. I'm planning on using b&w prints for the background fabrics and pulling random colours of fabric from my stash to make one (or 2) very scrappy quilts.

Week 9's block was the hashtag block and I plan on making a lap quilt for C for his birthday using fabric from the same line (although I can't remember what this fabric line is called...)

Now just to keep up the momentum!

#TheBeeHiveQuilts Bee Blocks Month 1 & 2

At the start of the year I decided to sign up for the Beehive Quilts set up by Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts.

I had two reasons:

1. I haven't been quilting nearly as much as I'd like
2. I would like to increase my quilting skills, because of my lack of quilting lately I think my skills have slipped a bit.

And well the first month definitely was an effort. Sharon picked a paper pieced block called Star Plus and I had never paper pieced before in my life.

This block really took me out of my comfort zone and to tell you the truth I am still embarrassed by the finish of this block.

I couldn't get the quadrants to line up properly and I later learnt that I shouldn't have removed the papers until I finished piecing the whole block. I also didn't trim the seam allowances properly as I was scared to cut too much!

Overall that block left me feeling completely inadequate as a quilter and completely embarrassed to be sending this block to someone. But since I had attempted this blocks so many times over the space of a month I was pretty sure I couldn't do any better than I already had so I bundled it up with all my left over scraps and a box of chocolates and hoped for the best.

So when month 2 was coming around I was really nervous about what Lisa would choose but I was really excited to see that she picked Tic Tac Toe, because that block was right up my alley, NO PAPER PIECING FTW!

It came together really quickly and pretty much all of my points matched up which really helped my quilting confidence increase somewhat. And I've even started cutting more fabric to start making myself some of these blocks. Who knows, I might even pick this block for myself when it's my turn to be Queen Bee.

Harry The Hedgehog #hazelqal

Last month I seen Hazel the Hedgehog popping up all over Instagram and decided that it was a bandwagon that I NEEDED to jump on. I discovered that Angie from GnomeAngel was hosting the QAL and then a week went by and I remembered again so I bought the patterns and started to cut fabric for a gigantic Hazel to use as a cover for one of our floor cushions.  Then 2 weeks went by and the deadline was looming so I sat down and finally starting sewing it up.

It was easy enough to piece together, especially with the large pieces. It was just what I needed after a dismal attempt at paper piecing for the Beehive quilting bee that I am participating in. So Harry seems to have boosted my quilting confidence and I think that it just what I needed. 

As I said before, Harry was destined to be a cover for a floor cushion. You see we have two great big floor cushions but they have really ugly covers and since the kids are always using the floor cushions I couldn't just hide them away. So re-covering them has been something that has been on my to-do list for way to long. And by the look of it the other cushion is going to turn into a hedgehog too as those two above have been fighting over Harry since I finished him last night.

I wonder how long it will take me to get started on the next one?

Not to worry, at least Harry is finished. And I'm linking him up with Angie for the QAL wrap up.

Crossing things off my to do list

I've got a week until I fly down to Perth to wait patiently for this baby to makes it's appearance so I've been trying to get everything organised and project finished before I go.

Realistically I'm not going to get it all done, but I'm slowly getting the most important things finished.

I've finished a fair few baby related crafts recently and just have three more things that I want to get finished before I go.

They are:
The modernqal baby quilt
The Low Volume baby quilt
Some bloomers that I cut out the pattern and fabric for about 2 months ago...

With the house stuff, well I'm pretty much done with all of that. There is no point in my cleaning showers within an inch of their lives or scrubbing walls, because B and the two older kids will be here messing up all my hard work for just under two weeks after I leave. Instead I'm leaving all that on B's list (insert evil laugh here).

WIPs Wednesday- Modern QAL Baby Quilt

So the pieces of the low volume baby quilt I shared last week are now a fully formed quilt top and I want to get all my my quilt wips finished before this baby comes so it now makes sense for me to finish the ModernQAL Solids Baby Quilt that I shared over at ASWC a few weeks ago.

I have the backing sorted and the batting too. So this week I am hoping to get it basted. Just small goals at the moment. We are off on holidays soonish so I've got plenty of non-craft related this on my to do list as well.

WIP Wednesday: Low Volume Baby Quilt Progress

Last week I shared my low volume baby quilt that I am in the process of making.

I wanted to get the quilt top finished over the weekend, but between a last minute invitation to have dinner with friends on Saturday night and the kids soccer games on Sunday by sewing time was cut down to practically nothing.

But never fear, yesterday I got stuck in and finished chain piecing all the squares into 4s and pressing them so they are all ready to be sewn into blocks of 16.

I have done some blocks of 16 already, but I was being lazy and only finger pressing them so that aren't perfect.

But hopefully these next set of blocks I put together will make up for that.

What are you creating at the moment?

WIPs Wednesday: Low Volume Baby Quilt

Well posting about my Dream On Quilt last week certainly worked in forcing me to suck it up and finish it. So this week I thought I would post about yet another quilt.

This one is only a few weeks old though, so nowhere near as overdue as the other one. This is my low volume baby quilt that is in the works for this baby. And all I would like to have done is the top pieced by the end of the weekend.

That sounds easy enough because I have pieced a fair bit of the blocks already. And I am chain piecing most of it so it should come together pretty fast.

Finally Finished: Dream On Quilt

I started this quilt last year some time. Not sure when exactly maybe the start of spring...but I've blogged about it a few times since.

Anyhow, the details- I used 2 packs of Dream On charms that I have been stashing away for a long long time. It was and still is one of my favourite fabric lines ever.

The original plan was to just use white sashing and borders, but I ran out of that particular white so the green was a last minute addition.

The quilt top sat around for a few months then I basted in a about two months ago were it proceeded to sit around waiting to be bound. That's silly really because it took less than 2 hours to bind it last night. The stripey binding is from the Nicey Jane range, I've wanted to to a stripey binding for a long time and am glad I did.

It's currently waiting to be washed and then it will be my couch blanket for this winter as it measures about 52 inches x 60 inches.

Oh and here is the backing fabric that I used:

It feels great to have finally finished it. Now to tackle the rest of the WIP pile...

WIPS Wednesday: Dream On Quilt

Okay this is mighty embarrasing! This quilt just needs binding and its done. Only binding, but it's been sitting next to my sewing machine with the fabric to be used for binding for months.

So I'm documenting it here so that I am accountable to YOU and I WILL have it finished by the end of the weekend.

How's that for a deadline?

I'm linking up with Little White Dove for WIPS Wednesday.

Lala Salama Quilt Planning

You know me, the big procrastinator from way back! Well on my to do list for a while has been a charity quilt for a children's hospital in Kenya.

I have to get cracking on it as I need to post it by the end of the month! So far I have pulled the fabric and figured out a layout.

Oh and I have started cutting too, hopefully this weekend I can get to piecing it!

Do you procrastinate?

Rock Candy Table Topper

I finished this table topper (that I am going to use it as a wall hanging) a few weeks ago. I started it on a whim one night after receiving the Rock Candy pattern in the October Quilty Box.

I had never pieced diamond before and honestly it was a little bit daunting, but after a while I got the hand of it... just.

I quilted it the next day just doing some simply in the ditch quilting. Originally I had planned to do some more quilting on it mimicking the shapes and graduating outwards in the white area but thought against after I quilted in the ditch.

 

I just didn't think it needed anymore quilting... It would bound that afternoon and I think it might have been my first quilt of any kind that was completed so fast.

I can't say I enjoyed working with the diamonds, but the Rock Candy pattern was easy to understand and it all came together pretty fast.

I do plan on making it again though. Now that I have a better understanding of working with the shapes I am sure the next time will be a little bit more pleasant.

ModernQAL Month 8: Crosswalk

It's month 8 of Modern QAL already and it's my turn to share with you how I put this block together.

This month block is Crosswalk and it was designed by Angela Pingel.

The block was pretty straight forward to put together. I used a piece of cardboard to mark out the fussy cut pieces. It worked, kinda, but I really do need to work on my fussy cutting technique...

Cut all pieces as per the picture below:

Make sure you layout all of your pieces correctly and then work in rows to piece together.

Construct your block in the following manner:

Piece each of the 8 units around the middle square by sewing strip B to either side of a fussy cut C rectangle. Press seams and sew an A strip to the outer end of each B/C/B unit. 

Sew the 3 units in Row 1 together and press the seams in one directions. 

Sew the 3 units in Row 2 and press the seams in the opposite direction of row 1.

Sew the units in row 3 together and press the seams in the opposite direction of row 2. 

With right sides together sew rows 1 and 2 together then sew row 3 to row 2. 

Trim to 12.5 x 12.5.

WIPS Wednesday

On Monday I gave myself a huge to do list for the week. And I Monday I made some great progress on said list and then Tuesday I procrastinated my butt off. I'm good like that...

And then I thought it would be a good idea to start something that wasn't even on my list...

A Rock Candy Table Topper...

I just need to sash it and the top will be done, so now I need to add basting, quilting and binding said table topper to my list...

Do you start work on other projects when you really should just be finishing something off? 

Cheats Half Square Triangles Using Charm Squares

I love half square triangles, but sometimes they can take a while to make.

But here is a quick way to make them using charm squares.

What I used:
8 Charm Squares

Yield:
16 half square triangles

Place two charm squares right side together and stitch around ALL of the edges with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Cut in half on the diagonal.

Cut in half again.

Ta da! You now have half square triangles!

All you need to do now is press and trim them.

Then arrange how ever you like.

I love this method as you can make HEAPS of HST's in a fraction of the time.