A little bit of rain, a little bit of sun...

Back when the kids were little I used to take them to Mainly Music, and one of the songs was "It's a Rainbow" - perfect for this weekend (and last...). Officially spring has sprung, and while there's blossoms outside, it's still rather grey, cold and generally more miserable than I would like. Or maybe that has more to do with the cold I picked up?

"A little bit of rain, a little bit of sun, when they come together they make rainbow fun, it's a rainbow!":

Start with 5" and 6" 'solid' batik squares from my scrapthereapy-ed scraps...

... turn them into HSTs...

...group the HSTs into colours and randomly spread them across a 61 1/2" long column...

...then piece the columns with 1 1/2" wide sashing

The result is a bit larger than I had expected, 47 1/2" by 61 1/2" is more a throw than I baby quilt, but that's just the way it ended up - I definitely won't add anything else to it :) Now to decide on a quilting design - somehow I'm not keen on my usual 'all-over'; any suggestions? At the moment I'm thinking about making the coloured triangles standout more against the background. Given baby is due late spring, I'll back it with cotton rather than flannel or minky.

My Pfaff machine is still in sewing machine hospital (but due to come back soon), so the lovely Diane at our local sewing shop All you Needle lent me a little Janome which coped very well with the batiks - win!

I had spent a bit of time online, looking for the more fabrics to go with the Me+You Indah Batik Fabric Challenge. It was quite a challenge in itself to source the extra fabrics to go with what was supplied, but my selection of FQs finally arrived yesterday:

The four supplied F8s on top, my five solid FQs below

Not quite more normal colour palette, we'll see what happens... Nothing in the T&Cs indicates you can't blog about your challenge entry, but I might keep it a secret just in case :)

As for my goals from the last post:

• Bind, label & add hanging sleeve on Aotearoa: Nope, no progress yet (Mstr 14 asked me about it today actually...)
• Quilt VQR on S16: Working on it
• Continue quilting Metro Rings on S16: Trialled my new Surefoot with this, seems to work as the regular foot but at much less risk of the ruler slipping under the foot, exactly what I wanted yay :)
• Prepare the next set of Rainbow at Sea blocks: Papers are all prepared, now I have to cut the fabrics
• Continue on #Patchworkcity2018 blocks when my Pfaff has recovered: All pieces for the next block are prepared just need piecing.

Now to brave the weather and head into work to pack up the equipment I need for next week...

Happy Sewing!

Hey-ho, hey-ho, it's off to work we go...

Well, in my case this has actually meant working from home for most of the last 2 1/2 weeks! The boys are still at home, the youngest starting tomorrow (TG!), middle DS next Tuesday, and oldest DS is supposed to learn from home this year with his application getting completed today - fingers crossed he will get some work sent soon :)

The boys have been scrapping heaps, it's really about time for them to go back to school! I am looking forward to getting back into my schools, too, I have been to a meeting and held a workshop but I'm not one for doing the 'sitting-around-getting-paperwork-ready' for too long...

My nerdy playing-with-computers persona needs to be balanced with some more creative endeavours, so here are some pics of what I have been up to lately:

Tokyo Subway Map Quilt in a few pieces...

... and as completed 'flimsy' (at 100"square, flimsy doesn't quite seem to fit?)

Completed baby quilt

- with fleece backing from the always so generous and helpful Suz! -

 - because the ordered backing, the minky with the peace symbols, arrived on the day of the baby shower...

My latest project had my scratch my head lots, trying to piece my QAYG hands into a 49"square wall hanging...

Trying to achieve a balanced random look is not that easy...

Lots of trial and error for the connecting strips; the irregular sizes of the blocks meant lots of calculating!

I bought a new pattern, too - wouldn't that be great for a retreat??

Happy Sewing!