Bursts of progress

My Pfaff QE 4.0 has been plagued with problems this winter: For the second time in 7 years, the knee lift has worn out (still waiting for the replacement); after a service it intermittently turned off during sewing; the thread cutter was out of place. Luckily we have an amazing technician that services our local area, and my machine runs again as it should (touch wood). At the same time work resumed its usual craziness, so my sewing progress has been somewhat limited over the last few months. However, for once I have a few items that are finished (you might have some of these pictures before):

Rainbow - Arco Iris

A selection from my stash...

... rows of HSTs...

... pieced into rows...

...with sashing...

... and completed!

Some detail of the ruler quilting...

... and more...

... and improv straights lines in the background...

For the back I used the last of this Spotlight wide backing

All fabric came from my stash, thanks to ScrapTherapy I had plenty of solid batik squares to create a subtle Arco Iris or rainbow. Batting is cotton/polyester mix from Spotlight, I haven't used this type before, it is 'puffier' than my usual 100% cotton. Aurifil 50wt top (cream) and bottom (white), quilted on my HQ SweetSixteen using my various quilting rulers. It was great practice, I feel a lot more confident, definitely with straight lines, also some of the curves. If it wasn't so expensive, I would love to get some sets of arcs and circles.

Pohutukawa - Kiwi Christmas

This has come back from Brisbane months ago but I finally hung it up today: I will watch for a while if the wonkiness comes out in our high humidity climate, otherwise I will block it again:

Aotearoa

My ScrappyAppliqueQuiltAlong top is finally finished and ready to be put up. Youngest DS hasd been nagging gently encouraging me for a while to get it done, and as it will beis right next to his door, he must obviously like it ;)

Patchworkcity2018
With all the kerfuffle with my machine, my current block, by my count bonus block 10, is almost finished:

Bonus block 9

That leaves me with just two more blocks to go to reach my personal goal of 30 blocks - not long now!

Me & You Challenge

I have sadly still gotten nowhere with my piece for this MQG challenge which is a real shame, I was lucky enough to get some of the material from them. Unless a miracle happens and I get a suitable piece completed by then, what do I need to do with the material, do I return it? I feel rather bad, someone else might have missed out and could have made something amazing???



So where does this leave me in regards to my previous goals?

• Bind, label & add hanging sleeve on Aotearoa: DONE
• Quilt VQR on S16: Still working on it
• Continue quilting Metro Rings on S16: No further progress yet, but now that the baby quilt is out the way, this will be good to alternate with VQR
• Prepare the next set of Rainbow at Sea blocks: Papers are all prepared, but I still have to prepare the next fabrics
• Continue on #Patchworkcity2018 blocks: Just half a sub-block to piece to finish block 28 of 30, then two more to go.

New goals until the end of the year

• Quilt, label, bind VQR
• Finish all quilting of Metro Rings
• Piece one more set of Rainbow at Sea blocks (which will take me to half-way)
• Finish remaining Patchworkcity2018 blocks

Guess who has been visiting my place of work in general and our Raranga Matihiko classroom in specific?

Happy Sewing!

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!