Happy New Year!

The new year isn't that new anymore lol but as I'm still on annual leave I'm definitely still in holiday mode! I have been watching other quilters' NY resolution posts appear, and like many others I have been mulling over my plans for the year.

Looking back at 2019
At the beginning of 2019 I decided to revive my blog, and while I still posted way more on IG (126 posts 😮), 24 blog posts for 2019 is more than I have written in any year since 2013! I have been more disciplined about taking my quilting photos only with my private phone and eventually saving those photos to my MacBook organised in folders which helps with record keeping. I had looked but couldn't find a (free) blogger app for my phone at the time, so IG was still much more accessible.

I also made myself a Quilt Planner which I have updated as required. It helped my keep all the projects I had in mind listed in one place. Lots of other quilters use actual paper copies, but digital documents work well for me in my day job as it did for my WIPs for 2019. It's not the prettiest version out there, and I like to add a section 'all blocks pieced' and 'completed flimsy', but it will do again for 2020.

2019 finished quilts:

1. BerninaZenChicQAL for DH
2. Giant Panda Quilt for my niece
3. Elephant Cushion for youngest DS
4. zenstudioqal, a baby quilt for a colleague
5. Arco Iris - Rainbow, a baby quilt for another colleague
6. ScrappyAppliqueQuiltAlong: Aotearoa
7. Vintage Quilt Revival: Tutti Frutti

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Quilts that progressed in 2019:

• Rainbow at Sea quilt: Just about half the blocks are pieced.
• Patchwork City 2018: All 30 blocks are pieced, and I have bought the backing
• Metrorings: There is still some more quilting to do,  but I can see the finish line.

The only quilt on my list with no progress is the Scraptherapy top.

Looking ahead at 2020

1. I want to continue blogging, and just today I found a free iPhone app that appears to work for use with Blogger. Provided this works I should be able to post straight from my phone to Blogger - and if it's just a copy of what I post on IG.
2. I will also continue tracking my WIPs with a 2020 version of my Quilt Planner
3. Suzanne and I had a look through my sorry excuse for a stash the other day; for 2020 I want to use up many of the left-overs and scraps in projects so I can start building a new stash with a clear conscience 😉
4. There are a number of projects I want to work on in 2020:
• Metrorings: I first blogged about this in June 2015 - 2020 is the year to get this finished.
• Patchworkcity 2018: It would be great to have this finished and on the bed by next Christmas. However, at this stage I want to custom quilt it, so this might take longer.
• Rainbow at Sea: I love the pattern, but it can be tedious piecing the blocks. Realistically, by the end of the year this should be at the flimsy stage.
• QAL were the 'stars' of 2019, they actually got done lol. Therefore Suz and I have set us the challenge to make Linedried by Coriander quilts. My goal is to not fall behind Suz 😂
• As a bonus, I want to use the same FQ pack but a different background fabric to make Summer Sampler 2017 by Lee Heinrich and co. I have been ooing and aaing over their various sampler patterns for a while, so I finally jumped in and bought the pattern. Still contemplating how to exactly distribute my colours, but I hope to have all blocks pieced by the end of the year
• It's only the 15th, and I have already fallen down some rabbit holes... I could not resist Venus by @eyecandyquilts. Using almost exclusively fabrics from my stash and the clammy ruler from @latifahsaafirstudios, I am making a baby quilt sized version as leader & ender project
• With the Summer Sampler order came the free Sparkler pattern; using 2.5'' strips from my scrap bin, this will become another baby quilt (I really hope we get some babies at work this year 😆)
• Judi Madsen's Celebration panel has been sitting in my drawers for most (all?) of 2019, and it's been challenging to say the least! Before I received the panel, a message said there was a delay as the panel had not been printed to their standard and needed reprinting. Eventually it arrived, and while I knew it was polyester, I was still not prepared for how different this feels to cotton. Despite the reprint, there were still some bleeds and smudges on the top due to which the owner of Honest Fabrics offered to replace it. Though I love Judi Madsen's work, I am not in love with the texture or the colours, so the quilt won't end up on my bed any way. I will use it as a practice for ruler quilting, so I declined her kind offer and kept the top as it is. Today I finally pieced a backing, then made it larger (though still not quite wide enough so will trim the final border back a bit) and sandwiched the top. Suz will either 😂 or 🙄at me as I (once again) pricked my finger with the safety pin and ended up with blood stains (I'm quite good at removing these, years of practice...). Due to the rain, I threw the sandwich in the dryer, but once I took it out, I had some new smudges on it 🙄🙄 which I (almost) removed, then proceeded to hang the quilt on the line after all. ONLY to drop the wet end on the ground 🙄🙄🙄. I think I will call this quilt Perseverance when I finally get it done!!! Karin from https://thequiltyarn.blogspot.com/ is planning a ruler quilting linky-party, so I will try to get some work done and link up.

This will have to do for now - teenagers are requesting an urgent taxi service lol

Happy Sewing!!!

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!

Middle of winter weather...

... out there today, not very nice: Grey, persistent rain, cold - simply brrrr! However, it helped me make  a bit more progress against my goals from the last post:

Finish quilting Aotearoa from #scrappyappliquequiltalong - done :) I have even cut and pressed the binding (TG for an ancient random ombre green 1/2 metre in my stash), also ironed on some leftover collage pieces for the label. I will have to make a hanging sleeve, too - any favourite tutorials to recommend?

Last weekend - almost done

Today: Quilted & trimmed

Far North of New Zealand = home 

Yummy texture on aqua batik background

Finish piecing the remaining 4 blocks for #patchworkcity2018 - I came across a slight hiccup; since my machine came back from the service, I get random occasions of the machine turning off and on, like a mini power cut. I have the funny feeling it's pedal related, as it seems to happen when I deliberately push the pedal all the way down. I finally have to get in touch with the technician next week. This is the reason why I gave up today after just one of the three blocks that combine to a larger block:

Once Aotearoa is quilted, get back to quilting Metro Rings; well, that didn't quite go to plan. Karin from The Quilt Yarn has experimented with various rulers on her HQ Sweet Sixteen and recently invested in the Sure Foot. I am still waiting to hear back from the shop where I purchased my machine if they can supply the Sure Foot. So in the meantime I turned to my Vintage Quilt Revival top - remember that?

At approx. 108" x 93" too large to photograph in full

A generous stipple under way

After close to 2 years of procrastinating I decided that I would simply have to get it done. While the idea of custom quilting had crossed my mind, I would taken another 5 years to get this done, and similarly if I wanted to save up the money to get it done by a professional quilter. Despite its humangous size, my S16 setup makes it possible, so far I have approx. 6 of 42 blocks done. This quilt might even end up on my bed by the end of the year?

Plug away at blocks for Rainbow at Sea - and I have!

All five sets of this block have been pieced

I LOVE how the colours move across the top

The next set, six blocks, will mark the half-way point. Still a long way to go, but I still LOVE it, so it will get done eventually.

New goals:

• Bind, label & add hanging sleeve on Aotearoa (luckily I have my Singer 201K to do this if necessary)
• Quilt VQR on S16, and
• Continue quilting Metro Rings on S16 (I made sure I picked the same threads for both quilts - no excuse not to work on both :D)
• Prepare the next set of Rainbow at Sea blocks
• Continue on #Patchworkcity2018 blocks when my Pfaff has recovered

I also need to make a decision on that baby quilt I want to have ready before November.

Happy Sewing!

The time of year...

It's the time of year where it's just work-work-work... With our system of 10 weeks teaching, 2 weeks break you wouldn't think that one can get so bogged down but somehow it happens every year. Luckily I have been able to make space for a little play, too - and TG for our family holiday in the Islands, that was long overdue!

My goals from 3 June were:

Finish #scrappyappliquequiltalong (quilt, bind, hanging sleeve)

Piece more #patchworkcity2018 bonus blocks

Continue piecing Rainbow at Sea quilt

Continue quilting Metro Rings quilt

... and there is not that much to show for - oops!

Scrappy Applique Quilt Along

Yes, still quilting this - or more truthfully I finally started back on it yesterday... Though I made a discovery regarding my HQ Sweet Sixteen: I though I had been oiling it regularly, but the machine started to feel rather rusty and noisy lately. Eventually I realised that not much oil had been coming out of the oil bottle at all which I have now rectified - and the machine just nicely purrs along again...

I'm definitely over the half-way mark for the background now,
so it's just a matter of plodding along and getting it done...

Patchwork City blocks

Early June I had 20 blocks, now there are 26, that's more progress than I had thought 😌

Block 18

Bonus Block 4 - I really like this one, esp. bottom left

Bonus Block 5

Bonus Block 6

Bonus Block 7 - one of those 'not perfect, but done' blocks...

Bonus Block 8 - River Path in mirror edge to the original design as I used fpp

I did a mock up of the layout a few weeks back to see where I was at;
I have made a few changes since and will post another picture when I get good light
(it's winter here in New Zealand...)

So overall this one is probably fine as far as progress goes. 4 more blocks to go, and as poor Joe Madl (@manhandledthreads) has been out of commission after an accident, they will probably all be 'bonus blocks' = blocks I choose. I brought up the idea of ghost blocks in a conversation with DH but he wasn't too thrilled 😂 so they will be pieced.

Sadly there has been no progress on Rainbow at Sea or Metro Rings but with a little luck I might get to play with the Rainbow blocks today; I laid the completed blocks out last night, and the swerving rainbow colours just make my heart sing.

Rather than IG rabbit holes, I fell into a couple of FB ones

Members of the BMQG regularly create community quilts and collaborative projects. Here are a few blocks that have been sent off to Queensland:

Butterfly girl in cast - the crazy things my brain makes me do when I run out of peach 😂

After Suzanne (@suzjob1) asked me why I hadn't simply given Butterfly girls socks,
I had to make a Pippy Longstocking, the heroine of my childhood 😍

Crumb circles, using the scraps I have left after cutting my 'scraps' into more usable sizes

There are so many things I would like to make and never enough time.... I just have to be realistic I suppose. I have a very cool job which takes up a lot of my time because I am adamant that I will do it extremely well (ok, some days is more like good enough really). My family are very important, and after our recent holiday the two teenagers still at home are keen to spend more quality time with us.

So next on the horizon are, for the month of August:

• Finish quilting Aotearoa from #scrappyappliquequiltalong
• Finish piecing the remaining 4 blocks for #patchworkcity2018
• Once Aotearoa is quilted, get back to quilting Metro Rings
• Plug away at blocks for Rainbow at Sea

I have a few other things that I could easily add to the above:

• Baby quilt for a colleague due in November
• Sandwich and then quilt an all-over (probably stipple) over Vintage Quilt Revival
• Cut more scraps and continue piecing blocks for the Scraptherapy inspired Irish Chain top - I suppose that could be a sort of leaders & enders project? How do people do these (I might have to do some research)?
• I have also signed up to the MQG 2020 Me+You Indah Batik Fabric Challenge - no idea what is involved with this but no doubt it will be fun

I'm leaving you with a few snaps from our Rarotonga holiday - bound to get back there in the future :)

Happy Sewing!

Two of our teenagers at the beach - yes, they did swim :)

View at lunchtime...

Sunset

     

The three boys I travelled with (our oldest son was in Sweden at that time)