Thursday, 27 December 2012

Monday Mystery Link Up - Finally

I've been very tardy this week and not for any Christmas related events. Family and work have been in higher priority than blogging.
But here it is, my blocks such as they are:
I think there are about 10 finished.
In between working on the Fat Turkeys, I've been working on Lighthouses.
On our trip to N.S. in October I picked up this panel of 9 lighthouses and a companion fabric. Since then I've been trying to figure out how to use them.  I adapted a pattern from Benartex to fit the size of the panel blocks.
And I also worked on string piecing on the Esperia
Which made it up the stairs to the sewing room and just took over this wall from the Singer 99
So an awful lot went on this week. Not a lot of progress on Easy Street.
But it has been great to see what everyone else has done, over on Bonnie's link up.


Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Yes I did

First, apologies for the sideways pictures in the last post, I don't know why my phone does that.
Hubby definately is tipping over the line into enabler.  When I came home from the store and told him about the machine I had successfully walked away from, he came back with "how deep was it's throat, would it work for machine quilting".  So we went back and measured. Slightly more room than my other machines.

So we got it.
And all the stuff that was crammed into the drawers.

Which included the original papers, dated 1958, the manual, and an attachable buttonholer. Plus alot of junk. Everything from bib suspener straps to name tape for camp.  The guy at the store said the family had just put their mother in a home, so they must not have wanted to clean this out.  But while the drawers were a mess, the machine itself is in pristine condition and sews like a dream machine.

If my sisters read this, please don't call hoarders on me. I promise this is the last one, really...



Should I go back and get it???

While thrifting today I saw a sewing cabinet. Inside was a Necchi esperia. Came home right away to discuss with the hubby.



Monday, 17 December 2012

Monday Link UP

I'm really glad Bonnie does a Mystery-monday-link-up . It really helps me to get myself organized and on track with what is done, not done, over done, underdone etc.
The white/black & grey four patches - not done. Got  168 - 24 to go
The white/black & purple flying geese - done 128
The white/black rectangles - done 64
The shaded 4 patches - not done. Got 46 - 18 to do
Green rectangles - not done any
Turquoise flying geese - not done. Got 17 - 47 to do
But you might notice up in the left corner, I managed to do 8 of the Geese on a string blocks.
And I finished a trip around the world flimsy. I started this one back in the begining of summer and wanted to move it off the "to do" list. Bonnie's directions make these so much easier.  Trying hard during Easy Street to finish up lingering projects so I can have a clear slate to take on some new ones that have been calling me.

Like the string geese. I set up Agent 99 to do the string piecing. And I found another project to move onto the design wall. A scrappy trip around the world, as per Bonnie's directions started last year. What has every one else been up to? Time to go check it out.

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Great time had by all tonight

A great time was had by all in my sewing room tonight for Quiltcam 12-12-12.
DH was in his ususal spot, listening while reading his e-mail.
 
 
The cat joined us, after I found his UFO and placed it on the floor for him.

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And I sewed away at the Scrappy Mountain Majesties.
We're such a wild and crazy bunch.
All sewn together and pinned up on the basting wall. Now to decide if I want to do a border. I was thinking of doing a texas braid but might just do a 2" band of solid colour.

Monday, 10 December 2012

Mystery Monday #3

I'm doing a better job of keeping up with the clues this time. During Orca Bay I fell behind and never caught up. I did get it finished by June.
I was watching Quiltcam and cutting the white/black triangles Saturday night and ended up with 120 before I remembered it was supposed to be 64.
I have 12 completed and several in stages. I'm so glad Bonnie mentioned once on Quiltcam that she will throw in seersucker when she is doing a scrappy quilt. I found this lovely stripe in my stash and really wanted to include it but was worried how it would act in a quilt.  I cut 10 of the 3.5" triangles out of it and really like how it looks with the purple.
So now to link up with the rest over at Bonnie's mystery-monday-link-up-part-3.


Friday, 7 December 2012

Sidetracked by Gift Idea

My progress on Easy Street has been sidetracked by an idea I had for a gift. Back in Septermber, I saw a neat idea for a mug rug on a blog. http://marciascraftysewing.blogspot.com/.  She took a pretty hanky and turned it into an even prettier mug rug .I had an appliqued bridge tablecloth I was thinking of using. While it was in the washer getting freshened up (a little dingy from sitting unused for quite a while), I rooted through fabric looking for supplies. Managed to find the insulated batting I had purchased eons ago, and  a Moda turnover I hadn't found the right pattern to use in. And I found a stash of the salesman's samples my sister had given me two years ago. Most of those got used in my Scrappy Bargello but this bunch I had kept aside. It was the whole line of some fabric, all the different colourways and designs and I had wanted to use them together in  something but these samples were all smaller than FQs even.
Turned the turnover into hourglass units for the backing
 
 
Then I did a half log cabin with the sample fabric. The white is a border around the hourglass. Decided this was too big.
Took off the white border.  The last logs of the half log cabin worked better at being 1.5" rather than the 2" , this made it the same size as the back. Basically just making this up as I go along.

The too big one I quilted up and will keep for myself.
So this has been occuping my sewing time and distracting me.
Especially as one is not enough. DH thinks they should be a set of four and since they are for his mother I will make four.
Oh the tablecloth? Totally sidetracked, it was still in the washer. 

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

New to me

Quite a quilty day here. However I didn't make the same mistake as Friday, I kept moving between activities. A little sewing, a little ironing, a lot of laundry, variety in activity seems to work for my back pain.
And the new to me item?  A new table for my Singer 99. Her bentwood case was pretty beat up and I didn't have a key for it. So when we were picking up the featherweight from the repair man , DH and  he got to talking about all the other machines I have and what we were doing with them. A day later the sewing machine guy called and said he had a table for this one. We looked and we liked. So he gave the 99 a tune up, fixed her power cord and today we picked up the two of them.
They look really good together. Plus he had a manual for me.
Flying geese for Easy Street are done, just a few more 4 patches and I'm caught up. I've been using the Majestic Mountains as leader/enders and have a wall full of them. So much so, they are falling off .  Just a few more and I'll put them together.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Mystery Monday #2

Here we are on clue number two on our mystery down Easy Street. I very excited to get clue number two, so excited I even logged on before leaving for work, something I never do. So I was ready to come home and get going. Adding to the excitement was my featherweight was home from the repairman and I was eager to see how she sewed.
So I popped her in her table and away we went. Cutting and sewing, using the other side of the table as a cutting station.

The next day my back was killing me. The table is too short to cut standing up. I couldn't even sit to sew it hurt too much.

Despite the setback, I was able to get 70 geese blocks done, and I have 120 four patches finished.
 
And during QuiltCam  on Sunday I was able to get the binding done on the Crayon Box quilt.
 

So now to link up with all the other mystery sewers over at Quiltville mystery-monday-link-up