my new fabrics

Last Friday evening I missed quiltcam.  This was a disappointment but I had my in-laws over for dinner. And somehow I couldn't see them understanding why I had to go watch someone sew. But they did brighten my day by bringing me fabric from their trip.  batik from tahiti. Will I have enough nerve to cut it.

Choo choo

The princesses are at the hand sewing stage.  So moving on to trains. Specifically Thomas the train. For this project I bought a panel and coordinating fabric.  When I promised to do a train quilt I thought I had fabric but seemed to have used most of it. Unfortunately this panel is from 2010 and I could only get a couple of the coordinates.

So the plaid is standing in for a red stripe and the beige shifting for a cream stripe. I think it looks alright.  Very hard pattern to follow as it is so random,  I have to keep referring to the print out. And since I printed on the non-colour printer I've made a few mistakes. Hopefully the only one who'll know will be quiet about them.

Working away on UFO's

Trying to spend my time finishing overdue projects.
One of which is a baby girl quilt that I call the Princesses
It is a fabric I bought back in 2010 called Princess Portraits.  I fussy cut them and used the princess crown block.  Now that I've got them all together I'm thinking I should have used the star block instead. This is a lot more matchy-matchy than I have done in a while but I was trying to use up all this fabric and get it out of the stash.

Easy St. Finale

Not a finish like some of the posts over at Bonnie's link up. Mystery-monday-link-up , still a work in progress.  I have the large triangles all done and the four corners.  Have started piecing block A. Then I discovered that I hadn't finished the 128 double bricks. So sewing on those in between.  But looking at the blocks I have on the wall,  I'm unhappy with some of the white/black fabrics. One of them is too dark. I might have to do something about this. Don't have the energy to take them all out, maybe I'll just remove them from any future blocks.

I was really happy with my ability to keep up with the clues this year. Most of that due to the wonderful portion control on Bonnie's part. And if we hadn't come down with the flu here I'm sure I'd be further along. Thanks Bonnie for a great time and challenging us to work outside our comfotable colours and block size.

Down for the count

Have falling victim to the bug that is going around. Not doing anything but resting.

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.

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...