Star blocks

I love star blocks, I return to stars again and again. When it was my turn to suggest a block for our block lotto at Monday Modern I made this one.

The pattern is from Clover and Violet but I saw it on Adrianne's blog (or perhaps it was IG). Adrianne later adapted the original pattern changing the proportions of the star a little and posted instructions for different sized blocks 12", 9" and 6" finished.

I was in the mood to make another star quilt so I have begun her adapted version. I'm loving the way it is looking so far!

I am continuing to make slow progress with Gypsy Wife. I have to concentrate when I am working on it so it's not conducive to evening sewing. Evening sewing now sometimes sees me practising hand quilting. I drew some lines to follow after my first free style attempts :-)

The back looks pretty bad. I'm not sure if the stitches are supposed to be the same size as those on the front but I have a sneaky suspicion the answer is yes.  

Ginger Crush

I have always wanted to try a BOM. In the sometimes crazy busy chaos of my work life, the idea of structure can be very appealing. I admired Liz's progress on Citrus Sweet Love and when it came to pass that Treehouse Textiles & Cabbage Quilts were offering Ginger Crush as another BOM, I signed up in a jiffy!

The quilt has pretty muted colours, quite hard to capture well in photographs. I am practising my handquilting because I think I will want handquilting on this quilt when it is done :-)

I'm not too partial to butterflies, so I replaced the applique butterfly in the top block with a little wonky star.

Gypsy wife {small scale crisis}

The problem with making a scrap quilt is that it's difficult to determine how many 'scraps' you're going to need, and if you're like me and have a rather eclectic fabric stash, not everything can be part of the #scrapiliciousness.
Here I am with Gypsy Wife to date:

I have made quite a few blocks for the other sections but I've now used up most of my original fabric 'scraps'. I promptly emailed Amitie to ask for me but unfortunately they have sold out of many. So, as of today, GW is on a break while I wait for the fabric Amitie did have to arrive. Then potentially I will have to source some other fabric depending on what I think I will need. I have a feeling the break will do us both good. Last weekend my brother popped in for a coffee while I had this on the lounge floor.

Brother: "So where exactly are you heading with that??"

Me: "Nowhere fast, that's for sure, it's tricky".

Brother: "It's pretty intense. What about a cat mat?"

In the meantime have a back up sewing plan. I found some fabric that I think will be a perfect backing for my Tula Pink hexies. So it's handsewing on the 'to do' list while I wait for the postie to turn up with some fabric packages.