Happy happy Saturday

Our Monday Modern group had a great fun day sewing up a storm together today - what a perfect way to spend a Saturday.

I checked my mailbox when I got home and was a bit perplexed to find a parcel in mail box from Australia that seemed suspiciously fabric-y. Having just joined a fabric diet support group, my first thought was 'OMG I so need to be in that group - apparently I can no longer even remember what I have bought!'

In fact it turned out to be this gorgeous mini from Holly:

 I participated in the DUDQS4 at the end of last year but the first mini Holly made for me went AWOL. I felt bad for her but not too upset for myself - these things happen. But Holly decided she wanted to make me another and so today, after I had almost entirely forgotten about it, there it was. Isn't it beautiful? I love it to bits. And I love that she went to the trouble of making two so that I didn't miss out. Look at this cute label on the back and that cool Ikea print.

Yep, that's a perfect 10 for this Saturday :-)

Gypsy Wife underway!

I had already been planning to make Jen Kingwell's Gypsy Wife my personal BOM project this year when I discovered that someone else had cleverly read my mind, sorted out a schedule to follow, set up a Flickr group, and printed t-shirts... (that last part might have been stretching the truth, but I'd wear one if such a thing were to happen!!)

So I looked at the schedule for February and the lovely pile of fabric that I bought from Amitie. They are fabulous at sending 'scrap' packs to a dollar amount that you specify. This works for me - my stash is a curious assortment of fabric that I think will be useful for binding (stripes and the like), some blenders, some small collections of fabric that I have been obsessed with at some point or another, and now a largish collection of low volume fabric which has been my latest obsession. None of that really works for a quilt like Gypsy Wife so I was very happy when this turned up in the mail:

First up on the list was a block called Colour Wheel. Oh the agony choosing what fabric to cut into first. According to Jen "the greater the number of fabrics you use, the more fun your quilt will become". Righto.

This was an easy enough block to piece, I just forgot to pay attention to the instructions and only managed 50% accuracy with this little group (all the pale triangles need to be on the same side of the larger piece).

And then it was puzzle time. Again, much quicker if you actually look the helpful diagrams.

And finally success.

One down. Eleventy million to go.

Linking up today over at Freshly Pieced :-)

QAYG charity blocks

Recently Alison at Little Island Quilts posted a request for help to make and send quilts to street children living in Mexico City. You can read more about this here and here. I know that Kiwis have a reputation for being generous when it comes to charity, so I'm thinking some of my NZ readers might want to get on board with this. Of course there are children living in poverty all around the world (NZ included) and quilts might seem an odd thing to give instead of the basics like food, clothing or fresh drinking water. But I believe that for children who literally have nothing, to have something, anything that is their own can be equally as nourishing, albeit in a different way.

The idea is simple. You make a 12.5"quilt block and quilt it. Alison will join the blocks together as she receives them and then has organised a way for the quilts to get to Mexico City. I realised that I had some orphan blocks that might do the trick - like this one:

And I also had a wonky star which has now been given the quilting treatment:

Alison thinks that scrappy log cabins will work quite well - I forgot about that part as I was hunting through my scraps and making another couple of blocks - but these are almost log cabins:

The backing gets quilted too (I think some people do QAYG slightly differently).

I'm posting these off in the next day or two, but if there are some lovely locals out there interested in making some blocks, I am happy for you to send them to me and I'll post them off with my next batch. Alternatively you can send them directly to Alison - if you let her know she will email you her address.

Stardust progress

I am having an enforced break from my AMH quilt. I have run out of fabric for the border pieces and I am reluctant to start sewing them together before I have finished all the cutting. This is because of too many incidences of bad quilty maths combined with a 'she'll be right' attitude.

So I rustled around in my basket of WIPs and shook the cobwebs out of my Stardust project. I got all enthused when I realised that I could start framing the star blocks. Even more exciting when I realised that my stars still have their points :-)

After all the blocks are put together there is a scrappy border to go on made up of little pieces of the star fabric. I'm hoping the overall look is 'quiet scrappy' (if there is such a thing!).

Cornering problems

I've been trying to think through a little design issue over the past few days. You know - the kind of issue that comes from not using a pattern and having an idea that you don't realise is going to make you stop and think. My problem is how to get around corners...

See my problem? I want my little square seams to match up with the big square seams on the other side of the black fabric. So I tried this:

Eew, poo. I don't like it (but it would be a simple solution). Just to be sure, I put some mock binding along the edge.

Definitely don't like it. At. All. So my next idea was to cut smaller pieces of fabric the same width as the black fabric:

I think this works better, but the small piece on the left is a bit too noticeable - I think I need to go blendy blendy so those small pieces aren't obvious.

What do you think o wise ones? Am I on the right track or is there another option that I could consider?

Diary of a Wimpy Quilter {FFMQ}

This was the week that nearly broke my resolve to teach myself to FMQ and caused me to add an extra F into the abbreviation. The dog's dinner dogwood quilting was an epic disaster and I got very discouraged. Fortune smiled in the form of a Craftsy sale and Leah Day arrived to rescue me from my quilting blues.

Leah starts her class Free Motion Quilting a Sampler with the basics of FMQ and stippling. Oh, says Megan to herself, I see I need to slow down and concentrate on some basics. So I have set aside my unrealistic expectations and am spending some time doing drills. I'm practising stopping before I move my hands, and stopping and starting as evenly as I can. I'm a happy learner again - I can manage concentrating on just two things.

Leah also shows you how to create some other basic shapes so that you can move on to stippling with some confidence. I'm going to move onto these shapes this week and try and get them locked into my muscle memory (new concept for me but I'm liking it!). My revised DIY learn-to-FMQ programme now involves focusing on the goal of stippling a baby quilt. I looked in my stash for some bright fabric so that the quilting won't be in the spotlight. I think this will do the trick :-)

And finally, this week's happy mail. A letter from my nephew (8) and a bookmark he made for me using Nana's sewing machine. I love so many things about my bookmark - that it has different fabric on the front and back, that he has hand stitched the turned in ends, and most of all, that he has labelled it - you know - just in case :-)

Some AMH progress

I'm making the most of my holidays by sewing as much as I can :-)
Today I've been working on my AMH quilt.

I'm sewing at a tranquil pace and doing something I love - trimming up blocks. I know!! Some people loathe this step, but I always make slightly oversized pieces when using HSTs and then trim back to size. Such a satisfying way to get a perfect block :-)

Linking up today over at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday even though it is Thursday here in NZ.