Contrasts

These past few weeks have been very contrasty (is that a word? I'm a librarian I should know ...) working mainly on these two projects:
Sew a sampler from Popular Patchwork, I didn't think I was going to like this, really not my style at all but hey I eventually did like it, even though it has to be one of the worst constructed quilts I have made! I hashed up a lot of the rows, but I had fun.

These are the first few rows, I used up so many 2.5 inch squares which was great. The rows I really didnt want to do, the paper pieced houses turned out to be my faves.

With this quilt I fudged, I shoogled, I made a total mess of some of it. But I do love it in all it's wonkiness.



Compare that with the utmost precision needed for the Scrappy trip around the world bee blocks. I always stress about sending things to other people and these blocks need pinpoint accuracy:



Phew! I think I did it ok.

Stuff

At work we are trying to raise the profile of social media and how we librarians can help people navigate this brave new online world.
I've just been reading through my RSS feed of crafty, mainly quilty peeps. Goodness there are people (mainly women it has to be said) coding, building websites from scratch, porting RSS feeds from one reader to the other, using graphics apps to design quilts from scratch.
*sigh* and we crafty and librarian folks get a rep as being old fashioned ...

Favourites

I often post pictures of what I am sewing on twitter, I know I should get more into instagram but twitter is still my main stomping ground. I love seeing what it is people actually like. The two most popular pictures have both been of peeled back piecing, or folded fabric whatever you want to call it. This weekend it was my picture of the finished cathedral windows cushion cover:
This was a class from bearpaw crafts great fun!

A few months ago it was my tulip dance quilt from Southwind desings

I think I will do some more, I bought some more southwind patterns recently so when I clear my feet (hollow laughter) from all the BOMs and sew alongs on the go at the moment I will get cracking ... Watch this space!

A little hand sewing

Just trying out blogger on my mobile. Here is a wee pic of some handsewing, my cathedral windows cushion. Well half of it :-)

Heart to heart

I love a challenge but sometimes things are more challenging than others. If you have seen any of my quilts you will realise I like bright bold colours. I don't do a lot in green and I hate 'muddy' tones and hues.
So when I got this fabric:

My heart sank, bit of a pun there as the fabric is part of a heart to heart challenge run by a friends local patchwork store. We have to take this fabric, add other bits and make something they can sell at an auction to make money for the British Heart Foundation. Now I love the BHF, my stepfather had chronic heart disease and lived a long life due to the wonders of medical science, so I really want to help.
But oh dear me, this fabric is just not me. It has kicked around my sewing room glowering at me, moved from table to bed to bookcase all in the hope that inspiration strikes.
With the deadline looming inspiration struck. My good old trusty braid runner. Take a look at the tab called table runners, you will see this pattern used a fair few times, it's my go to pattern when all else fails.
So, I decided to use muddy fabric as accent fabric, pulled out some scraps and started playing about:

It grew:

And now is sitting on the machine getting it's ditches quilted :-)

I quite like it now and the added bonus is I have used up a lot of batiks which were kicking about too.
Linking up to WIP wednesday

Community work

It sometimes feels as if the world has gone mad. I have only rarely unfriended anyone on facebook (far prefer the mute filter :-) but if someone posts about Enoch Powells Rivers of blood speech, well that's a no brainer. Sad though, my twitter feed is full of English Defence League, mostly anti EDL, but the mere fact it is there saddens me.
So I take refuge as ever in sewing. This week it was particularly appropriate, I went round to a friends house to discuss our entry for the Rurals (Scottitsh Woman's Rural Insitute) entry for a community work competition. There were six of us sat around a kitchen table talking craft. I really really cherish these moments, calm sanity in a crazy world, the homemade cake helped too!
So the theme is black and white, I decided to do a small mat/table topper using the curvy block from Heather Hastorpes Moonshine pattern. I like it, and I like community work too.

My granny used to say ...

My grandmother was a wonderful cook. All plain and simple but fabulous, what that woman could do with a chicken was unbelievable :-) She always used to say that the cooking could tell if she wasn't in the mood for it, scones wouldn't rise, she would burn things. Well sunday was like that for me, as we say in Scotland I was off my stott (out of sorts)
Soooo spent the day ripping sewing unpicking, sewing ripping some more. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of sewing I have on the go at the moment, I admire people who have large piles of WIPs some going back years, that would just stress me, mind you I am reminded of my silk quilt which has languished in the cupboard for almost 2 years now ...
But I'm not a quitter, I did eventually get the chev n hex block for the skill builder BOM done. Some of these seams have been ripped out 3 or 4 times.
It's not perfect, and English paper piecing is never going to be my favourite technique but it's done, so now to move on to the other piles of stuff waiting to be done!