Day 5 at my living room retreat

It's the start of day 5 and it looks pretty ordinary outside with grey skies and clouds so I'm glad to be indoors keeping warm.  My family is in Paris at the moment and I hear it's very hot over there!

Debbie made these blocks of colour and they came with white strips of fabric.

There's also a tube of neatly organised colour strips.

I added sashing.

Ta da!  It's finished!  I used some of those coloured strips to make binding.  I don't know what I'll make with the rest yet.

I take hand sewing to the social sewing group on Tuesdays and I've been working on Debbie's hexies.  I checked with her family and they're very happy for me to make stillborn baby quilts out of them to be donated so I've started putting them onto background squares.  They'll get quilted once I've any spare backing on any of the quilts I quilt or there are so many of them I could put them all onto their own backing.  But I don't get a lot done on Tuesdays so I suspect I'll be sewing these for quite some time.

Today I'll be working on my foster girl's cushion.  She's been very patient!  This is definitely a sewing session in front of the TV kind of day.

Retreat...in my living room!

My family has gone to the UK and I'm at home enjoying the peace and quiet dogsitting.  My one and only goal during this time was to sort out my sewing studio.  It's a terrible mess and I'd even purchased some extra boxes to make my life easier.  

Then this happened.

Wellington managed to tear a big hole in his shoulder whilst out in the garden so now he has to be kept quiet and calm.  Easy to do with three dogs in the house right?  Ha ha!  I'm currently letting them out in the garden one at a time so I've mostly been playing doorman so far.  The $1,000 stitches come out in 12 days.  It's going to be a loooong 12 days!

Anyway, the studio sorting is out of the question so instead I brought my retreat sewing gear into the living room and I've been sewing!

I've positioned myself right in front of the television!

This is one of Debbie's quilts I'm finishing off to give back to her family or to donate to charity.  This is how much I did the first day. My design floor is very handy.

The next day I was determined to finish the quilt so I sewed it together and I actually liked it as it was but before I started I had this idea of putting on a border...white, then more colourful patches then white.

I did the first white border. Then it seemed to take all day to trim the squares to make the second border but I got it done.

I decided against the last white border.  The quilt is big enough to be useful either as a lap quilt or as a child's quilt and if it's going to be donated this is probably what it would be used for.

I tried to take a picture.  Meet Midas!

       

Here is the quilt top all finished with binding.  I don't know when I'll get around to quilting it.

Today's plan is to work on these blocks which are also Debbie's.  I haven't had a chance to play with them yet but I think I can just add sashing to the blocks and it'll be good.

What curtains?

My bathroom is finished!  I wanted a new vanity but the one I liked was over two thousand dollars so I stuck with the old one!  I can buy nice new towels now ha ha!

I went to an open house recently and the beds were beautifully styled.  What I noticed was that they'd used European pillows on the bed so I thought I'd use the leftover curtain top fabric to make the covers.  Originally, the curtains were for my living room and the leftover fabric was going to cover a pair of ottomans.  I was glad to use up the fabric on the European pillows.

I told myself to take my time and not rush making the covers but my brain told me it's just two squares and a zipper so how difficult can it be?  So I rushed ahead and got into a bit of a pickle. It was the zippers that threw me because I haven't sewn zippers for several years.  Anyway, I made one and it was ok so I finished the second.

Then I had to make my bed to see if it looked ok.  It's not quite as stylish as the bedrooms I saw at the open house but some people have the knack and clearly I was hiding when they handed that skill out.  Anyway, my bedroom looks lovely and it just needs some pictures or something and eventually new carpet.

And curtains.  Those dratted curtains!!  I do have to confess that I have ummed and ahhed about putting the curtains back up because the view outside is so lovely I don't want to cover it.  But I can't have a bedroom with no curtains!!

And those European pillows?  Well take a good look at them because from tonight onwards they'll probably live on my bedroom floor!

I still plan on making some quilts for this room although these two on the bed will do nicely for now.

I quilted a small table topper for Anna.

Anna wanted the same quilting design I'd used on her quilt recently so I scaled it down.  Because it was so small it took forever to sew!  Ah well, it does look lovely.

 I'm not sure what I'll do next.  I have enough projects started I could crack on with!