Counting Sheep zzzzzzz

I finished the baby quilt and it's currently heading over to the UK as I type!  The pattern is called Counting Sheep but I anticipate this being a floor quilt so there won't be a lot of sleeping going on on it.

Here it is before quilting.

Getting the checks to match up on the corners was a challenge!  Nothing that a bit of glue and some easing couldn't fix, mind you.

I think I need a new pincushion for when I pin my backing to the quilting frame!

Oooh exciting!  It's ready for quilting!

Ta da!  Finished quilting.

And my least favourite part...binding.

I went to retreat this weekend and didn't take a single picture!  Retreat was great as always and while I was there I booked a few of us into the next retreat in Ballarat for August.  Yeah!  You can never go on too many retreats!

I stitched the back of the binding down and added a label.  When I came home I washed it very carefully with a lot of colour catchers!  

Baa!

I came home from retreat with Gail's Emma F#&*ing Mary to quilt.  I can't believe I'm going to say this but I have hours of cleaning to do so sewing is being pushed to the back burner for a while.

Going round in circles

Jill has been making this alien quilt for quite some time.  It is a gift for a baby who is now 21.  Oh ok he's not quite that old but let me just tell you that that baby is about to be a big brother!  Jill has worked hard on this quilt and was thinking that she'd never finish.  I thought she'd never finish!  I told her I'd quilt it for her so up it went on my frame.  Looking good!

My tablet battery decided to die.  My third battery that is.  I am never again spending a lot of money on a quilting frame and machine and then scrimping on the tablet needed to run it!  Jim got it working for me with the battery out and the charger plugged in which is annoying but works so that's a win!  Jill wanted circles so I've done yet another quilt with this design!  It couldn't be anything else though really now could it?

Pause for a special occasion...

Back to the quilting and all was going well.  That was until I quilted the last but one zone (which is two rows of quilting) and after I finished it noticed that I'd quilted tucks and puckers all over it.  Insert very strong swear words and get the unpicker out.  Let me tell you, those two quilting lines add up to a lot of stitches.  Tiny, tiny stitches.  Millions of tiny, tiny stitches.

This is what my floor looked like after I'd finished.  In fact, two days later that's still what my floor looks like. 

I repositioned the quilt, basted it to death and then finished quilting it with no issues.  Now I just needed Jill to come around so I could help her make and attach the binding and we'd be done!

So COVID laughed and made a surprise appearance.

We used a fair amount of washable blue marker on this quilt and from experience I know you have to get it out with cold water before it goes in the washing machine.  Jill and I previously tested the fabric to make sure it wouldn't run and she was happy to wash it before gifting.  So I decided, seeing as there's a hold up on Jill coming to finish the quilt, I'd make a start on the blue marker.  I soaked that top and removed every scrap of blue pen!  And then I turned it over and the yellow border fabric had BLED all over the quilt backing. The very crisp white backing.  

PANIC!!!   I have just ruined years of work!!!

That quilt went in and out of the bath until the water ran clear and now Jill no longer needs to wash it before gifting.  Win win.  It is now dry and ready to bind.  I might wait a bit longer before telling Jill all about it though ;-)

Oh and I'm currently using that same yellow fabric on the sheep baby quilt I'm in the middle of making.  And no, I didn't prewash it!  Arghh!

After all this effort baby big brother will be sharing this quilt with his new sibling!

Reorganising my sewing room

Judy and I have separated and are going our own ways.  I begged her to stay but she told me that her quilting frame was of more use at her house than at mine.  I disagree because I find it very useful at mine ;-) 

So, I suddenly found lots of space that was crying out to stay clean and tidy but that's not what's going to happen! My frame is now where Judy's was and my sewing machine has been moved to where my frame was.  At this point it was lovely and tidy and spacious and I decided to set up my machine properly which involved me giving it a good clean.  I love my Brother sewing machine but getting the bobbin case back in the right spot once you remove it is an absolute nightmare!  It really needed a good clean out though.  My friend Annie is probably gasping in shock at this fluff I found!  And yes, it took me about an hour and a billion attempts to get the bobbin case back in and working correctly grrr!

Well then I decided that I now had enough room in the sewing room, after moving my sewing machine, to add a second area for either cutting or pressing.  I've seen some IKEA hack cutting stations so I'm going to use the Kallax units I already have to make one.  This involves emptying everything, rearranging and then tidying it all back up again before I can even think about making the IKEA hack unit.  

This is where I'm up to.  I think it's going to take quite a bit of time.  I'm exhausted and over it already!  I have so much stuff I doubt I'll ever use again!  Why do I hang on to it all?  I was very good and started a throw away pile and a take to charity pile.  They grew quite large and then I made the mistake of looking at them thinking some things might be useful one day...

Jill is coming over tomorrow to put the last border on her alien quilt so I'll have a bit of a rest and then go back and attempt to clear a pathway for her so she can get to the sewing machine at least.  

Whatever was I thinking???

Sheep’s eyes

 My mum used to call Shepherd's Pie Sheep's eyes.  I'm surprised we ever ate anything in our house growing up!  I won't even hint what she called Spaghetti Bolognese! Funny thing is those names are now tradition and that's what these meals are called in my household! Well anyway, back to my sheep! 

How do you mark eye positions on black felt wool??  I do have quite a few white/pink/blue marking tools and they'd usually be ok on black fabric but they just didn't want to adhere to the felt.  

So I marked the eyes on the back of the appliqué paper and cut them out.  Because I only wanted vague positions I didn't try to find decent scissors and cut the circles out with a seam ripper.  

Then I placed the circles back inside the holes.

Then I stitched around the circles.

Then I satin stitched the circles and they ended up like ovals but that's ok.  Nice PJS Evelyn!

I showed my Mother in law and she said they looked spooky. 

So, back to the drawing board.  I blanket stitched the whites of the eyes and then added the black part with a who knows? stitch.  The sheep has a lot more personality now and he (she?) is not spooky now!

Why?!!

I blanket stitched around all the legs and that left me with a billion threads to knot and tidy up but it was cold and rainy yesterday so it was something I could do in the warm in front of the TV.

All my threads.

Then I went to start sewing the bodies on but got distracted wondering how I'm going to sew the eyes on.  My sewing machine comes with over 700 different stitches but not one single one of those is a satin stitch circle!  I tried eyelets, the letter "o" and different satin stitch options.  I tried hand embroidery.  Let's just say hand embroidery and I don't get along and leave it at that.  The best outcome out of all these options was a blanket stitch around the felt circles but the thought of sewing 24 teensy felt circles fills me with dread.  I may have to think about this for a while!

 

Another charity quilt

I'm not working on anything I'm supposed to be working on!  Here's another charity quilt collaboration. Annie put the quilt top together and I offered to quilt it.  It's very bright!

The top measured 54 inches so I had to piece a backing.  I decided it would be a great idea to use up all of the striped fabric and that took me hours of cutting, matching and sewing.  I'm my own worst enemy sometimes!

Ta da!

I quilted this one with my go to bubbles design because my system wasn't behaving itself and I ran out of patience.  I hand stitched the binding at WASPS (Wollert and Sunbury Patchwork and Stitchers) sit n sew and I made Annie come and hold the quilt for a picture.  Annie will be relieved to see I posted this pic and not the other one!  Naughty Annie!

I have been playing with my other projects.  Here are my headless sheep ready for stitching.

And I've started!  4 legs done...44 to go...

The camera quilt was coming along well and then something else needed the space on the design wall.  I'll get it done one day!

Baa!

I know you must be on the edge of your seat wondering what I'm up to next so wonder no more!

My niece, Alice, in the UK is expecting a baby in August and as my husband is planning a trip back there in May I have to get a move on to get a quilt made for her so that he can deliver it.  I found lots of lovely quilts on The Red Boot Quilt Co website and asked my husband which one he liked best.  Jim chose the Counting Sheep one because it reminded him of when Alice was young and they enjoyed Shaun the Sheep together.  I purchased the pattern and realised it's a large quilt so my options were to make the blocks smaller or just make fewer blocks.  I'm not completely daft so I went with the fewer blocks option.

Then I used Word to plan my new smaller quilt.  It was at this point I wondered why I'd paid for a pattern ;-)

I bought my fabrics when Judy and I went on retreat.  I decided to make my sheep using wool felt.  Once I'd bought the felt I then matched the fabrics and luckily Spotlight were doing a deal on fat quatres woo!

Here are my fabrics.  This is the exciting part when nothing has gone wrong.  Yet.

I bought all the wool felt in those colours that the shop had in stock so I thought I'd just make sheep until it ran out.  I actually had enough felt to make the amount in my Word plan but I realised there would be 13 sheep and that's no good!  So I made 12.  I decided not to add the stars.

After working out how many I had of what I coloured in my plan.  

I tried to stick to my plan after that beautiful colouring in job but I did have to change some.  I was getting very confused so I had to lay the bodies out onto the background squares so that I could see what was what.  It didn't help that it took me a while to remember that all the sheep facing one way (A) were now (B) after I'd traced them onto appliqué paper, stuck them onto the felt then cut them out.  

I got as far as this and gave up.  When is May?  

I did have a little giggle to myself when I was prepping  these wool felt shapes remembering another quilt I made with wool felt.   I made a Hat Creek Quilts quilt and the designer, Dierdre Bond-Abel, had instructions for carefully cutting out the felt and lovingly hand stitching it to the background. Yeah, not going to happen.  So I used appliqué paper and steam ironed the living daylights out of that felt before machine stitching it onto my background.  I later ran into Dierdre at a quilt show and she winced when I described the machine stitching part of my (her?) quilt so the naughty part of me then went into great detail about the ironing just to see if she'd faint.  She didn't but it was close I think!

I think once I have the shapes stuck onto the fabrics I'll be able to move more quickly.  And there's nothing quite like a deadline to get you moving!

I've been attempting to do some exercise recently and bought myself a yoga mat.  I unrolled it, got my exercise book ready and when I turned around this is what I found.  So a quick shout out to all you Yoga experts out there...THIS is the downward dog position.  You've been doing it wrong your whole lives!  And no, I didn't have the heart to disturb her so I did my exercise right beside her on the floor.  I bet you thought I was going to say I gave the exercise a miss!  I was tempted...