Rainbow Scrap Challenge Saturday update

I'm linking up with Soscrappy today for the RSC14 link up. The challenge is to make blocks in the same colour for one month. Angela sets the colour at the beginning of each month, and January's colour is blue.

Firstly I have to thank everyone who answered my question about pressing seams last week. I will certainly press the heck out of them, eventually, and I'm not going to spin them, but I think for now I'll leave them be until I know how I'm going to place the blocks in the final arrangement. I don't want to have to press them twice to make them good neighbours.

Making the split pinwheel I followed Angela's instructions, but I need to look at photos better. My triangles went through the machine light one up (which Angela stressed), but point first! This is what you get. 

This was not how I meant it to be! A case of Murphy's Law!

So I made another one, this time pushing the right angle corner onto the feed dogs first. 

So now I have two, and I like them both.

I made two more blocks this week.

I'm enjoying participating in this challenge; there's no pressure to keep up, which enables me to easily fit making these blocks into my schedule. I'm looking forward to reading this week which colour Angela has chosen for February.

If you'd like to see what other people have made for this project this week hop over to Soscrappy. 

Update: 

I've just fixed the "no reply" status (which I didn't realise I had, sorry).  

Apparently Google+ doesn't give an option for replies, so the solution is to kill Google+, something I've wanted to do for ages. If you're interested, a tutorial on how to leave Google+ and revert to Blogger can be found here at Venus trapped...

Happy sewing

Marly.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Saturday update

 I made some progress this week and made some of the blocks Angela posted on superscrappy.

Mijn blokken van Angela's opgave, niet geperst omdat ik advies wil over de richting van de naadtoeslag. Kan ik beter naar de zandloper stukjes toe persen of van ze af of draaien net als in het midden van de zandlopers (zie volgende foto)?

However I haven't pressed them yet because I would welcome advice on joining the rows. While I spun the centres in the hourglass pieces, is it a good idea to spin the other bulky joins?

The reverse of the star block

detail: there is really a lot of fabric coming together here in the middle,
 and I can't imagine quilting it.

 In the anvil block I finger pressed the seams in the middle of the four-patches open, but the last seam wants to go in every direction. Can I spin this join in the middle of the block too?

 In deze blok heb ik de horizontale naden in de 4-patches open geperst, maar de horizontale naad in het midden van de blok gaat alle kanten op.

and then, to take my mind off this issue, I made a couple of wonky stars!

Toen ging ik een paar wonky stars maken als afleiding.

Go over to Superscrappy and see what others have done this week.

Ga naar Superscrappy  om te zien wat anderen deze week hebben gedaan.

Happy sewing,
Marly.

Celtic Solstice: decisions, decisions

Deze week een paar Celtic Sostice stukjes in blokken gezet,
maar ik ben er niet mee gelukkig!

Having made all the units for the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt I've spent time putting them together this week. I'm not happy!








While this block is good:

terwijl deze klopt

this one is messy:

deze is rommelig

and there are three more blocks like this; scrappy is one thing, but messy ... The outer frame needs to be consistently light. Looking at it you'd think I'd never heard of value.

en zo zijn er nog 3 blokken en een heleboel stukjes. De dilemma is: zal ik zo doorgaan, of deze blokken opnieuw maken in Bonnies kleuren (niet paars maar geel)? Dat zou vervelend zijn en ik doe het alleen als ik een bestemming heb voor deze "wees"stukjes. 

So here's the dilemma. Should I continue anyway, or make new blocks in Bonnie's colours (yellow instead of purple)?

Remaking would definitely be a downer, but I'd try, but only if I can find another use for the units I have now. Although there are only four blocks all the units are complete so there are a lot of "orphans" to be adopted.

Ik probeerde een paar alternatieve lay-outs:

I tried some alternative settings 

 but none is satisfying.

Maar geen één is geweldig. 

Suggesties aub.

I would welcome your suggestions.

Please HELP!

Happy sewing,
Marly.

Rainbow scrap challenge: progress?!

Holidays are not conducive to making progress. I've been away all week and all I've done to my rainbow scrap quilt is:

look out my blue fabric. There's not much left after the Celtic Solstice project.

Go over to Soscrappy to see what other busier bees have done this week.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Emma stars and knitting yarn

I said I was trying to make one star block each day during last week. Well, this is what I managed:

Eerder deze week zei ik dat ik probeerde één ster blok per dag te maken. Het is me gelukt, en nu zijn er nog maar 6 nodig om deze border af te maken.

8 stars, of which 6 are appliquéd

There are now only 6 more to be made and then this border is complete.

Last week I was staying in the east of The Netherlands. I didn't manage to get to any quilt shops; the only ones I had tracked down were too far of our route. However I did visit the weekly market in Assen on Wednesday and to my amazement saw this:

Deze week logeerde ik in Drenthe en hoewel ik geen enkel quilt winkel in kwam zag ik wél dit op de weekmarkt in Assen:

yards and yards of knitting and crochet yarn.

meters brei- en haakgaren. I was verbaasd; in de Haagse regio ken ik maar één wolwinkel, en heb nooit kwaliteitsgaren op de markt gezien. Hier was alles, echt fantastisch. Als ik daar dichter bij woonde ...

Why amazed? In the city of The Hague (MUCH bigger than Assen) there is only one wool shop that I know of and I've never seen quality wool in the market, only unmatched dye lots of synthetic yarn. Here was everything from quick-knit wool to fine cotton and sock wool to tapestry yarn. Wow. 

Happy sewing

Marly.

English paper piecing Emma

The last few weeks I've been working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, "Celtic Solstice, and my other main projects, including "Emma", were largely shelved. This week I'm without a sewing machine so I've returned to "Emma" and aim to complete one of these stars each day.

De laatste paar weken werkte ik aan de mysterie quilt van Bonnie Hunter "Celtic Solstice" maar nu ben ik weer bezig met de "Emma" uit Quilt en Zo van vorig jaar, ontworpen door Evy Verbeek van Quilters Palet  in Den Haag. Ik probeer ieder dag deze week minstens een ster block af te krijgen: dit is nummer 23 van 36. Naar deze rij komt er nog een. De hele quilt is Engelse paper-piecing stukjes geappliceerd op de achtergrond stof. Meer foto's post ik een ander keer. 

Volgende week als ik herenigd word met mijn naaimachine ga ik met Celtic Solstice verder.

When all 36 of these star units have been paper pieced and appliquéd onto the background square they will form a border of this medallion quilt and there will be just one more border to make. I'll post more photos another time.

The pattern was designed by Evy Verbeek of Quilters Palet in The Hague, and appeared in six instalments in the Dutch quilting magazine "Quilt and Zo" during the last year. Each edition of the magazine contained instructions for the next stage. 

Happy New Year & Celtic Solstice Mystery part 6: Reveal

I'd like to wish everyone in Quilters'land all the best in 2014.

De beste wensen voor 2014 aan iedereen in Quiltersland.

This being a public holiday it seemed the perfect opportunity to catch up on Celtic Solstice Mystery step 1

De vrije dag leek de perfecte gelegenheid om verder te gaan met stap 1 van Celtic Solstice. Terwijl de havermout aan het sudderen was en ik wachte tot het licht werd, las  ik de nieuwe blogposts, zag Bonnies "Reveal"  en begon gelijk de blokken neer te leggen. Havermout vergeten: aangekoekt: kleine porties vandaag.  

I was up at the usual time (surprisingly considering how late I got to sleep; fireworks in the neighbourhood until 3am). I read the new blog postings while the porridge was simmering, saw Bonnie's Reveal and immediately started putting things together on the design wall. Porridge ... 15 minutes later ... stuck to the pan! Smaller portions today.

1st view of the layout: here are 4 blocks, the orange triangles are for the border.

This is by no means the definitive arrangement; I shall be playing with the blocks for a couple of weeks. I'm not so pleased with the colour changes I made (my own choice and too late now), but this will be the small size: good for the guest room / sewing room.

Het blijft niet zo: de komende weken zal ik met de stukkjes spelen. ik ben niet helemaal tevreden met mijn kleur keuze, maar eigen schuld, ...! In ieder geval is dit voor de logeerkamer / mijn naaikamer. 

I managed to work on part 1 units until the light faded at about 4pm. Most of the units have both side pieces attached, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow's light. Meanwhile I've got enough finger pressing to do in the living room (better light) this evening: roughly 100 units. And then that's it, I can start really putting things together.

On to the next challenge: quilt-as-you-go.

about 100 step-1 units

Toch aan deel 1 units gewerkt totdat het te donker werd. De meeste hebben beide zijstukken, en de rest zal tot morgen moeten wachten. Maar ik heb genoeg te doen vanavond: alles hier moet geperst worden: bijna 100 units. En dan ben ik klaar met de patching en het in elkaar zetten van de blokken kan beginnen. 

De volgende uitdaging volgt: quilt-as-you-go.

You can see how other participants have done this mystery at Quiltville (http://quiltville.blogspot.nl/2014/01/mystery-monday-link-up-part-6.html).

Happy sewing,
Marly.