Scrappy teal Saturday week 13

Very low production level this month.

That's all folks!

Linking up with Soscrappy so head over there to see what others have made this month.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Happy Mail!

In the middle of February I won a give-away at Aunt Marti's 52 quilts in 52 weeks, and I had almost given up on it.

But look what arrived in my letterbox this afternoon ...

and look what's inside.

I love them all, but the first one I'm making is on top!

My thanks to Aunti Marti for sending such a wonderful present, to Kristy and Shayla at Sassafras Lane Designs for donating the patterns, and to all my fellow bloggers who sent good wishes.

I understand that the US postal service has suffered extreme delays due to the severe weather, which probably explains why the package took five weeks to cross the Atlantic. Now, however, I'm raring to go on Diamond Alley: I need to study it carefully to see if I can get it out of a bundle of FQs which I have waiting for just the right project. And this is it!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Linking up to Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social

for the second time today because I have to tell everyone I'm so chuffed 

(UK slang for very, very happy!)

Work in Progress on the Design Wall

Monday:

My Jigsaw quilt centre is finished. I'm working on the pieced inner border.

Jigsaw Quilt from Two from One Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott, made in "Metropolitan Fair" by Barbara Brackman for Moda

I love this pattern, and so far it has all gone together very smoothly. I think I shall be making another one soon, but in softer fabrics.

Update Wednesday:

Now the top is finished and it's off the wall and waiting for me to get some backing fabric. Meanwhile I have other projects to keep me occupied.

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday,

with Stitch by Stitch for Anything goes Monday,

  with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.
and with Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Triangle quilt along week 1

I've joined the Triangle Quilt Along at the Sassy Quilter. The idea is that over the next month or so everyone makes a quilt. Paula is giving the instructions for making a throw, but I have decided to make a single-bed sized quilt.





Here are my fabrics so far. I am making this quilt for a little girl whose mother said these are the bright colours she goes for. I must say I like them too, but still don't have enough for a single-bed size. Most of these are 1/2 metres with a couple of FQs, and some smaller pieces (mostly the greens)

I will be going to Rotterdam on Tuesday to see what is to be found in the quilt shop there.


Pop over to the Sassy Quilter to see the fabrics others are using.

Happy sewing

Marly

RSC14 week 12 teal

I have done even less for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week. Somehow I have been busier with other sewing tasks.

Pop over to Soscrappy to see what others have made this week.

Happy sewing

Marly

Wednesday current progress

The Jigsaw Quilt is progressing well. 

Blocks 20 and 21 laid out ready to sew.

All subunits have been made, and after these two there are only eight more blocks to finish.

I'm linking up today to Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednsday

and to Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social.

So please join us and see what other quilters are doing this week.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Photo 18

Photo 17

Work in Progress on the Design Wall

There are three projects on my wall this morning.

Emma stars, Jigsaw Quilt and teal blocks

Firstly, all those stars: here are thirty four of the required thirty six for the penultimate border of the Emma Quilt (last year's BO2M in the Dutch patchwork magazine "Quilt & Zo".



And here are the other two: the EPP finished yesterday evening, and now stuck onto their background squares ready to be appliquéd this evening.


I shall probably start arranging the blocks later, to give myself a break from the sewing machine, and I expect to be able to sew them all together and add the border this week, and also start on the EPP for the next border.




Secondly, on the wall (bottom left) are two teal blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014. Not much done on that last week I'm afraid.

Thirdly, there are six blocks for my Jigsaw Quilt from this book made in "Metropolitan Fair" by Barbara Brackman for Moda.
Two more blocks are partly pieced on the cutting mat, and the pieces for the rest are in plastic bags on the sewing table. I'm now going to get cutting all the remaining small HSTs - the large ones are all done - and get sewing.

I'm linking up to 

Stitch by Stitch for Anything Goes Mondays
and Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday

so hop over there and take a look 

at what is keeping some other quilters occupied this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Scrappy teal Saturday

This is all I managed this week; so much has been happening.

I'm linking to Soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge linky party. Hop over there to see other teal blocks made this week.

Happy sewing,

Marly.

"Good Night" finished

At the weekend I finally finished adding the binding to my Good Night quilt for my youngest grandson. 

But before we got to this point ...

Here follows a Cautionary Tale.

Seven o'clock Monday morning it went into the washing machine together with all the colour catchers I had. Five of them - a whole packet.


50 minutes later ... Oh dear!

very darkafter I wash cycle without detergent 

Colour Catchers all dark blue, label dirty grey instead of off-white, yellow stars smudgy.

8 o'clock and the local supermarket doesn't open until 9:30 on Mondays. But when it did I was there. Armed with a new packet of Dylon colour catchers (5 per packet) and two packets of Vanish Colour protectors (20 per packet)  I furiously cycled home.

Reloaded the machine with quilt and 5 Vanish protectors. 





50 minutes later:

still dark
after the second wash cycle

Reloaded the machine with quilt and another 5 Vanish protectors. 

50 minutes and 15 colour catching protecting cloths later.

good enough
after 3 wash cycles

The last batch of colour protectors were just pale blue, but the label is still grey.

Moral of this tale: 
A narrower than usual single-bed-sized quilt with a lot of dark blue batik needs at least 15 colour catching protecting cloths in it's pre-use rinse.

Linking up to Quilt Matters for  Thank goodness it's finished Friday, so hop over there to see what others have finished this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

WIP Wednesday

I'm turning this:

Metropolitain Fair Jelly Roll

into this:

Jigsaw Quilt block

I started cutting this morning and am about to finish putting the first block together. The next 3 are partially made too.

It's the Jigsaw Quilt from this book made in Metropolitan Fair by Barbara Brackman for Moda.

I'm linking to Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday, and to Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social. Go and have a look at what some others are working on at the moment.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Photo 16

My Design Wall

This was my design wall first thing this morning.

Nothing has changed over the past week

I've had a few comments on my design wall itself the last few weeks, not just on what's on it, so I decided to show how I made it. I don't have the space in my apartment for a proper design wall so I had to be inventive. 

So here it is. Nothing could be easier.




First buy a simple fleece at the supermarket or household store. Mine is plain white and cost €3.00 (less than USD 5.00 I think) A dark colour would also work but keep it simple.

Then buy an adjustable curtain rail at IKEA. I chose the system where the "curtain" would hang closest to the "window".

Stretch the fleece out on the floor and adjust the length of the rail to match, plus a little extra for the brackets and a few inches to the outside of the brackets.

Keep two curtain rings apart from the rest.

Put the remaining curtain rings with pegs on the rail.

Fix the brackets to the wall (preferably straight) the width of the fleece apart.

Hang the rail  and put the two rings you put aside to the outside of the brackets - this way you can keep the fleece taut. 

Hang the fleece.

And Bob's your uncle and you can start designing.



Advantages of this wall:

Easy to store in a small space when not in use. Just unclip one end peg and you can "open" your "curtain".

Easy to replace by a dark background if necessary - just unclip the pegs and hang a new fleece.

Cheap: the whole thing cost less than €10.00.



Disadvantages:

It is hanging free of the wall, so moves and can loose its load - care is needed
It measures only 1.8m. x 1.2m. 


For me the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. When my grandchildren come to stay, they sleep in this room. I have to clear my sewing things away anyway and a fixed board would be a problem. Anything rigid is out of the question, as it is my cutting mat has to be stowed behind my shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe. Now I just push the fleece aside and push my sewing machine cabinet into the same corner.

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday and to Sew Many Ways for the March theme link up.

Happy designing

Marly.

Teal FQs

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge there is a different colour each month, and March's colour is Teal. I didn't know teal as a colour.

Many thanks to everyone who answered my plea last week and gave me hints on how to recognise teal. 



Finally I did a Google search (why didn't I think of that before?), which was very clear (a lot of nail varnish!) and decided there was nothing else for it ...

so, this week I bought 6 teal fat quarters. 

I think I would have called it sea green.

Don't tell me they're not scraps: that I know. I also know I didn't have any usable teal fabric, only nylon chiffon left from my first evening dress a very long time ago.

All that to-ing and fro-ing this week, along with unexpected tasks at work didn't give me any opportunity to sew any rainbow blocks.

I am linking to Soscrappy so head over there to see this week's teal creations.



I'm also thinking of using teal in the Triangle quilt along at the Sassy Quilter (link on the right), along with orange/tan and white. But by the time the QAL starts on 21 March I may well have changed my mind! 

How about joining me there? Check out the QAL by using the link in the right margin.





Happy Sewing

Marly.

Photo 15 Spring!

Spring!

in excess.

Lente

in overvloed.

But

          less

is

more               

Greetings
Marly.

Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog meet

My grandson's quilt is ready for binding. I should get that finished this evening.(Update Wednesday: the binding is still only half done)

Good Night.
Pattern by Maaike Bakker in "Strip-Pieced Quilts" (That Patchwork Place.)

detail

place-mat from orphan block

Before starting the FMQ I had a trial run with an orphan block from the quilt top which I built out with some of the off-cuts and made a place-mat.

the back of the place-mat

I also bought some more fabric in February:

from r to l:
2 FQ's with sewing notions design (impulse),
3.5m with flowers for background for Celtic Solstice,
1m with girls with umbrellas (sweet & impulse)
1m with houses for place-mat backing
(after many months resisting the impulse)

Celtic Solstice
(Bonnie Hunter Mystery)

And worked on the Bonnie Hunter Leader and Ender Challenge 2013

Bonnie Hunter Leader and Ender Challenge 2013

I calculated that I'm about 1/5 of the way to completion, so Bonnie took me by surprise when, this week, she announced this year's challenge, which wasn't expected (by me at least) until July. Apparently some people have finished already!



I also made pink blocks for the RSC14 .

Now I'm linking up to Lily's Qults for: 

and Guest host Stephanie from Quarter Incher at freshly pieced. go over there now to see what other people are working on.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

RSC 14: Week 9: January and February review

January's colour was blue.

February's colour was pink.

March's colour is teal.

 I don't know teal. Are any of these teal?

I'm linking up with Soscrappy for the RSC14 party later today. Hop over there and have a look at other people's pink splendour.