RSC 14: September orange month

Each month Angela, at Soscrappy, posts a colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and September's colour has been orange. 

I have been away for most of the month, and haven't been able to make the sampler blocks she has posted.

However, I have made five orange hexagon flowers, here posing in the early morning Portuguese shade. This is all the orange fabric I brought with me, but I got some other colours made too. 

They are made of 1" hexagons, mostly cut from scraps, although I see a couple of new FQs in there too. I am using the English Paper Piecing method, using papers I printed from the Internet.

Click the button for RCS14 in the margin on Saturday to see what others have made this month. I hope to be able to link this post up too, but the last couple of Saturdays didn't manage to copy the link to my post on my iPad. 

Finally, yesterday's  orange sunset over the Bay of Lagos. 

Happy sewing

Marly. 

What I'm working on this week (week 38)

I shall be away from my computer for a few weeks, but have scheduled a few posts for during my absence. I shall also try to post via mobile Blogger from my iPad, but I haven't tested that successfully yet. 
I know that I shall have infrequent access to the Internet, so I may not be able to respond to your comments very quickly.


This will be very short, I'm afraid, I haven't got the hang of using the iPad Blogger app.

Remember these?

One orange flower made at 30 000 feet and now resting on some rather drought affected Cana leaves.

There are now two more orange flowers and some other colours. I am surprised how quickly they are coming together in odd moments.

I also managed to finish the appliqué on the Tulips on the Table. This was a kit I bought from Birdblocks Quilt Shop in Amsterdam earlier this year. The quilting will be one of my first projects to pick up when I return home.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Essential sewing supplies for a trip!

I shall be away from my computer for a few weeks, but have scheduled a few posts for during my absence. I shall also try to post via mobile Blogger from my iPad, but I haven't tested that successfully yet. 
I know that I shall have infrequent access to the Internet, so I may not be able to respond to your comments very quickly.

Making the decision what was essential was difficult. More difficult was, "Have I got enough?" Hmm, I hope so!

Here is a list of the stuff I packed and will be using over the next few weeks.

1.  Tools

It's a good job I took photos; it was only after I took a photo of this that I realised I didn't have all the Aurifil 50 thread I would need.

Handy book! ...

... opened up with tools

2  Projects

a.  Tulips on the table

Tulips on the table

The background fabric has been made by stack and slash (a first for me) and the appliqué pieces have been prepared. Quilting will have to wait until I'm home.

b  Toadstool House

Toadstool House.

with fabric for the windows and skeins of  DMC embroidery cotton for embellishing. (Now I see I need to pack my embroidery hoop as well) This will get a border and be quilted when I return.

c.  Grandmother's Garden

The rest of the hexagons

   

Just in case that's not enough, I've got this too:

Sony Reader: with the hinge on the right
and the opening on the left!
Interestingly cross cultural!

and with about 20 books installed.

I should manage to be separated from my Bernies for a few weeks.

Happy Sewing

Marly

Preparing fabric for a trip

I shall be away from my computer for a few weeks, but have scheduled a few posts for during my absence. I shall also try to post via mobile Blogger from my iPad, but I haven't tested that successfully yet. 
I know that I shall have infrequent access to the Internet, so

I may not be able to respond to your comments very quickly.

Now I'm packing and preparing for the trip.

Cutting 1" hexagons for Grandmother's Flower Garden

This is something I once vowed I would never do again - Grandmother's Flower Garden. People change so I decided to cut up scraps and have something to do in the evenings. I really don't know how much time I'll have to sew but in any case I'll be sitting around at the airport for at least four hours altogether.

I don't have photos for everything but this is what I've done so far:

1. Printed and cut out approx 400 (!) 1" hexagon papers using the template at http://www.lovepatchworkandquilting.com/free/free-hexagon-template-download . I used 120gm per m² card;
2. punched a hole in the centre of each paper for the pin. I tried pinning through fabric and paper together but the paper buckled and I found it difficult to fold the seam allowance over. So yesterday evening through a mammoth rerun of Rizolli & Isles, Castle, Body of Proof, and King I punched a hole in the centre of each of the 400 papers;
3. cut fabric into 2¼" strips and then cut using the Marti Michell Template set G into 1" hexagons (as in the photo above). Some of the strips were so small I only got one or two hexagons out of them.

Most of this is going into my suitcase but the minimum of supplies are going in my hand luggage along with a couple of dozen hexagon papers and fabric.

hand luggage sewing supplies

I'll post about the rest of the sewing gear later

Happy Sewing

Marly

RSC14: week 36: September is orange

Each month Angela at Soscrappy chooses a different colour for the Rainbow Challenge and this month she has chosen orange: the colour of falling leaves.

This is the first block, and not a maple leaf, as I thought at first, but:

Bear's Paw

 I've been catching up this week on greens:

Tick-a-tape and Coins

and on reds:

Wonky goose star and doughnut.

I'm linking to :

so pop over there to see more orange blocks made by other quilters.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Second cushion cover finished

This is my second finish for

Hello everyone! I'm back! Well, not really; I haven't been anywhere. Three weeks ago my computer crashed, and the photo processing software was the last to be installed. Fortunately I didn't lose any files, just the software.

Cushion number 2.

In the meantime I got a little sewing done (and a lot of thinking). The cushions for my living room are progressing slowly, as their purpose is to give me the opportunity to practise FMQ. The second one has straight line quilting on the diagonal with the walking foot across the centre section and FMQ pebbles in the border. The HSTs are made from the same fabric bundle as the first cushion. This was a mixed bundle of 2½" strips I won in a give-away. I can't tell you what the fabric is because none had enough selvedge to identify.

On the reverse of the cushion I really went to town, inspired by the work of Hilary Florence , especially her Learning Curves, and by Lori Kennedy. I first quilted double curved lines with the walking foot and then quilted in the resulting spaces.

a view of the back

The lines of quilting are patterns from Hilary Florence, but also from Quiltmaker's Year of Machine Quilting. The flowers are my attempt at Lori Kennedy's "Easiest Flower Ever"; if this is the easiest it'll be a while before I attempt the most difficult!

close up of quilting on back of cushion no. 2

the reverse of cushion no.1

The back of the first cushion I forgot to show before, but it isn't very exciting: just some stippling.

Both cushions were put together using the method described by Elizabeth Hartman in her "Mod Mosaic Floor Pillow" tutorial. There is no zip, but the two panels on the back are each two thirds of the length of the front, so overlap by one half of their own length. This is enough to make sufficient close, and while uses more fabric, also gives the opportunity for a lot of quilting. When I'd finished quilting I could decide which I wanted to be on top and hide the most mistakes inside the cushion!

Cushions 1 and 2 together

Cushion number 3 is in the wings, patiently waiting for me to decide how to quilt the border. On the one hand I would like to continue the chevron theme, but on the other I want to practise FMQ and my "straight lines" are hopeless! I keep staring at it and hoping for inspiration.

a peek at cushion no..3; quilting in progress

I'm linking up to:
      

  

It's also my second finish for:

Happy Sewing

Marly

Almost the last of the greens: RSC 14 week 35

Hello Everyone! I'm back! I hadn't fallen off the end of the world, but rather my computer had to have a new brain! It crashed three weeks ago, and after reinstalling MS Windows we finally managed to track down the latest version of my photo processing software just before the weekend.

I didn't get much sewing done at all in August, but here are the green blocks I managed to do.

clockwise from top left:
West-winds, Bouncing Betty, Dakota Farmer, mini Bow-ties

And as we're all being rainbow-minded with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I thought I'd share this photo with you.

19 August 2014
Rainbow over Rijswijk. Where's the crock of gold?

I have never before seen a rainbow extending so far downwards. If my computer had been working I'd have sent this photo to the TV weather programme!

I'm linking up to:
 

Happy Sewing

Marly.