RSC 18 finished top

I've finished my top for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge organised by Angela and Mari. These kind ladies posted one pattern and one colour each month from January to October and a load of quilters round the world made some blocks using the pattern and the colour of the month.

This is also my one monthly goal for December: to move this project on. OMG is a link-up hosted by  Patty at Elm Street Quilts

I made two ten-inch blocks each month and this is the result:

If you read my post last week you may see that I followed the advice of a number of readers and added sashing and cornerstones around the outside. This is it now - no borders - and I shall be quilting it in February during a long-arm course. I don't have a long-arm machine; I don't have the space for a long-arm machine, but have discovered a long-armer who is willing to teach me how to use hers! Unfortunately she is at present changing her business from a physical shop to an online one and moving to other premises. Hence the delay.

A close-up of my favourite fabric in this quilt: bicycles. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the designer.

I'm linking up to:

                

   on Saturday                         on Sunday

Click on the buttons to see more lovely quilty projects.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune: Clue 2

This year's Quiltville mystery is "Good Fortune". Clue 2 was published on Friday and can be found here. There is still time to join in if you have time on your hands the coming weeks!

I'm not making all the units but going for a lap quilt at the most. Even for that I need a lot more than forty of these HSTs.

40 HSTs: not there yet!

I plan to make more this coming week, along with more of last week's 4-patches.

I'm linking to

Click on the button to visit there and be amazed 

at the enormous number of HSTs made this weekend.

Happy Sewing

Marly

One Monthly Goal in December: to move my 2018 RSC quilt forward.

Patty at Elm Street Quilts invites us all to link up our goal for each month. Just one project to work on and reach a point in the process, or a finish.

Before I go any further I'd just like to return to my November goal which was a play mat for my twin grandchildren, expected in December.
 

They didn't wait for December but were born on 29 November: Roos and Kick - both old Dutch names. It will be some time before they will be playing in their play pen; for the moment they are staying in hospital; they are so tiny!

This month my goal is not to finish anything, although that would be very satisfying. My goal is to prepare my 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge top for quilting and maybe even start quilting.

This year I made the blocks for the "Squared Away" sampler devised by Mari (the patterns) and Angela (the colours). It's a long time since I made a quilt with sashing and cornerstones and didn't intend to include them here. The first two blocks I sewed together just didn't want to play nicely and the points certainly didn't match. Those bulky seams had to be separated! Hence the sashing.

And now ... to border or not to border? What do you think? I'm not a great fan of borders unless for expediency - creating extra width. But somehow the sashing seems to need to be balanced by a border. I find it hard to decide because I don't need the extra width.

Top statistics:

• 10" squares: fabric from stash
• sashing 1" wide.
• backing within the blocks and the sashing fabric: Contempo's "Color Weave" in light grey for Benartex 

I'm linking up to:

  

Click on the buttons to see other quilting progress.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune clue 1

Shall I? Shan't I? I thought when I read the introduction to Bonnie Hunter's mystery for this winter. I really don't have time for another quilt at the moment, but I can't resist a mystery!

The first clue was published on Friday inspired by China (the country, not the fine porcelain!) and features a lot of red. Yesterday afternoon the link up started and an amazing number of people had already made lots of units, and when I say lots I mean more, many more than these:

Fourteen 2.5" four-patches

So this morning I hastily fished in my red and neutral scrap buckets and and whittled some already small scraps down to 1.5" and came to a total of fourteen 4-patches. That's it for this week.

I've decided to follow the clues, making some units each week, and deciding after the reveal how many more I need for my project. I shan't be making a bed quilt - we don't use those here. I like to read Bonnie's clues - they're so informative and I learn a lot - and follow people's progress from week to week.

I'm linking to Quiltville

Click on the button to see thousands of mini 4-patches (mostly red!)

Happy sewing
Marly.

Finished: play mat

                


This is my second finish for Finish Along 4th quarter .

Play mat finished: washed, bound ....

... labelled and delivered to the parents. Backing is Ikea heavy-weight furnishing fabric (looks a bit like duck cloth)

On both my OMG November and FAL list for the 4th quarter I had this play mat:

play mat freshly washed and dried, but not yet bound.

I asked on 1 August if anyone knew by what percentage a quilt shrinks and Sandy kindly pointed me towards quiltingboard.com  There I found one useful answer: 10%. Remember that folks: if it's absolutely imperative that your quilt is not too small, and not excessively too big, add 10% (ie one-tenth) to the length and width,or a bit more to be on the safe side! There were other answers too, mainly relating to how intense your quilting is which is also a factor of course. I wasn't going to quilt intensely because the request was for something soft so went for 10% extra.

I added 10% to length and width by adding more generous borders than the play pen measurements would suggest.

not bound but provisionally finished with a wide zig-zag stitch.

However, I thought it might well shrink even more than 10% so rather than have to take off the binding to add some extra quilt by QAYG, I zig-zagged around the edge, and washed the mat together with the binding fabric. It has shrunk, and by slightly more than 10%, but has finished within the margins I'd set, just!

Fabric:
Top: Assorted fat quarters, some from stash
Backing: Ikea furnishing fabric with a black/white/pale green design of barns
Thread: Aurifil 50 wt in pale grey (2615)
Statistics:
base of play pen:                      28" x 48"               71  x 122cm
mat before washing at 40°C:   33" x 53"               84.4 x 135cm
mat after washing at 40°C:      29.75"x 48.75"      76 x 126cm

I'm linking up to TGIFF on Friday,
to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal at the end of November ,
and at the beginning of January to Sandra at Studio Sew of Course for Finish Along 2018, 4th Quarter.


             

Click on the buttons in due time, to see more progress and finishes.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Finished: my Secret Grove mitts

 

A couple of weeks ago I finished my mitts from the "Secret Grove" pattern by Pauliina Karru, which I bought via Ravelry. This is my first finish for the Finish Along fourth quarter.

They have been knitted from Tuku fingering weight wool on 4 dpns size 2.5 mm. This style has a long gauntlet which works to bridge the gap between sweater and wrist, and has open fingers, so that using a keyboard in the winter doesn't mean completely cold hands. I can imagine wearing these under ski mitts. I have already used one on my left hand while knitting; I removed the right-hand mitt quite quickly as my hand movements were being restricted.

I shall be linking this post to:

 at the beginning of January. 

Happy crafting

Marly

One Monthly Goal in November

My goal for November is to finish the play mat for my twin grandchildren who are expected in December.

Here it is:

It was also my goal for October, but it's still not finished!

Yet another goal not reached! I had the top sewn together early in October, but the quilting is heavy going: a combination, I think, of a double layer of wadding and Ikea furnishing cotton as backing.
When I roll the fabric up the roll is so bulky I can't see over it if I'm sitting at the machine so I've resorted to standing. I didn't expect that to be so easy; I certainly have a better view of the fabric, and more control of what's happening. I had a problem at first controlling the speed, being rather heavy-footed when my legs got tired. That was quickly remedied by taking a break regularly and doing something else, like writing this blog post!

There's not much more to be done to the mat, just quilting a few more diagonal lines, trimming, provisionally binding and washing. I read that I can expect up to 10% shrinkage on quilting cotton so I added that, plus a bit extra, all round. I'm going to provisionally bind it on the machine with a long stitch, and then trim it finally after washing, and then reattach the binding permanently.

That shouldn't take me so long! Well, we'll see at the end of November!

I'm linking to Patty at  

click on the button above to see more November goals.

Happy sewing

Marly.