Owl Story...14.02.2012 to 13.10.2021...

Draft Post dated 14 February 2012...(not joking, seriously a nearly 10 year old draft!)

 

A long time ago in a land far away Aunt Pitty Pat held a block swap...the blocks to be swapped were owls and nine patches...and Mistea & Jindi's human thought this would be a fun game to play as a team...so they stitched and they sewed and they sent away their owl blocks and their nine patches...in due course a box arrived in the land of Mistea and there were owls and nine patches in lots of colours and fabrics different to what they had sent...and so they divided up the blocks and shared...

Jindi's human took her blocks home and put them on the wall..mmmm I need fabric with pictures of owls she thought, how hard could that be...so began the great owl fabric search...she saw lots of nice owl fabrics...on other people's blogs...but not in the shops...she searched the world wide interweb...she looked in bricks and mortar shops...she searched high and she searched low but woe betide she couldn't find any owl fabric that was just right...until...one day she went on a journey with quilty friends to a shop far away, lo and behold there were owls on fabric with all the colours that she wanted...great rejoicing was had and many metres of fabric followed her home...but...she could not decide what to do next...so she did nothing (as usual!)...and the blocks and the fabric with the colourful owls languished on a shelf...until one day when it was brought back into the light (when looking for something else - as usual!)...and over-thinking was abandoned in favour of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle...to become...[goodness only knows...apparently a photo was supposed to be uploaded...it wasn't]...

 

And now here we are...October 2021...

So, on the weekend while puddling about looking for something to do I emptied out a bag to see what was in it and amongst other things the half done owl quilt fell out...and after some employing of the reverse sewing tool and re-sewing to get the blocks to the same size...(that was the problem, the blocks weren't the same size and I'd been playing with options to size them up)...

Finally, the owls and the nine patches are (almost) a quilt top...it's only taken [I have no idea but clearly well more than 10!] years...I think it needs another border (plain-ish to counter the busy-ness of the sashing fabric) rather than binding straight onto the green owl fabric but so far what colour hasn't jumped out to me...the green owl fabric has all the bright colours - blues, orange, purple, red, etc - no rush, it's taken this long to get this far and it has nowhere to go...time will tell.

Happy Stitching..

Moon and Stars Bag...

I finally finished my new everyday bag which has been on the table for a few weeks...(there seems to be a theme happening, with the only finishes lately being bags of one sort or another)...

The pattern is "Moon and Stars" from the book Windy City Bags by Sara Lawson, which I bought a couple of years ago from Martingdale in the USA when they had one of their too good to resist sale campaigns.  The only "tweak" I made to the pattern is to insert a template plastic base as it was a little bit too floppy for my purposes without.

The main fabric is from stock - I have metres of it on a bolt from somewhere where it must have been in a sale box...I was lucky to find the right solids quite randomly when Canterbury Quilts in Bendigo was having her shut down sale and I ordered the hardware from Betty Box Pleat in Qld, very happy with the quality and would buy from there again.

All to do now is transfer my "stuff" and it will be ready to go to work tomorrow.

Happy Stitching...

Lunch/Snack Bag...

I have had this pattern...Grab Some Grub from Patterns by Annie...for a few years but hadn't gotten around to dealing with how to source the particular batting that it uses. I have plenty of usual bag batting but not the Soft & Stable type the pattern was designed for (and had never used batting of that sort so nothing to compare it with).

I spent some time googling a few months ago and found an alternative that I was able to source.  I used Bosal In-R-Form Plus unique fusible foam stabiliser - a bit scary as I was worried it would be hard to manipulate and P-faff is a bit picky and choosy sometimes about what she wants to sew but it was a breeze.  Definitely a convert.  I'd already bought some mesh fabric a while back in anticipation.   The food label fabric found in a rummage of the on-hand stock put its hand up and why not, seems pretty apt.

A mesh pocket on the inside "back wall" to hold cutlery or whatnot...had never sewn with mesh fabric before but again it was easy as...

Because of the way the bag is constructed...rectangles are quilted and then cut down to size, there was a bit of wastage and considering the cost of that batting I didn't want to put in the bin...trimmed up with a bit of binding and two small padded mats to live in the bag for cup and/or plate when out and about...

The set ready to go...

Its inaugural outing was going to be to pack snacks (lolly bags and the like) for a recent patchwork group camp but we were locked back down and it was cancelled, so it waits for an opportunity.

Happy Stitching

Mug Handbag...

I have a couple of particular mugs that I take to sewing group/days but nothing to protect them from being chipped or broken in transit, as generally I just kept them in the cupboard and popped into my basket on the day...which also meant remembering to pack!

 

One now has its own wee handbag to live in so can stay in the basket and not be left behind. It's the perfect size for this particular mug, fits snugly and doesn't jiggle about. Not that it has travelled much since I made it a couple of months ago because of lock down cancellations but it has had a couple of outings. Just about everyone would have seen this mug bag pattern as I know lots of people whose mugs travel in this style...

I have that coffee mug fabric in two colourways, bought for something in the past and not used (whatever something even was!) and it seemed very apt for a mug bag...have to love it when the motivation hits to make a particular something and all the ingredients are already in the house just waiting to be used.

Happy Stitching...

Zooooommm Marathon with Chookyblue...

Had the best day yesterday...Zooming with Chooky and the blog ladies from around the world...I joined at around 6:30AM (06:30) and we logged after 9:00 PM (21:00)...I spent probably all up 12 hours of that time doing prep work (allowing for time spent wandering in and out of the sewing room over the day)...you know the boring but necessary stuff that has to be done or the fun part can't start...three quilts now can be moved on and I again have handwork to take to Patchwork Thursday nights...my feet are killing me, my body is still aching but I had the best day...and cut something like 400 patches - triangles, squares and hexagons...no pictures because not really photo-material...

Thanks Chooky...had The. Best. Day. and thank you to the lovely ladies who dropped in and out and back in again! for your inspiring company ... 

Happy Stitching...

Flannel Chevron...

A few weeks ago when the weather started turning I couldn't find a flannel quilt that I knew should be ... somewhere! ... turned out it is, in the press at the K house so I left it there (it's even colder there most of the time) and decided I could just make another one for here.  The thing is though I don't have large pieces of flannel in the stash...while the flannel tub is not at all verging on the side of being any where near short of fabric it is pretty much all fat quarters and scraps.  I decided to do a chevron pattern but didn't have enough of any one fabric to use a constant background or constant main colour so mix and match it was...working with the one fabric I had enough of to use as a border...so pink and green it is...

Pieced a backing of fabrics in the tub that used up checks and tartans that I honestly probably wouldn't use in a top no matter how small the pieces were cut to hid the "ugly"...bonus of clearing those fabrics out of the tub...

 

Simple echo quilting following the chevrons and it is doing its job on couch.

Happy Stitching...

Kalamazoo...

I found this post languishing in drafts from 2015...yes folks, six years biding its time in drafts...Kalamzaoo...a Quilt As You Go by Michelle Marvig...

It had progressed from this to having its sashing strips sewn on and applique shapes vlisofixed down but that is where it had been left...and forgotten about.

 

A few weeks ago I quite randomly unearthed the quilt in the bottom of a tub on a Saturday night and left it out in the light determined that I should just get it done...the next morning my darling friend A texted me to say she was remembering us talking about this quilt years ago and was returning to hers...and I laughed and replied look what I found last night!!!!!

Nothing else for it, the Universe was telling me it had to be finished.  I sucked up the courage to do the applique on the machine (definitely not my best skill - let's face it I generally suck at machine applique) and after a little consultation with another friend for back-up went for it...and...

It. Is. Done.

Absolutely nothing near perfect or even worthy of being viewed from any closer than two kilometres down the road on a foggy day but done it is and it will do a job as a knock-about quilt.

And...it's out of the tub!

Happy Stitching