2015 1st Quarter FAL

I love doing these public declarations of what I think I can accomplish over a three month period.  I am always wayyyy too ambitious but at least I am aware of how many things I need/must do!

So this brings me to my 1st Quarter 2015 FAL Goal list.  I hope to complete the following things:

1.  Simply Solids Amaranth bee quilt - baste, quilt, bind, label

2.  HST Quilt - add another border (?), baste, quilt, bind, label

3. Aneela Hoey's Fold Over pouch - interface, sew together, send to lucky recipient!

Image borrowed from www.comfortstitching

4.  Nat's Sew Together bag - everything is cut and ready to sew together
 [picture to follow]

5.  Fresh Lemon Quilts inspired Poinsettia  table topper - finish sewing together, baste, quilt, bind, label

6.  Lizzy House Meadow quilt - baste, quilt bind, label

 7.  Cherry Charm quilt - baste, quilt, bind, label

 8.  FIVE Michelle Pattern Grocery bags - all cut out and ready to sew since August!!

Picture borrowed from Michelle Patterns

9.  Tea Wallets - fabric cut to make 10, need to cut interfacing, adhere, sew together, add buttons and tea

 

10.  Arrows bee quilt - baste, quilt, bind, label

And those are the items I plan on completing.  Wish me luck!!  Linking up to:

 

Amaranth

Several months ago I decided to tackle my Simply Solids bee quilt at one of our #nintendo guild meet-ups.  This was just the right motivation to get me to complete the top.  Yes - I finally got my 'Amaranth group' Simply Solids Bee quilt TOP completed!

If you were in the Amaranth group and kindly made me a block - thank you!!   To make the top a little bit bigger, I decided to add sashing and corner stones to help define each block but now I am not so sure that was a good idea.  Sashing should be straight and knowing me it will look all wobbly and  that is not a good look!  Fingers crossed it turns out straight looking once quilted!

The next issue:  how should I quilt it?!!

Happy days - this only took two and a bit years to get to this stage but now that it is now a flimsy, I can do the happy dance [and discretely add it to the pile of unfinished quilt tops].

Catching up with my belated thank you's

I certainly have neglected my blog for a while now.  Sorry for that!  I am attempting to get caught up and share with you all the things that have been going on recently but these things take time...apparently!  I blame Instagram!!  And the full moon in September!

• Thank you to Lisa of In the Boon Docks and Fat Quarter Shop for sending me an awesome "Sew What" pink t-shirt and 4 mini charm packs from a giveaway on Lisa's blog!!  I WILL eventually get a picture of me in the t-shirt - I promise!

• Carrie of believemagic sent me a wonderful mini quilt called Disco Girl.  I won this in her Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day/Week along with a Creative Girl Art Quilt and pattern pack.

Picture from www.believemagic.com/journal

Picture from www.believmagic.com/journal

• Rachel of mammafairy sews, a fellow HipBee member, threw me a lifeline when I posted about my sewing difficulties at making a Burda tunic.  She offered to save the day and finish my tunic for me!  I had truly abandoned it thinking it would be the most expensive sewing fail to date, so I took up her offer in a flash!  Rachel finished it beautifully - and returned it to me with a pincushion and some needles too!   So very kind - thank you Rachel.  [picture will be added soon]

• Lucy of Charm About You drew my name for a £100 gift certificate to Wayfair several months ago  Thank you so much!  I managed to spend my certificate on this realllly cool storage thing!

Picture from Wayfair

• Thank you Heather and Megan of  Quilt Story for the three baby patterns sent to me in September - I am going to be very busy once I get my sew-jo back, sewing all these amazing things! 

• Speaking of patterns - thank you to crazymomquilts for sending me her Waiting Quilt pattern in her draw celebrating 250 quilts! 

• In the A Lovely Year of Finishes July, I won a Clover & Violet Lucy Hobo purse pattern - thank you so much!

• July was a lucky month because I also won the Celestial Star pattern.  I watched Diane's sew-along with interest and plan to make my own Celestial Star one day!

So, here we are in 2015 and I am just starting to get a bit of a sewing done.  Feels really good to be making a mess again!  I will catch up with what I accomplished October, November and December SOON!

Happy New Year!

4th quarter FAL recap

Here is my original goal post.  Guess what!?  I was completely and utterly unrealistic - again!!  I thought that I would be able to accomplish 10 things in three months.  However, I hadn't factored in losing my sew-jo in September.  The full moon knocked me off course and I never fully recovered from that!

So, I only managed to accomplish two things.  Here is my absolute favourite finish:

4 Things quilt - Love Affection, Attention and Praise
(quilted by Trudi Woods)

4 Things quilt by Amy Cavanagh

Over on Instagram, CurlyBoy hosted the #IGMiniSwap.  I was in Flossys Group and this is the mini I made for my partner:

I made one mini swoon block for the centre (pattern by Camille Roskelly) and gave it a Goosed Border (pattern by Jeliquilts).  I picked three of my favourite colours (green, aqua and navy) as my partner liked those colours too!  Paper pieced, hand quilted, hand bound and washed to become crinkly, I wanted to keep this one for myself!

So there you have it.  Two out of ten.  I'm ok with that!

Linking to Finish Along 2014.