Getting on with it!

Somehow I have reached my mid 40s. No idea how I got here really. I'm sure I don't feel any different to how I did 20 years ago........or is that because I'm getting older and can't remember?!

 

I tend to find family celebrations and other occasions difficult now; Christmas, Valentine's Day, my birthday.............
For some reason it's drilled into me that I need to have that special someone to make me feel complete, that that person will spoil me on these occasions; and because I don't have that special someone, I get upset or lonely on those days because no one seems to care.
But it shouldn't be like that though should it? I shouldn't need another person to make me feel whole?
I am where I am now because I decided to leave a loveless marriage where I was incredibly unhappy. I thought I was madly in love with another guy and without him I might not have had the courage to leave, but I did. Unfortunately he turned out to be a lying cheating womaniser who broke my heart.
Yet without this chain of events I wouldn't be where I am now. Ok I get lonely but I am in charge of my own destiny. I own my own home, I now have a job which I love, I am self sufficient financially. I can do what I want, when I want..........well son permitting.......and I have my quilting!

Where would I be without my quilting? I can't imagine not having this creativity in me, bursting to get out all the time, seeing design inspiration everywhere I go.
The Red Cross is progressing nicely. I kind of wished I had started quilting a frame of cross hatching in white and then crossed hatched the centre of the white area in red, but what I'm doing already will be fine!

 

 

The Red Cross

I think that is what I will call the red and white quilt that I am working on at the moment.

I quilted a little sample the other day  to help me decide how I wanted to quilt it. I knew I wanted to do some cross hatching on the white background but wasn't sure which colour; red or white?
This is the sample

The scale of the cross hatching is 3/4" which is the same as it will be in the quilt.
Top left corner has horizontal red lines of quilting and white vertical lines. Top right corner has all red quilting and bottom left is all white quilting.
Both threads are solid King Tuts.
I decided I liked the mix of red and white threads together; it toned down the strength of the red. Weirdly if I rotated it so that the red lines were vertical, they seemed more dominant than when they are horizontal.

So I went ahead and started working on the quilt. It's going ok so far. Just hope I can keep my lines straight as there isn't any room for error!

And here's the whole quilt

What I am doing now - Feb

I had a free weekend last weekend..........and used it wisely; well it was Groundhog Day and I was kind of hoping that would mean I would be very productive if I spent the day sewing and had to relive the day over and over again!

 

I managed to make a few more scrappytripalong blocks in my red and white fabrics. I'm just making them as and when. Here are the first four

 

 

 

As I make more I am realising that whilst I thought it would be quite clever to restrict my fabric palette to red and white fabrics, it is also quite limiting and a little bit of me wishes I had continued with making a totally scrappy one like this.

 
I'll keep persevering with the red and whities for now though.

I've been doing a bit of quilting this week on my Kaleidoscope quilt. As this isn't a traditional quilt, each stage of the quilting needs a bit of thinking and every now and then I hit a bit of a brick wall, but then it's a fantastic feeling when I break through that wall. I'm quilting some parallel lines for some background quilting at the moment.

 

The other thing I have been working on the last week or so is a red and white challenge quilt that my mother has issued to my sister and me: to make a quilt 1m square using a bag of red and white fabrics she gave us at Christmas. My first reaction was "oh". I was already making a New York Beauty style red and white quilt, had started the red and white scrappytripalong and really didn't want to make another red and white quilt. Plus I don't have much time for making quilts for me so any time taken out making this challenge quilt was going to be time taken away from my own quilting. So I have compromised, kind of. I've made something quickly by machine but will probably hand quilt it.

It echoes a modern minimalist phase that I am going through at the moment.

 

 

I foundation pieced the fabric strips to ensure they were accurate and straight. Each one is 3/4" wide. They would have been all over the place if I had just pieced them by machine!
I'm thinking about quilting it with cross hatching, possibly in red and white threads. Might experiment with doing the cross hatching vertically in one colour and horizontally in the other.

Seeing as I was working with my red and white prints I made a start on the next block for my NYB quilt, really want to crack on with this now!

 
Linking up with Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day post and Small Blog Meet

It may be cold outside.......

............but it's warm indoors, especially if you have a quilt you are working on!

I should have been doing some more quilting on my Kaleidoscope quilt this week as it is lovely and warm with a wool wadding, but I haven't even got it out! It's been a busy week with a trip to Worcestershire for some photography and of course the snow which has meant son's school has closed early twice this week.

We had snow in the east on Monday. It wasn't too bad, but it has been really cold all week. However the frost on the trees and bushes in the garden has been wonderful

(For some reason wherever I post the last image.....it never gets shown the right way round, even though I have rotated and saved it the right way up!)

Then there was more snow yesterday but worse in the west this time. We maybe got about an inch of snow. It was enough to bring all the birds in the garden, which is pretty cool seeing as we never get birds in our little garden. An especially new visitor was this cute wagtail, who was obviously cold as he kept on lifting one foot off the ground

So what sewing have I done this week? Mainly I've been putting together a sashing row and been joining row C onto my SBS quilt. I really need to find a virtual design wall so that I can insert the images of each block in it. Maybe that will be my task today?!

I have also been sidetracked a little with the scrappy tripalong that is doing the rounds in Blogland, thanks mainly due to Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey. Katy has a serious addiction to this! The original tutorial is at Quiltville. I have been fairly restrained so far and only made two blocks, but I can hear it calling to me!

The trouble is, I'm also thinking how cool it would look if I cut a strip from each of my red and white prints.........

My plan this weekend is to add the borders to the new layer cake quilt I have been working on........assuming I can resist the lure of the scrappy tripalong.......

Still Stitching.......and smiling!

Christmas has been and gone and so has 2012 (nearly). I think I might have said a year ago how hard I find Christmas now that I am on my own, but on the other hand it does make you realise it's all about the children. So you put your misgivings etc to one side and you get together with your families and the kids have a great time opening presents together and the general excitement of the day. Well that's what happened in my family anyway.

 

This past year I have tried to be more productive in my quilt-making and I think that's true to some extent. I definitely make more quilts to display my fabrics, although I never have the time to quilt them.........which reminds me I need to get back to my machine quilting!

 

There is one thing for certain............I have developed an addiction for pre-cuts! I love Bali Pops and now they are available in 5" and 10" squares too there are even more design possibilites. The hardest part is actually opening the packet and even now it takes me a while to do it, but I have played with all of them this year and am thinking I might turn my designs into patterns...........once I have quilted the quilts I've made of course!

 

So what does 2013 hold? I think I need to concentrate on using my time more productively (ie stay off Facebook etc) and work on my own quilts as well as display quilts.

Getting ahead of myself, I've already picked up the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilts again and have almost completed row C on both quilts, I have a couple of red and white quilts to make and then there is my Kaleidoscope quilt that I need to keep working on.

 

Wow that sounds a lot already!!

 

Best get on with it then............

That creative urge........

I think its only other creative people who can understand what it is to have the urge to create something. It almost eats away at you..........this need to create. Its hard to explain.

I have a real urge at the moment to start something new and I know I won't be happy until I do! The problem is.........I need more fabrics before I can start!!
I think my next quilt is going to have to be the red and white quilt that I have been collecting fabrics for but I need more red AND white prints for some mid tones. Luckily Quilts UK in Malvern is only a few weeks away so hopefully I can find some more fabrics there. If not I will either have to wait until the Festival of Quilts in August (not that I have any time to look around there!) or I will have to do a bit on searching online.........
I guess because I have my own fabric store, I haven't felt the need to do that before. Can you believe that?!

As usual I don't have much to show for the last few weeks. I really need to get my arse in gear and stop wasting my evenings on my laptop and spend them sewing instead. And I think the reason for this is because I don't have anything new to work on.

I've done a few more blocks for the SBS quilt and we are up to C9 now but I think because this is just working for a book and not strecthing my creativity that much, that this is just something to pick up and do every now and then. I need to check which blocks I need to photograph and post pics of.

Of course there is my Kaleidoscope quilt that I supposed to be quilting, but I have hit a brick wall with that. Once I break through that, I will be off and running again. Maybe I should make that my priority?