What I've been up to - March

This month seems to have flown by and yet by birthday seems ages ago now! You will be glad to hear we managed to fit the tap to the water butt.........

 

So what have I been up to this month? With spring finally on its way I've finally managed to sow some seeds indoors. Some summer cabbages - Bourbon - germinated within a week

 

 

They are much bigger than this now and starting to get their next set of leaves. I'll need to re-pot them soon I think.

 

We also sowed some tomatoes and leeks which took a little longer to germinate but they are coming along nicely too now.

Added to these were sweet peas this week. So the conservatory is looking a bit like a greenhouse at the moment.

 

The potatoes are chitting nicely and we're hoping to get at least the earlies in this weekend as the weather is looking very mild

 

 

I've been busy digging over the potato bed in readiness for planting them out but there has been a frost this week.

 

Cooking-wise I made a delicious cream of leek soup this week after a fellow plot holder gave me a few leeks and we harvested the first of the rhubarb a couple of days ago (which the cat promptly sat on)

 

 

and we turned it into rhubarb and custard cake (without cat)

 

 

It took forever to cook because I made it in a loaf tin but it tastes pretty yummy!

 

My sewing has consisted mainly of making blocks for a layercakesampler quiltalong which is great fun

 

 

And I have also gone back to making my City Sampler blocks. I thought I would try something different and use a striped fabric in each block together with some Kona solids which my parents bought me for me birthday

 

 

And while its working quite well

 

 

These are blocks 1 to 6, I'm not 100% sure about it. Mainly I think because I thought I would arrange the blocks in a barn raising style........which means most of the blocks are green ones.....

 

So I've also added to the taupe ones I started.......

 

 

I'm making these blocks as a quiltalong with a couple of quilting friends as it does help to keep you going with them

 

So quite a lot done in March....and its not quite over yet!

 

 

Full of the Joys of Spring part 2 - and a tutorial!

So the rest of my day yesterday was spent sewing.

 

And yesterday I made a quilt top! It was so quick and easy I've put a quick tutorial together as I'm thinking it has the possibilities to be as good as the #scrappytripalong that is all the rage online.

 

One of the marketing girls at the offices gave me a charm pack of thirty two 5" squares that are subscription gifts for a Sewing for Pleasure show the magazine is attending in a couple of weeks.

 

'What can you do with this?' she asked.

 

I wasn't immediately struck with inspiration but as usual the creative juices starting flowing and I have come up with this. It measures 38" square but if you kept adding blocks you could make a bed-sized quilt really quickly.........and use up a lot of scraps. You don't have to use one background colour either like I have done here, which would use even more scraps up!

 

 

I'm calling it a #scrappychurndash and here's how you make it.

 

What you need:

Assorted 5" square scraps or a charm pack

Matching background or assorted light or dark scraps. I used calico.

 

Cutting:

1. Cut 5" strips from your background and sub cut these into 5" squares.

 

Method:

1. Take one, 5" background square and cut it in half to make two, 2.5" x 5" rectangles.

2. Join these rectangles to opposite sides of one, 5" scrappy square. Press seams towards scrappy square.

 

 

3. Take one, 5" scrappy square and cut it in half to make two rectangles as before and join them to opposites sides of one, 5" background square. Press seams towards scrappy rectangles.

 

 

4. Cut this second pieced strip in half to make two, 2.5" x 9" rectangles.

 

 

5. Place these pieced rectangles on opposite sides of the first pieced strip.

 

 

6. Join the strips together to complete the block. It should measure 9" square (finished size 8.5" square) and the seams should nestle nicely because you have pressed them in opposite directions.

 

And hey presto one very quick and easy block!

 

 

What do you think? Want to play along too? If you do, tag your images #scrappychurndash

 

Joanna

Full of the Joys of Spring!

Had a really productive day yesterday and it feels good when that happens. I may even need to do two different posts about it - that's how productive it was!

 

The beginning of March sees my birthday and yesterday was a lovely spring-like day. The daffs are just coming out at the front of the house

 

 

One of my birthday presents was a water butt for the allotment and as it was a nice day TK and I decided to go and set it up. Amazingly it did fit in the back of the Mini!

 

And yes he is inside the water butt as we tried to work out how to fit the tap!

 

Unfortunately, it went downhill from there.........

 

 

We didn't manage to fit the tap but at least its in situ

 

 

It will of course now stop raining, in which case.........you're welcome!

 

After TK had gone back home, I returned and turned over Bed 4 which was starting to sprout a few weeds. Trying to keep on top of them but its not easy. Bed 2 is quite grassy again and Bed 1 that I am in the middle of digging over is quite wet at the moment so need a few dry days before I can do some proper digging again.

 

 

 

March Block - LBQB

I blogged out Lou's choice for her block the other week. I had a bit of spare time this afternoon and decided to make a test block.
A tutorial for making the block can be seen here.

 

It's a strange block in that on the one hand it looks really easy to make, but on the other if you are used to traditional patchwork, it's quite hard to be random! I found if I wasn't careful, my random points were looking quite uniform!

 

The units look a bit strange as you are piecing them

 

 

But obviously a bit neater once they have been trimmed

 

 

So this is my test block completed

 

 

It was made using Kona Cotton Black and a scrap of the Rainbow colourway I had left from the Essential Gradations collection. I wanted to see how it would work using just a fabric like this and I think it works pretty well.

Now to decide what colour fabrics I think Lou might like! Judging by her choice, I think I might try and find a fabric in my stash that I can fussy cut for the centre square........

A bit of progress..........on the allotment

I haven't done a huge amount of sewing this week, been a bit side-tracked in the evenings watching the Olympics on my laptop and stuff like that. I did start work on a new project for the magazine with some fabrics that EQS have given me and did a little bit more quilting on my Kaleidoscope quilt.

So today's post is about the allotment as it has finally stopped raining!

 

The over-wintering onions are doing well

 

 

We moved the redcurrant bush down to the perennial bed today so it is with the blackcurrant bush. We'll need to put some kind of cage over these though as the birds pinched all the berries last year.

 

 

So the perennial bed is ready and the rhubarb is growing nicely

 

 

Last weekend was Potato Weekend at the shed shop and we picked up our seed potatoes for this year together with some onion and shallot sets.
First up are Rocket, the first earlies

 

 

Second earlies, Kestrel

 

 

Two main crops, Picasso which we grew successfully last year, and Desiree

 

And finally Sturon onions and Golden Gourmet shallots, the latter are supposed to be good for pickling!

Let the chitting begin!

 

LBQB - We have a go situation!

So our first Queen Bee is Lou.......kind of had to be seeing as she roused this rabble of twelve quilters together! Her month is March and she has chosen the Wonky Star as her block

 

This looks like a really interesting, and on the face of it, easy block to make. At the moment I'm trying to think about how I can make it a bit more interesting with my fabric choice!

My month is May so I have a couple of months to decide what block I want. I had originally thought of the Ohio Star block that has always been a favourite

It also has lots of design possibilities by changing the arrangement of fabrics and also by changing the centre square to a square on point. I'll explore these a bit more when I do my post for my month.

 

In the meantime......its back to the Wonky Star!

 

Joanna 

 

 

The Little Blog Quilting Bee

So! It looks like I have signed up for my first quilting bee! All the hard work is being one by Lou at http://imstudiolou.wordpress.com/.

The blog is for UK quilters who have never done a quilting bee before and who have blogs with less than 50 followers........which is me!

We have a lovely logo

 

which we need to make into a blog button too (hint hint). We are all hoping to share our tale via our little blogs, instagram and twitter.

 

We are each going to chose a block each month for the twelve of us to make.

So who are my fellow partners in crime? Well there's me and Lou for starters. Then we have (in no particular order):

Claire at www.corblimeyclaireepoppins.blogspot.co.uk

Rosanne at www.notafloralgirl.blogspot.co.uk
 

Alison at  http://patchworkalley.Blogspot.co.uk

 

Jenny at http://notetofollowsew.blogspot.com

 

Sheila at www.mindfulquilter.blogspot.co.uk

 

Nessa at http://nessahux.blogspot.co.uk

 

Celine at http://espritpatch.blogspot.com

 

Heidee at http://handmadesomethings.wordpress.com

 

Gina at http://www.occasionalquilter.blogspot.co.uk

 

and finally

 

Natalie at http://lovenatalieuk.blogspot.co.uk

Looks like we have an exciting year ahead!

 

Joanna