F2F Catchup

The last time I posted about F2F was back in January, when we pulled out all the stops to get Pat's blocks made and away to Sue in the US, so it could be made up, and hopefully give her a chance to see it and enjoy the comfort of it.....a big hug from all of us.....in her last days. Happily, thanks to everyone's great effort, and particularly Sue who put all the blocks together into a beautiful quilt, and her son, who quilted it, Pat was able to see her quilt and enjoy having it close to her for a short while. Sadly, Pat passed away in early February, but her quilt remains as a legacy to her, and will now be used to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Society in the US.....a fitting tribute. 

The finished quilt - what a beauty

Looking back, I realised I've not shown any of the blocks I've made for the other F2F'ers since here last year.  So in order from then .........

Susan - August 

Sue - September

Lyn-October 

Avis -November 

Christine - December

 

Pat -January

Emmely - February

Claire -March

 You can go to the gallery here to see all the wonderful blocks that've been made, or here to see Avis's completed quilt,  here to see Lyn's in progress (scroll down a bit) or here to see how Sue's putting hers together.....beautifully creative work, ladies.

And so on to me.....April! I'm a bit in love with low volume quilts at the moment, so I chose soft, low volume mauves, and soft light grey or cream for the backgrounds. Here's my blocks so far.....it's been so exciting to open the packages and find these wonderful works of art.....I really appreciate the work that's gone into creating these lovely blocks for me.  Five to come...I think...plus my own, which I'll make once I have all the others together.

Kate has already launched F2F2 and you can follow along at the dedicated  blog if you like, when it starts again in June.  I had thought I'd join in again, then realised I had enough ongoing commitments already for the year, but I'm thinking I might sew alongside and make just my own blocks, I even have my colours picked out.....I'll see when June comes around.

As soon as I finish the son's quilt I'll be making Kate's  blocks, which will be grey, black and white with lime green....a lovely fresh palette. His quilt looked like this a few days ago, it's all sewn together now and has borders, if I don't get dragged away to buy paint or hunt down door handles, I'll be getting onto the quilting. 

Till next time.....

Catching up-going backwards and an update

It's spring and daylight savings has just started.......it was winter when I last posted, the seasons and days just skip by.......


Rainbow Scrap Challenge ....

Mentally I've still been taking part in this challenge, but in reality, not at all.  So I've spent some time this week getting back into it.  It's been made easier by having the contents of my sewing room all back in the same space, instead of spread out all over the house, while walls were painted and carpets cleaned.  I pulled everything out of my sewing room twice, after the carpet cleaner's bucket leaked dirty water all over the carpet and left a huge nasty stain, which he couldn't remove.  He refunded my money plus extra, and I had the carpet pulled up and the floor painted. I like it, wish I'd done it sooner, so much easier to clean up all the threads, fabric scraps and dropped pins.

So those RSC blocks.... I decided instead of working from where I left off, way back in March, I'd catch up with October, which is brown, although chocolate sounds better.... and work my way backwards.   I don't have a lot of scrappy pieces, but enough bigger pieces to cut 4" blocks for a wonky star. Brown isn't my favourite colour but Angela encouraged us to give it a try, now that it's made, I really love it.

 September orange is done too.  

Here's all my stars so far, missing a few months there....pinned up under a rainbow bunting I made for a pop-up shop we had in a recent Art Trail Exhibition here in town

And I had pieces cut ready for April and May star blocks, just didn't get to sewing them...I'll need to check Angela's blog and see what June, July and August were.

Check out Angela's blog soscrappy to see what others have done with their chocolate fabrics.

***

.......and an update on the Foot2Freestyle block swap, organised by Kate and Sue.  Susan from Desert Sky Quilts was the Queen for August, and she requested red and white, blue and white or a mix of all 3 colours.  She's received mine now so I can show what I sent..... a couple of wonky stars and Squares within Squares from Quilter's Cache.

Sue was the recipient for September, but as she's not received hers yet, I can't show you what I made, but she chose a wonderfully vibrant mix of black and white with a pop of whatever hot colour we wanted to use.  Go here to the F2F gallery to see all the awesome, amazing blocks that have been made. There's even a couple there already for Lynn, who is Miss October.  I have her fabrics sitting out, waiting patiently to be transformed.

That's it for now, I have a couple of XXXL fluoro orange sweatshirts to make for a friend for her big son, so better get to it.

'till next time ........

Extreme Sports Quilt and needle holes in my fingers

...... a finish

It's been a lovely week, bright early mornings with golden pink sunrises, followed by warm sunny days that quickly burn off the frosts, then crisp, cold nights.  It's been a week of stitching and friends and then back to the stitching......so much so, I have needle holes in my finger tips. I had to finish the Extreme Sports quilt by today, it had to be ready to go to Adelaide with the granny of the 4 yr old birthday boy. And I did it...a few late nights and oh yes, those needle holes from stitching down the binding .....yes, I know about thimbles but find them awkward to use.

There's a back story to the Extreme Sports fabric.  I bought it to make my grandson a quilt, back when I'd never made a quilt before.  Probably why it never got made, I really had no idea what to do with all those different coloured squares. That grandson is now a 21 year old and a dad to his own little one....a wee girl, and when offered, he politely refused an Extreme Sport quilt for his little princess, and thought he was too grown up now for a kid's quilt...fair enough.

So when I came across that 20 year old fabric in a tidy-up, I knew it was time, and had just the recipient....a friend's grandson with a birthday coming up, and as she was travelling south for it, no postage required. And I had more of an idea what to do with those odd squares now, or more confident anyway about "trying something/anything".

As red and blue were most predominant in each square, I used both these colours to frame and sash - first a small border in solid blue, then the rows sashed in a subtle red check, with cornerstones for interest.  The finished quilt measured 46 x 66, is backed with a lovely soft thrifted cotton sheet in blue checks, and I chose a  black and white check to bind it, echoing the iconic chequered flag of motor racing. With it's bamboo/ cotton mix batting, and  minimal grid quilting, it's a soft and cuddly, snuggle -in -to - watch - tv, kid friendly quilt.  I think Lucas will like it, yes definitely.

Now that Extreme Sports is done and gone, next on my to-do list is to catch up with the rainbow scrap challenge at superscrappy.blogspot.com.au/.  I remember organising my green scraps for June I think, and that was as far as I got.  So scrappy blocks and  finishing my August  F2F blocks for Susan desertskyquilts.wordpress.com/ is on the agenda for tomorrow, along with some time in the garden.

so till next time....