A Wheel Quilt of my very own!

Morning all!

A year after heavily crushing on this pattern by Rachel of Stitched in Color and seriously doubting I'd ever have the sewing skills to make one, I have completed my very own Wheel Quilt. It is one of the final week's projects for Curves Class.

I love it. I love it a lot more than I expected to.

I did not use fabrics that were 'oh my god I love these so much anything they go in will be perfect!'. Instead I had two charm packs I was kind of meh about, that I'd bought early last summer. One, Good Fortune by Kate Spain, I really loved online, but when I got the charm pack I was a bit put off by the size of the prints and the punch you in the face colours confusingly (to me) combined with a wishy-washy beige-grey. The other charm pack was Birds and Berries by Lauren & Jessi Jung. It is a lovely collection, but I found the amount of turquoise in it overwhelming. Neither inspired me to come up with a pattern I really wanted to make. So they sat. And sat.

I signed up to do Curves Class and then realised I had no money to buy new fabrics for the projects. I had to rely on my stash and whatever old sheets and fabrics I had lying around my parent's house. Thankfully, I have been buying fabrics since I was a teenager and hoarding them. Way before I started sewing or quilting. But this is I think the greatest revelation of Curves Class to me. (Well, it's on a par with overcoming my fear of curves and discovering how much fun improv piecing is - seriously! Why have I not been doing this already???) Yeah, the other greatest revelation: This quilt was living in my stash AND I HAD NO IDEA!

The backing is Turtle Bay from Prince Charming by Tula Pink. I have tonnes of this for some reason...

It begs the question - what else is living in my stash?? How do I get the vision to see the possibilities?? It's exciting and overwhelming!

This quilt finished at 38" square. The binding is the remaining charms cut into 2.5" strips. I successfully attached the binding using a combination of Rachel's zig-zag binding tutorial and Canoe Ridge Creations' double fold binding tutorial. I had tried before and failed miserably, so yay!! I can only continue to improve now I have the technique right.

I have no one to give this to, and no baby of my own to put it aside for. I will keep it though and eventually I'll find the perfect recipient for it. I'm not finished stroking it and looking at it just yet anyway!

I'm off now to try and finish up the Orange Peel Cushion for Curves Class. Then it's onwards to various horribly delayed BOM blocks over the weekend. That may be wishful thinking, but maybe by this time next week I'll have them done :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Linking up to TGIFF at Gingersnaps Quilts this week.

And to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

Work in Progress - Farmer's Wife Quilt

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today!

When I hurt my back again last Friday I was facing a weekend of restricted movement and lots of lying on my back. It turns out there's only so much internet surfing you can do before madness begins to set in, so I turned to my started in mid-January but utterly ignored ever since then project - Farmer's Wife Blocks!! I'm paper piecing them as a slow-as-you-like evening and travel project over the next year (at least, I reckon).

First up is the only one I had already completed!

Autumn Tints in The Sweetest Thing by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake

I decided that I would make the first five blocks exclusively from the five charm packs I have set aside for this quilt. The white solid in there is Kona Snow.

Attic Window in Flutter by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake

I have learned that when handstitching on your back, the thread will tickle your nose unmercilessly!

Basket Weave in Odds and Ends by Julie Comstock for Moda

I wasn't sure how all these charm packs would play together, but I'm starting to feel better about it. Even though I have yet to mix them in the one block. I am actually a bit surprised at how much I like these blocks all together, you'll see I'm putting a joint picture in at the end! But first:

Basket in Hello Luscious by BasicGrey for Moda

As you can see I haven't appliqued on the handle for the basket. I'm not sure I will. I'd have to piece it together from scraps of the charms and then applique it. It sounds like a lot of effort right now, but maybe next year when I'm putting the whole thing together it'll sound like a doddle...

Bat Wing in California Girl by Fig Tree for Moda

I do not get this block. It doesn't look anything like a bat to me. I accept it though, as I accept this next one because maybe this is knowledge that comes with piecing quilts for a lot longer than a year!???

Big Dipper, not a mix, but I have separated out all the charm packs into their colours so I no longer no for sure!

Here they all are together. I decided to try out this alternating on point and square layout after seeing this quilt yesterday by Bella Lou - it's stunning!!

The pretties - totally motivating me to keep going :)

Here's my next block. There are forty different pieces and it took me all of yesterday to cover the paper shapes! I think it will take till tomorrow to get it all sewn together.

Finally, Robert (our postman) dropped these in my door as I was writing this and I just had to share! I bought the Blossom Heart Quilts Japanese Bundle Club for February and it just arrived!!! The second link will bring you to the March bundle club page - I think I'll have to get that one too :)

The theme this month was Sewing!!

And the parcel came stuck together with the cutest tape EVER!

Ok, that's it! I'm off to settle my US taxes (also brought today by Robert) and to tackle those forty triangles, or in reality, I'm off to buy the March Japanese Bundle from Alyce and to pet my new Japanese sewing fabrics :)

Hope you all have a good Wednesday!

xx

blergh

I've been missing in action from the internet this last week or more. I had my driving test this last Wednesday and everything went out the window while I practised and dealt with the nerves. Despite crying at my instructor the hour before (slightly mortified by that), I passed. Woop!!

In the last couple of weeks I've also managed to sort out my visa for getting back to the US and Paul! So despite the insanity of January, it really has all been worth it. But I've been dying for it all to calm down. So I can sew. Get moving. Start producing. Get my head back above water, which I've barely been managing to doggy paddle through.

Today was supposed to be my first day of uninterrupted sewing and planning and blogging. Back into what I've been missing! But instead, I've done my back in again :( Physio says no doing anything that causes pain (that's everything right now). So instead I try to find a non-pain position and stay there until the pain comes back, and I find a new one. This makes working on the laptop ok in very small bursts. It makes driving, sewing, cutting fabric, tidying, almost anything else... totally impossible. Grrrr argh!

I can however, check in. Say hi. I haven't fallen off the planet. And show you some stuff I did manage to do pre-driving madness and now back-crap.

This is as far as I've managed to get with Curves Class.

Supposed Front - initially my favourite side.

Back!

It's a drunkard's path pot-holder, made form part of a charm pack of Good Fortune from Moda. The curved path was actually quite easy with Rachel's tutorials. The binding is where the disaster happened. I tried to do the zig-zag machine binding on Rachel's site, but I went wrong. Very wrong. I've been trying to figure it out at the back of my head, but it wasn't until I saw this tutorial today on Canoe Ridge Creations that I realised where it all fell down. I didn't realise you had to double the binding to start with, and I didn't get the join of the two ends of binding at all right! I should probably rip it out and do it again, but it was supposed to be a learning project, and it is happily living as a mug rug by the laptop now, so I'm going to leave it and just do better next time!

Next up was an orange peel cushion. I chose my fabrics, and cut out the non-peel central shapes, but that was it. I am dying to make it though, the fabrics are gorgeous - a combination of the QuiltCon solids, a tiny bit of Salt Air and some Floressence (Fragrant Corsage in Snow).

See!!?

I finally have caught up with the Sew Solid Crew Stash Club! I have eight x and + blocks made now, and waiting for February's orange to arrive to add another four! I love them.

The background is Dictionary Sewing Guide in cream and concrete from Mama Said Sew.

I'm off to lie down on the ground again. But I'll leave you with a phone picture of the sunset this evening as I came home from the physio :) The only February picture on here!

I'm linking up with the Small Blog Meet at Lily's Quilts!