WIP: of finishes and french-named fabrics

FINISHED! HALLELUJAH!

My two Books And Blocks Bee blocks for May and June!

Pinwheel block for KelleighZ

cathedral Windows block for Ylrbmk

They'll be sent out on Thursday when I get to the Post Office.

In Progress

Le Petit Poulet

I'm doing a lot of cutting these days!

For the quilt I have in mind, I'll need to dig into the stash: here's hoping I can find some colours that match nicely!

And that's all I got done this week. I was hoping to bind Mum's Impstar, finish off the New York Beauty blocks, and do 6 blocks of Build Me Up Buttercup a night, but life intervened (as it so often does).

Maybe those can be the goals for this coming week! I'm planning to stay in and sew on Friday night...

Linky Party | Freshly Pieced

Go Forth And Peruse!

Fabric Friday

(a.k.a. "As God Is My Witness, I Never Bought All That Fabric")

Forgive me, Fabric Frugality, for I have sinned...

I blame The Intrepid Thread and their lovely half-yard bundle of Rhapsodia...

Half yards! Of Rhapsodia!

Of course, it might not have been so bad if I’d stopped there...and not bought the ‘Rhapsodia Plus’ package – the one with the half-yard bundle of the complete Rhapsodia collection...with a half-yard bundle of matching fabrics to go with it...

And I blame the Fat Quarter Shop and their sale page. Those Ooh La La fat quarter bundles reduced were more than I could resist...

Don't ask me how much I purchased in their 9-year anniversary sale. Really. Just, don't. There may have been some Kate Spain in there. Just a little. Possibly. *coughs*

And then there was the sale at Craft Depot:

It wasn't a big purchase...just a few half-metres of generic fabric with a few namebrands in there...

But then there were the purchases from the Sydney Craft And Quilt Fair, including the Cuzco and Salt Air layer cakes:

The Saffron Craig half-yards:

And the Reece Scannell layer cake packs:

I have several FQs of Reece Scannell already - but these were mini layer cakes - a rainbow range of colours! So beautiful!

Uh, and I'm still waiting for some stuff to arrive. I bought a FQ bundle of Rooftop Garden from Burgundy Buttons...

I think I may be going just a little fabric-crazy now that I have a job after being out of cash for nearly a year. I can purchase this! There's budget for it! (Well, maybe not budget...)

At any rate, with all this fabric in the house, I guess it's going to be a very busy winter of making quilts. I might set a goal to have completed four tops by the end of August - specifically before my local quilting group meets on the 1st September, before spring allegedly arrives and my garden begins to require attention...

WIP Wednesday: Bee Blocks And Shot Cottons

Still not much progress to report. My dad flew in from HK on Thursday, and my schedule was pretty busy even before that.

Inching Along
Books And Blocks Bee

For Kelleigh Z, May's Pinwheel block:

Due to not thinking things through, I've run out of Kona Ash for the borders. Once I get the centre sewn together and stuck on, it'll go to Kelleigh, who'll add the borders herself. (So sorry about that!)

For Ylrbmk, June's Stone Cathedral block:

Never done a Cathedral Windows block before. It's not as difficult as I imagined, just fiddly!

I have my block for July all picked out - I just have to make it up to show people what I want!

Stuck In The Mud
Build Me Up Buttercup

Just haven't had time to sit down and sew the blocks together!

Mum's Impstar

Binding, binding, binding - so close and still so far! :(

New York Beauty

Okay, this has ground to a halt and I've come to a decision about it. I'm going to finish the blocks I've already cut and prepped, and they and the presently finished ones are going to turn into a mini-quilt.

This is mostly because of the Sydney Craft And Quilt Fair, at which I purchased...stash...

Saffron Craig half-yards:

Two layer cakes:

And these:

Reece Scannell cottons.

Which I am planning to make into a New York Beauty quilt, inspired by others in the New York Beauty Quilt Along, although primarily by Elizabeth Dackson of Don't Call Me Betsy with her NYB mini quilt (the one that's in the Summer Sewing Contest).

They're so preeeeetttyyyyy!

Just as soon as I can clear the decks...

...

...

...

...I may be some time...

Anyway, it's WIP Wednesday which means there's a linky party about, and other people's projects to admire!

Linky Party | Freshly Pieced | Go Forth And Peruse!

WIP Wednesday: The One That Will Leave You Humming

Having missed out on the linky-party last week, I find myself wondering if I should do a recap. Or maybe just send y'all along to last week's post...

Extremely little progress this week on the quilting front. I have a 10,000 minimum word story due tomorrow and spent most of the weekend writing (or, more correctly, failing to write) it. It's presently at 8,872 words and I should have time during lunch today to get them through the present confrontation, to the crisis, and the ending.

Oy, the life of a writer!

Further complicating things is the fact that it has rained all week and so my already-reduced quilting space (thanks to the kitchen renovations which are STILL ONGOING) is full of drying clothes. It's a bit tricky navigating your stash between drying racks.

The only thing I really did this week was start sewing together the blocks of a new quilt.

WIPs

Oh, My!

Take 1x Sanae Oh My! layer cake, 1x quilting book: Scrap-basket Sensations, and a heckuvalotta Kona Daffodil:

Cut:

Sew:

Admire:

I'm starting to call it "Build Me Up, Buttercup" because the Kona colour may be 'Daffodil', but there was a Big Damn Discussion about exactly which shade matched the Oh, My! collection during the planning stages, and the alternative was - you guessed it - Kona Buttercup. Which promptly stuck in my head. And yeah, it's building up the quilt, so...

Stop looking at me like that! This is how my brain works!

Someday, My Prints Will Come
1. Mum's Impstar binding
2. Hidden Harvest binding
3. Go Back To The Jungle binding
4. New York Beauty (I haven't given up on these)
5. May and June Bee Blocks
6. June Birthday Block

You've heard the phrase, "Some Days Never Come" right? *wince*

Incidentally, I apologise for the dodgy photography. As I noted, it's rained all week, and we're heading for midwinter here - long nights, short days. I'm not usually at home during the daylight hours and I don't (yet) have decent lighting in my quilting space. (Heck, I don't even really have a quilting space right now...)

I'm thinking about getting or making a lightbox. Maybe. :)

Oh, and this weekend is the Sydney Craft And Quilt Fair! I shall be venturing in on Saturday (along with every other quilter in the Sydney region and her best buddy) and hope that Jenn has scoped everywhere out already and knows the best places to go! :D

...I just realised that with the key words/phrases 'Buttercup' and 'Someday My Prints Will Come', maybe I should have called this post "The Princess Bride"...

*hums and boogies in her chair*

Linky Party | Freshly Pieced | Go Forth And Peruse!

Oh My! Build Me Up, Buttercup!

One layer cake of Sanae, bought at the Fabric Warehouse during a sale (or possibly a spree?) and almost certainly with the eeeeevil encouragement of my personal enabler, Jenn of Penny Poppleton.com.

One quilting book, Scrap-basket Sensations.

One simple block.

Lots of cutting.

Lots of sewing.

Lots of blocks!

And hopefully a lovely big quilt at the end!

WIP Whenever...

I didn't forget about this. I just didn't manage to get it done before the linky party finished!

finishes

For Everything Else, There's Mastercard

The Heirloom top is done! Unfortunately I don't have a decent picture of it finished...

But it looks lovely, doesn't it? Still deciding if it needs a contrast colour to ease the richness of those golds and purples. Maybe the binding?

WIPs

Mum's Impstar

I finally found a binding! Timeless Treasures' Legacy range - which, incidentally, is a gorgeous 'brocade' range - had all the colours I needed in the right shades for the quilt.

And so we bind! If I put some back into it, I can get it done and spread on their bed for Sunday night when they get home from a long weekend at Ayers Rock! Maybe. :)

Sanae Quilt

Cutting has begun, although I haven't sewn anything together yet. I just hope there's enough to make a decent-sized quilt out of it!

Lumiere de Noel

I've had the fabric for at least four years, and still haven't done anything with it. On Saturday, at quilting group, I bit the bullet, decided that I'd make a mess of HSTs out of it, and use the cream and beige backgrounds and the scarlet accents to develop structure and design in the quilt when I laid it all out.

They need ironing and sewing together.

The Usual Suspects
1. New York Beauty
2. Go Back To The Jungle, Turn The quilt Around - binding
3. Disappearing Harvest - binding

And probably several other things I've forgotten about.

I have a long weekend in Australia (Queen's Birthday weekend) so I will be using some of that to go check out the linky party at Freshly Pieced!

Star Wars fabric collection: a small rant

So far as I can see, there's no Princess Leia in the Star Wars collection. At all.

No. Princess. Leia.

I am a fan of Star Wars and I WANT SOME PRINCESS LEIA IN MY STAR WARS FABRIC.

If it wasn't for Leia, would any of Star Wars have happened? No! Would Luke have ever gotten off Tattooine without Leia's "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi - you're my only hope"? Would Han have decided that there were things worth standing and fighting for instead of walking away from everything if Leia hadn't challenged him, intrigued him, attracted him? Would Jabba have been as satisfyingly dead if not for Leia strangling him in the sail barge? Would Luke have defeated Vader if not for that fury he felt at the thought of Vader and the Emperor corrupting his beloved friend and sister? Would the New Republic have risen as fast and powerfully as it had if not for the young Senator of lost Alderaan at its head?

Lemme hear your HELL NO!

So why why why why why have they cut Leia out of the fabric collection? Because Star Wars and sci fi, imagination and fantasy, heroism and adventure shouldn't include girls, lest the boys get icky girl germs?

I don't even have words for how intrinsically WRONG that is.