WIP Wednesday: the one with the New York Beauty!

It's been a blocky kind of week. And still rather crazy busy.

On the personal front, it was my birthday on Monday and I...didn't celebrate it. :) Not for fear of age or growing old; mostly for lack of time, space, or inclination. Actual party-ish and gift-ish things will mostly happen on Saturday with the family, although I 'celebrated' with a donut of Evil and some Lindt hot chocolate:

Not as good as home-made cake, but we suffer as we must!

And my lovely friend Jenn gave me these rainbow-chicken cloth baskets as a birthday gift!

Aren't they beautiful? Handmade! And useful! They're going to be pin containers and scrap baskets and all kinds of useful and helpful things in my new sewing space:

Yes, it's still a mess. Yes, it's less than optimal space usage. Yes, that's a Barbie doll in a pink bikini on the railing. (I've had her, oh, 15 years now, and still haven't gotten around to making her something more covering. Poor girl must be stone frozen by now.)

But see out that window? See how clear the yard is? WE GOT RID OF THE JUNK! No more old cabinets, old oven, old stove, old sink hanging around, messing up the space. But clean yard! (Until the trees leaf all over it again, but nobody could stop that.)

And there'll be more rearranging and sorting and working out come Saturday when the parentals are coming around for a day of organising. :)

Finished!
New York Beauty
The original plan for the NYB was to do a full set of blocks, only I didn't end up liking the fabric or colour choices I made.

So I planned to finish all the ones I already had cut and ready to make and put together a mini quilt/table-runner/wall-hanging/thingamawhatsis.

Block 7:

(too dark on the 'inside curve')

Block 8:

(not so sure about the blue spikes with the blue background)

And that makes 6 blocks (only 5 individual blocks of the NYB 10 block collection):

I'm saying it's 'finished', because, well, I did what I set out to do, right? Only, I'm not sure it's what I actually want. Wall hanging? Bench runner? Cat mat? Bother the choices!

The Snowflake Block
My project of sekrit sekritiveness!

This block was originally designed by Madame Parfait who does the most ah-may-zing blocks. She called it the "Rainbow Blossom" block and posted pictures back in October last year, promising a tutorial on how to make it, although she hasn't updated with the tutorial yet. Hopefully everything's okay in her world. Anyone know? She’s been quiet for a while.

In the meantime, I'm putting a tutorial together at the behest of Penny Poppleton, quilter, mum, friend, and evil enabler extraordinaire! Currently, the process involves strip piecing, and a need for really accurate seams. (My seams are most commonly describable as 'inexact'.)

Tutorial coming later this week. (I promise!)

WIP

Snowflake Block tutorial
I'm halfway through putting together a tutorial for this - I just haven't had the time to focus my attention on it. Also: I will need to run it past at least one 'recipe tester' to make sure that my instructions make sense to 'people who aren't me'.

I think I'll have to divide the tutorial up into three sections: strip-piecing, assembling the panels, assembling the block.

First part to be posted tomorrow, and then the second section hopefully on Monday.

Mum's Impstar!
Finally started sewing the binding!

It's coming, Mum!

Waiting In Line For Something To Happen

Le Petit Poulet
- still in blocks

Go Back To The Jungle, Turn The Quilt Around
- still waiting for binding
- I picked out the binding fabric, though!

Build Me Up Buttercup
- still waiting on borders
- Penny Poppleton handed me a bunch of extra Sanae to put a border on it, but I think I have to wait until I work out what fabric I already have...

What have you been working on this week? There's a Linky Party over at Freshly Pieced, with lots of lovely lovely WIPs!