For the first quarter of the year, I've done almost nothing so far as quilting goes. I tried to make dresses, failed rather significantly, and then went on holiday.
When I came back, my focus was on my garden rather than on sewing things. My sewing group managed one in-person meeting before COVID-19 hit Australia and we went into 'social distancing' mode. But I wasn't doing much; I drew up a plan for the Sydney Quilt Show entry, and then it got delayed because of the coronavirus.
And then I started cleaning up my quilting room and all the bags sitting around full of stuff.
I started with some charm squares that have been sitting around forever. I bought them back in 2009 when I first began quilting and before I learned there were modern colours and styles and patterns.
The original plan was to cut each charm square into hexagons and then sew them together prettily. Let's just say it never happened, and as the years went on, my desire to work with this fabric faded. So when I dug it out, I was quite ready to be done with it. I just picked whatever I had and sewed it into rows. Luckily, I'd sorted more or less by colour, so the shading works okay.
Next up were silk squares that I got from a sample book that I found in my grandmother's house, stocked away after my grandfather died. My granmda died in 2011. My grandfather died in 1995. I found the squares and always planned to make something. Exactly what? I didn't know. I still don't. But I sewed them together anyway, so they're a single piece, instead of bits lying around.
Actually, I think I'd like to make a dress out of those silk samples. Or a top. It would look weird and patchy, and it would need to be lined, but...it would be kind of interesting, I think!
There's been a lot of 'oh what the heck, let's just do this' in my sewing (in case you hadn't guessed from the previous two). This one was based off a design I saw which just seemed really simple, worked well with directional prints, but could be done 'interesting'. And I had all these colourful charm squares sitting around doing nothing...
I signed up for a small craft swap among the Sydney Spoolettes where we exchange a sewn gift - you had your choice of three to make, and they matched requests with makes, so if you wanted to make, say, the potholder, then you could make the potholder for someone who wanted the potholder.
I signed up to make and receive
the Apertio pouch and just in case it didn't go right, I did a test run for a friend's 40th Birthday:
This is the pouch for sending out. I have to fill it with stuff and then send it. It's not going too far, just outside of the Sydney area.
It's a pretty neat and easy pouch to make; although I can't say I'm fond of how they decided to do the sewing the lining and outside together.
Then there were blocks I had leftover from other quilts I'd finished - you know, the ones that are made in excess, or the wrong style or not quite right? And they were just lying around, waiting to be sewn together. I have quite a lot of those.
This one is of leftovers from a quilt I made on commission for a friend to give to her daughter:
This one is leftover from the blocks and backings for 'Break Free or Build Upon?'
Speaking of which, I dug 'Break Free And Build Upon' and was thinking about cutting it in two, but I've entered it into the Sydney Quilt Show as a full size quilt, and my sister thinks it will go well on the sofa when it's done. So.
And now that I've sorted through a lot of stuff that was just left in bags, I'm having to look at my UFOs. I feel like I should make a list, but I'm scared that if I do, I'll never start becuase it'll just be too daunting. Then again, if I could do one block a day, that would be a good start. Just one block...
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It's not strictly the 2020 finish-along because I don't think I signed up for either Q1 or Q2 - too much happening at the time. But I'm getting the tops done. Of course, once I get the tops done, the matter of getting the backings done and the whole thing quilted rears its ugly head...
Ah well. We sew on.
