But I did put my quilt into the NSW Guild Quilt Show.
I have a bag of two quilts with binding ready to be sewn on. Then I have a airless/compression bag of quilts that still need binding.
Cousin M4 is going to be in town in August with his wife for their in-Australia wedding celebration, so I have until then to work out a quilt for them.
In the meantime, I have sewn two more stars for the Restless Hands quilt.
In the process of preparing for the windows being replaced, however, I have packed up almost every single piece of fabric that I own. All the boxes. All the fabrics. All of it. WHEW.
I have a lot more fabric than I remember, though! And am all the more determined to make things of them and give them away to people!
Therefore, in a rush to clear my sewing room, I finished up the Scrap-Filled Pouffle.
And then discovered I didn't have enough scraps for it...
I mean, who'd have ever thought that I didn't have enough scraps to fill it! Anyway, I added a cushion and a bunch of larger scraps and paddings to fill it out, and it's looking a little better:
Still not great, though!
With the windows due for replacement, pretty much all quilting is going on hold for the next month. I might have to do a really swift quilt of Surplus To Requirement in May, just to get it sufficiently done for the Quilt Show, and I would really like to edge the quilts that I have still waiting so it can all go out in the next few weeks.
One of the things the sorting/tidying/boxing thing is doing is getting me to go through stuff and sort it out - eg. the pouffle, which I've been intending to make for a couple of years now, but have only just done through necessity. But I have two boxes of fabric to be rid of and the struggle is going to be finding anyone to take it. Apparently people aren't buying right now.
I put this collection of scrap blocks up on the board, though, just to get something up there, because it was looking really blank when I did my TikTok videos.
The thing that I'm miffed about is that they didn't ask me for a description, so it just appeared as "homey quilt" instead of anything about the design and what I think of it. If I'd known they'd be printing something like that, I'd have put together a blurb:
We are not islands, nor wholly discrete individuals; we influence others and are influenced by them in turn, in ways both subtle and unsubtle. None of us knows the full dimensions of our influence upon others and the world around us, we can only be what we are and what we choose to be.
Anyway. Auction done, one more quilt off my hands, and - moreover - gone to a friend.
I did a lot of backings in the last week:
Oh so many backings! And then I cut a lot of batting - enough batting that I ran out of the half-roll I bought a couple of years ago! I bought it with another quilting friend, and we divided it into two. I think it was about 15m worth? Or thereabouts? But anyway, I used up my portion of it. I still have two quilts to find batting for, and am contemplating just going down to Spotlight and buying the polyester batting there. Not my first choice (cotton/bamboo batting, from a small Aussie-owned quilt show) but might be necessary for getting things done.
Tomorrow (Thursday), I'll go visit the quilter, pick up the quilts she's already done, hand over the ones that are yet undone. I'll also hand over a bunch of quilts that are finished to some friends who I promised them to a while ago. Except I look at them and think "they're not very pretty quilts", so I'm not entirely pleased about giving them to my friends. IDK. Do I offer them nicer-but-not-yet-finished ones? What do I do with these ones, then?
I think I'm going to offer them the nicer-but-not-yet-finished ones.
At some point, I'll need to sort and store the stuff in the sewing room so the windows guys can come and do their work. It's a neverending job, though, honestly; endless scraps upon scraps upon abandoned projects, upon heaven only knows what...
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Thing to definitely make before the windows change: the denim pouffle for scrap-stuffing.
I finished a quilt top: Surplus To Requirement:
It's made up of a bunch of leftover quilt blocks from the last ten years, with a fat quarter of 'filler fabric' and a bunch of random jelly roll strips.
I had so much trouble working out the layout, particularly because this is v2.0, and v1.0 was about half the size - the middle section. Then I found a whole lot more quilt blocks that could be used and then the issue of balancing the business, the design, the values, and the redistribution of the 'filler fabric' so it was all across the quilt and not just in the middle.
All things considered, I'm pretty happy with it. Going to put a backing on it, quilt it, and enter it into the Sydney Quilt Show.
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I made a bunch of backings for quilt tops, ready to go to my quilter, who hasn't heard from me since January. (Time just slips away.)
I still have backings to make for at least four quilt tops to get done this year, two quilts to quilt myself (can't hand them off to a quilter, they were one quilt that got sliced in half because I made the shift from GINORMOUS LARGE QUILTS to medium sized ones, and this one was too much of a monster to quilt myself, so I just kinda cut it in half and added a strip to the backing.
Do I quilt these two before or after I quilt the show quilt? Choices choices.
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I finally got a good pic of the Interconnected quilt I submitted for the quilt show in 2021:
It's going to an auction at the church trivia night on Sunday.
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The 100 Days Project (started 22nd Feb), IG Quilt Fest (March), Me Made March (instead of May, possibly warmer for us in the southern hemisphere)
100 Days Project: quilting every day? Sow at least one seam, if not several?
What if I committed to do one quilting thing a day, even if it's only sow a single seam? Obviously, some things need a little more than one seam to be finished. But I can do those things when I have time.
I kind of wish I'd started up the 100 Days Project on my Restless Hands quilt, which is going nowhere very rapidly.
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So I completed a dress during the week - the Tea House Dress by Sew House Seven - it took me two and a half years, if not more, but it's finally done. I think I won that pattern at a previous Frocktails (2018? 2019?) and I finished it in time for the Blue Mountains Frocktails 2023 event!
I think I'll make a few more of these, they're pretty comfortable and nice and light and casual. I wonder how good it would be in something a little softer and thicker, not quite a nightdress fleece.
I ended up wearing another Sicily Slip because it looked really good with my back tattoo.
The Blue Mountains Frocktails event was heaps of fun - great to meet fellow sewists, to sit and talk with a few people that I knew and got to know better, and also to better link names to faces...
Didn't win anything, but bought some fabric at Minerva's Bower on the way home.
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There's also this dress still to make – the pattern I won at the last Frocktails:
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Today, this afternoon, I'm going to sew together the striped binding for the last (couple of) quilt(s) that need binding for this collection. This year, I just really want to finish these quilts and get them out the door.
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I think I've worked out the balance of blocks for The Spare - a.k.a.”Harry of Windsor” which is entirely made up of the 'spare' blocks of various quilts that I've made through the years.
If I actually manage to finish it in time, it could go for the Sydney Quilt Show, perhaps?
It's made up of leftover blocks from a dozen quilts and more over the last ten years. If you go back through my quilts of 2012-2014, you'l more than likely see a few designs that match the blocks in the quilt.
The thing that I don't know: Is it a backing? Or is it a quilt?
What are your thoughts, both on the name, and on whether or not it's a quilt?
This year, my cousin M gets married, and I'd like to actually give him a quilt for a gift. This year, the friends from my bible studies who've been promised quilts for YEARS are finally going to get them. This year, I'm going to enter something in the Sydney Quilt Show (somehow). And I'm going to get quilts finished and bound right, left, and centre!
I am! I am! I am!
*sigh*
So, what we have right now on our plate:
Planned List:
- M's quilt
- Sydney Quilt Show Quilt (whatever that turns out to be)
- ALL THE COUSIN QUILTS
(Oh cripes that's a lot of quilts to make in addition to all the WIPs that I've got listed below. SSSSSHEEEEEESSSSSHHHHHHH)
WIP - in pieces
- scrappy trip around the world
- scrappy leftover block quilt
- plaid-ish quilt 2
- another cousin-quilt (finished top)
- Restless Hands Of Sel
WIP - to be backed
- scrappy postage stamp 2
- plaid-ish quilt
- birthday grandmother's puzzle quilt
- 2x rainbow curves
WIP - to be quilted
- two green quilts
WIP - to be bound
- scrappy postage stamp 1
- 2x penny patches
- 1x red & black diagonals
FINISHED: to be given away!
- rainbow interconnection
- 2x purple squares quilt
I gave away Universe Of Wonk to my hosts for New Year's Eve. So that's one less quilt that I need to deal with.
Look, I know I could give away quilts right left and centre and there would be plenty of friends who'd be lining up for them. But, whew, the difficulty of trying to be fair about it is REALLY TRICKSY.
Dear heavens, I have a lot of quilts. In progress, in pieces, planned, being quilted, being bound... I guess at least having the list means I have a good idea of what needs to be done, and possibly an inkling of how long it will take me. But ARGH.
2023, here we come!
