Midweek Mod Squad [Restless Hands, Penny Patch]

Another week, another Midweek Sydney Mod Squad update!


Restless Hands Of Sel

Today, with the loosening of restrictions around visitors, I went around to a friend's place - leebee81 on Instagram - and we did some handsewing. I got five blocks sorted, cut, and glue-basted while there. Now they're all ready for stitching together, which I'll do during various meetings over the next couple of weeks...


And then I laid it out to see how it looked in the overall quilt colouring:


Penny Patch On The Roof

This week, I finished off sewing together the last of the Penny Patch On The Roof. They were originally to be for my cousins, but I decided on a different design for them instead. Which I still have to execute, preferably before the end of the year.

Layout in daylight:

Finished top by electric light:

Still don't have any idea what I'm going to do with these four quilts, but I'm sure I'll work something out...

I could gift them to my bible study group members this year? There are five 'households' who are regulars: J&N, D&D, R&K, A(&S), and L. If I do one more, then maybe I can gift one to each? Hm. I still have the fabric for one more...

Of course, that means I should make some for the group I had a couple of years ago: M, L, J, B, R, Y - most of whom are actually closer friends - but they'd have to be nice, simple ones that I can get done before the end of the year, not too complicated...

(Hm. I could maybe do Plaidish Quilts for them? Mix and mingle my scraps? Oy. Better start cutting!)


Soroptimist's Annual Raffle Quilt

My mother is at me to make the quilt for her group, which needs to be done by September, although she'll need pictures before then. I was thinking a plaidish quilt might work for that, too. Need to work out the palette/fabric collection, though...

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If you'd like to check out the tag on instagram, there should be a neat selection of work by the Sydney Mod Squad members!

Midweek Mod Squad [WIP Wednesday]

Let's see how long this goes for! I'm going to try posting a 'state of the WIP' regularly, even if it's just to say 'didn't do a single thing this week'.

My main sewing group is the Sydney Mod Squad, a bunch of women in their 30s and 40s in the northern part of Sydney who've become friends over sewing and quilting. Currently, we're doing zoom sewing meetings because of social distancing, but we're still enjoying ourselves and welcome the chance to talk with each other while working on our projects all at the same time.

I have been rather remiss about posting for a while, and I have many many WIPs over the last few years, but the three relevant to the moment:

Penny Patch On The Roof #3
Half sewn together now, have to sew the other half.
The Restless Hands Of Sel
Another few for Column #1: blue-purpoe, purple, purple-pink.

Mum's Alison Glass Bag
Sew Sweetness' Clydebank Tote in Alison Glass.

Possibly with a leather bottom and some leather sides, because the AG isn't sufficient for the bag...I'm still thinking this one through. How to connect everything. What colour leather I should use. How to sew the leather without completely wrecking everything else...

I've just done some cleaning of my sewing room, and have realised just how much fabric I have, and how little of it I've used. I have a whole box for Heather Ross, Tula Pink, Kate Spain, and a half-a-box of Cotton+Steel, two boxes of leather, and innumerable fabrics that I bought for clothes, most of which are very impractical right now as the weather cools. Not to mention the many bags of scraps that I have lying around and which need dealing with.

WIP Wednesday: the one with visible progress!

Visible progress! What a novel idea!

It's been a slightly busy week, what with the Mendocino Mermaids giveaway for Giveaway Week, and the Blogger's Quilt Festival (which I haven't entered because I don't think I've finished anything in an age and a half) and all those pretty pretty pictures from Quilt Market.

(I'd like a fat-eighth of everything Cotton + Steel is producing, kthx. Actually, I'd like a fat-quarter, but there are limits even to my fabric budget!

WIPs

Walkabout (the quilt formerly known as "Do You Know Where You're Going To?")

I've got a plan for this quilt regarding the layout and quilting - hence the name change. However I suspect my vision seriously outstrips my capabilities in this matter...I guess I'll find out when I start quilting this...


However, it's nice to see some visible progress! I've got everything laid out, and am filling in the spaces, block by block.

Once again, awful photography. It would probably help if I actually held the camera steady!


Mondrian's Nine-Patch

Yeah, nope.

Millefiori Passacaglia

So, I finally had that moment where I realised just exactly how crazy I was to be doing this project. You know? The moment when you look at how long it's taken you to do as much as you've done, and you think how much further there is yet to go? And you hit the panic button?


Yeah, that moment.

It's not as spectacular as the other ones I've seen being made, but I like the visibility of the geometric patterns, and the way the colours interact with the low-vols and the Kona Steel.



You can follow my progress at Instgram, my username is seldear over there.

Oh My!

Coming along! Decided to put it on point. Prepare for more bad photography:


Doesn't have quite the effect I was hoping for - the bigger prints end up blending into the background fabric. But it's pretty and bright and just what I need right now - something that doesn't take detailed thought.

And, of course, now that I've decided that it's going to be on point and that I need setting triangles, I can't find the background fabric. I'm pretty sure that I didn't cut it all up for this!

To Do

1. finish the 'Oh My!' top, book some time on a longarm and quilt it.

2. finish 'Walkabout' top, panic about how I'm going to quilt it.

3. get started on Mondrian's Nine-Patch.

So much to do, no time to do it all!

What have you been working on this week?

WIP Wednesday: the one with so many teeny tiny pieces!

WIPs

And again, work on the Passacaglia, and the Oh My! None on the Quilt Show Quilts.

But I have to start, because I got my acceptance letters and they have to be done and to the collection point by the start of July.


no movement

Do You Know Where You're Going To?: I've started drawing up layouts, working out which blocks need to go where to fill in the gaps. Exactly how I'm going to match it all up and get it flat I don't know.

And then there's the quilting.

I have a basic design in mind, but I'm going to need something considerably more detailed than that when I actually get around to it.

Mondrian's Nine-Patch: Six nine-patches a week and two on Sundays?

Millefiori Passacaglia

I got some of the colour schemes worked out:


Debating the rose-coloured circle again. I think I'll leave it - just this one rosette. It's the only 'complete' rosette in the quilt - Rosette 1, as Willyne calls it - the others are all part-rosettes in various ways, shapes and forms.



Two Rosette 2s, which aren't really needed until later in the piece - I'm going to try to make one 'corner' of the quilt for putting together, since I'm not sure how far the pieces are going to stretch - I only got the Partial Millefiori Pack from paperpieces.com, not the complete one.

Lots of centre stars and white pentagons needed. And star-points.

Oh, so many star-points.



Those thirty-two points were done during this morning's commute - 3x 10-minute blocks of travel.

You know, if I had all day to do this and I was focused enough - I could probably get this quilt done in a couple of months. But I don't, and I'm not.

Next year's Quilt Show is soon enough, I think.

Oh My!

Starting to sew the blocks together and iron them. I think I'll make several borders for this quilt - one in the background fabric, and one in the colours.


To Do

The Great Aussie Destash

Sold some on FB, but not as much as hoped. Australia Post is, unfortunately, prohibitively expensive, and I don't know if I can cut down the price.

Still destashing. Lots of fabric to go!


Will have to sit down, measure, label, catalogue, and photograph this lot. *sigh*

So I shouldn't be looking at the fabrics at my LQS sale, should I?


*sighs again*

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It's Mother's Day this weekend in Australia. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers reading this! (Australian or not. :D)