Well I’m pleased to say I’m now up to date on one of my quilt-alongs! I’m doing three at the moment, I know, probably a bit excessive! One of them is just a 16″ block once a month, it’s organised by Pat Sloan and it’s called ‘My Secret Garden‘ I’m stitching mine in mainly purples and greens with a touch of creamy gold.

I’ve stitched two blocks in two evenings. I have to say the pieces seem ENORMOUS after Splendid Sampler ones, I’ve sort of got used to stitching 1.5″ squares and 2″ squares, to start cutting 5″ squares is quite a change!!

One of the blocks involved making twelve pin wheels, my heart does still sink a bit when I read cut 24 squares, I rather like just doing small quantities! My quilting has improved a lot since I started Splendid Sampler, I’ve learnt such a lot, all my pinwheel seams are furled and I’m pretty pleased with the result, they all lie nice and flat at the centre.

The second block was a double star, I rather fancy making a star quilt next time with lots of different star blocks, especially now my points have improved!

I wasn’t sure about my colour and pattern choices at first with these two blocks, I felt the first block was too dark in the middle and the second one was a bit too bitty and too purple!

I’ve made six blocks now out of nine, so I put them all together and actually I think they look ok. It was a useful exersize arranging them like this as I can see I need to use a bit of cream and more green in the next ones to help balance it out.

The second BOM I’m stitching is called Andersons Farm by Lynette Anderson. This is the one I really didn’t want to fall behind one as for one thing, it’s the only one I’m actually buying, the others are free. I was feeling a bit despondent about this one, I was struggling with month two and three and four had already arrived. One thing I have noticed with this one is that I’m really missing the one-line camaraderie of the other two, everyone encourages each other, if anyone has a problems with one there’s lots of people to help, it’s even just reassuring to know you’re not the only one! I really feel on my own with Anderson’s Farm, coupled with that the instructions are not particularly comprehensive…

Month two was a cockerel done with applique, as you can imagine his tail feathers, feet, beak etc were all rather fiddly, I was trying to do it using the needle-turn technique so a narrow hem is turned under each piece as you stitch round. I spent hours trying to get it neat! I love the effect of ‘proper’ applique and I really wanted to do this properly…well I tried…

I just wasn’t happy with it and I still had the comb to do! After much deliberating I’ve decided to use bondaweb and blanket-stitch, I like the effect when I’ve used it in the Splendid Sampler and it’s not like this one’s going to get washed regularly.

I started on month three to see how it went. Two little pigs and a tractor, in two short evenings it was finished. I’ll go back and redo the cockerel with bondaweb at some point but I’m happier with it. It’s one of the situations when it’s better to finish in a different way than not at all!

Fabric Stash Report; May 2016

I’m getting this one in quick before parcels start arriving! I’ve made a couple of outfits from my stash with my Little Sewing Bee so…

Stash at end of April   83.9m

Fabric used    4.5m

Fabric bought    0m

End of month total   79.4m

Unfortunately I made the mistake of looking on ebay at vintage silk saris…I’ve got three coming, so that’s about 15m of silk…oh and I’m off to Goldhawk Road in a couple of weeks time to hit the fabric shops…oh and there’s the 1.5m of Avoca Donegal tweed I bought from a Fabworks stall at an Embroiderers Guild event! I had to laugh as the assistant got me sussed immediately, she gave me a free roll of sewing tape with a quote from Oscar Wilde…

“I can resist everything except temptation”

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and Super Mom No Cape for Vintage Embroidery Monday, why not have a look what every one else is hand-stitching.