FNWF - May

I had a quiet FNWF - a bit pooped and mentally drained from a busy week, so I concentrated on crochet for a while and added the yellow/mustard to some red pieces I had made yesterday.

I bought the yarn from Aldi recently and planned the colours around the Australian Indigenous colours - the yellow should be brighter, but Aldi didn't oblige!

Next will come a band of black.

Then I did a bit of tracing onto freezer paper for some finger puppets that are in the pipeline.

Thanks Wendy & cyber friends for keeping me company.

 

RSC - January to April

I finally decided to join RSC 2022 in February.  I needed a simple - not too much work idea- so my plan is to make 9 blocks with each colour added each month, in varying sizes.  The end result will be a charity quilt.

For my regular readers - this is a catchup post so I can link to Angela's blog for the RSC posts, so don't feel obliged to comment.

April

March

January & February

I started RSC late so only one combined picture

FNSI ~ EWSI

Wendy's FNSI was declared an EWSI - and as I had hoped to get a bit of sewing done over my very long weekend - I thought it was perfect.
I don't work Thursdays so I had a 5-day break!!
 - No need to read all this - its just for my record & a bit of fun!


Thursday was a sewing day at home with a group of friends - we spent a bit of time talking about some charity quilts we are making and cutting and sorting of fabrics.

I also did some of the hand piecing for my Willowbrook quilt.

Thursday night, I prepared some 2.5" strips for a jelly roll race quilt.
At SS - a number of us are making quilts for  a Domestic Violence Shelter.
My bestie - Maureen was on a "destash" mission and had cut some of her balis into 2.5" strips and gave them to me.  The strips were a mixture of lengths - some half some more - somer whole width of fabric - so it was a bit of a gamble to see if they would work into a quilt of a decent size - We created 5 groups of about 55 strips and I added some pink/orange/green/blue stripey bali 2.5" squares to each bunch.
The first step was to match a square to a strip, ready to be sewn the next day.

Friday:
Another charity project was to use up some oriental squares I had collected over many years from membership of Logan’s Patchwork with some fabric recently collected for free.

These little piles are ready to be sewn into a quilt.

Then I got back to the jelly roll strips.

I added the squares to the end of each strip and made the long piece . . . then started the very long seam - one hour.  As you know, each seam after that one is quicker.
Considering the randomness of the lengths and fabrics - it has come up OK.

We will probably add some borders - when we have all the tops made.

Friday NIght - a bit of crochet as usual!

Then, I have a box I keep all the fabrics in for my ABC books - that stuff was all "messed up" - so I emptied the box - re-organised the fabrics, removed ones that won't get used in an ABC book, and then matched the pre-traced letters with the appropriate fabrics and ironed (glued) them.

Saturday 

Chooky organised a Zoom meeting - I trimmed the letters from Friday Night, cut some 1.5" strips into 6.5 and 8.5 pieces  . . .   and did a bit of cross stitch...

Then the "domestic Duties" took over.   😝

Saturday Night 
I prepared some sky pieces for the Sue Spargo Homegrown houses I am working on.  I'm trying to get a bit ahead - even though we are only doing one a month - sometimes even that is a challenge.
I don't think I've posted these before - this is #1, 2, 3 and 4, the back of #5 as it will be revealed at SS in May and the sky for #6.
I've prepped a few of the house & flower bits for #5 and 6.

Sunday
An early call to grandson Luka to wish him & the family - a Happy Easter.  We watched him playing ball, dancing, saw the huge egg he had helped to make and decorate with sprinkles and he opened his Easter present - a book.

Then off to DD2 for a big family breakfast and granddaughter Peyton time.

Sunday Afternoon - a bit of faffing around for the houses - cutting tiny circles from felt.

Sunday Night - a bit more crochet watching the square box.  Then into Susan's Sewing Space and worked on a section of My Small World that I started on a recent retreat.

Monday - finished off that part of section 4 - still the sky to go

The rest of the day - more sorting, organising - boring stuff . . .but feels good when it's done.

That will do for a very long post about EWSI for 2022.
Fabulous idea Wendy to extend FNSI.

Crochet Blocks - April

It was a very early handover this month as our SS meeting was on the second Sunday not the third - so a small stack this time...10

Hopefully next month will see a bigger stack!

Sent from my Galaxy

Retreat @ Esk

A group of like-minded sewing/craft people gathered at previously untested Twilight 2 Twilight Retreat @ Esk 25th - 28th March.
There were 6 of us - one was bestie Maureen, two were friends of hers who I have met a few times before, and two "new to me" girls.

Our organiser got us to volunteer for meal duties and of course, we all took extra  . .just in case . . . we took home a LOT of food...nevermind - it will work better next time . . .

I worked on a couple of things - but didn't take a lot of pictures.

Firstly I did a bit of cross stitch - to "ease" into it all!

Then I put this top together for grandbaby #3 - due in August - (a brother/sister to Grandchild #1).
They are not finding out what gender.

Fabrics are chosen by DD1.   We had a lot of "fun" conversing via Messenger while I was at Spotlight.  They are all Jocelyn Proust prints - except the grey of course.
The backing is also a Jocelyn Proust print.

Then I added a border to this - I bought the top minus borders from a friend - for the princely sum of $5.00.

Our Sunday Stitchers group is making a number of quilts to give to a Domestic Violence Shelter. I will ponder if I add one more border, then will think about the quilting . . . 

Then I moved on to My Small World - when was the last time I touched this one???????
Oh - back here - February 2021...

I enjoyed getting back into it - but it's not really a good "retreat" project.
Even though the sewing room is well set up - and very well lit!- it still isn't really big enough to spread it all out, and my small machine isn't as good when it comes to stitching a pinwheel block together.  Never mind some progress is good and I can re-stitch the odd seam - selecting the fabrics & cutting is the big bit!

We had some heavy rain while we were there and a blackout - short-lived, fortunately - and we had to carefully time loading the car when it was time to leave.  It wasn't too wet when I dropped Maureen home - but was bucketing by the time I got to my place - so all the gear stayed in the car overnight.

Overall a fun weekend - now we know how the place works, I'm sure things will go even better next time.

FNWF - April

Here we are again at Cheryll's - sewing, crafting, or just having fun.

It seems like it was only last week that I turned my calendar page over to March and now it's April!!!

I had planned to finish work on time (call it an early mark??) but it didn't happen. . . so the odd jobs I needed to do before I could sew, cut into my sewing time.

As usual, I started with some crochet - this yarn is thicker than 8 ply - so these blocks grow very quickly.

Then I thought I'd get my RSC out of the way - fortunately, I'd cut the strips last night so it was just some quick sewing to put them together.

I may trim some of them back a bit before next month so there is more variety in the sizes.

It's a bit of an odd combination yellow - then pink - but I guess it will all work out in the end.
And it's a nighttime picture - the pinks are brighter than this photo shows.

I will have to expand my design wall for next month!...or use the floor.

Happy weekend to all - hopefully not too much rain where you are and a mildish temperature - it's still "summer" here   😒  27 degrees.

Thanks Cheryll for keeping us on our toes!

Crochet Blocks

The March tally: (9)

House Table Runner

I've been thinking about a house-themed table runner for the hall stand in the entrance for a little while . . the thought just wandered around in my head - knowing one day a bolt would strike!  (so to speak) . . .and it did - chatting to my bestie about something else and bingo!   I remembered some blocks I stitched - a little while back...I looked back on my blog but couldn't find any reference to them . . .

But when I pulled out the box they were in - I saw a treasured piece of paper - 

So, I stitched these in 2013...then along the way, I collected some fabrics - from bestie!

I put 5 of them into a runner.


I will make a little hanging quilt from the 6th one - but need to wait until I have bought a mini quilt stand before I make it.

Great to have an old UFO done & dusted.

FNSI - March

Time to gather with cyber friends again.

I didn't start off with crochet for a change - I spent a bit of time threading in some ends on a runner - then the AFL started!  No further temptation was needed - a quick exit and onto the machine

I did some more quilting on the runner - then added the binding.

I am off on a retreat next weekend, so I cut the squares I plan on working on then.  Then I sourced some fabrics for cornerstones and packed it all away in a "kit".
Then I got out the pencil & paper to work out how big I want the sashings to be . . .I'll keep pondering that over the week.

Lovely to catch up with everyone via facebook - hope you had a productive night!
Thanks for organising us Wendy - despite your very busy schedule!

Taggies

There are a few friends (4) who are having new additions to the family - one happened to "like" the last taggie I made, so I offered to make her one, then there were a few more . . .and it's easier to make several at once rather than individually,
So here are the four.  Three are very similar as I was trying to use what I have for now . . .