Holy moly, I didn't realize WiP Wednesday was back! HOORAY!
I feel so much BETTER now with a pretty brown button...
...helping to keep me accountable!
So the big news is that I'm going on a HOLIDAY! Hooray, hooray, hooray! We're going to a little-known country called...AMERICA! Haha. I'm going back to visit my best friend and her two kids (her little boy I haven't even MET yet!) and then I'm going to my mother's birthday party. It is her 50th and even though we'd planned to go to the US in March or April once I recalled that this birthday was an important one, I rang her up to ask if she'd like us to visit. Of course she said YES!
Me being me means I want to get everything done before we go. Haha. Well. We'll see.
So what have I been up to, you ask?
ALL of these have been quilted and just need binding!
Super fun trying out stippling for the first time. I love quilting with Beryl. It's such a superior machine and it runs like a dreamboat. I have had so much fun with my BSR. I also began quilting pebbles but I think I am way too impatient to do those well. I'll post a picture when I finish that quilt.
On the eve of the new year, we watched Return of the King, and I sewed garden fence blocks. At last count I had 19/49 done. Well, I finished the last one at five minutes to midnight, just as Frodo got on the ship to Valinor. (Not a moment too soon. Frodo is SUPER ANNOYING. Sam's the man.) But I digress. I finished the blocks! I have 50 absolutely gorgeous garden fence blocks that just need arranging and sashing. I finished squaring them off the first day of the new year. So beautiful.
I have also begun saving all my stringy scraps for filling soft toys. It's so much nicer than hobbyfill and it gives me the incentive to square my blocks. Otherwise I would be lazy and sew them as-is. So naughty.
I have a few other quilts that need to be put together, but these don't need sashing. Some afternoon I'll get to them, I swear...!
The Downtown Dots, Sophie Makes Tracks, and two large patchwork square quilts (one with my collection of linen/cotton blends!). Gotta get those doneskies.
But, circling back to my US holiday...I'm going for my mom's birthday. I love my mom, and even though we didn't always see eye-to-eye as I was growing up, I appreciate that she was stressed, stretched, and struggling. I was a difficult teen at the same time her father was diagnosed with cancer, her house was being remodeled, and my family was adopting a child! As a mother now, I appreciate all the care and love that went into raising me, and I wanted to do something extra-nice for her. We're not really sentimental people so I decided to stick to what I'm good at and make her something she can use but that is beautiful. She loves roses and the color pink, but the test blocks I'd done before didn't seem to work. I stuck with my original rose print fabric and had a long think.
Then, a pattern from Scrap-Basket Sensations leapt out at me. I knew just what to do, and it required Kona solids. I had some brown on hand and dashed off to buy the rest of the colors I needed.
In addition to the deep brown I had and the rose print I'm basing the quilt around, I picked up Kona solids in Celery, Deep Rose, Melon, Pink, and Ice Peach.
Then I began cutting. It only took one evening to get them all cut out.
(Don't you love the urgent kikki.K sticky notes? No procrastinating for me!)
Then, while watching the first episodes of the Dr Who reboot from 2005 (I'd never seen it before), I sewed. I sewed and sewed and sewed.
Split units, and more split units.
Which were trimmed, pressed, and sewn together into roses....
(Never mind the baby toy. Piper was helping me sew.)
The roses then became blocks. I always make one, square it up, and hang it on the wall as a reference. As soon as I made this one, I LOVED it. I'm going to be pressed for time, but I'm so glad I waited to get this quilt RIGHT.
So, WiP Wednesday is a BIG one, because after HOUSE MADNESS, I began sewing with a vengeance. Time to get back to it, though...after a long bath with some calming, fragrant bath oil! I might take my frantic little one with me. She is super hyped up after a fun day with her cousins today. Claudia and Stephanie are going to England for a gap year between high school and uni and they stopped in to meet Piper today. I'll close with a photo of the twins, all grown up, ready for adventures! Good luck, girls! They have grown into such beautiful, articulate, intelligent young women and I am excited to see how their adventures progress!
Cheers for the new year and new adventures!
Until next time... xx