My First Cushion

Amazingly enough, I have never made a cushion until now. I wanted to make something for Helena, the daughter of one of my oldest friends, especially as I have not finished her quilt yet. So I put on my thinking hat ( shades of Harry Potter here) and decided on a cushion.

 

 

I found this pattern and followed it fairly closely. I had some of the Timeless Treasures skeleton fabric which I matched up with a low volume text print and a bright pink solid. The skeleton fabric also glows in the dark which appealed to the child in me. I made a simple flap back, as described in the pattern.

 

 

 

I even managed to match up the fabric!

 

 

I quilted it fairly simply  only on the skeleton and text fabrics, as I didn't have a suitable shade of thread for the pink solid.

 

 I haven't given it to her yet, but hope to visit soon.

 Lois ( Helena's mother ) and I met at medical school 38 years ago when she was 19 and I was 21. And now Helena has just started at the same medical school. I hope she has as good a time as we did.





Work in Progress Wednesday

It's been quite a while since my last post, so I fear this will be a long one. At last (yay!) the work has started on the house, though we still have not had the money from the insurance company (supposedly due to arrive within the next 2 weeks). The other good news is that the police have a suspect for our burglary .He is responsible for several burglaries in the area but they are waiting for the result of forensic tests to actually prosecute him. The police haven't said so but the local gossip says he has just got out of prison and embarked on a spree on his release.No sign of any of the stolen items though, as he is a 'professional'.

 

 

 

I've had 2 weekends when both my boys  (old and young) have been away, so I have been able to sew  all day long and I've managed to get a lot done. This was before I contracted a yucky bug that has kept me off work ( unheard of!) for 2 days.

 

Firstly, I finished all 42 blocks for Madlen's scrappy trip around the world.  I did another scrappy trip earlier in the year and had also done some bee blocks. Consequently, I had a lot of spare strips. So what's a girl to do but make her first scrap vomit!

 



 

 

The 'A' blocks were no problem, as I just used up my spare strips and managed 8 blocks just from the scraps. I then strip pieced the other 5 blocks. I had to make the 'B' blocks from scratch but decided to strip -piece them using Katie's tutorial. This calls for 22inch strips to give the necessary 12 blocks,but I already had loads of 18 inch strips and as it's meant to use up scraps I used them. It meant I had to cobble together a few more strips to get all 12 blocks.

 

 

This is destined to be a quilt for Lydia, one of my BF's daughters.

 

I have also finished most of this months Bee blocks really early!. First up, Siblings together:

 

 

 

Then a block for Amy for the Simply solids bee. She asked for a 15" impro block.

 





 

I also made her 2 blocks for Wonkyville.

 

 

 

I also  finished my blocks for Sam in the Star block quilting bee. This bee is now over , although 4 of the women have not sent me my blocks back even though my month as Queen Bee was March!

 

 

 

 

Mary chose the Economy I-spy block for Together@do.good stitches:

 

 

I had already decided to make a quilt using these blocks for a colleagues daughter, but I thought that 5 inch finished blocks were too small. Firstly, I worked out the necessary size of squares to make  a 9 inch (finished size) block:

 

 

but decided these were too big, so did the maths again to make a 6 inch ( finished size ) block:

 

 

I'm happy with these, so just need to make another 75 blocks!

 

I promised some time ago to make  a quilt for the 13 year old son of one of my oldest friends. Originally, I was going to make SewKindof wonderful's  Abacus pattern but after trying it out, I decided it was too hard. Instead, I have chosen a pattern from Amy Ellis's book Modern Neutrals. This is a very graphic pattern and well out of my 'normal' range, but I think it will look fab.

 

 

It's paper pieced but fairly simple, so I should be able to work steadily at it.

 

 I'm accumulating so many quilt tops that need finishing once the building work is all done. At the last count there were a whopping 7 tops all finished, 4 quilts which need more blocks (not including the 2 new ones I have started) and one Bee quilt where 50% of the blocks are such poor quality that I can't use them.  I haven't decided  what to do with those.

When the roof is back on, Mr Hare and I are going to have a long holiday. I'm really looking forward to it.