Weekly Sewing Report

I am feeling the strain of working on the intricate blocks every day so I am going to weekly reports for a while. I feel like I want to do things other than quilting.

I will do some work on my garden quilt this week. I need to do some appliqué edging.

Behind this block I have my doll clothes sewing ready to cut out and try a new design.

I also have a lovely tea towel that my daughter brought from Japan that I want to cut into two strips and hem. There is also a cute piece of fabric that I want to quilt as a table runner.

Lots to keep me busy and give me a break from piecing.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

The second bird went together much easier than the first. 

I now have the very piecey art blocks and flower blocks to do. This month is turning out to be a lot more fiddly than the first two.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

 Here is my first birdie. It was quite tricky to put together but it turned out almost exactly 6 1/2" square.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

The bird block has so many little pieces. It took me 15mins or so to get the right pieces out of the folder and get one lined up ready to sew. Oh well. Some progress is better than none.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

I've started doing other things in the morning before I sew and write and this morning we went to the shops as well. It's nearly 4pm so a bit later than I intended.

I have finished the second bird in the nest block.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

I thought I better get on with the blocks so I finished cutting out and made the first of two bird in the nest blocks. Yesterday went by the way with family staying.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

I finished the binding on the mini quilt this morning. I had to look up how to finish the ends of the binding again. I knew it was an ingenious method that I never would have thought of myself but I think it may be used in the quilting world. I know different people have different ways to finish their binding ends.

Here is my finished mini. Front...

...and back.

And here it is in one of the places I will use it. It will generally be a mat for my tea pots and coffee mugs on the side table or counter.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

 I took a break from the cutting out and made a mini from the same pattern book. I used scraps from the kits. to do the appliqué and I needed som brown from my stash for the tree.

It's 8" square. The other minis I made had a backing that was stitched around and turned right side out. This time I am using a face washer that is part of a pile I decluttered from my bathroom cupboard yesterday.

I spray basted the top onto the face washer and did some echo quilting.

I will be putting binding on this one tomorrow. The borders and binding are some fabric I had in a bag. There was just enough.

The toweling backing is great for putting teapots on my table.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

I'm not a fan of the cutting out. I managed 5 more fabrics from the list today. There are quite a few pieces that only need to be cut into one piece next so I guess another 2 days to get it done. I am only working for as long as I can concentrate on the measurements, which is about 40 mins or so. 

It is also surprisingly hard on the hands and shoulders because I don't use my muscles in just that way very often. The first kit that I cut out I did over 2 days and I couldn't work out why my shoulder blade was so sore. Then it dawned on me that it was the cutting out. It was actually my left shoulder that was sore because I was pushing down hard on the ruler to hold it still while I cut.

It's just the fabrics on the right that I did today.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

I missed a day but that's OK. I wore my amethyst bracelets the last few days and my pearl and pink opal bracelets. They give me such pleasure and they come with affirmations to make me feel good about myself. I love making my own bracelets and looking up what powers they are supposed to have.

I give myself permission to rest and re-energise.

I feel fulfilled and I am happy with my life.

I am in harmony with my personal power.

This morning I just cut the pieces to make the appliqué block and sewed it together.

This afternoon I attached all the appliqué pieces.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

 My table is ready to work but I just didn't feel like it today.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

 Just enough done to say I did something this morning.

I cut out only 3 different fabrics.

This week I picked up my quilting extras from the post office. I ordered them from the Quilting Bear.

I have a 12" rotating mat and a 6 1/2" square ruler.

I haven't used the rotating mat yet.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

Last Quarter in the Southern Hemisphere

Over the past few years I have been enable to link my energy levels to the phases of the moon. For the next 10 days or so I will have low energy. That is a fact that I have noticed over the years. I wondered why I seemed to go up and down all the time. I still don't know why exactly but my ups and downs coincide with the full moon and last quarter/new moon. 

I don't attribute any magic to the moon but my scientific side thinks it possible that some people are affected by the moon cycle since we evolved with the moon cycle as part of our environment. I consider myself to be a highly sensitive person so maybe that is why I feel the affect of the moon cycle.

Anyway, the result is I feel unfocused and a little fragile and more likely to make stupid mistakes. So I am going slow and only doing what I feel comfortable working on. When I have high energy I am likely to be overconfident and make reckless mistakes. I look forward to the in between times.

Today I finished the appliqué block for April and cut out the fussy cut house pieces from the May kit.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

Not much going on today. I didn't feel like I could focus on the free motion for the whole sky. I just did a bit of sky and around the flower and leaves. 

I spent a few minutes sorting out the fabrics ready for cutting out the next kit. I have found that cutting out all at once leaves my arms and shoulders a bit sore so I will spread it out over three days this time.

It's a bit hard to see but I have started doing loops that cross over. It's surprising how hard it is to make them cross when I am used to the style where you just wiggle around.

Cheers,

Val

Daily Quilting Report

 

Just some free motion quilting today. I did around the eggs and the bunnies and the house and butterfly. Then I did the grass.

I still have to do the sky and the plant.

You can see where I "fixed" the size with a strip on the side but I am confident it will not affect the look of my quilt.

I have now set up my machine to do my doll clothes sewing this afternoon. It is so freeing to have a set time for quilting and doll dressmaking. It means that my mind is not occupied with thoughts of having to sew every waking minute. 

I sew in my set times and other times I am thinking or planning or reading or just doing nothing. I never thought it would make such an impact on my day to have a creation routine. 

I love doing the patchwork and quilting and I love designing and making the doll clothes but they were consuming me and making me anxious without me realising. Scheduling my productive time seems counterintuitive for a creative free spirit! But as I said, it has helped to free up my mind for the creative thinking.

Cheers,

Val