Sunday Stitching & Haberdashery / Yardage Woes

Considering how much I love wearing my hen night dress and how much I enjoy a quick rewarding sewing fix, I decided to give the Jamie dress pattern another go. Out came the pins for a few more alterations. Sides, armholes, back..

After manipulating the pattern pieces accordingly I spent yesterday afternoon cutting and sewing. This morning I attached the skirt and wanted to insert the zipper when I realised that even though I'd bought a zipper in the perfect shade, alas, it was a regular one. I prefer to use invisible zippers for clothing. I'm not a fan of exposed ones, even slightly. So at 10 a.m. I had to put my pretty away unfinished. Sob.

Not one short of projects I didn't grumble for long, though, and out came the Echo strips for some (tedious) layout fun on our bed.

I really really like this layout of alternating wide and narrow strips. Alas, I don't have enough wide strips to make it perfectly symmetrical! I'd need another 4'' WOF or a fat quarter of seven prints to achieve that. And you know it's pretty much impossible to get hold of. Let alone all in one place, quick and cheap.. which a quick google search only confirmed..

Argh. Now, am I biting the bullet and keep it like this with five rows wide and narrow each? Or do I cut one column of wide strips into two narrow ones (marginally narrower than the actual narrow column) to frame the whole quilt? Or do I add a row of scrappy vertical strips to the right hand side of the quilt? I can't just scrap a wide row because I need the overall width. Argh, zum Mäusemelken..

I've decided to not let this annoy me too much right now and will start stitching anyway. It'll all fall into place eventually. Somehow.

Happy Sunday and happy sewing!

Back in the Game

I'm still taking it slow but the love sewing machine and I have been reunited which has resulted in this baby - a finished baby quilt top for the nephew. Do I have to give it away? Haha, no worries. I will. Just too happy how this is turning out.

It's also the return of the living room door as a backdrop. With a twist. The doors in our new flat have glass panels which, at least for this picture, is kind of cool.

Up in the air.

Meagre attempt at playing artsy.

I'm making progress on the owl front on the back of the Red Riding cushion cover as well. Another thing that will be hard to part with.

I'm off - I've got another date with my love sewing machine once I've cut into 2.5 m of fashion fabric (the blue floral print in this post) and 1 m of light blue cotton lawn. If all goes well I can swirl around in another summer dress of my own making after the weekend. Depending on the weather just as much as my perseverance.

Happy sewing and a wonderful weekend to you all!

More Needlework Whilst Convalescing

Thanks for your kind well wishes. You're all so lovely to spare a moment for me!

The cold symptoms are pretty much gone, the bed rest is and has been more about, well, resting. I was very lightheaded and nauseous on Monday which got me the extra round of downtime. I've been getting better since with all that sleep and no nothing but today I got half an hour in the park with my nephew and sister to get my blood pressure going a little. (He's still cute as a button!) Afterwards I was knackered and had a proper midday snooze but it was a very welcome change and more importantly needed. Can't risk a cold start on Monday but need to ease into being up full time again.

Well, enough with the whine and onto the interesting bit. Tada!

I've taken up working on the Red Riding cushion cover again. Can't believe how long I've been stalling this but somewhere along making plans for the hand quilting and deciding on an owl I'd hit a creative wall that I tore down yesterday. I'm using this as a guide. Whoop, getting all excited about this project again.

Happy sewing!

W.i.P. - Sickbay Edition

Summer flu got the better of me. I've been on bed rest since last Friday and am until this Friday. Boo. I'd really prefer to be at work and after spending the weekend reading the Hunger Games trilogy I'm now pretty much bored senseless. Thankfully my hexie tin still had something to offer my idle hands and the EPP parallelograms - stalled for what not only feels like but pretty much is forever - have also been allowed out to play.

Well, apparently June isn't up to being a month for finishes and doesn't offer a lot of interest for blogging. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for July, though. With that impressive list of ongoing projects it's definitely got a ton of potential..

Stats

Finishes - 0

Ongoing Projects - 8
Anniversary quilt - first steps taken
Fish & HSTs
square baby quilt
Red Riding - erm, yeah...
Grecian Waters/Emerald HST quilt - finished the top! - still pinching pennies for batting
EPP hexies
EPP parallelograms/stars
cushion cover for the husband

Stalled Projects - 0

Planning Stage - 3
Summer dress 1 - have decided to make another Jamie dress with a few tweaks to improve the fit even more and switch up the look slightly
Summer dress 2 - still waiting for the Darling Ranges pattern to arrive
Skirt

Happy sewing!

Impressions

Thank you for all the kind words and congratulations on the birth of my nephew. I've seen him two more times now and I'm absolutely lovestruck. This is just a short hello with two shots of what I've been working on today so far.

Finished the centre block for my nephew's baby quilt. Read all about it here.

Also, some more paper piecing. Finally started on that pillow cover for my husband that should've been made for his birthday a month ago...  Don't fear, he got something else he enjoys a lot.

Well, I'm off again for more sewing. So nice to have a whole day all to myself and be sewing again.

Happy sewing!

Don't Sew Tired

Wednesday evening I tried to sneak in some much needed sewing. Needed to relax and needed to make progress with my nephew's quilt. My body was willing but my mind was a little absent. See what I did there? Such a rookie mistake and noticed after having sewn all around the blocks. Don't sew when tired.

No, seriously. Don't. Or you'll make the same mistake again when trying to fix it!

In the end I cut along the lines of tiny stitches and made use of the resulting scraps. Thankfully it all worked out. I'm running short on the Seaside print and time to reorder.

After ironing them and trimming off dog ears I called it a day and fell asleep over some sitcoms on the telly. I'd planned to sew them into a block with my paper pieced "N" on the following evening. And didn't. Because I paid a visit at the hospital.

Yep, my gorgeous nephew totally ignored my quilt progress (or slight lack thereof) and entered the world on Thursday morning. He's beautiful and tiny and fits right into my arms. Did I mention he's beautiful? Off to see him again in a bit before a short trip home to visit the new grandparents with my husband.

We'll all drive back to Berlin on Sunday so they can meet the darling boy, too, and we'll have some precious family time. N's totally screwed up my short holiday plans - I'd planned to stay with my parents until Monday - but I can't be mad at him and I all I want to do now is lock myself in and sew away until I've finished this quilt. Which is exactly what I'll do on Sunday evening and Monday. With a little luck it could be done by the time he arrives home, probably Wednesday, because I'm off work Monday to Wednesday.

Happy weekend and happy sewing everybody!

N Is for Nephew and Love

Today I bit the bullet and made my first paper pieced something. An important something, too. Ready to be framed by HSTs. So proud, it's bordering on ridiculous. And Kristy, I think I can finally relate to your paper piecing craze and I'm finally ready to tackle what should've become my husband's birthday present. Now if only I'd find the time...

Yeah, technically the HSTs in my latest blocks have been paper pieced, too. But that didn't require any thinking or actual construction. And yeah, that wonderful "N" wasn't achieved instantly. My first attempt looked like this - had to make a better one to do the quilt justice in its neatness, tininess and cuteness. All of which will surely apply to my nephew, too. *wink* The perfect block above is 3,44'' square, the "N" only 1,77" square.

I've started sashing and assembling my blocks with cornerstones as well.

So much closer to finishing the top! Right, with that I'm off to prepare HSTs for the centre block before going out for some much needed dancing.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and happy sewing, friends!

Oh, and I can link up with Kristy's new Paper Piecing Party for the very first time, too! Whoop whoop!

W.i.P. - Slowly Getting There

Look at this friendly bunch!

Mike has been joined by Henry.

Thomas and Stephan are besties.

Toby is giving Swimmy II the tour.

And Phillip has found a brother in Swimmy.

Last week was busy with work on Saturday and this week is buzzing, too, with three days until well after 8 p.m. Still, I'm okay with where my projects are going. A whole lot of good ones in the work, some verging on being finished.

Stats

Finishes - 0

Ongoing Projects - 6
Anniversary quilt - first steps taken
Fish & HSTs
square baby quilt
Red Riding - erm, yeah...
Grecian Waters/Emerald HST quilt - finished the top! - still pinching pennies for batting
EPP hexies - should really work on these again sometime but my ride to work is a bus ride and I get car sick easily when focusing too much on anything

Stalled Projects - 1
EPP parallelograms/stars

Planning Stage - 4
cushion cover for the husband
Two summer dresses & a skirt - bought a dress pattern from a shop in Australia, now to wait for it's arrival

Happy sewing!

Sunday Stash

Today is a stash post and not a stash post. It's a post about actually working with the pretties you've been patting every so often and holding dearest. Yep, I finally cut into my most beloved stash - seven yard and three half yard cuts of the blue, green and grey Echo prints. Such an achievement and very satisfying, too.

It has taken me well a year and a half to do so because a) I love this fabric so much and b) because I'd early on set it aside to be used for a wedding quilt. Actually, not just a wedding quilt but our very own. Therefore, the pattern had to be perfect and I needed time to execute it. Quite the stumbling block. Alas, my wedding came and neither had the pattern turned up nor would I have had time for it. So I decided to make it an anniversary quilt instead and continue to look for the right pattern.

Well, with our first anniversary approaching fast in August, it was about time to realise that "the perfect pattern" doesn't exist and that a return to basics might be in order. Not least because the husband isn't into very busy or "weird" patterns... and anything can qualify as that. I joked the other day that he'd be happiest with a boring solid black something... So it's rectangles of different lengths.

It took all afternoon to achieve this bundle and some well-sorted scraps but I'm happy to have made the first step on the way to completion of a long-term project.

Yep, I threw out some of the fabrics I'd planned to use for the quilt but have kept the half yard of Secret Garden. Love is key, right?

Happy sewing!