ALQS4

I have cheated by doing the Snails trail by sewing onto gridded vilene - instead of the seminole method. My excuse is that I wanted accurate seams, I have to do sewn strips 1 cm wide to produce a narrow enough pattern strip to fit in with the other pattern strips.Left handed trimming!

Doh! I've sewn the strip on the wrong side!!

I have since unpicked it and sewn the 2 strips on.

Also I have sewn together the strips for the "syncopated piano keys".

I need to finish off the end of a couple of the pattern strips, but the main decisions to be made now is the placements of the pattern strips, and the choice of the strips inbetween.

I am off to London tomorrow to see the Quilt exhibition at the V&A and am returning quite late, so I won't have any time for sewing tomorrow.

This is not necessarily the final order. The size of the Quilt will be something like 17" x 20".

Doesn't this calf look so cuddly?

The Process Pledge

I was looking at my favourite blog list entries, I looked at Tallgrass Prairie Studio and she has a post about the process pledge. Well for those of you who read my blog you will know that I like to share the process and my progress - especially on the Quilts I do for swaps. So I just had to swear my allegiance and grab the button for my side bar.



Have a look at Tallgrass Prairie Studios blog, and The Process pledge, then all the other people who have signed up.

ALQS4

Friday night sew-in.

The spacing on this post has gone completely to pot. When I uploaded the pictures I did them to the side instead of in the middle and I can't get rid of the big spaces that show - you'll have to keep scrolling down.

Not an awful lot got done due to

a) bad back - I can't sit and machine for long

b) I got home and Andrew had started the barbeque, and it's been a long time since I have enjoyed sitting in the garden doing nothing much in particular. Usually I feel pressurised to be doing things.

But here is the progress I have made partly last night.

This is the seminole quilt I am working on. I am using ( mostly) strips left over from my log cabin quilt - they are 1 1/4" wide, but I have to add a few other fabrics in as I will need a few wider strips.

1. This pattern went together like a dream. It's about 17" long so I need to get the other strips the same.

2. Sews together OK but I thinkI will cut down the width of it as it may be too pale overall. I'll see as and when I've finished all the strips.

3. Not going together well at all. Despite pinning the pieces together I have repeatedly stitched them together wrong. Friday night unpicking more like! So I have unpicked them and will have to try again.

4. The construction of this one is like no.3, so is a potential problem too!

5. I've not done this pattern before. I'm a bit short of fabric so I've had to unpick a few pieces of this too in order to trim and re-sew. I don't have a photo of it - perhaps tomorrow.

So I have 5 strips on the go - I'll do a few more then together with the spacer strips I should have enough.

I took the boys out for a walk this evening as we must make the most of the lovely weather.

Here is a lovely Leicestershire Rape field.

ALQS4

Hmm, just frightened myself by looking at the Quilts on previous Quilt Swaps!
I am using up strips left over from my log cabin quilt.
I have started piecing - it's a seminole quilt I'm working on.
So I need to do some more then think whether it's good enough!

I have suffered all week with my bad back - no doubt due in the main to going to sewing last Saturday and sitting in the chair for so long. So far today it's been quite a lot better, but yesterday I rang the Chiropractor so I'm back there tomorrow. She'll be able to tell what I've been doing!

The weather has been good all week and the forecast for the weekend is promising. Well for my husband it promises torture as he is doing a sponsored run on Sunday - in the heat!. He did 2 miles last night and said it about killed him so I don't know how he'll do 7.

Last year we went up to Derbyshire and stayed at Grindleford. We went on a walk to Eyam. It was so hot we had to get the bus back. We would have rung for a taxi if there hadn't been a bus - it was that hot!. Oh boy did those children moan. Joseph did his usual trick of leaving something somewhere- in this case it was his top in the pub garden, and he only remembered just as the bus was due. Run Joseph!
Once we went to Paris and he left a toy Monkey hanging in a tree in the hotel. We rang the hotel and asked if they could make sure it still spoke English when they sent it back to us. I'm glad to report that it does.

This is the boys playing Conkers, but with Dandelions!

Last week 3 cows strayed from their field into the field that we jointly rent with neighbours to grow our veggies. Here is one of the ladies by our neighbours bean sticks!

and here you can see her rather lovely horns - I was the other side of the fence at this point. Fortunately they did not do any damage - they just nibbled a bit of grass.

Bluebells.

There are some more sweet little baby calves up on the top field.

Tchuka Ruma

I wrongly called the game that Liam was playing “Little Goat”. It is in fact “Tchuka Ruma” from Indonesia.
We have a wonderful book “More Mathematical Games and Activities from around the world” by Claudia Zaslavsky. So, Tchuka Ruma.

Draw yourself a row of 5 boxes. Label the last one Ruma.
1. Place 2 beans, counters or coins in each of the 4 blank squares.
Moves are made from left to right.
2.Pick up the counters from any square and drop them, one in each square, in the next few squares ( to the right), including the Ruma. This is called “sewing the seeds”.
If you drop a counter in Ruma and you still have any more counters go back to the first square and continue sewing. You need to plan your moves so that the last counter does not fall into an empty square.
3. After you have dropped the last seed, pick up all seeds in that last square and continue sewing as before. If you last seed falls on Ruma, you may pick up the seeds from any square and sew them. But if the last seed in your hand falls into a square that was empty, you lose the game. You win when all 8 seeds are in the ruma.

This is a game that is easy to play whilst sitting in cafes and the like, but I have to say we haven’t won this yet!

I went to sewing on Saturday, and I made up enough strips for 3 blocks of my Postage Stamp quilt. I am not making up blocks as yet - I am making up small blocks of 3 or 4 strips of squares. When I have enough I will sew them into blocks of 17 strips of squares. I'm doing this to ensure I get the prints spread evenly over all the blocks.

6 hours of sewing wasn't good for my back - the constant sitting gives me pain over my hip and the the top of my right leg. I need to make sure I do all those leg stretches I'm supossed to be doing.

Today I went to pick up Josephs new bed, and then after he had done his homework we made it up - then we carried on and tidied up the rest of his bedroom. It looks wonderful, and he has his bright Batik quilt on his bed.
The rest of the house needs a bit of tlc, but not tonight.

Outnumbered and useful information

Yes we are one of the many familes in the UK that relate to "Outnumbered."

Todays episode of "it's just like an episode of outnumbered" was when Liam once again (yes, he's done it before) remarked on my pin number. Tell everyone why don't you. So now I have to change it, and that's annoying as being mathematically minded I have a logical number assigned to the card. And now I have to think of another one.

Here is the little do-dah in question. He fell off a scooter in the week - here it is difficult to tell where scab finishes and chocolate sauce starts.

Here he is prior the the profiteroles arrving - he is playing "Little Goat".

This is a Rape field - when I manage to get a good photo of the glow of the yellow I'll be sure to post it.

Now for the usefull information. We went to Birmingham on Sunday and my 12 year old has more useful (!! ??) facts than you could point a stick at.

Did you know that there is LOTS of empty space in atoms, that if you removed all the empty space from all the atoms of all the people on Earth, you could reduce the entire human population, all 6.8 billion of us, to the size of an apple?

surely not!

The other fact he told me was so useful to me I've forgotten it already!