My finished ALQS4 offering.

Getting there!

I'm in the middle of a very busy couple of weeks so I haven't managed as much sewing or blogging as I would have liked.

The priority last week was to finish the Quilt which I did do on Saturday. I will give it a quick wash, and finish ( see it's not finished really !) hand sewing down the hanging sleeve.

But I am away for the weekend and would like to send off the photos to Kate tonight.

I have been looking at the 21 Quilts loaded so far - have a look if you haven't and have started my "would love" list.


My husband has a Harley Davidson and has wanted to do a "road trip" - well tomorrow he is off. It's not as grand as riding across Amercia as
a) We live in the UK &
b) I can only take a week off work to do the school run instead of him.
He wanted to do Europe but time, money and the sheer practicality of "who gets the kids to and from school if you're off for a fortnight" put the stops on that one.

Perhaps when they're older we could go off together to do it. (Note to Andrew - fit a bigger seat for wife before then).


I am taking the boys to Norfolk to see a friend this weekend - and we will get to the coast at some point.

Seminole

I keep all the offcuts of wadding, so for this mini quilt I pieced the wadding. Here it is tacked to the backing which I stretched out using my new clips. :)

I tacked either side of my seams, just to make sure it all stayed put.

The first 2 strips sew on.

The third strip sewn on to the top of the first 2. You can see the chalk line on the wadding showing the middle of the quilt. It's an important line as I need to try to centralise all my strips.

I wish I could say that having centred all the strips to the line the 2 side edges were the same - but no. Even if you scrutinise the picture below I don't think that you'll see the problem with the top strip. Just take my word for it, I had to draw several chalk lines on the front whilst deciding where to sew the side border strips.

I can't post any more photos until I charge my camera.

I did all this at Saturday Stitchers, I sat next to Jacqui and discovered that we go to the same Chiropractor. I am not suffering as much today as after last time as took a big fat pillow to sit on and I used the heat packs last night, and ensured I did the leg stretches. This is how I have to manage it - it won't go away so I just have to learn how to live with it.

Clamps ideal for stretching out for sandwiching.

In Aldi now, £3.99 for this set - 20 Spring clamps

2 x 210 mm

2 x 160 mm

6 x 108 mm

5 x 86 mm

5 x 63 mm.

OK the baby ones won't be of much use but the others will all do the job.

These are one of Aldis' special offers - available from today. I'm going to buy another pack.

I used someone elses a while back and I can honestly say it the results were very good - nice smooth backing.

Mine will get their first use on the ALQS4 quilt.

I have my final arrangement - I tried to use just the fabrics I've already used in the Pattern sets, but I had to use another dark brown print I have - so I'll use that for binding, or a border.

I've been sewing the spacer strips to the patterned strips. I'll do the seminole method of quilting which is to tack the wadding to the backing, and then sew the strip sets to the wadding, quilting it as I go. So I need to wash my wadding and brown backing fabric then I get to use my new clamps to stretch out the fabrics so I can tack them together.

We went to a wedding yesterday - someone from the local Harley Davidson club. We met up in Market Harborough, attached the ribbons to the bikes and about 14 bikes rode down en masse to Northampton. After a pint of Lemonade we met up with others before riding to the church.

I must say that some car drivers are just mad. If I see a lot of bikes riding together I wait - I don't try to cut into the middle. After being cut up a few times the lead riders obviously decided that on roundabouts the best thing to do would be stop in the road, so any subsequent oncoming cars would have to stop, whilst all the other bikes went through together. And I have to tell you it felt good. I'm not really a "group" person, I'm on the edges of groups rather than being in the middle but I did enjoy it.

The bridemaids wore Harley Davidson colours - Black and Orange!

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!

Posting whilst watching TV!

How sad -watching TV and typing a post at the same time. But time seems to rush by and I have to do this, it's over a week since I last posted.

So, various things.

Went to see Melody Gardot last Monday - enjoyed it - not as much as I thought I would - I was so looking forward to it so I guess that was the problem - she didn't sing the songs the same as they are on her CDs and it took me a while to adjust to that. I also enjoyed the time out with a friend - nattering about things and eating out. I'm a Mum to young boys so I don't get out that often!

My postage stamp quilt is not going as well as I hoped. We all know that sometimes when you sew strips together things go a little wonky..............

I really need to use my extension table to be able to control the strips a bit better. So I will be carrying quite alot tomorrow when I go out to my sewing class - Bag, Iron, Machine, Extension table, and Mat and stuff. I will need a BIG bag.

I only hope that as the strip sets are cut into 1 1/2 inch strips I can level things up.

Also it has been taking over the spare bedroom - that sometimes Mrs Snorey has to sleep in - it's only a small room and it's getting quite claustrophobic with pin boards with sewn strips all over the place. So tonight I have taken all the strips down off my pin boards and I'll have to pack them away after each sewing session - it looks so much tidier.

I have also been working on a block that I need to do for a group I belong to. I used a no sew fusible bond - I have actually sewn through it and it's gumming up my machine needle and breaking the thread. Not good.

On Saturday Liam went to a party - dressed as a Knight. It took lots of Thursday and Friday evenings, and some of Saturday morning to make his outfit.

I am a vegetarian, not a Vegan, but on Saturday I bought a Vegan cookery book - "Vegan with a Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I will let you know what I decide to cook from it. Biscuits may be first - it's bank holiday weekend coming up and the boys enjoy cooking yummy things.
Isa has a website - http://www.theppk.com/There is a recipe for Jam Cookies on her website, in fact there are lots of recipes there.

On Sunday Andrew and I went out on the Harley.

The cows didn't like it very much!

Andrew is going camping for the whole weekend - Friday to Monday. I have warned the boys that we will be going clothes shopping for me on Saturday, and they need to be good. ( No running round the shops, no whinging, no bickering, no pestering) I can hope! There is the promise that we will go somewhere nice one of the other days if they are good - perhaps Sealife at Birmingham.

No no, that's not a garage!

But it does look sort of neat doesn't it!

Postage Stamp Quilt

This is one of the single track roads I go along every day to work. Sometimes I need to parp the horn if the cows won't move, but I don't like to parp the little calves because they jump vertically upwards in fright!

Oh I have been busy - I have stitched together half of the Strip sets so I guess you could say I have done a quarter of the blocks.

Things have improved a little since this picture -

My husband and the boys have been away for a few days so I have been sewing, I have had another stupid cold so have not been able to sit up as late as I would like.

Some of the sewing is going to be fiddly - I didn't just use FQs so I have some strips less than 21" long, and I have to sew together similar length pieces and trim to size after - and then utilise any small pieces cut off. It just takes longer than production line sewing.

The trips to the chiropractor are definately working - but I do have to watch how much time I sit for - sitting at work, sitting in the car, and then sitting all evening sewing isn't really very good. I went on Thursday (having had two nights of lots of sewing).

"oh your shoulders are so tight and knotted - what have you been doing?".

- how can she tell I thought, I'd better not say I'm planning on hours more sewing tonight!

Last Saturday was our big boys 12th Birthday. We went to Waterworld in Stoke on Trent. Then we went to the Indonesian Restaurant that we like to go to. Liam was rather tired by the end of the meal.

On Saturday one of the Cats bought home a dead rabbit. We told the boys that we hoped it wan't the Easter Bunny that they'd killed. Fortunately it wasn't and the EB left a fair number of eggs spread around the garden for them to find. They still have some left, and have generously shared some with us.

This is Itchy on Sunday letting his stomach digest rabbit.

I have decided not to bore you with anymore Japanese holiday reminisces, but will just post a few photos when I have scanned them. I've been too busy sewing to scan! They are just photos, the best pictures are the ones still inside my head.

Today I am meeting up with Maria before she goes back to Spain. Before I meet her I need to nip round to my mums house. Yesterday a car reversed into their house demolishing the front, the car is still in the hallway and the house boarded up as it is un-inhabitable. They are fortunate to be OK - Mum had been sitting in the living room and my step dad was in the back garden, but had they been in the hallway it would have been a different story.