Wednesday 25 July 2012

A Finish! and just in time too...

...since the sun has finally decided to come out.  Touch wood, but summer appears to have arrived at long last.  The third quarter of  Rhonda's Finish Along inspired me to finish these sundresses for the girls.  Cute or what?
 




The Oliver & S Seashore Sundress is made with Flea Market Fancy, and the Brooke dress is made with Pear Tree. 

I have to say that both of these patterns were very nice to work with.  As were the fabrics.  And both girls seemed happy enough with them to have made the effort worthwhile.  Mind you, they are pink, and a potato sack would probably have been sufficient if it were pink.

I'm going to have to figure out how to link to flickr photos, but I haven't been successful so far.  I don't know why perfectly clear photos look so awful when they're uploaded directly into blogger.



Tuesday 10 July 2012

Quarter 3--Big Plans!

Or, at least, biggish plans.

I'm carrying a couple of these projects forward from the last quarter.  These would be the Mystery Quilt (or my amended version of it).  This is where is was the last time I posted about it...

...and although I've added a couple of blocks during the last quarter...


...I still have a way to go.



And, then there's the Dresden Plate.  






I'm making steady progress on this one.  At a generous estimate, I'm about half done with the quilting.  Okay, maybe a third.  


 I should probably stop there, but in a moment of delusion enthusiasm, I jumped on the small projects bandwagon in May, and started a couple of sundresses for the kidlets.  The fabric for the Brooke pattern is Pear Tree





and although it's not clear from this picture, the fabric for the Oliver & S Seashore Sundress is the pink eyelet pattern from the Flea Market Fancy collection.


To be fair, when I decided to do this we were having a mini-heatwave.  In May.  Then we had June-uary.  Seriously--it's mid-July and I had to take a hot water bottle to bed last night.  And a down duvet. It really hasn't been sundress weather, but if I don't finish them soon, they won't be ready to enjoy summer when and if it arrives.

Finally, for some reason, I also thought it would be a good idea to participate in the My Precious QAL.  It did motivate me to cut into some fabric that I'd been saving.  There is a bit of a story to this, but I'll leave that until I actually finish the thing.  Yes, it's gone from being precious to something less than wonderful.




So that's it.  I wonder how many of these I'll be able to cross off my list at the end of this quarter.  I hope that I do a bit better than I did in the second quarter. 




2012 Finish-A-Long












Wednesday 4 July 2012

Quarter 2 Finish Along

I've decided that I'm going to look on the bright side and be extremely pleased that I completed one-third of the projects that I'd planned to finish in the last quarter rather than disappointed that I didn't manage to complete the other two-thirds. The posting where I made the rash promise to complete three quilts is here.

The big finish was my Stained Quilt that I made--and completed!--as part of Sarah's Stained Pink Quilt Along.  And, not only did I finish it, but I finished it in mid May, so it wasn't even a last minute finish.  I'll only post one picture here, since I went a bit overboard in my Finish! posting




Progress on the 40+-year old dresden is steady, but slow.  I should probably have used perle cotton. It would have been faster, but I'm really liking the variegated Aurafil 28.

And my Mystery Quilt has taken a sideways shift.  Sheila encouraged us to substitute blocks to make the quilt our own.  And she also introduced me to foundation piecing and it turns out that I love it.  I've decided to replace the huge pieced block with a huge foundation-pieced one.  And, even though I already finished the 18-inch one, it's possible that I may replace it with another foundation-pieced block.  I don't know where this is going to take me, but I'm enjoying the trip.

So, one down, two to go.  Maybe next quarter.