Oh Jane

Welcome 🙂

How lovely to have so many visitors to my little Blog hop entry, and how lovely to have so many comments – it’s really encouraging to know that others enjoy my little ramblings!

So the winner of my little Tilda giveaway is:

Well done Gloria, please email me your address details and I’ll get the parcel in the post for you.

My Dear Jane seems to have been on the back burner  recently while I worked on my Cross and the Crown quilt but as that is now nearly finished (I’ve been doing bits of quilting in my lunch hour at work so it’s progressing nicely) I really need to get on with Jane again.

Here are a few blocks which I did a while ago but didn’t post about.

A& Dad’s Plaids – pieced, appliqué and reverse appliqué, nice and straightforward.

A9 Cabin Fever – foundation pieced, not quite so straightforward!

B7 World Series – appliqué.

B10 Jud’s Trophy – foundation pieced.

Hope you all have a great week end – here in the UK we have a Bank holiday on Monday and I’m planning a bit of decorating.

Until next time,

Chris x

Back to the Drawing Board

Welcome 🙂

Thank you for all your suggestions about what project I could do during my lunch breaks while at work, so many tempting ideas.

However…

While I was at my Thursday Quilt group I mentioned that I’d finished my 52 Hexagon flowers and would have to wait until January for further instructions. One of the ladies said that she had been chatting to the person who set up the challenge and that the idea is that once we’ve made our hexie flowers we could then use them however we wanted. No further instructions would be issued.

So now that misconception has been cleared up I have to think about what to do with 52 hexie flowers!

So much choice, and of course the good news is that I can continue with this project in my lunch breaks (once I’ve decided on how to go forward with it of course!). The bad news is that you’ve all given me so many more gorgeous ideas I want to do now!

Jane is slowly being worked on and this is the latest batch of finishes.

I4 Stability – EPP and appliqué.

G2 Mohawk Trail – EPP

F3 Snowball – EPP. Very apt at the moment with the mixed bag of weather we’re having here. In one day we had sunshine, rain, hail, sleet, snow and wind!

J5 John Jacob’s Windmill – EPP. Another weather related block!

I10 Iris’ Medallion – EPP and appliqué. I cheated here as it should all have been pieced but a bit of appliqué seemed to be an easier option 😉

Exciting news for me is that this week I was contacted by Stitch, Craft, Create to ask if I’d be interested in taking part in a Blog Hop next month, with the offer of this bundle of Tilda ‘Candy Bloom’ fabric how could I refuse!

Jane has now been put aside while I play with this stack of gorgeousness.

Have a great week end.

Until next time,

Chris x

Fireweed Flower

Welcome 🙂

Fireweed is a plant and around these parts it’s known as rosebay willow herb, it is described as being a pioneer of the plant world, one of the first plants to colonise a patch of bare soil. A real tough but pretty plant.

It is also the name of a Dear Jane block which I have been struggling with for a couple of days. Not sure if it’s just me but I have found this block to be like the plant -tough but pretty!

M3 Fireweed Flower – I started by foundation piecing, failed miserably, then started again this time English Paper Piecing and with a bit of reverse appliqué thrown into the mix (the white border was appliquéd on top of the central ‘flower’). I’m so happy that it is done.

I need to find an easy block to do next!

Until next time,

Chris x

Mice Attack

Welcome 🙂

I think mice are endearing little creatures and I love seeing them outside in the garden but as far as I’m concerned that’s where they should stay – outside.

While I was preparing the house for Easter I went up into our attic to get down all my Easter decorations. I have a small collection of Tilda animals as well as beanbag hens and Springtime bunting, all of which help to make Easter special in our house.

You can probably guess what I’m going to say and yes you’re right. Mice had somehow got into our attic and been busy nibbling away at the decorations. These two Tilda softies were the first things I found which had been attacked.

The frog was beyond saving – he was partially stuffed with rice and so had been munched away, the rabbit’s tunic was chewed but she was fine.

We set traps and caught 4 mice who were relocated to a nearby park. Hubby has searched the attic for any evidence of more mice but so far things are looking good.

Goodness knows how they managed to get into the attic but I do hope they’ve gone. It was upsetting to find quite a few homemade decorations with holes in them.

One which made me smile was this Christmas cushion with the angel pointing to the nibbled hole as if to say, ‘How dare you!’

Looking on the bright side I will enjoy making rabbit a new outfit and maybe even replacing frog with another creature.

It’s not all doom and gloom in the house though, Dear Jane has been getting a bit of attention with these blocks now all done.

K9 Scout’s Honor – Foundation pieced.

A2 One-Two Buckle My shoe – Foundation pieced.

B6 Wild Goose Chase – foundation pieced and reverse appliqué. I used the method suggested by Carla of Granny Maud’s Girl and it worked like a charm – thank you Carla.

G10 Woven Meadow – Foundation pieced, this was pretty straight forward as nothing needed to match up!

D5 Cathedral Window – EPP. I altered the pattern in the book for this one.

G12 Gloriae – EPP and again I altered the pattern, dividing the large star into four so I could paper piece it easily.

and finally,

H11 Piercing Rays – EPP.

What have you been up to lately?

Until next time,

Chris x

 

A Little bit of This and That

Welcome 🙂

I seem to have been flitting from one project to another recently, after the start of the year being almost exclusively dedicated to Jane this has been a bit of a change. I’ve been busy making a quilt which I forgot to take a photo of until it was all wrapped up and ready to deliver! However it’s exactly the same as the one in this post!

Rather unexpectedly a friend had her baby VERY early so a plan to make a baby quilt quickly became a reality and luckily I had enough of the lovely soft flannel fabric to make another quilt, also, so her little boy didn’t feel left out I made him a matching quilt for his teddy 🙂

I’ve been working on a few Dear Jane blocks and here are a few which I’ve recently finished, starting with this one which is hot off the machine – only finished this today!

D10 battlefield – foundation pieced. This was a bit of a battle to do and has ended up with wonky (or quirky?) triangles in the corners – all part of what will make my Dear Jane quilt unique to me!

G11 Decisions,Decisions – pieced and appliqué.

B13 Four Corner Press – pieced, nice and straightforward.

I3 Family Album – pieced.

M12 Hopscotch – pieced. Not quite sure what happened to this one, it seems to be missing bits but at the moment I’ve cut it too big so it should be just fine when trimmed to the finished size.

And finally,

L7 Town Square – pieced

I had a little wander round my garden this morning and found this brilliant daffodil,

I planted a bag of mixed dwarf daffodil bulbs last year and this is one of the varieties – I’ve never seen anything like it, so pretty in a wild and wacky sort of way 😉

Until next time,

Chris x