A Saturday sewing day.

Last week at work was super busy and so very little sewing got done. I have made several flowers for the Grandmother's Garden quilt and I also sewed on three flowers. I'm planning on working on this quilt tomorrow but there won't be a lot of time as we're going to an art exhibition with Katy, our older daughter. I've been carrying a small bag with templates, fabric needle, cotton and scissors with me so I could work on basting a few hexies while I had lunch, or waiting to pick up Lucy, younger daughter, from work. This is my Chookshed challenge for this month and I want to get as much done as possible.  

I changed the quilt I was starting for my August Chookshed challenge, from the garden quilt to a Christmas quilt. Everything was cut out but I had some half square triangles to make before I could start sewing it together. I'm not sure what was going on in my brain today but I kept on sewing pieces together incorrectly. In fact one part got sewn on the wrong way three times. The pattern is for 6 blocks but I wanted a larger quilt so I'm making 9 blocks. The quilt is being made using up fabric I already have. I had quite a bit of Christmas fabric but not enough to have all the blocks the same. The pattern is called Scrappy Friends and my quilt is certainly scrappy. I spent some time dividing the fabrics up between the 9 blocks. This way I knew there was a good spread of the fabrics across all blocks. I put the fabric for each block into a separate bag.

The quilt is going to be very bright and Christmassy. In spite of all my errors I got one block completed before I packed up to move on to some embroidery. Here's the first block

When I've made all 9 blocks there is white sashing and a star as each corner stone. I'm making this quilt as a gift. Having made one block I decided to quit while I was ahead. I was annoyed that I'd kept making the same mistake so this quilt was packed away for my next sewing day.

I decided to mark up the last of the sashiko stitcheries on the Japanese quilt. I'll show you a photo when I've got the last pattern done. I'll stitch it this evening and then I need to think about the next round on this quilt.

Finally, I'm slowly sewing all the ends in on the crocheted blanket. There are so many ends! I really should have sewn them in as I went along.

Take care

Lyndsey