Quarter one is over, already!

In January I linked up with the Finish-A-Long (find my Q1 list here) and put three things on my list.  It's now time to link up again and declare my finishes, so here goes!


2. (I'm saving the first item on the list for later in the post 'cos it's the one you haven't seen!)  Finish my stumpwork anemone - prepare the detached petals and attach to the flower and then mount on a canvas block.  Finished!!

Now living at my parents' house, in a cupboard, I think!!

3. Finish and block the mystery knitting.  ('Mystery' because I couldn't post a photo without spoiling a surprise.  Fortunately, Our Dear Leader is very accommodating and let me email her a secret photo, to prove the project had indeed been started.)   Here's Deb's scarf, all finished!

1. Finish joining my Marmalade hexies (generously donated by Leanne aka Our Dear Leader) and make into a cushion, inspired by this gorgeous cushion.  Finished!

It doesn't have a name but if it did it would be called 'Can I have a P please, Bob?'  For those of you thinking 'Eh?', click here and scroll to about 55 seconds in.  Enjoy!


I love this cushion!  It's made with a Marmalade mini charm pack (or whatever they're really called - candy or something?) and Kona Honeydew (from Simply Solids).  I hand pieced the hexagons and then added a border (by machine), machine quilted straight lines down it and then added an envelope back and a binding.  I was going to put a zip in the back but, after creating a flap and attaching one side of the only zip I had that was anywhere near long enough (light blue), I discovered that the zip tape was shadowing through the green and looked awful!  So I ripped it out and put an envelope back on instead, fortunately I hadn't cut the other half of the back so I could adjust the measurement!  It's not my favourite way of finishing a cushion (I usually use buttons or zips but I wasn't organised enough to have gone to the shops and bought the necessary supplies) but it doesn't matter once it's on the settee and facing the right way!  Not that, most of the time, I see all of it!  This is what I usually see:

A lovely cushion with a quilt top in progress dumped in front of it.

My hexy quilt lives in front of it so the only time I see the whole cushion is either when I'm adding more hexies to the quilt or when someone comes to visit and I put the quilt somewhere far away from cups of tea and coffee!  It's easier/better, in my opinion, for this quilt top to not be folded unnecessarily (although I suspect my mam would say that it's unnecessary to leave it in a heap and looking untidy!) because it 'upsets' the seam allowances.  What I mean (and am finding it difficult to explain!) is that if I fold it then some of the seam allowances end up crumpled (and sometimes fold back on themselves) and need re-pressing whereas if the top lives in a heap then they seem to keep their direction.  (Am I making sense?  No, I thought not!)  It's not a problem I've had with any of my other tops (whether hand or machine pieced) so I suspect it's something to do with the multi-directional seams.  Or the way I fold.  Probably the latter!

Anyway, enough of that because I think you'll find that I finished all three items on my list - hurrah!!  I'm linking up with Our Dear Leader@She Can Quilt - why not pop over and see how everyone else has fared? And, if you didn't join in this time, why not scour your sewing space for projects to populate a list in quarter two?  I've found two things so far...


I can't leave you without a photo or two of the man dog himself:

I'm bringing my stick inside and you can't stop me.
(He carried  for almost the whole of his walk, he loves having something to carry but I can't persuade him to try a shopping bag!)

I'm sure it's time for tea - stop faffing on the computer and feed me!