Mini Archie's January Furtle Around The Blogosphere

Hello!  And welcome to the very first furtle! I've added a Furtling page to my permanent pages but here's a brief explanation:

Back in the day (gosh, I sound old!), Lynne at Lily's Quilts had a monthly link up (called Fresh Sewing Day) where people shared sewing which had made them happy or which they wanted advice on, or just a round up of all they had done that month.  I loved those posts and connecting with quilters round the world and made lots of friends through them.  As happens, times change and many blogs became neglected in favour of Instagram.  I managed to blog fairly regularly until 2015/16 and I've really missed it.  I decided that having a monthly link up like the old days would help me get back into blogging regularly (well, once a month at least!) so I asked Lynne if I could revive FSD or do something similar and she said generously said yes. With the help of a group of friends (which we named The Furtlers after a comment from one of us) who've been talking about reviving their blogs/have recently started a blog/never neglected theirs in the first place and so are a shining example to us all, I've set up this monthly link up and hope that it helps us rediscover the enjoyment of blogging and the slower pace of life on a blog rather than the often frantic pace which Instagram brings.  (That's not to say that I don't love Instagram, I do, it's just that I find myself longing for a deeper look into a project and to read the story behind it and I think a blog is the best place to do that.)

Please add a link (one per person, please) to your blog post, which could contain: a mosaic of all you've made in January, something you've made/started/worked on, a goal which you'd like to achieve in February (and then in February's post you can reflect on that goal and set yourself another one - I find this particularly handy if I'm in the midst of a big project and finding the making of hundreds of blocks to be interminable), anything crafty you'd like to share.  This isn't just for sewing or quilting, but is for all crafts so if you knit, make lace, make clothes, do anything which could come under the heading of 'craft', then please link up.

If you link up, please visit the link immediately before and after you and leave an encouraging comment - we all know that comments create joy, so let's spread some around. Also, please treat all the linked posts and their authors with respect - I want this to be an inclusive space for all crafters and crafts and all are welcome.  If you're not sure if you're welcome or you belong, you do - this is by no means a closed space and if you want to join, then you are most welcome. If you need help linking up, please leave a comment and I will do my best to help.

To link up, go to the link at the bottom of this page and click on 'link up' (it's a blue button) and then add your link (website URL), a title (this could be your blog name but could also be something interesting to draw people to it (keep it clean!) if you prefer), and your email.  This last one doesn't appear on the link (I will have access to it - I won't use it unless there's a problem and I need to contact you) so don't worry that you're about to share your email address with the world (or the handful of people who find this link), you're not! The link will remain open until 11pm (GMT) on 4th February; if you're seeing this post after this date, I'm afraid you can't link up to the January Furtle, but can link next month if you like.


This month, I have finally started piecing my aqua/low volume scrappy trip blocks.  I've had this project prepped for months (years, possibly) but have never seemed to have the time to sit at the machine and get started.  For Christmas, I requested a set of quilt stamps (find them here) and chose one which had a 2" square so that I could stamp my pieces (they're already cut as I was going to machine piece) and hand piece them instead. So far, I love the stamps (well, stamp - I've only used the 2" square) and it's a lot easier than my usual way of prepping.  Of course, they're no good if you want to create your own blocks made of non-standard pieces, but there are many sets and for the projects I want to hand piece using standard pieces, they're ideal.  I have a fancy to work my way through my scrap boxes stamping 2" squares to make some postage stamp rainbow blocks. At some point...


Here's my first block:

And the back (if you look closely, you can just see some of the stamped lines - for this one I mainly used the white ink pad, but struggled to see the lines at night so have swapped to the sand ink pad for the second block, which I'll hopefully show next month):

Needless to say, Mini Archie is keeping a close eye on progress (which, while slow, is faster than no progress at all!):

Get back to your sewing, missy!

Thanks for popping in!


Inlinkz Link Party

Hazel missed the link up by a few hours, but here's the link to her post: https://haallred.blogspot.com/2019/02/furtling-first.html - it would be lovely if some of you could visit her! Thank you!