Archie The Wonder Dog

I've managed to squeeze in a final finish this quarter and it's one which has been languishing on my FAL list since Q1 2015 - I think it had given up all hope of being finished, but I knew I'd get to it one day.  It is item two on my  Q3 FAL list  and I'm linking up with mere hours to spare! This is what it looked like at the start of the quarter (and the start of every quarter since Q1 2015!): The best photo I have of it - a blurry one.  What a surprise! The reason this made a reappearance on my FAL list (it was finished for the first time in Q2 2014 - here's the 'It's finished!' blog post from then ) is because the bobbin thread kept snapping.  Initially, I was going to re-quilt each line (one at a time so I could keep the binding on) with a heavier thread, but the thought really didn't appeal, which is why it has remained untouched for so long.  A couple of weeks ago, I got it out, had another think and decided that I could add...

In October 2015, I made a trug to keep bits and pieces in (it's really handy if you're taking a project to someone's house/a workshop as you can fit lots in it!) and in the following months, I made a rotary cutter pouch, a needle book, a scissor holder and a Lola pouch from the leftovers (I started with a yard of the black and white print and a metre of the turquoise solid).  That left this little lot: I decided that I'd make a mat for my sewing machine to sit on when it's on the table, as it's a bit awkward to push away from/pull towards me when I'm working.  And it would be a handy place to stick the odd pin or place a reel of thread on and not have it roll off the edge of the table.  As you can see, there's not an awful lot left, particularly not in large pieces, so I decided to add some bright pink solid (to reflect the pink trim on the inside of the trug and the pink quilting and pandas on the pouch) and the remnants of orange sketch I had le...

Me again! (I know, no posts for months and then loads in one week.  I'm going to try to be better next quarter!  Crowd (off):  mutters We've heard that before...) Way back in October, I started work on a tutorial for the 2016 FAL and chose to demonstrate how to accurately insert narrow (1/4") strips into a piece of fabric and, of course, I needed a project to demonstrate it on. I decided to make a table runner from pale grey Oakshott, with strips of darker grey inserted (and with blocks of turquoise inserted into those).  I didn't manage to get the runner quilted, so at the start of this quarter, it looked like this: And here's a closer look at those inserted strips: I spent a while puzzling how to quilt it until I took it to show a friend and we puzzled together and eventually decided that echoing the strips down the length of the runner would look quite nice. I measured the width of the inserted section (11 x 0.25" = 2.75") so I knew ho...

The last time I mentioned my polar bear cushion (I think), I was having a bit of a dither about what to use to fill the spaces where I didn't have enough polar bears and snowflakes and had decided to start piecing and leave gaps where I thought something might go.  It turns out that piecing gaps is harder than you might think (I kept thinking I'd leave a gap and then finding I'd filled it!) so I decided to scrap all my ideas of using grey or turquoise fabric for the gaps and instead sacrificed part of the remaining polar bear fabric I was (still) hoarding, and cut more polar bears and hexagons. Once the hexagons were pieced, I checked that my plan for the trapezia and triangles round the edge would work (I'd deliberately kept the red snowflakes away from the edges so I wouldn't end up with two prints together):  And hand pieced those in place before choosing a border, which was attached using the machine: I pressed the seams and marvelled at the polar b...

On Friday, I knocked something else off my Finish-Along list and considering it's been on my list since Q3 2015, it didn't take long to finish.  Less than an hour, in fact *hangs head* Here's how it looked at the start of the quarter (it's item four on my list), when it was going to be turned into a pin cushion: I decided that I didn't really need another pin cushion where I had to be careful of where I'm putting pins.  In the end, I decided to stretch it in a hoop so it could be hung on my sewing room wall. I found a strip of turquoise solid that was almost but not quite wide enough to go behind it, so I pieced another bit on with a quarter inch seam and then top stitched it to make sure it would tolerate the stretching required.  I then stretched it over the hoop and secured the back. You can just make out some of the seam at the bottom of the hoop: I then did the same with the pulled thread work (after giving it a quick press), but used a pale pi...

...but I don't know why it's been an odd week so I'm going to blame the clocks going back!  I also don't feel like I've got anything done, so let's see what I can pull out of the hat, eh? I reached a couple of milestones on the blue and white quilt's hand quilting.  Here's Mini Archie helping me celebrate the first one: Three quarters of the way there!!! And here's Archie wondering whether he'll get his tea before I reach the next milestone: I'm sure it's teatime.  Tell me it's teatime.   A while later, after Archie's tea, I hit the milestone! One hundred stars quilted!  (Just 27 to go!) I've even bought the binding fabric, as I had a discount code for Simply Solids and wanted to use it before it ran out.  It arrived yesterday and I think it's going to work well: I'm now aiming to get it finished for either Christmas, or Mam's birthday in early January.  I was doing two stars a day during ...