Summer Sampler, Take Two

Back in March I came to an inglorious end on my first run at this great Summer Sampler from Janlynn:

It didn't take me long to decide to start over will all new materials. I bought some Cashel linen (28 ct) in light sand, which is really more like light yellow, and proper DMC floss. I've been working it for a while now, and it is all so much nicer to stitch!

Rather than repeating the section that I goofed on before, I started at the bottom this time:

My plan is to fully complete one section at a time, backstitching and all. A professional stitcher gave me this tip as a way to minimize the tedium of the backstitching at the end, and so far it is working for me. Next up will be the little cruise ship motif.

Remember this fabric? No wonder it reminded me of Hawaii!

Anyway, I also want to apologize, because not only have I not been keeping up with my blog, I haven't had a chance to keep up with everyone else's either. I've been dealing with a health issue this spring that is fairly serious, but completely fixable. I think that when it's all over my life will improve considerably, but until then I may be absent once in a while. In the meantime, happy stitching!

Joining a Few Texas Stars

My reading list this morning had three blog posts in a row about hexagons - Metanoia's, Sue's, and Julia's. I thought I better get my act together and show the progress I've made on Texas Star! I've joined a few together to see how they will look:

I did this a few weeks ago, but somehow I put them away without taking a photo. I think this is why:

If you look carefully you can see that the upper left one in the second photo is turned the wrong way. Easy to fix, but it annoyed me at the time!

All the blog posts today made me nostalgic for simple hexagons. If I ever do another paper-pieced project after this one it will be back to hexagons and nothing but hexagons. I have been having a heck of a time with the white diamonds in these stars. This is what happens:

I think this keeps happening because the white fabric is quite a bit thicker than the print. I am going to try shaving off a bit of the diamond paper template before I start next time, and see if that helps.

Anyway, the Texas Star Ticker in the right sidebar is up to number 66 today, which is just past 20% done. Plenty left to do!

First Couple for Août

All twelve of my monthly samplers from Bonheur des Dames feature this young, enraptured couple in the centre:

Here they are dressed for the country in August. This time around I have decided to finish each motif completely before starting the next. When I did the Juin sampler I got stuck with all the tiny backstitching at the end, which was quite a chore. But it's not so bad in small doses!

Not much to show, I know, but even this minute little finish is heartening these days. I've had so many distractions!

Hourglasses Before & After

I know it's been a month since I've posted any actual sewing, but I'm in the long, same middle parts of a lot of projects, so there's nothing really new to show. The past few days, though, I've been making strides on my hourglasses quilt.

It's been great for using up all those 5" square freebies I've picked up here and there. The blue and the green fabric above were favours from the Trenton Quilt Guild's show last year. The light fabrics are both more of my infamous Rite Aid fabrics.

My quilt guild Rouge Valley has just firmed up it's next quilt show date for early April 2014. So the pressure's on! Maybe my show quilt will be Riviera Star, or maybe it will be this one, the hourglasses. I think this could be a fun show quilt, for reasons not yet revealed, lol.

You may recall that the main purpose of this quilt was to use up the many, many dubious fabrics that I've accumulated over the years. All the following photos feature one brown Asian-style "faux patchwork" fabric, which is so hard to use. It was interesting to see what happened to it during piecing:

Not bad! Here's a higher contrast piece:

Also better than expected, I thought. The last one was rather serendipitous:

I like the way that wheel came out, although I'm pretty sure the top will be cropped off when I trim the blocks. Anyway, it's fun to see the new patterns emerge. There's still a long way to go!

Panda Diplomacy

Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at the airport today to greet the giant pandas that are beginning their visit from China. He is taking some heat in the press, because, you know, he has other important stuff going on. But the pandas are an important diplomatic token these days, so it is beneficial to our relationship with China to treat them well. It is certainly better than selling China all our future oil production... oops, too late!

All right, I'm off my soap box, because really I just wanted a chance to dust off my photos from the pandas' last visit in 1985. Are the pandas an exciting zoo exhibit? Judge for yourself:

I recall that there was quite a while between each of these photos. I think the series says it all. :)

Hopefully I'll be sewing again soon!

Score!

I had a major piece of good fortune today. Not quite Irish luck for St. Patrick's Day, but Scottish. My wool crazy quilt idea has been living in the back of my mind since I had to abandon it in December. All along I've wanted to include some tartan scraps in the quilt. Today I managed to acquire this sample book of authentic Scottish tartans from The Wee Tartan Shop in Port Perry, Ontario.

It really was a case of being in the right place at the right time. We were actually driving out of town when I felt strongly that I should turn back. Sample books like this are not offered for retail, but it just happened that they had recently bought a new one, and the owner was in the shop and willing to sell the old one. Who knows, maybe they will see a new business opportunity with quilters! There was quite a bit of tempting jewellery as well, but I spent all my money on the fabric, as usual.

So now I am the proud owner of 32 authentic tartan samples, each with about 6.5" square of usable fabric. The quilt pretty much designs itself from here!

I am a little disappointed that I won't be doing this project as part of CQJP. Maybe I could beg my way back in, but I think it is clear to everyone (even me) that I tend be deadline-challenged with creative projects.  It will probably be best to just work on it as inspiration strikes. And right now I have lots!

Appreciating Simplicity

Today I have been revisiting my Collector quilt project, and appreciating how such simple blocks can still be so beautiful. This quilt is all about the fabrics, of course. The first four are all Kaffe.

I have been using translucent vellum to foundation paper piece these blocks, which makes centering all the motifs a breeze! Normally I hate fussy cutting, but this way it's fun.

I'm not sure why this quilt has been languishing so long, but I think it is just "out of sight, out of mind." Anyway, now the last 10 square-in-a-square blocks are done, and it's on to the sawtooth stars.