Shoo fly or shoo sea gulls?

I have been cutting 2.5" squares and making 2.5" HST from my scraps for a long time.  I was tired of making four patches and star blocks so I decided to make Shoo fly blocks.  The project ended up being dominated by sea gull fabric, as that was my last addition into the scrap box - the long skinny scraps after trimming a quilt, the sea gull fabric was the backing.  

There was one lonely different sea gull print in the bottom of my scrap box that was begging to join this quilt. 

I am delighted with the end result.  A coordinated collection of scrap red, teal, green, yellow and blue fabrics have found a worthwhile home.    

Which will make another lovely kids cot size donation quilt.  

Happy quilting Sue.

Dresden applique WIP, a Shoo Fly flimsy and a quilted finish!

I have slowed down in the hand stitching department, but this is the progress I made early on in our Covid19 lockdown.  I tend to sit and watch too much  news when something "big" is happening, but after awhile I get overloaded and stop.  

Still it was a good opportunity to get those tiny circles appliqued on.  I have two left to do, but the prep takes awhile and I need to motivate myself again. The weather is cooling off more and more, so tends to lead me to undertake hand stitching at night - no idea why!

I finally pieced all the Shoo Fly blocks together and added a border to make it the prefered size of the charity.  I have used lots of a Jodie Carlton sea gull print in these blocks and the colours are nice and bright so I hope it appeals to a child.  I will make more of these blocks but pay better attention to the ironing of seam allowance as these were all mashed together and make for lumpy intersections.  So not looking forward to quilting it! I was thinking that it could look quite nice with sashing, but again, will need to plan it so I can use a coloured sashing I think - too much white on a child's quilt is never a good thing!

I have finished hand stitching the binding down on the first of three four patch leader and enders quilts I have made.  This one used up all the pink and purple blocks and some of the light blue.  I decided using white with red print sashing would work well on this top and get it out of my stash!  There is quite a lot of it, as its left over backing.  I was going to make a scrappy pink binding, but accidently used the 2" die on my Go cutter instead of the 2.5".  In hindsight I could have tried the smaller size, apparently Lisa Bongean prefers this size for binding, but I was so cross with myself that I threw it in the 2" scrap bin and found something else. 

I have been very glad of my mothers stash during this lockdown as she has a good collection of fabrics big enough for backings and is happy to share!   I am in love with this fun backing and managed to make it stretch to one more quilt and it will feature in a few more tops to come as borders.   I did run out of wadding though and had to piece large left over pieces for this quilt.  Honestly the term "frankenbatting" was very appropriate in this case, it was very wavy!  Being mindful this is a child's charity quilt that would get lots of washing I choose to heavily quilt it, using a 2" grid.  Luckily the design made this very easy and I have a very large spool of white thread.

Happy quilting Sue.

Shoo fly blocks multiple!

I have ordered fabric for a special quilt, but in the meantime I started making Shoo Fly blocks because that used up the HST and 2.5" squares I have in the scrap box.  I found them addictive!

 

Sew I kept on sewing until I had used all the red and lime green!

I was trying to use up all the sea gull fabric, but I found more!  These blocks are only 6" big, so this needs a border to make it toddler size, but I ran out of red scraps, so figured that's good enough.  Just need to piece it together, already have the border fabrics sourced from my stash - amazing what you find in the back of the cupboard!

Heron on my early morning walk around the "block".  We live on the outskirts of town. 

The undeveloped end of south bank of Wimmera River in town.  The Council have made a new bike path, so the kids and I had a big (12 km) ride into town and a loop along the river and around the small weir.

View from our front door  watching the sun set.

Just a few photos from the second week we spent self isolating ...we are allowed out to exercise and because the weather has been so warm, I am trying to do so every day.  The kids are on school holidays, so trying to get them to be active also v sitting on the couch playing games.  

Stay safe, stay sane, keep sewing! 

happy quilting Sue.