The Wool Palace

Bad Habits

I've been slipping into bad habits recently.

Toby is working in London, which means there is no one to tell me that midnight is time for bed, not time to start sewing projects.  Combine that with the fact that it's the holidays and neither I nor the children need to be up in time for school, and it's a slippery slope towards sewing into the wee hours, leaving the sewing machine out for days on end and wandering around the house in clothes covered in thread ends.

I made up some practice blocks before I started on my BQS3 quilt, so over the weekend I sashed them with some white and made them into cushions for Josie's bed.

I did a scrappy bias binding on both of them, which I found very difficult to put together for some reason - that reason probably being that it was past midnight - but it all got done in the end and I like the finished effect.

I've been slowly turning my Liberty and Oakshott bits into some improv blocks.

I have plans to turn them into a quilt to go in our living room, for snuggling under on the sofa.

However, after one too many late nights, I've put the sewing machine away.  I'm planning on a little bit of EPP this evening in front of the Olympics, and then an early night.

Proud Independence Days

Josie took control of my sewing machine today.

A couple of weeks ago she'd asked if she could make a purse for a friend's birthday and had picked out a couple of fabrics from The Eternal Maker.  We used this excellent tutorial from Noodlehead and got to work.

There was intense concentration

and a bit of frustration, but she got there in the end.

I think she did very well for a first project - and she fussy cut the fabric to get the 'Handmade Original' text!

It's lovely to see her getting involved in creating things, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to being back in control of the machine tomorrow night.

Fresh Sewing Day

Hmm, so I thought it would be good to link up with the lovely Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet Up, but my mosaic of projects is looking, well, a bit sparse really.

1. BQS3 quilt, 2. FQR Kinky Bee July Block, 3. FQR Kinky Bee July Block

I've been doing plenty of sewing this month but a lot of the things aren't finished, so I haven't photographed them yet.  On the bright side, I'm already thinking how impressive my August mosaic will be!

The two bee blocks were quick and fun to do.  Nice to use some FMF too - I'm not a huge fan of brown, but I did quite like the two print fabrics.

I've already blogged all the details for my BQS3 quilt here.  I'm very happy with how the top turned out.  I've been mulling over how to quilt it - I had an idea but when I tested it out on some of the practice blocks I made, I wasn't so thrilled with it, so I think I'm going to go for something quite simple.  I've cut out the backing and batting and will get started on it later this week.

It's been one of those weeks where I've been jumping from project to project, which means that in addition to quilting the BQS3 top, I've got two cushion covers waiting for binding and an EPP bee block that needs finishing.  I'm also fighting the urge to make a little zipped purse, but I think it's a losing battle.

Good job it's the holidays - I feel like I've got more to do than when I'm working!