Espritpatch

I seem to need a deadline to be able to work and get focused so with the mailing deadline for the Modern She Made Swap looming, I knew where to concentrate my efforts over the last week or so! The theme for the swap was hexagons, so of course I couldn't pass this round! My partner's mosaic was quite varied and I settled on a mini quilt for her. And to fit the theme I picked a quilt with hexagons which would finish in an hexagon (similar to my long-standing UFO September in the hexagon ). I went smaller in size though to have a mini quilt rather than a full size quilt. I had such a blast making my triangle quilt that I wanted to play with triangles again!). I thought I would use a rainbow of colours and use 2 fabrics per colour of very different value (one light, one dark). So I went through my stash to pick pairs of fabric for the blocks. I used 1.5' strips that I sew together and then cut into 2.5' tall equilateral triangles. I made the outer round with concentric hex...

Spring has finally arrived in my corner of the world, just in time to coincide with the Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival that Amy organises brilliantly. So many beauties to discover, so many lovely blogs to get lost into! With 11 categories to enter quilts under, there should be a fantastic range of quilts to admire! After much thoughts, I have decided to enter my Cats Quilt in the Home Machine Quilted Category . I had so much problems quilting this big top (it finishes at 72' square) because I hadn't fitted the wrong free-motion foot on my machine initially (you can read more about it here if you are interested) that it seems to be a natural choice! I made this quilt for my daughter's bed but it was a long quilt in the making. It started in February 2013 when I asked my fellow bees from Bee Europa to make blocks for me using the London Cats/Paris Cats fabrics from Benartex that I sent them. They sent me the blocks back but I still needed more to ...

I did it! My cat quilt is finished. I machine stitched the binding last week and decided that I'd try to sew on length of thread every day for the hand stitching as there were about 7 meters to do. I had nearly finished one side Thursday night but I was so tired on Friday night that the idea of binding the quilt while watching TV really appealed to both of us (well I was the only one binding the quilt, but hubby could snuggle under it too!). I didn't quite finished it Friday night but on Saturday Miss Strawberry Shortcake wanted to do some sewing on her machine and I usually need to stay close by in case the needle needs re-threading etc that I thought it was the perfect excuse to finish her quilt. She was so happy that it was finally finished! And it was in use the exact same night! Thanks for my fellow bees from Bee Europa 2012-2013 for making most of the blocks for me. Quilt Statistics: Started February 2013 - Finished May 2014 6 x 6 blocks 12' finished ...

Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, which means we had a longer week-end to play and although the weather was OK, it wasn't that warm. Anyway it was nice to have all the family at home over 3 days with no hectic plans for the time we had and no travelling miles! I also had time to progress one of my UFO that had been on my to-do list for a while. I had initially planned to quilt this top in March for the Lazy Bums Virtual Retreat but life decided otherwise. So this top was put aside (my lovely princess is so patient!)  because I needed/wanted/decided to follow the Triangle Quilt-Along from Paula to make a quilt for my friend's birthday. I finished her quilt in time and I am so glad I did because I won the grand prize for the finished quilts link up! Anyway I quilted the triangle quilt on my frame and decided that the frame should not go back into storage until the Cat Quilts was quilted. So my DH helped me set up my quilt on the frame about 10 days ago so I could quilt ...

I made no blocks in March so it wasn't that difficult to do better in April! So in my quest to meet the 350-blocks challenge, I managed to finish 5 new blocks. Block [84] - Spool Block [92] - Streak of Lightning Block [103] - Whirlwind has disappeared Block [107] - Windblown Square Blocks [109] - Windows With these 5 additional blocks, I have reached a grand total of 30 blocks. And this also means that I have made more than a quarter of the blocks, small progress but a little milestone! I have lost one of my newly sewn block in my freshly tidied sewing room. How ironic is that, I guess chaos can be organised sometimes! I hope it will resurface one day or another, there is still time anyway until I am ready to put the quilt top together :-) Have you made any progress on your blocks? Link up here if you wish Celine

So last week-end after posting my number of blocks so far as 13, I wasn't happy I hadn't made that many and thought that although reaching 30 would be difficult with so little time left, I should try to improve my number. And I guess what, yesterday evening I finished my not 30th but 31st block for April! I made it, I met the  350 blocks challenge   with 31 blocks this month , yeah! Now let's have a look at what I had ambitiously planned for April a month ago and how much I managed to achieve despite a week away one holiday and 3 week-end away from home and from my sewing machine. 1. Make my  Siblings Together 2  blocks (February x 1, April x 2) - all done 2.  Inchy Hexie  swap (April)  - done for April and May 3. Block for the  Lotto  - none for the Lotto but 9 squares in a square blocks for the Mod Mod Along 4. Beads on a string blocks x 10 and Star Cross x 3 for  Mod Mod Along  - none 5. Finish off my b...