NEW YEAR ... ANOTHER LIST OF THINGS TO DO....

Happy New Year

to 

everyone!

I had a bad start to 2016.......  was struck down with a tummy bug the day before New Year's Eve and didn't fully recover for a few days after ... but all good now !  not the start to the New Year I had planned.

Although I have said this before...... I will endeavour to post more to my Blog this year...... yes really! I will!  and to that end I have committed to a quilt along over here   (Whimsical Fabric Blog).  This sounds like a fun project - you make one block per month using scraps from a current project and by the end of the year you will have a quilt showcasing all the fabrics you have sewn with during the year.

I have been sewing for the past few days - I have my Civil War quilt all joined up to a flimsy but I'm waiting on two fabrics that might be borders..... I'm trying to grow the top out to fit our King bed.

Here are the rows just clinging on to my design wall a few days ago but they are all joined up now - I discovered I was missing a row....... found it!!!   so my top is 6 blocks across and 7 blocks down.

So my first block in the quilt along will be made with Civil War scraps - even though this quilt was pieced back in  2011  ...   as a finish for early 2016 I think it counts :-)

I have also "almost" finished my Table Runner from the quilt along I participated in last year.... Scrap Dance Quilt Along.  I decided to use up the seemingly never ending pile of "sewing" themed fabrics I had in my stash.  Here is the top pieced ...

I have since added a final border of scrappy squares and I pieced up a backing for it too but no photo yet!  I think the plan for the table topper size was a square table centre but I wanted a runner to go over my vintage treadle cabinet.  I should have made one more block to even out the pattern but I'm happy with how it looks.

So another WhimsicalFabric January block will be made using the leftover fabrics from the Table Runner - thankfully there aren't too many of those! but enough for one 9 patch block :-)

Brisbane has had some lovely cool rainy days for about two weeks but today we are back to warm and humid.  Sewing is probably the last thing to do on such a day but I'm just about to head in to my sewing room and set up my Featherweight to do the quilting on the table runner.  My 222K does lovely free motion quilting and this runner is just the right size project for this machine.  I would not attempt anything too large on my Featherweight as it is only a small machine with a small motor.

My sewing list for January.....

Finish Civil War quilt

Finish Scrap Dance table runner

Complete the embroidery blocks and make the four patch blocks for the Farm Quilt I'm currently working on... this one is a gift for our neighbour's little granddaughter.  Her birthday is sometime in January.

Start another "Boats on the Open Sea" quilt.... this one will be for my ODIBAG stash   (one day I'll be a grandmother).   This quilt will be my hand sewing project for quite a while :-)

Find a backing for my Teddy Quilt (another one for my ODIBAG stash).


Happy Sewing !
Cheers from Helen

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