To border or not to border, that is the question

I have put the edge triangles on my Rocheberie BOM quilt, and I think it looks fabulous! 

But where do I go from here?  Half of me thinks that it's great like that, the size is fine and it would be much easy to quilt.  The other half of me thinks that it would look even better with a nice border, so get on and bite the bullet!  Any opinions? 

Meanwhile, now panto is over and I've had a couple of nights in front of the tele, I've quilted and bound this UFO, which is the first one on my UFO challenge.  The striped binding pulls it all together nicely.  One down and eleven to go! 

A finish and a half

I wanted to get on with the Linus 'En Provence' top, so people who had contributed could see it.  

Here it is.  It should really have a couple more neutral four-patch borders, but I think that's fine for a Linus quilt.  I'll take it to the next meeting to see if anyone feels like quilting it.  

And so, back to my 'En Provence'!  I'm planning on a nine patch, which should be a reasonable size once all the borders are added on.  Onward and upward! 

Not much progress

I haven't had much chance to do much patchwork this week, as its panto week!  This means being out every night except Tuesday (phew!), spending time going back to the costume hire and finding alternative costumes, altering costumes, repairing costumes and making a new outfit for one character - due to no fault of my own, and just what I could have done without on dress rehearsal day!  Oh well, at least I'm pretty much done now.  Except for helping the principal girl and dame get their walk down costumes on, and more repairs, things have calmed down.  

Here is a cast photo with the director and producer in the middle.  There were 37 costumes in all, which is a lot to source.  I haven't made many of them, but the coordination has been a headache at times! 

But of course I've managed to squeeze in a little patchwork.  I have put my Rocheberie BOM blocks together.  I need to finish off the hearts for the corners, then I'll decide whether it needs a border or not. 

Plus, I've been putting this Linus En Provence together.  The individual components were made by various people, but I think it'll look great when it's completed. 

Two more panto shows today, then it's back to normal, whatever that may be! 

For the love of Ivy

Things have been busy here as our annual panto is looming.  (It's 'Aladdin' and will be very good, so make sure you have your tickets!)  I've been sewing sparkly stuff, taking in, letting out, lengthening and shortening, as well as driving all over to collect cow costumes and dame costumes etc.  Fun times!  

But of course I've still been doing some other sewing - it keeps me sane! 

This beauty is finished and once I've sewn the label on, will be winging its way to Ivy in Stoke on Trent.

Hope she likes it.  I'm very satisfied with it, especially since I only needed to buy half a metre of fabric for the border, and that has been just about used up!  

I know we all say it, but I am on a mission this year to buy less fabric and use what I have.  I've decided to put it in writing, so will be confessing every time I purchase, and will try hard to buy what I need, rather than what I want!  Having said that, I did buy some gorgeous fabric with bees on it at the weekend. 

My excuse is that I'm always on the look out for novelty neutrals, they're such fun.  Plus we had Jeannie from Quilteez as our trader on Saturday at Rocheberie Schoolhouse Quilters, and I wanted to support her, as a small trader.  I only bought a fat quarter, so that brings my total fabric purchases this year to 0.75 metres.  Not bad so far. 

I didn't have to look outside my stash for fabric for these two blocks. 

My challenge group are looking at historical fabrics this year and using some examples in Pat Sloan's BOM for 2016 Botanical Garden.  Since we're away in February, I thought I'd get my two blocks done so I'm ahead of the game.  In the left hand block I've used stripes and toile from the early 19th century, and in the right hand block stripes and seaweed designs from the same era.  Check out Pat Sloan's blog as she has several BOMs still available plus a new one for this year, Children's Library.  All free, so what's not to like? 

  

Ooh la la!

I found out (rather late) that Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt had been revealed!  If you look on www.quiltville.com you can see it for yourself.  She showed the last step and the finished quilt on New Year's Day, when I wasn't expecting it!  The quilt is gorgeous, and I love the way the design 'floats' on a border of neutrals.  Lovely.  

So here is block number one and sashing section one.  The sashing sections come together to make magenta stars, which float across the quilt and all round it.  This will be another stunning quilt. 

I've also been continuing with finishes.  Here is my challenge group quilt completed.  A bit of a departure for me, but I like it.  I quilted in the ditch round all the coloured rectangles, then just meandered all over the white.  The green stripe is perfect for the binding. 

Back to 'En Provence'! 

Playtime

After all the UFO work I have done recently, I decided to have a bit of fun.  Last year I had bought Sujata Shah's lovely book, 'Cultural Fusion' so that was naturally the first place to look. So much gorgeous colour in that book, I was spoiled for choice. Finally decided on Rocky Road to Kansas. 

So far so good.  The first few blocks were done using light and dark fabrics.  I don't like them as much as the ones with the two strong colours together, but since I aim to make more blocks (16? 25?) I can dot them about.  

Happy New Year!

 We had a Christmas filled with family, friends and fun, then a New Year's Eve filled with steak, red wine and relaxation, and I hope others had similar good times!  I love this time of year, but then, I'm also glad it's nearly over, so now I can get back to some normality!  There has been a little sewing over the last week, I'd go crazy without my 'therapy', but now I'm ready to start getting back in gear.  

Liz brought a UFO challenge to my attention.  It's on www.allpeoplequilt.com and you'd think I wouldn't have any UFOs left after my heroic finishes last year, but it turns out that I have!  

So, the challenge is to list 12 UFOs, and then at the beginning of each month, check back to the site, where that month's number will be revealed.  I made the list, and the project to finish first is number 6!

I have all the blocks done, I just couldn't be bothered to put them all up on the design wall!  That will be an easy finish, especially since I went over to Manchester and couldn't resist another visit to Abakhan, where I bought 1.64kg of gorgeous fabrics especially for backing.  I even participated in their button bag discount promotion, where picking a button out of a little bag, could entitle you to free shopping!  I got 10% off, which is not to be sneezed at! 

Once the shops return to normal, I'll be looking for border fabric for Ivy's quilt.  I decided to sash it in the end, and although I would have ideally used the pink fabric for all the sashing, there wasn't enough - the story of my life!  So I used the red round the outside.  It looks good, and I can't wait to finish it.  

Happy New Year!