A while ago I read on Heather Mulder Peterson's blog about a ruler, the Triangler, that she'd developed and I could instantly see all sorts of uses for it. I ordered it and the accompanying book, and I've been a bit sidetracked since then.

I've limited myself to starting two new quilts, but I love the possibilities I can see using this shape.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is the same as a Tri  Tool, because the angles are very different. That top angle is 45 degrees, which means it can be used to piece eight point stars for one thing, and a whole lot of other amazing blocks if you look at the instructions in the book. I'm very impressed with the way the book is set out, and the handy tips that make things so much easier, including pressing instructions. These are of course my own opinions, but not only can I see myself making the quilts in the book, but also using it as a jumping off point for a lot of ideas of my own. That makes it very good value to me, even taking into account that I had it shipped to Australia.(Very quickly, and with a handwritten note as well -I was very happy with the response)

So which quilt did I decide to start with? I loved Windsor Knot, shown here with her gorgeous little son Carter.

 I made it slightly different to Heather. She appliqued over the centres with a square, which looks very nice and covers up a multitude of sins  if you're not too sure about how neatly you can match all those points.

I decided to have a go at getting them to sit nicely, and then if they looked dodgy I could add something afterwards.

 I don't have very many modern prints in my stash, but I gathered a few on my table and began cutting. Everything went together really well, the instructions were a cinch to follow and before long I had twelve blocks on the design wall. I'd had such a good time and they'd gone together so quickly I decided to make another eight so that I had twenty.

And the centres were working out pretty well, so I was all enthused.

Don't you love it when a project goes so easily that you just want to keep on and on until it's finished? If the astute among you are sensing a "but" coming, stay tuned and I'll tell you how I like to make things more difficult for myself.

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The Nifty Thrifty blocks are in one piece and I'm glad to have then done. Even though they were so easy to sew I got weary of them towards the end. And weary of the colours, this combination of green and maroon used to be very popular in the '90's,  which is why I had so much in my cupboard.

 I usually start these easy quilts to use up a particular section of my stash that I want to get rid of, so that means I'm slightly sick of them to begin with. This attitude drives Keryn nuts; she says "Sell them on Ebay! Get rid of them!!" but I liked them once and I love using scraps and odd bits.

However the top got bossy at the  end, and even though I'd pieced quite a few units for a border, they just wouldn't go on. The blocks demanded another simpler pieced border first, then one of maroon, and by this time I was sick of being bossed around and called it quits.

I might go back and try to add the other border later, if I feel like it. I'm already on to prettier fabrics and more intriguing patterns....

Isobel had her first photo shoot, and we have some beautiful pictures of her now. This is a really talented photographer, and I'm so pleased to have these shots to remember how little she was.

  She's nearly a fortnight old already, and has changed so much since she came home from hospital, she's just adorable.

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I had a whole day of cuddles with Isobel and she's absolutely gorgeous. It will be lovely being so close to her, I don't get to see my beautiful grandsons very much because of distance and I really regret that. But next month Rob and family are coming to meet the latest arrival, so they'll all be together, which will be wonderful.

In sewing matters I was using these Nifty Thrifty blocks of Bonnies as leader-enders, but they decided to take over and I'm close to finishing the top. I'm making a pieced border for them, so there's still a fair bit of sewing left to do, but it will be  my main project until it's all done.

I'll have to get out the graph paper and work out how to turn the corners, but I quite enjoy doing that. I just hope that it's fairly easy to resolve.

I've also been hand-piecing the borders for this old project and I'm nearly finished those too. I've been working on so many different things that I'm going to have about four new tops soon, and then I get to pick out some more old projects to work on. I think I've worked out the borders for a few tops as well, so I want to get stuck into them. So many ideas and decisions, but I'm really enthusiastic, which is a very good thing.

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Ah Finally! After a protracted labour Liz and baby Isobel Jane are doing fine. She weighed 7 pounds, so she's a petite little girl, and I can hardly wait to hug her, and her parents. A brand new family is born.....

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 I had been using these 16 patch blocks as leader-enders for quite a while, and I decided to count them and see how many more I needed.

 I was quite astonished to find there were 99 of them! I had just kept adding them to the box as they were finished, without really thinking about what I wanted to do and they certainly mounted up quickly.

I can't remember when I started making them, but Kathie at Inspired by Antique Quilts was also making 16 patches at the same time, and we may have based this on the same antique quilt but I can't remember that either. I was really sad when she stopped writing, but recently she began posting again.Hooray! She did seem to get an awful lot done and it was always inspiring seeing what she was up to.

 I might throw these blocks up  on the design wall and see how big they want to become, but I've also started experimenting with a new ruler and some different fabrics, not to mention making progress with some handpiecing on a UFO. I'll post about those projects later.


I'm all over the shop at the moment and tonight especially, because I'm waiting for this bump to make her appearance, my third grandchild and first grandaughter.

Son John and DIL Liz are in an  Adelaide hospital awaiting her arrival, tonight or tomorrow hopefully and it's rather hard to settle down to doing anything. Exciting times around here at the moment and I can hardly wait for that first cuddle!

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 For some reason I just couldn't leave this top alone, and I ploughed on with the full border. Phew! what a lot of sewing and there were some more abandoned sections that were too dark for my taste.

 I've spent sooo much time on this, and the colours are really beginning to pall. But somehow I just couldn't bear the thought of packing it away unfinished, most unlike my normal attitude. I wanted the florals Gone, and so the cutting continued and eventually I had enough, after many more hours.

 The final push doing the corners was excrutiating, and I was heartily sick of the whole thing when I finished.

 There are two different corners in the border, with slightly different placements, and I laboured over the first one and then went to fit it to the rest of the top. Imagine my horror when it was all wrong! I'd just picked up the seam ripper to undo it all when a little voice said "Perhaps it's the Other corner..." and indeed it was. I'd rotated the top when I laid it out. I would have been furious if I'd undone it and then had to sew it together again, but fortunately the subconcious mind is sometimes on the ball.

 I think the border was well worth the extra effort, but it was hard work. I don't know how Bonnie does it, my top is a whole row shorter than hers, so she did even more sewing than this.

However, the florals Still aren't gone, merely depleted, so I'm cutting for a scrappy pieced backing. I have about 54 of the ninety 10" squares that I need, and if I piece the leftover blocks in I'll need even less. I'll sew the squares as leader-enders; a bit bigger than what I'm, used to, but eventually the backing will get done.  Even though I do love the finished top I'm so ready to move on to another project. Perhaps something brown and easily finished?

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Sometimes a project just leaps out at me and derails all my plans, and that happened about three weeks ago. I had no real intention of starting Bonnie's Florabunda quilt, it just sorta ....happened.

I can remember thinking "Oh, that pattern would use up all my old florals and the pastel yellows that I can't think what to do with.." but it was just an idle thought. I was tidying up a bunch of scraps and moving a bundle of the florals from one drawer to another, and suddenly before I knew it I was hacking up huge swathes of fabric and making a glorious mess.

I initially thought I'd use the blocks as leader-enders, but who was I kidding? Obsession quickly followed and I cut and cut and sewed and sewed. On Easter Monday I started sewing more blocks at seven in the morning and watched an episode of NCIS on  dvd; then I kept saying "One more episode.." and suddenly it was 8pm and I'd sewed and cut and sewed ALL day. I couldn't seem to stop, and I was as happy as a pig in a puddle.

That would have been fine, except I threw the first thirty blocks on the design wall and Hated them. Far too dark and dull and I was hugely disappointed. Oh well, perhaps if I introduced a few lighter fabrics..? More cutting and sewing and cutting and sewing, interspersed with frantic scrabblings through my stash and Keryn's as well. This resulted in some lighter blocks with a prettier aspect, but nowhere near enough to make a full sized top. I cast my net wider into border florals and some stripes, some backing pieces and even vintage pieces. Along the way I kept taking out more and more of the dark blocks until almost all of the ones I'd sewn in that lovely first frenzy were rejected. I'd enjoyed making them so much, but they were much too heavy looking. When I finally counted the pile of leftover blocks there were seventeen, almost enough for another small top.(They'll probably go on the back)

Altogether I made eighty Jacob's Ladder blocks, and if it wasn't for the fact that they were so simple and fun to make I probably would have hurled all this in the bin. Keryn thought I was quite mad, and I did too at times, but now that it's in one piece I do love it. I can't decide if I want to do Bonnie's border, as that seems a mite heavy with my mostly darker fabrics, but I do like the checkerboard effect of the first couple of borders.

I've teased Keryn before about her tendency to get obsessed with certain projects, but I've never really succumbed until this quilt. I don't even want to take it off the design wall because I feel I haven't finished looking at it yet, but it's time to move on. The projects I abandoned are waiting for me, and I could do with sewing something besides light yellow and florals for a while.

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 As I examined these blocks it all started to come back, the real reason I didn't finish the project. The ladies I were doing the class for were adamant that they didn't want to do any handwork at all, so I sewed the centres and outer frames on with a tiny zig zag stitch. At the time I only had access to a 1950's machine and while it sewed a beautiful straight stitch, the zigzag was a bit errratic.

 This didn't matter on the pink, where it wasn't so noticeable, but on the yellowy floral it seemed to stand out rather more.Sometimes the machine  would throw a hissy fit and put in two or three straight stitches before going back to zigging or zagging, which made me despair of ever doing a neat job. I got the blocks done for the class but I was so dissatisfied I haven't been able to touch them since.

Enter 2014 and the steely-eyed determination to finish long standing UFO's. I decided to unpick the zigzag and hand applique all the blocks, but I've found it's not easy to tease out the tiny litttle stitches. I've done the centres in two small blocks, and half of the large one, and have come to the conclusion I can live with the pink stitches. They really aren't too bad, and it's going to take me days and days to finish them otherwise.

If I can get all the centres and the large block appliqued I'll be perfectly happy, and then I can concentrate on the setting.

I like the idea of some sort of medallion and have been experimenting with leftover small blocks and  cut out pieces.Perhaps some diamonds and four patches....

or maybe a little twisted diamond border..

or a zigzag diamond? I'm going to have fun working out the measurements and playing around with other ideas, but first I have to get back to the unpicking, sigh.

The moral of the story is to do things the way you want to, otherwise you'll never be happy with the end result!

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  Do you like my sandpaper board that I use to cut out my hand piecing shapes? Keryn made it for me as a Christmas present many years ago, and it's a bit the worse for wear- it used to have little metal corners, and it's a bit grubby, but it still works fine. She used to do this pretty painting as a hobby and I thought she was quite good at it, but life became too busy for her to continue with it. When she retires?

 Look at this pathetic little handful of fabric I was able to throw out after my diamond cutting session. No wonder my bin takes forever to fill up, when I can only bear to get rid of these tiny pieces and every other bit is squirrelled away in bags and tins and containers. I recently read on a blog that the writer just threw away any fabric left over from a project, and I was in awe of such an action. She is perfectly entitled to do what she wants with her leftovers, and if she knows that she will never ever use scraps she's quite sensible to get rid of them. (Yes, she could give them away etc, etc, but it's her fabric after all...we can't be judgin'.)

I just know that I have on occasion chucked stuff in the bin, and then crept back later to rescue it, sigh. At least now that I'm cutting the tiny diamonds I have a purpose for it, as I don't really like to do either crumb or string piecing. Little scrap too small for anything else? Cut it into a diamond and put it in the box- Done!

But I won't mention the fact that I've had to start sorting the diamonds into colour families in different boxes so that I can find the bits I want. I was reminded of the boys forever scrabbling through their Lego to find  one tiny piece; I seemed to spend more time pawing through these piles than actually sewing them together. So now I have a stack of little trays (they're actually the tops and bottoms of those flat Whitman's chocolate boxes, great use for them!) and at least I can find what I need. And if I only want to work with two or three colours I just pull those trays out. Just think, I could have put all this in the bin....why does that suddenly seem to make more sense? Oh well, we are what we are.

 I've come to a standstill with some other projects, so I thought I'd get an old project out and see if it was worth going on with.

  I made these blocks as samples for a Mariner's Compass demonstration I did for a group of ladies, and then never sewed them together.  I have been looking at this box of stuff for so many years I had ceased to even see it anymore.

 I'd told myself I didn't like the fabrics I'd used and it wasn't really my cup of tea, so the box stayed unopened until this morning. Now I discover that I DO like the blocks and I've been playing with settings and borders and I'm quite enthused about finally getting this  together.

  I never intended to make it large, so it might end up as a wall hanging, but I think it's too pretty to be overlooked anymore.

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 Ooh, that last seam was a doozy! I don't have much room next to my machine, and this top was so bulky and scrunched up I could only sew a few inches before I had to rearrange everything. But at last it's done and pressed and I think it pretty much looks like the one in the book.

I was hoping it wouldn't need a border, but I think it might have to have something. Hmm, I'll think about that another day....I've had enough of this particular project for a while.

This morning I decided to tackle the pile of little offcuts that are too small to cut a 1 1/2" square from.

 This tiny 60 degree diamond only needs a 1 3/8" width strip, so after I've cut my scraps up into different sizes I put aside anything that will fit this template. It takes a while to mount up, and then I spend a half hour or so tracing the template, and add the pieces to my container of diamonds.

 I've sewn quite a few of them together into stars , and made two mini quilts so far, but now that it's cooler at night I intend to finish a lot more.

  Hand piecing is a lot quicker than most people think, and  these little stars build up very quickly.

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Oh my goodness, this is going to be big! I didn't bother to work out the final dimensions on paper, just kept sewing and sewing the blocks, and thought I'd worry about that later. I think it will end up about 83" square, if I decide to leave off the little pieced border that was in the original photo. I have twelve more blocks to set together, then a few seams to sew the segments in one piece and I'll have dealt with another project.

It's a horrible day today, a throwback to summer temperatures, and it will be good to hole up in the sewing room and get this done. All the Northern Hemisphere bloggers are longing for warmer weather and signs of spring, and I'm thinking wistfully of wool socks, chilly air and rainy skies. It will come, it always does, but I'm sick of summer weather for now.

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