I've been sewing away at various projects and making progress on all of them but had no finishes to show for my effort. I just seem to switch horses when I run out of cut pieces or get stumped on a decision. Lots of blocks being made, even new projects started but nothing being finally dealt with.

I count the top as a finish because Keryn and I sell a lot of projects as tops or sets  of blocks, some that I never intended to quilt. I just want the fun of trying the pattern or playing with fabrics outside my comfort zone.

I tried out this puss in the corner block as a way to use some "modern" scraps I had (as opposed to repro) and I made enough for a small top. They finish at six inches, using two inch strips.Twenty was enough to give me an idea of whether I thought they were a good idea, and I did like them. Super easy to piece and fun to combine the different prints.

So I sewed them all together with a scrappy white sashing and now I'm scrabbling through the stash to find a suitable border.

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Goodbye 2025

Well 2025 had a few more events to make life memorable, including emergency surgery for eldest son to remove his gall bladder and Matt having to spend a night bogged in a claypan in the desert (which he now says is an inland sea because of all the flooding rains they've had) until he could be rescued next morning. It would be nice if 2026 was peaceful, happy and with no major upheavals unless it's me winning the lottery.

I spent a week setting a pile of happy blocks into tops. 

Some of these might get borders, but I haven't decided yet. There were 150 of these super simple blocks sitting in a box and some are still left. 

It's a great way to use up scraps and requires no mental effort to cut or piece. I always have a container of cut pieces ready to sew if I don't feel like doing anything else.

I wasn't too sure about the really bright colours, they're not my style at all, but I enjoyed working with them.

My repro fabrics are calling me though, and I think I'll have to pick up one of my 'good' projects and play with my browns and pinks and cheddars for a while.

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Update...

 In excellent news, Matt and Tina got to their new job fine, navigating back roads to avoid flood damaged roads, and settled in. Yay!!  However a fishing trip along the way resulted in an infection developing in his hand that quickly became very serious. Fortunately the Royal Flying Doctor Service has a clinic right on the spot and arrangements were made to fly him to a hospital in Adelaide to get on top of the infection. To say he was not happy is an understatement. Two days of driving and weeks of planning to get up there, and whoosh, he's transported out.

The bacteria entered through a mostly healed three week old wound, ( from an angle grinder!) which upon investigation the doctor found to have partially severed a tendon. A fifteen minute tidy up turned into a two hour joint  and tendon repair. These country type stoics who won't go to a doctor and brush off injuries as "nothing much"  are so frustrating.

After a few days being pumped full of painkillers and antibiotics he was flown back to the job. He has to wear a brace so he can't bend his thumb for at least six weeks and I hope he's going to be sensible, but who knows? Let's hope there's no more drama, anyway.

And people wonder why I do so much sewing? Much better than meditiation or drinking to forget your worries. It honestly keeps me sane.

A set of log cabin blocks on the esign wall, plenty of calming sewing here.

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Back again

 Oh my goodness, I would love to say that 2025 was a better year than last, but that has not been the case. More prolonged hospital stays for some members, housing and job uncertainty for others, health concerns and lots of angst and worry. The only way out is through.

Son Matt and partner Tina have been living with me for a while, but have landed a job in remote south australian outback, twelve hours away. They intend to drive up on Saturday, but due to flood damage part of the road is closed to all tourist traffic and only accessible by 4Wdrive. thats ok, they have a land cruiser, but who knows what they'll encounter. Another section is closed to all traffic but they have permission to go through because they're getting to their job. Who knows what that will entail either. I'm trying not to worry but this is harsh country and the weather isn't co-operating. Send up prayers for their safety if so inclined!

I've used my piecing as sanity therapy this year, more than ever. Some might say I've been compulsive about it, and I'd agree. I can't say I've finished a lot of tops but there are piles of blocks finished and lots of new starts, and lots of fabric used.

Little star top, it's only crib size but I was sick of the blocks hanging around.

Garlic Knots,which was so easy to piece, very quick and satisfying.

I said to Keryn I had this weird superstition that every time I posted, more bad things would happen, and that put me off. She pointed out that the bad things were happening anyway. Thats true, and I don't really believe that because it is just superstition.

However  I have to be careful not to talk about other people's stories because they are not mine to tell, even if they have a huge impact on my life. So I'll try to just concentrate on the things that give me joy and keep me sane and hopefully I can resurrect the blog as a journal, as Keryn seems to be doing.

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Happenings

Shortly after I finished that last blog post my eleven year old grandson Max was in hospital, also diagnosed with type one diabetes. It seems unbelievable to me that there should be three people in the same family with it, but that's the reality of it. He too now has a pump and is coping very well. He's the same age as Rob wnen he was diagnosed but there is such a lot of support available now that it's a big help. 

With all the research I'm sure there will be a cure in ten years or so.

I spent Christmas with Rob and the boys and then came home to enjoy lots of reading, cooking, gardening, sewing and jigsaws.

The new year was spent quietly and I made a few resolutions and some plans. What was completely unforeseen was a woman in a work truck speeding through a Give Way sign and writing off the front of the car I was driving. I had fortuneatly seen she wasnt going to even slow down, so I jammed on the brakes and she hit the front of the car instead of the drivers door. I would probably still be in hospital, or not even alive if I hadn't.

I was a bit shaken up, but my main feeling was one of anger. I coud have had my grand daughters in the car with me, so many aspects could have been worse, so I was grateful for that, but still angry. Now Keryn and I are sharing her car, for which I am also grateful, but it makes life difficult. Hopefully the insurance will be sorted out soon and I can have my own wheels again.

I'm still sewing and cutting and had one finish very early in the year. This is a pattern I made years ago, but I sold that quilt and thought I'd make another. It's very easy to sew and used up a heap of scraps. I meant to make it bigger, but decided to make it a couch size, just so I could get a finish under my belt so early in the year. I must have five quilts awaiting borders, so I could really have  quick finishes, if I just worked on them. The lure of starting a project is strong though, and I'll probably give in soon.The weather is horrible, the garden is dying and being holed up in the sewing room seems the most sensible thing at the momment.

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Marjorie in the comments said that it had been a long time since either Keryn or I had posted, and hoped we were all right. We're still here, still sewing and quilting for a select few customers but we've wound back our work commitments drastically.

My family has had a few medical knocks this year, Matt my youngest son had a stint in hospital, being flown from Arkaroola by the Flying Doctor, an absolutely wonderful Aussie lifesaver for those in the outback. Soon after youngest grandson Eddie (8 years old) was in hospital and diagnosed with type one diabetes. Just like his dad Robert, who was diagnosed at eleven. This is not as common as one might think and the doctors were very interested in this happening. 

Diabetes care has changed so much and Eddie now has an insulin  pump, a continuous glucose monitor and an app on a phone that lets the parents know what his blood sugar is. So much better than the thousands of finger pricks that Rob had to endure. 

Then Rob has had some issues that required medical intervention and I spent some time in Adelaide providing moral support for him and today I learned Matt's partner Tina had to be flown to hospital from Arkaroola, sheesh! I never say "What next?" because I don't want to find out, quite frankly.

John was in another fantastic musical, The Adams Family, as Gomez, which entailed months of rehearsals and much work behind the scenes, so I spent a lot of time supervising the girls so he was free to concentrate on that. It was the best show he's done and totally worth it, but it's still a huge commitment for the whole family.

I'm feeling a bit exhausted as the end of year approaches, with school concerts and christmas to be arranged and the holidays to be navigated amongst the family. I can't believe that 2025 is rushing towards us, where has the year gone? 

Sewing is still keeping me sane, even though so many of my plans have been disrupted this year. Even if I can't manage to finish my quilts completely I can still sew tops, if I can't finish tops I can make blocks, if I can't finish blocks I can sew smaller units, if I haven't got time for that I can cut fabric and make kits. It really is my therapy.

This top came together quite quickly from a desire to use some odd prints from charm packs; those large prints that don't make sense when cut into 5" squares and other randomn fabrics  that didn't fit into any particular group except Big Print/Floral. All the nine patches were scraps that had been cut into 2" squares and the cream was bits of seeded homespun.

Lovely prints, but pretty unuseable as five" squares.

 It felt good to put them all together, and then it was bordered with a soft green and purple large floral leftover from a backing.

 Pulling all that together seems to give me more satisfaction than using my yardge, somehow. It made a pretty little top out of bits and pieces, just as I'm trying to make sense of a very unsettling year of disjointed events.

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 This top was also a kit that I cut years ago. I'd even pieced all the sashes and nine patches, so more than half the work was done. The pattern is called Show Off by Becky of Quilting Twins. She used 9 1/2" squares but I think mine were 7 1/2". That way I could use more of the slightly smaller pieces of shirts.

Jo Jramer quilted a blue one that her daughter Kelli made, and it's beautiful. It's a very easy and striking pattern that shows off the fabric, which is how it got it's name I suppose. It's good for doing in stages too. I cut it all out, large squares first and then the shirting strips for the sashing and the ninepatches. Later I pieced all the sashing, in another session the nine patches. Then I packed it away, knowing that it wouldn't take me long to get it in one piece.

It certainly chewed up a lot of shirts that I wanted to be rid of, and the remainder of my shirt fabric  stash is much more manageable now.

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I started some Jack in the Pulpit blocks years ago, 2013 to be exact, gulp. How can they be nearly eleven years old? I don't understand how time just seems to disappear like that.

 I had fun choosing different fabrics for a fairly muted look, because I didn't want a high contrast between the shirting backgrounds and the coloured portion of the pattern. But when I came to find a sashing fabric anything dark just overwhelmed the blocks and medium fabrics were too wishy washy, so I moved on to something else. Every now and then I'd pull them out, have a play, get discouraged and pack them away again.

 Last year in a bout of complaining to Keryn about my lack of success she suggested this fabric, which is actually a brown print that reads as a warm grey...

Hmmm, maybe....And before I knew it I'd set them all together. We agreed on a large border print to go around it and then life intervened and the bundle sat and sat. I kept thinking how easy it would be to finish the top, now that the decisions were all made, but unless I actually sew the borders on it won't get finished. Duh!!

So the next time you see this it will be sporting a wide floral border and I can tick it off the list. (Fingers crossed)

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 I cant believe how much time has passed since I last blogged. I keep thinking life is going to slow down and become 'normal', but perhaps I just better accept this is the 'new normal.' Looking after the grand daughters for half the week, school drop off and pickup and supervising other activities  while son John is at work, plus my own duties at home and helping other family members. I've been watering two gardens in our summer while Keryn is away and working when I'm able.

So when I tested positive for covid I was actually quite relieved. I stayed home for a week, not even getting in the car once, and it was blissful. I had a cough and a runny nose and a really sore throat, but I didn't have any of the brain fog or tiredness I had the first time. I was able to get  projects done that I'd put off for years.  I went through and filled bags of stuff to take to goodwill, as well as organised the whole kitchen. It felt great to be able to concentrate on my own plans, and gave me a glimpse of what life could be in the future. I won't always have so many nana duties and there are other things I have to learn to say no to more often.

I took a good look at my sewing room too, and realised that I have far too many kits all packaged up on the shelves. Most of them are  cut out, and then they get stacked up and put away for 'later.' What is the point if I never get to stitch them? I say I need them in case I can't cut for a project, then  there will always be pieces ready to sew. Hmm, but if I haven't touched them for years, are they all necessary?

So I pulled one container of pieces for a plaid cross quilt, cut from salvaged shirts and made that my sewing for the week. It didn't quite clear out the container, which was a bit disappointing, but this top used most of the pieces. 

The blocks were cut from 3 1/2" strips,  firstly squares and then 1 1/2" strips to separate them. They were so easy to piece that the top was finished in no time, including a border that was attached as I sewed the blocks together. I love doing the borders like this, it takes all the agonising out of the decisions.

I also achieved a lot of leader ender sewing, making tiny nine patches and finishing some little log cabin blocks.I even allowed myself to sew during the day, something I never let myself do. 

I seem to think I should be doing other things, chores and the garden or work during the day, so the time at the machine was  particularly delightful that week. Im hoping there will be more of it in the future.

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Vintage Star

I've been trying hard this year to use up some of the different types of fabric I have.There's a huge stash of vintage material I've been collecting over the years and treasuring/hoarding.  I'm realising, finally, that if it's 'too precious' to use I might as well sell it all. So I picked a pattern and started cutting. 

This was a twelve inch Rolling Star type block, and I kitted 20 blocks quite easily. There were some fabrics that were pretty much used up, especially the lights, but I found that it's going to take a few tops to make a dent in the overall stash. That somehow makes the fabrics more useable because I'm not going run out any time soon. I intend to kit up a few more projects before I put the fabrics away again.

They went together quickly and I chose  sashing colours without too much fuss. I thought I was cheating because the pale yellow I used wasn't vintage, but then I realised it's thirty years old anyway, so it was getting on in age.
 

(Excuse the dreadful photo, my design wall is always in shadow)

Then I made border units of three and a half inch pinwheels and continued the sashing out to the final border, a vintage green  gingham. I can't get the colours to read true, it's much warmer and prettier in real life.

It's fun using these old fabrics, finally cutting into some of the most precious ones.

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A finished top....maybe?

I finished my top that I was agonising about, having run out of the gingham material I used in the sashing. Or rather, I didn't have enough for the final round. I really didn't want to introduce another fabric so I just moved on to another project. 

Then I realised that if I just cut 2" strips instead of the  2 1/2" sashing in the rest of the top, I could squeak it out. Maybe. I did have to piece some of the scraps together, but I made it in the end. 

I don't think the difference is a big deal, but the binding will chew up some of how much of the gingham shows, and I have no idea what I'll use for that. More agonising, or perhaps a small border? The decisions slow me down every time, sigh

Here it is spread on a queensize bed, so it could use a little bit extra round the edges, hmmm.....

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Ages ago Bonnie Hunter showed this vintage quilt on her blog and I filed the idea away in my memory. I'd already made a crib quilt using this block pattern, but once again I'd sold it. 

The half blocks as a border intrigued me, and I wanted to use a stack of fat quarters that were pretty, but not really my 'thing'. 

The actual block is really simple, and the half blocks just used two setting triangles on the sides to turn them into rectangles.  They were such fun to sew I didn't want to stop.

I tried lots of fabrics for the sashing and eventually decided on a vintage pink gingham. I miscalculated how much there was, and despite ekeing out every last little bit there wasn't enough to add the last round of half blocks. I scrabbled through the vintage stash and found a slightly different pink, and that got me to the outer edge, but now there's not enough for that final round, grr.

So I've been thinking about using a solid colour, either a pink or the blue to frame it, but I'm not too happy with the look. I'll come up with something, but I'll have to dwell on it for a while. I'm going to keep making these blocks though, they're so quick and easy to do.

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Second time around

Many (many) years ago I sewed heaps of four patches as leader enders, from all sorts of different fabrics just to use them up. Then I put them together in a nine patch setting, and then they sat some more. In the earliest recorded appearance of these blocks I was setting them together on point, way back in January of 2006, a few weeks after starting this blog. Wow, that was along time ago.

Even at the time I was regretting using the pink and blue and other modern fabrics, because I wanted this to look like a reproduction quilt. But the blocks were there and had to be used for something, so I persisted.

I did like the finished top and it was duly quilted after we got the statler. Nevetheless I had it tucked away in my mind that I would remake it one day with more suitable fabrics.

Eventualy I sold it when we had our shop and I sort of regretted it, but realistically I didn't need two quilts of  the same design. However  now I was free to begin making the four patches from repro fabric and get started on the replacement blocks. 

 

I sewed on the four patches as leader-enders for quite a while last year, and had so many that I slightly changed the block construction. My original design had a plain square in the centre, but I substituted another four patch, so I could use an extra 42 or so. I ended up with three four patches leftover, how's that for efficiency? Hmm, that means I used 210 four patches, I'm glad I didn't have to make them all at once.

 

Next will be the frustrating task of choosing setting fabric, something that seems to bog me down over and over. Can't be too dark, can't be too light , can't be this colour or that.... I end up pulling out far too much fabric and messing everything up, and then have to put it away again. Which is fine if I find the right fabric, but just often ends in complete frustration. Still, this time might be different?

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This is Bonnie Hunters Winter Blues, finished in November of '22. It was actually started in May 2021, and was a great leader-ender for months and months.

The sixteen patches are one of my favourite blocks to sew and they piled up in a satisfying manner. However I decided to  make a slight difference in the alternating Puss in the Corner block which contained too many light areas for my taste. I made the rectangles pale blue and I really liked the added pattern it made in the surrounding blocks.

There were a couple places where the pale blue was so light the effect was broken but I consider it to be added interest. My main goal was using up all the pallid blue fabric that had sat in the stash for literally decades. 

I had never sewn a border like the one in the pattern, but it went together perfectly. I worried that the bias edges would be hard to handle but there weren't any problems. I think I'll do this again in the furure, a lot of vintge log cabins had borders similar to this one. 

I was hoping that my scrap buckets of blues would be totally depleted with this top, but amazingly they weren't. The paler blues have diminished somewhat, but I still have lots and lots of blue scraps, mainly gifts from Keryn, who has made a lot of blue quilts over the years.And then passed those scraps, excess parts of blocks, triangles and strips on to me. She's always had a 'cutting problem' and I've always welcomed the influx into my stash. But this year I've decided I want to cut into my yardage as well, so even though I'll always pick what I can from scraps and already cut shapes, I really want to play in the drawers of beautiful fabrics as well.

These are some of the quilts I've made to try and use all my blue scraps and I'm amazed that I still seem to have so much. They're worse than a sourdough starter, it seems the more I play with them, the more they multiply!

Small Blue Chain

Blue Lake

Scrappy Mountain Majesties

25 patch

The 25 patch was made with the scraps from the mountain majesties, and there were still leftovers to go into the scrap drawers, sheesh.

Blue Chain.

I would estimate that 80 % of this blue fabric came from scraps;  mine, Keryn's, donations from friends or found at the op shop.I'm grateful for all the fun I've had sewing them, but it's time for the stash to come out to play too.

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