November WOOFA

This is the last WOOFA (Working On Or Finishing A ...) report for the year

In November I finished my Plaid-ish quilt and donated it, made, finished and donated a Christmas placemat, and did a bit of pinning:

This is my Scrappy Mountain Majesties top, which was my Lockdown #5 project, started in July:

I hope to get it quilted and bound by the end of this year.

Thanks to Cheryll for her WOOFA encouragement through the year. Here's this month's link-up: The Last Hoorah.

WOOFA Report

I made a little bit of progress on a project this month, and had one bright idea.

I basted my Plaid-ish quilt top 3 weeks ago, then in the week after that I stitched in the ditch between the blocks, but didn't take any photos of that.

I couldn't really decide how I wanted to quilt it, but yesterday afternoon I thought I better just jump in and do something. So I started quilting some circles:

I'm using my Westalee "Circles on Quilts" rulers. These rulers rotate around a pin, which goes in from the back of the quilt, leaving the sharp pointy bit sticking up. No matter how careful I am, I always manage to stab myself on that pointy pin. But can you see my bright idea in the photo above? The black thing is a rubber pin back off one of my enamel pin badges. No more holes in my fingers! It was much easier not having to constantly worry about where the pin was. I wonder why the company never included any protective stopper for that pin?

I've now quilted about 20% of the quilt, so it will be a while before I can cross this one off my list:

Didn't stab myself once while quilting these circles!

Linked to Cheryll's WOOFA Link-up Party. I'm sure other people will have achieved more than me this month, but I have made some progress, and also solved a problem, so the month wasn't a write-off.

WOOFA Report

 September has not been a very productive month for me. I did finish my Greenhouse wall hanging:

After that I intended to sandwich and quilt two of my tops: Scrappy Mountain Majesties,

and Plaid-ish.

 

I got as far as finding backing fabric, and piecing batting for one of them, but then I stalled. So for October, my WOOFA (Working On Or Finishing A ...) project will be these two quilt tops. (Not that I can believe we are up to October already).

Linked to Cheryll's WOOFA post. I'm sure everyone else achieved more than I did this month! Check it out here.

Pinned

Nine days ago, when our current lockdown started, I began working on a new project. It's a wall-hanging using Elizabeth Hartman's Greenhouse pattern. The lockdown was meant to last until 2nd September, and I wondered if I could finish the project before the lockdown finished.

Here's where I got to today:

I have also prepared the binding. Now I just need to get quilting!

I'm not sure where this fits into my WOOFA (Working On Or Finishing A ...) plans. It is not something that was hanging around waiting for me to work on it. But having this to do has helped me feel better about this lockdown. I've spent time in my sewing room almost every day, and although it looks likely the lockdown will be extended, I'm still aiming for the original finish date.

Check out Cheryll's WOOFA Party post to see what other people have managed to do this month.

July Progress

Hello cocky!

 This cockatoo came to say hello this morning as the sun came up.

What can I say about July's WOOFA progress? (Working On Or Finishing A ...) I did a small amount of work on the project I had nominated for this month, but it was hard going. The thread broke constantly, and progress was so slow that it was a real chore to keep at it. Then came covid outbreaks, and our fifth lockdown, and I just needed something more fun to do. The result was the Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt top I posted about last Saturday. Since then I have done a bit more work on my Birdhouse quilt. Here are the various components pinned up for me to play with their arrangement:

There is another set of pinwheels for the top border, but you'll just have to imagine them for the moment.

Before and after the lockdown I've been continuing to work on emptying my father's house. It is another job that is not at all fun. I couldn't do anything during the lockdown as it is much more than 5km from my place, plus the places that can take some of the furniture were all closed. But now I'm back into it, and I have 2 more weeks until the house has to be empty.

 

Today I had another finish, which has been 12 weeks in the making. It involved a visit here:

And now I can wear this with pride:

Such a good feeling!

My WOOFA goal for August will involve getting a couple of quilt tops sandwiched and the quilting underway. (As well as finishing the house clearance, and celebrating someone's significant birthday.)

Linked to Cheryll's July WOOFA Party. I'm sure everyone has been more productive than me this month. Go and check out the links.

June Progress

This month has been a bit of a write-off for me, sewing-wise. I nominated quilting my Mum's old quilt as my project to make some progress on for WOOFA. I did make a little bit of progress, but it is a difficult job. I've had a lot of thread breaks, which makes progress very stop/start.

I'm really regretting taking on this job! But I will keep plodding along with it and maybe by this time in July it will be finished.

I gave myself a little break one day and tried out this scrappy heart block that Ivani posted instructions for here: How to make the Heart Block

Ivani has been making them for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I have long admired them. So it was fun to try one out one day when I just needed to sew something. I can see myself making more of these from my scraps.

 

Much of my month has been taken up with legal matters, cleaning out my father's house, and preparing for his memorial service on Friday. 

 

I did attend a couple of sit and sew sessions where I took along components of my Birdhouse quilt to hand applique:

There is still a long way to go, but it has been nice to spend a little bit of time sitting and stitching quietly.

If I am not too late, I will link this post to Cheryll's WOOFA link-up for this month.

May WOOFA Report

As May draws to a close, it is time to report on my WOOFA (Working On Or Finishing A ... ) progress. In fact I didn't even set a goal for this month, due to the circumstances occurring at the end of April. 

However, I did manage to finish my April WOOFA project during May. Hooray! So now it is time to pick a project for June.

This is a quilt my mother made, I don't know how long ago:

She has another of her quilts on her bed, but it has to be washed quite frequently. I offered to bring her this one so they can be alternated through the wash. You might be able to see that this one has no quilting in the borders, and if you look at the close-up photo below you might see that there are loose threads in places.

So my plan is to quilt the borders, and add enough quilting to the pieced section to allow it to withstand washing. I think perhaps just stitching in the ditch between the blocks might work? This will be my project for June.

Linked to Cheryll's monthly WOOFA link-up. Thanks, Cheryll!

April WOOFA

 I quilted my Trail Mix quilt this month:

Can you see the join in the back?

This piece was a long skinny bit of fabric I had left over after using it for the backing of two other quilts. I found instructions on piecing a quilt back with a diagonal seam here and here, which gave me a piece just big enough for this one.

Trail Mix was my selected project to Work On Or Finish (WOOF) for April.

As you might be able to see, I have machined on the binding, which I assembled from various bits of left-overs of binding from other quilts:

But I haven't begun to hand-stitch it down on the back. The events I mentioned in my last post have meant that for the last six days family issues have consumed all my time. Finishing it won't take me long once I get some stitching time.

Linked to Cheryll's WOOFA link-up.

Finished

I've finished my WOOFA (Working on, or finishing a....) project for this month. Hooray, that's 3 months in a row!

Here it is hanging on the line to dry:

My "left over" Frolic. It has been a top for just over a year, and now it is done. I needed to give it a wash as it got a little bit of machine oil on it during the quilting. The cotton batting shrank a bit in the wash and gave the quilt the wrinkled-up look that some people prefer. 

It is very overcast today, so the quilt looks much greyer than in real life. I'm planning on handing it to our Quilts of Love coordinator tomorrow, so probably won't get the chance to photograph it in better light.

Linked to Cheryll's end of the month WOOFA Party: Check it out.

Next month's project: Trail Mix, which has been a top since October. (Although I did get it basted earlier this month, so that gives me a head start.)

Catching Up on March So Far

There has been a bit going on, but I seem to have got out of the blogging habit. Here's a few happenings of the month so far.

The white belladonna lilies opened:

They will probably have faded by the time I do my garden round-up on Monday. This photo was taken on the 5th.
 

We had a field naturalist's outing to Geelong on the 7th. We saw all sorts of fascinating coastal vegetation such as this Grey Samphire (Tecticornia halocnemoides):

Obviously not grey at this time of year. 

And the Grey Mangroves (Avicennia marina):

Also not actually grey.

And lots of water birds:

The 10th March was my parents' 65th wedding anniversary. This is not an event we expected to be celebrating, as earlier in the month my mother was thought to be dying. She doesn't look in great health in this photo:

But it is the first time she had been out of bed and in her wheelchair in over a week. A vaccination team visited her nursing home on the 4th to deliver the first round of the covid vaccine for the residents, but she wasn't offered it as she was too ill. Maybe she will have her first one when the rest of the residents get their second one, if she is still with us.

 

Also on the 10th, we had 8 kookaburras come to visit in the morning:

The chooks are having a tour of the front "lawn", moving to a different part of it each day. The kookaburras are sitting on their temporary fencing.

The chooks weren't impressed that some food was thrown to the kookaburras!

One of my orchids has thrown up a flower spike:

It has flowered in winter/spring in previous years, so this was a surprise. Perhaps being in the shade house has confused it about the time of year.

Another "time of year" confusion:

A bunch of peonies open right now. I had half a dozen buds left in the fridge which I had forgotten about, so here they are, as if it was spring rather than autumn.

And finally, today I basted my WOOFA (working on or finishing a ...) project for this month, my small Frolic that was assembled in March last year.

While I was at it, I pieced a backing for Trail Mix and basted it as well:

It's only been a top since October. It will probably be my WOOFA project for next month.

So that's March so far!

WOOFA Report

For the last few days I've been making parts for this project which is nothing to do with the WOOFA Challenge (Working On Or Finishing A...):

There's lots more to do, and this isn't the final layout. Everything is just pinned up so I can get a feel for it. It is Alex Anderson's Birdhouse Quilt, which could turn into a long-term project if I decide to applique everything by hand. 

So why have I spent several days on this project? It is my reward for finishing all the WOOFA projects I nominated for February.

I finished the half-sewn dress on the 4th, and wore it one day the next week when we had a few days of summer.

My X-Plus quilt was basted, quilted and bound, then donated on the 20th.

And finally, 2 t-shirts that had been sitting around for nearly 2 years were sewn up and finished on the 22nd. And because summer went away again, both long-sleeved t-shirts have been worn as well.

So that's why I've been playing with Birdhouse bits!

I have decided that my March WOOFA project will be my small Frolic quilt, which is currently just a top. That will be appropriate, as I finished assembling the top in March last year.

This will also be donated when it is complete.

Linked to Cheryll's February WOOFA Party.

February WOOFA

After the success of completing my January WOOFA challenge (Working On Or Finishing A...UFO), I am going to be a bit more ambitious for February. I have four items I want to work on this month. Am I mad?

Quilt: next up in my pile of unfinished quilts is the X-Plus top I assembled last April. 

I have made a back for it, and have the batting. So I need to baste it and get quilting.

 

Sewing: This dress, which I mentioned yesterday when doing some necessary un-picking, needs its side seams, hem, and sleeves. (I think I know where the sleeves are.) 

And now that I have unpicked the mistake, there is nothing to stop me moving forward with it. (Spoiler alert: I actually put the zip in and sewed up the side seams this afternoon.)

In May 2019 I cut out two t-shirts. Here they are, still in the zip-lock bag I put them in after the cutting out:

I know it doesn't take long to sew up t-shirts, so this month I will get them finished.

So, four unfinished items which I will work on this month. I hope to actually finish at least three of them.

WOOFA - Oops

Thanks to Cheryll and her WOOFA encouragement to make some progress on unfinished projects (Working On Or Finishing A ... UFO), I have finished my Frolic quilt! I completed the binding this afternoon, then took the quilt out to hang up and photograph:

Fortunately there was a little break in the rain for me to do that. 

 

Here's the back so you can see the quilting:

As I photographed the back, I noticed something that was not quite right... Look between the circles at the top right.

I missed quilting this bit! How did I do that? 

No worries, it is done now, and the quilt really is finished. Hooray! Linking to Cheryll's January WOOFA Party.

I guess now I need to choose a February WOOFA project. I'll post about that on Monday.
 

WOOFA-ing

 This year I am participating in Cheryll's mutual encouragement WOOFA challenge. What on earth is "WOOFA"? It stands for "Working On Or Finishing A ... UFO". Read all about it here:

https://stitchingcubbyhole.blogspot.com/2021/01/welcome-back-woofa.html

 

 

My project for this month is to finish last year's Quiltville Mystery, Frolic. The quilting needs finishing, then it will need binding.

You can't see what still needs quilting very well in this photo. I took the quilt outside to photograph it, and there was a march fly sitting right on the clothesline waiting for me, so I gave up on that idea! These indoor flash photos of it draped over some furniture will have to do.

Basically, the border is unquilted, and there are empty sections at the block corners that need more work. I have 23 days until the end of January to get the quilting done and bind it.