Repeats

 I'm still working on my half-square triangles, but they don't make interesting blog posts.

 

I have about 100 to go.

 

I'm not going anywhere much at present because of the cost of petrol. It almost feels like lockdowns did; staying home and only going out for grocery shopping when necessary. It is the one down-side of living in the country. Nothing is within walking distance, and there is no public transport.

  

Last night was a bit warmer, and I put out my moth light again. I was very happy to find this one just as I was about to pack it away again: 

 

 

It's a shame I didn't put anything beside it for scale. It is a Helena Gum Moth, and it is about 150mm, or 6", across. I don't see them often so am always happy when I do.

 

The blossom in the orchard still delights me every morning when I let the chooks out: 

 Anyway, that's life here. Lots to enjoy, but not much variety in the blog posts!

Planning

 Finished making all the sets of triangles for the the current round of my Rajah Revisited quilt:

And then was very happy to find that me-from-some-years-ago had already printed off the correct number of foundations for the next-round-but-one, which I am not making according to the pattern:

I had thought there was some printing and calculating and cutting ahead of me, but it was already done!
 

Twin Lotuses

 Spent a lovely afternoon sewing with a friend who has a matching machine: 

I made some more paper-foundation half-square triangles, which I'm doing in sets of 7 (see under needle on my machine in front).

I then laid out what I have so far:

Only 8 more sets of 7 to do for this first round of triangles.
 

 

To anyone trying to comment - the Blogger comment system is not working at present, so it is not a problem at your end. We just have to wait for them to fix it. Seems to be fixed now.

A Little Progress

 A few half-square triangles for the next border on my Rajah Revisited quilt:

Rather than choose a colour scheme, I'm using dark fabrics in a range of colours.

In other good news, I have my car back, and it didn't cost me a fortune. That gives me some time to decide on its eventual replacement.

Revisiting the Blog

This is my Rajah Revisited quilt, in progress since Feb 2018, but in reality not touched since the end of 2020. The next round is 168 small half-square triangles, and I need to make a decision about what colours to make them in by the end of this week, so I can make them in a special HST project day on Saturday.

Testing the idea of restarting my blog.
 

 

Rajah Borders Six and Seven

I finished attaching the sixth border a couple of days ago, and the whole thing looked very wonky:

Actually when I took that photo one side of the seventh border had been attached, but you can see how the pieced border does not want to lie flat.

I now have all four sides of border seven on, and there is still a little bit of wonkiness:

It is upside down, but you can see that the top border (at the bottom of the photo) has a few wiggles. I know that the borders are the right length. (Ignore the apparent mis-matching at the seams. The pattern has you cut these borders a bit wider than necessary, to be trimmed back later. But that means they look wrong until they are trimmed. It probably should have told you to cut the top and bottom borders longer as well as wider.) I'm hoping that the waviness is due to the bias effect of all those square-in-a-square units, and that once the final border is added and the quilting is done it will all be flat!

Rajah Progress

I've now made all the units for the next round of Rajah Revisited. 

Laid out on the cutting board ready to assemble:

They are still attached to their paper foundations, if you are wondering what the white behind them is.

One side assembled:

Still with their papers, so not pressed yet. But I think it is going to be OK.

The poor peonies are already starting to lose their petals, but here are a couple on the plant that still look good:

And here are a couple inside, which will look good for longer:

Round Six

Note to self: Always type something before you put any photos in, or else you can't put anything before the first photo.

After it sitting untouched for about 18 months, I am making some tentative moves on the next round of Rajah Revisited, as seen above.

Part of my difficulty was choosing colours for this sixth round. I wasn't feeling inspired. However, when I saw the West Australian Quilters' display, Kerry Moore's quilt showed me that repeating the colours I used in the fourth round was the way to go.

I wish I had made notes to myself, or taken some photos, because I don't remember how I worked out the colour progression when I made round 4. All I have is the photo in this post, and of course the top so far:

 

I tried laying out fabrics, taking a photo then removing the colour:

But I don't think that helped. 

I've removed fabrics, added fabrics, and rearranged them. But I'm still shuffling them around.

Those I can still move above, and those that I've already assembled below:

 

I can only hope that once I have them all assembled and attached, the overall effect will be what I want.

Stuff

So it is ages since I wrote a blog post. I had a list of posts to write that didn't happen, and a half written draft, but now so much time has passed I can't really go back and fill in the gaps. So instead, here's a few recent things.

A shade house was built:

Jack checked to make sure it was OK:

Then I moved all the orchids from the greenhouse into it:

I quickly realised that those plant stands you can see in the previous photo are really only good for small plants, so the shelving is improvised for the moment.

I finished assembling the Trail Mix quilt top:

The apples and the quinces flowered:

That's an apple, I'll save the quinces until I do my round-up of everything flowering this month.

The tulips that started flowering on 21st September looked like this on 1st October:

And today they still haven't lost any petals, although they are beginning to droop a little. But I'm amazed at how long they lasted.

Because it is spring, many things are growing and flowering. Butterflies and dragonflies are flitting and zooming around the garden.

Inspired by this post on the West Australian Quilters' Association blog: "Rajah Quilt Revisted", I've even dug out a project I haven't touched in quite a while, and am contemplating the next rounds.

 

Of course other things have happened in the 2.5 weeks since my last post, but some of them are best forgotten, and the rest have missed their chance to be blogged!

Retreat - Sunday

Beautiful elms shade the grounds of the retreat venue:

I think it is a while since anyone had a barbecue:

After lots of laughter and interesting conversations and lovely meals and even more sewing it was time to pack up everything and head home. My main achievement for the weekend was making and attaching the 5th border on my Rajah Revisited:

The quilt has grown a little since the last time I posted my progress 4 months ago.

Group photo before we all departed:

I got home at about 5:30, where a couple of dogs were overjoyed to see me again. And I was happy to be home, too.

Retreat - Saturday

A chilly start!

Interesting frost designs on someone's car.

An early start for people setting up stalls for the Lancefield Farmers Market, as the sun appears at the end of the street:

On this pre-breakfast walk, I noticed that the nursery had a sale on trees. And right near the front fence I noticed a tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica. I first admired this tree in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens seven years ago.

Later in the morning I went back and bought one:

then popped it in the bathroom of my room to keep it safe for the rest of the weekend.

Here's our workspace:

Empty because this was before breakfast. That's my Elna Lotus in the foreground, and you can see the hourglass blocks I worked on yesterday. My first challenge was working out how to make them so that the seams would nest when I sewed them together, but I came up with a method that worked. By lunchtime I had made quite a few more:

In the afternoon I finished the binding on a charity quilt that had been giving me a few hassles.

I think this is my 14th charity quilt quilted. I intended to completely machine-sew the binding, but I forgot that the new machine has a different width foot than my old Elna, so I had too much seam allowance. That meant the binding couldn't nicely cover the stitching on the front, so I ended up having to hand-sew the front of the binding, and it was hard going. The whole quilt suffered a bit:

 I'm hoping that waviness will relax with time.

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

I also laid out the rest of the Bloom blocks to finalise which fabrics will go where,

then I prepared a few of the applique parts for the next blocks. Photos of those can wait until the next Bloomer Party next Saturday.

Transferring Skills

I've been stuck on my Rajah Revisited quilt for quite some time. Since October last year to be exact. Four months of no progress because of this:

The flower with skinny pointy petals which is meant to be appliquéd in each corner of the second border. With skinny pointy points that are beyond my current appliqué skill level.

Today it suddenly struck me that I could try making these petals using the interfacing technique I've been using for the Lori Holt Bloom quilt. So I made a couple of test petals, but even with trimming away almost all of the seam allowance my points were lumpy and ugly looking.

Then another idea hit me, and I looked through the Bloom templates and the templates from the Amanda Herring Friendship quilt. I found that one of Amanda's templates was the same length as the Rajah petals, just a bit wider:

So I made a couple more test petals, and I think I can get a sharper point with these slightly fatter petals. I'm going to give it a go, anyway!

I found diamonds on this fabric in the colours I wanted to use for the petals, so now I have 24 petals ready as my next hand-sewing task.

Slow Day

Another day when it was too hot to do anything energetic. I pulled out my Rajah Revisited, which has been waiting in pieces for me to do the appliquéd flowers in the second border.

As you can see, I still haven't done the appliqué, but now the pieces are sewn together ready for it. I also attached the narrow orange strips, because the white fabric frays easily and I am hoping that the orange will protect those edges as I work on the flowers.

The next border is already assembled, and has been waiting six months for the flowers to be done.

Stay At Home Retreat

This weekend was my quilt guild's annual "stay at home" retreat. I had trouble deciding what to take with me to work on, as the main thing I need to do is my Christmas challenge piece for this group, and that has to remain secret.

In the end I took three things to do, and got them all done.

1. Binding and label added to the charity quilt with polar fleece backing that I quilted a week ago:

2. Backing made for my "Easy Street" quilt:

That's three lengths of fabric sewn together to make backing for this nearly 2.5m square quilt. Easy Street was the Bonnie Hunter mystery in 2012. Mine was last seen here in July 2016, when I was adding borders. Now I have the top, the batting, and the back ready. How long until I get it basted, I wonder?

3. Appliquéing the last three-and-a-half of these things:

That's the fourth side done for this round of Rajah Revisited. It has been a long time coming. I made the first side in March, finished the second side in June, and have taken another four months to get to this point. Here's how it all looks so far on the design board at home:

The top and bottom borders aren't attached yet, because see those bare corners? They are now meant to get something like this added:

I'm considering my options.

I was told beforehand that you should take far more than you can achieve to the retreat. I failed in that respect, but I'm glad that I did finish what I took with me!

Getting Ahead of Myself

I've had a cold for the last few days and haven't felt up to doing much of anything. I needed something simple to do, so I've been working on the 4th border of Rajah Revisited:

We won't mention the fact that the 2nd border is less than half finished so far.

(Very) Slow Stitching

At a sit and sew day today, instead of basting more charity quilts, I spent a little time on my Rajah Revisited quilt:

I finished appliquéing a couple of those pieces to the left-hand border, then attached the border when I got home. Considering it is 3 months since I attached the border to the right-hand side, this is turning into a very slow project indeed.