Meals for Animals

I haven't decided yet on a title for my current project - so far, Dog's Dinner and Pig's Breakfast come to mind. I wonder why we think of animal meals when we are a little unhappy with our work.

So, what am I moaning about? Well it's a long and boring tale - I'll try and be brief. I started a BOM back in late 2014 with the launch of Today's Quilter. It was a project designed by Jen Kingwell whose work I greatly admire and I was still heady from finishing (well, finishing the top) of "My Small World".

Jen's designs are perfect for scrap quilts and as with MSW, I found I could lose myself in the choosing and throwing together of scraps, some so old they brought back memories of where they were purchased, which other quilts they had been part of, you know how it goes..........

As the months rolled on, it became obvious that it wasn't an ordinary BOM - indeed some months demanded several blocks and it was at times quite demanding upon time.

Not all blocks were the same size which only added to the intrigue. Month 9 was a struggle - 8 x 12" blocks but I managed these and mentioned it HERE. I did start to struggle a bit and made a start to month 10 but then when month 11 was published there was a bit of a bolt  out of the blue. We had to return to 4 of the 12 blocks we had made in month 2 and add strips to them..............only thing was, I had only made one. So had my friend. I checked the magazine and let's face it, an omission is understandable in such a young magazine. It was enough to scunner me though and I put the whole project on the back burner. I reckoned nobody was holding a gun to my head and I could take my time.

Month 12 came with another 4 blocks to be made and then last month we had the big reveal which was as suspected, a large medallion quilt with 4 month 1 blocks in dead centre Pity I had only made one..........

So I set to, now about 36 blocks short of a quilt, and made the missing three blocks. I think my heart might not have been truly in it although I did go through all the motions. The blocks were made using templates (my most unfavourite technique)) and the finished results with multiple Y seams I think highlight my poor, poor attention to detail when (a) cutting the templates and (b) cutting the fabric. My resulting bowl shaped blocks just will not pass muster and have to go! 

So - should I abandon ship completely? No! I had a look at the instructions for assembly and the centre of the quilt measures 24" finished. Well, I have a few Big Blocks stored from previous workshops - I dug them out and found one that wasn't quite to size.......indeed it wasn't strictly mine but had come to me as a pile of HSTs from a former student, along with a piece of co ordinating fabric. Hmmm. I had, a few months ago, trimmed and squared the HSTs and assembled them into a Big Block and today I added narrow borders to bring it up to 24 1/2".

I looked at the final quilt layout plan to see how many blocks still needed to be done, and was there some way of maybe using up some orphans instead - I dug out my "orphan drawer" and came across a small log cabin quilt top that I must have made, oh, about 15 years ago. I was so eager to unpick it that I didn't take a picture but I have just found the plan for it in my old EQ5 files.

The blocks were 7 1/2" so I unpicked them and resized to 6 1/2". And would you believe it, I need 8, and I had 8. Just goes to show things do come in handy sometimes.

So here is a progress shot of my "Kitchen Sink Drama" -  Despite one or three other irritating issues, I am quite enjoying it again.

Changing the subject, briefly - as those of you who follow my blog know, I have a small online shop. Actually, I have two. One, administered by Eckwid to sell my Aurifil threads and the other is my Etsy shop, which pre-dates the first but I retain it as they deal with the difficulties of VAT and digital selling.

If I was a snazzy, on the ball saleswoman, I might have anticipated that Christmas was around the corner and tried some advance marketing but no, I admit it was a chance sale in my Etsy shop recently, of my Tree Skirt pattern that made me think, "oh yes, that'd be a good thing to offer for Christmas". So I am and it is.