Super Mario Block

Wow this one came together quickly!  This random piecing malarkey is fabulous!  Here he is, Mr Super Mario himself, although sometimes I look at it and see him and other times I don't see him...

I hit the big 'five-oh' 50 followers yesterday! Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings and comment on my creations, it's a milestone for me for sure!

The kids have broken up from school for the two week Easter holidays, and I'm hoping the weather will continue to be nice and they can be out in the garden playing while I construct some more of these Mario blocks...

Have a great weekend everyone, I'm off to start block No 3.

One Block Down

Today I managed just enough sewing time to finish the first block for the Super Mario quilt, the star.

As I mentioned in my last post, I drew out some pixelated images from Super Mario and then just set about randomly piecing the block together.  Some pieces are a finished 1" square and other pieces are 10" long strips.  It's very liberating to piece in this manner, picking and choosing what goes where.

The block is about 17", it needs squaring off and sashing.

I think I'm going to tackle the big man himself next, MARIO...  in his own words 'here we go!'.

WIP Wednesday #15

Wednesday again?!?!

Having got my sewing machine back on Friday I was able to spend some time on Saturday on my Central Park Sampler Blocks

Here is the Star of Virginia block, others can be seen here.

I've started a new quilt today.... Super Mario Brothers for my boys.

I've sketched out some pixelated images which should make 18" blocks (very approximately!). I'm really excited about this one, I think it could be an amazing quilt.  The piecing is tricky, you can already see where it's not quite lining up, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it, the fun is in the making right?

Stats:
No progress this week on the;
Solids HST Diamond Quilt - needs re-basting as I've changed my mind about the backing fabric!
Central Park 4 Patch - binding in progress
Black and White King Size Bed Quilt - completed quilt top, partial quilt back
Dresden Plate - partial quilt top
Kaleidoscope - one block made, lots of cut pieces in a drawer!
Central Park Sampler Quilt - 7 blocks made.
Kids T-shirt Memory Quilt - some t shirts cut....

Finishes this week: 0
New Projects this week: 1
In Progress: 8

I'm linking up with Lee over at Freshly Pieced for todays post.

Sampler Blocks

My machine is back! Yay! All serviced and repaired, so on Saturday I cracked on with some more sampler blocks.  I started the Skills Builder Sampler last year but when they moved on to applique and curved blocks I wasn't feeling the love, so now I'm pulling blocks from the Summer Sampler Series.
This Greek Cross block is probably my favourite so far, it's so pretty in the flesh.

 Mosaic Block

 Pinwheel Parade.

 Bow Ties

 Star of Virginia. This block is really growing me, I'm not usually a fan of green...

I'm really pleased with how these blocks are coming along, especially seeing as oranges, pinks and greens are out of my comfort zone!

I'm trawling all the linky parties looking for more block designs and tutorials, there's some amazing quilts out there right now, why not hop over and have a look?

Sew Happy Geek Manic Monday Linky Party
Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations
Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday

Beauty or Beast...

My sewing machine was collected yesterday (Monday) for it's service/repair. It may take a week or so... I thought I'd be fine with my Central Park 4 patch binding to get on with but no, I am now craving piecing!

My mum very kindly lent me her machine, an old Frister & Rossmann, which must be a 1960's relic, but I thought how hard could it be, surely I could at least do some piecing on it?

 Alas this was the pathetic amount I achieved before deciding that enough was enough!

The needle seems permanently stuck in a left hand sided position, not central to the foot which was making it tricky to line up a 1/4 inch seam, the foot pedal needed a very firm foot indeed, the machine wasn't picking up the first 2 or 3 stitches with each start, and to top it all it then decided to start somehow pulling threads on the fabrics, luckily only on the white and not my precious Central Park, so I have left it at that....

Beast it is then! I may have to go and ask my neighbour if I can borrow her machine tomorrow!

And it was all going so well...

I was hoping to post a finish today, my HST diamonds quilt was going great guns and then my machine stopped feeding the fabric through....

I got the manual out, cleaned a fair amout of lint out, oiled it and put it back together again - this is as far as my techinical expertise goes! Did a test and

It's still not feeding properly, making the stitches really small and close together and so damn hard to unpick!  So back up on the wall she goes whilst I go in search of a local sewing machine service type person.

I should really finishing the binding on my Central Park 4 Patch quilt anyway - so perhaps this is the ideal opportunity.

I saw a kaleidoruler online the other day and wondered if anyone has experience of using one? My kaleidoscope blocks went horribly wrong when the templates printed incorrectly and I really don't have the know how or experience to correct it myself, then I wondered if this might be a canny little cheat I could use... Please let me know what you think.

Stats:
No progress this week on the;
Central Park 4 Patch - binding
Black and White King Size Bed Quilt
Dresden Plate
Kaleidoscope
Skills Builder Sampler
Memory Quilt

Finishes this week: 0
New Projects this week: 0
In Progress: 7

As it's Wednesday again already (!!!) I'm linking up with Lee over at Freshly Pieced for todays post.

and also Sew Happy Geek & Quilt Story - who's buttons I can't get to publish for some reason...

Rainbow Diamond Flimsy

I finally got a little sewing time today after a busy weekend out with the girls and then family.  My HST diamond quilt is now a beautiful finished flimsy!

I loved this mini quilt the first time I saw it, I'm a sucker for a rainbow of colour, and Lindsay created this quilt with springtime in mind, liking the idea of bits of color peeking through the gray, much like her Indiana weather! I may not be in Indiana but the same certainly applies for lil' old Hampshire here in the UK!

I'm trying to persuade hubby that the dining room - my sewing space - needs redecorating... It can be quite dark in there on a grey day so I'm hoping to have the wallpaper taken off and some lovely fresh white walls in it's place.  I'm keen to use this quilt as my first wall hanging and would like it all to myself in my sewing space, is that too selfish? 

The quilt measures 41" x 33".  If I pull my finger out tomorrow and choose a backing I may have a finish to post on Wednesday...

Lindsay's tutorial for this mini quilt can be found here.

I'm linking up with Sew Chatty's Made With Love Linky today.