Work in Progress!

I'm spending time 'rebuilding' my sewing room / study / spare room - so here's the tour of how its looking at the moment.

Starting off behind the door - this bookshelf is a work in progress - lots of juggling things about as items return to the room and I choose their new locations.

To the right you can just see my 'design wall' (a fleece on a pole) .

Another shot further around the room.  You can see some shelves on the back wall which are now starting to fill up with books.

One day there will be a sofa bed on the back wall, with a quilt hanging above it.

You can see the flattened boxes that I've emptied and you can see the bookshelf lying down that won't fit in, and drawer units that were on their way to under my sewing table.

 Further round the room, you can see the second of the two windows that look over the garden.  My laptop is set up nearest the window, the one that my DDs use is right next to it (part of the reason for having two chairs along this table.

When you are re-sorting it always looks like such a mess, doesn't it?

 Final shot, showing the layout right the way back round to the door where we started.

Difficult to tell from the photos, but the room is a stubby L shape.  The tables are a total of 2.8m.  The opposite wall is just over 2m.

So my WIP is unpacking, sorting, organising.  Its going to take a while!

This represents the total of my sewing output - a zippy purse and a warmer.  Its not much, but enough to keep me happy that I've at least started sewing in the 'new' room!

It feels good to be able to do even just a little back in here.

Hope that you are enjoying your summer too!

Disappearing Hour Glass

 There are some great tutorials for this block on the web already.
I'm not trying to compete - just to put this where I can always find it after I spent a few minutes wondering how to replicate a block that I'd made some time ago (and wrongly thinking that it started with a pinwheel block!).

 Take two 10" squares of fabric.  Lay them right sides together and sew all around them.

Cut them across both diagonals (and I'd recommend carefully pressing them open at this stage, although I rarely follow my own advice!).

 Lay them out in this pattern - which I think is called 'hour glass' although some people might use that name just for the centre four triangles in this arrangement.

Tricky business, getting block names right!

Sew together and press again.

 Your block will probably be 12 2/3" square.

Slice into thirds in each direction (so for this size, 4 1/4" per slice).

 Rotate the corner and centre blocks to get to this pattern (I like the little butterflies in it, which will remind me that this is the week when my DD2's butterflies hatched).

 Make enough that you can make a quilt!

I didn't have enough blue with me to make the nine blocks that I wanted to, so make the rest with a blue backed floral, which wasn't quite as close tonally as I'd hoped!

I decided that this was the better of the two layouts that I tried.  Still not perfect for showing off the  pattern that it made when the blocks come together, but enough to get the idea of it!

I might be putting this back on my list of things to make more / make again.  I think that it would work really well as a scrappy quilt and I'm pretty sure that I already have some 10" squares cut and in my scrap drawers.

This will make a reasonable baby quilt, though.  about 32" finished size.

Layering, basting and quilting next on my list of things to do!

Basted and Quilted

 I finally found enough clear and clean floor where I could (spray) baste the two parts of my Dear Jane.

It was then folded up, bundled into a bag and stuffed into a crate with my other sewing supplies so that it could come on holiday with me!

 I've been wondering for years quite how I was going to quilt this project.

I tried out several patterns on a sample sandwich and decided that I'd give the 'flame' pattern (difficult to see here, but it's on the right hand side) a go as an all over pattern.

 This was my sewing area for the week.  Some people might think that it was a dressing table, what with the mirror behind it and everything....but with the addition of the ironing board it made a great place to quilt!

 I started with the smaller of the two pieces.  Then got on and trimmed and bound it, ready to hand sew the back of the binding and the hanging sleeve over the rest of the week.

 Then it was time to tackle the larger piece.  It really is on the limits of what I can comfortably handle, and I'm afraid that some of the quilting reflects that!  I'm not sure that the sashing will be quite as straight and true as it was before I started quilting it!

Never mind, it's quilted, by me, and ready for trimming and binding when I get back to my largest cutting mat at home!

Of course, I stopped for frequent breaks to gaze at the view. Difficult to see here, but we have the most fabulous view over a village and some fields to the sand dunes, beach and sea.  Whatever the weather (and it's been changeable this week, to say the least!) its been a fascinating vista!