Today’s Bingo prompt:
Use some neutral colored fabric
Welcome to December, the last month of the quarter!
December Prompt:
Inspired by:
The jungle, a pastel/muted color palette, or your environment.
Swing in the Center Quilt Block - nominated by AudiobookLover - This link provides instructions to make a 6", 9", or 12" block with 4 seams in the center block.
Swing in the Center 12" block - This link provides instructions for a 12" block with a single piece of fabric in the center
Video Tutorial - This video goes along with the link above for the 12" block
Fourth Quarter Challenge:
Quilt something using your favorite fabric (this can be your favorite of the fabrics you have in stash or maybe you can use this as your reason for purchasing your ultimate ‘gotta have it’ fabric). If you have multiple favorites, you have more options. If you don’t have a favorite, then just use a fabric that you really like. The basic point of this challenge is to “Use the good stuff,” as @Edel would say.
Goal List:
Don’t forget to post the goals that you’ve already completed. If you have additional goals that you’d like to get done this month, feel free to add them to your list. And if you haven’t created a list yet, there’s still time, so go ahead and add your list!
I, EclecticDreamer, completed one of my Q4 goals - made my Xmas gift bag. No pics yet bcuz 1. It’s part of a swap and my partner hasn’t received yet and 2. I forgot to take a pic before sending it off in the mail. I’ll add a photo once she receives and posts.
My stuff made £35 of the £88 we raised; it was for a homelessness charity this year ![]()
And I started out making this bookmark from a couple of leftover HSTs, which unbeknownst to me had polycotton fabric in, so some melted under the iron. But it was too skinny for a bookmark, so I added black sashing.
Then I realised it looks like a window at night. My BFF has a festive diorama with a Smilodon and some woodland critters so I’m going to give it to her for hanging in the diorama.
I LittleCogs, offer the quilted bookmarks and teeny tiny window quilt for my small personal finish.
And I realised I never shared the finished colour wheel quilt with you. After I posted about muffing up the colour order, I fixed it by remaking the affected squares, appliqueing them in place, then redoing the quilting on them.
I freaking love it. It’s a pop of joy in my studio. ATM it’s sharing a nail with a calendar and some ironed fabric, but at some point I will tidy and hang it properly.
My cat helped with the binding.
The front:
The back:
I LittleCogs, offer the Colour Wheel Mini Quilt for my medium personal finish.It might only be 14.5” square but all the circles are hand appliqued and I did a bunch of hand stitching to indicate colour scheme types.
I LittleCogs, submit “finish the colour wheel mini quilt” goal for my goal list entry. ![]()
What a fabulous save! It is such a happy quilt because of the colors, but also because of the dots. I love dots in fabric and you have quite a few!
Also, the other save–the bookmark! It does look like a window.
Thank you @AIMR I auditioned a couple of options; this dotty delight, and a lovely dark hand dyed fabric.
I liked them both, but I felt that the dark end of the colour wheel just got lost on the darker fabric.
The polkadots came from a Ruby Star Society fat quarter bundle - Birthday by Sarah Watts. I loved them so much and I’m glad I used the FQ in this quilt; use the food stuff ![]()
I don’t think I can get more, but that’s cool, I just picked up an FQ of this delight from their Washi range.
@LittleCogs I love that colour wheel quilt. It looks fabulous.
So I’m housebound, I had surgery Monday (not cancer, painful lady parts stuff) I can’t drive for weeks, and apparently even standing doing a rotary cutting session will be beyond me for at least 6 weeks. So I’m bored, cabin fever has set in on day three! Can’t sit at the machine and haven’t the focus for hand sewing.
I do however have a bank card and a phone, and adult money. I bought not one but two scrap bags, one Moda and one Ruby star, plus fabric-because you know, I need more fabric (insert eye roll here)
Come on you lovely people, tell me what you’re up to, let me live vicariously through you.
Oh, this is hell for anyone who is used to doing so much all the time! I guess you will have plenty of time to plot future projects! Are you able to do some journal work or embroidery?
I’m so sorry you’re not only housebound, but also couchbound! I don’t have a lot of good advice besides online coloring. I was up and about (and sewing), sooner than anticipated, but it felt like forever.
I honestly don’t have much brain space. Although I will pick up my embroidery tomorrow perhaps. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos!
@MistressJennie I’m taking you as my inspiration and hoping I get back to sewing soon!
Since your question was what we are up to… after a very intense last couple of months, I’ll have nearly three weeks off over Christmas!!! I have ordered a serger that I hope to receive over Christmas and a whole bunch of fabric. The USD is very low now so I took advantage of Black Friday. I’m not a fabric hoarder, I don’t keep a big stash, but I only had fabric for my current project + a whole pile of scraps left. I needed some yardage for two projects that have been on my wishlist for literal years. One summer-ish and one winter-ish quilt, both for me. I don’t keep most of my quilts.
Before that I need to finish my current project (quilt for my new baby niece) and also my longterm WIP - the handsewn and handquilted hexie quilt. I hope to finish that on the sofa while watching Christmas films. I only have about one or two rounds of hexies left to quilt and then the binding.
Are you buying from the US? Do you not get slammed for customs? Anything that I get gets About 27% vat charged on the purchase price+the shipping, plus about another €15/ handing fee. It’s just not worth it. My recent fabric purchases were from the UK. They are being sent to my husband’s friend in Belfast, he’ll ‘gift’ them to me when my husband sees him next week.
If they’re not hitting packages to NL with stupid customs, I could get stuff sent to myaddresspal there-it’s a company that redirects stuff. Where are you shopping online?
There is a charge, but it’s reasonable. It’s not higher than it was before.
You pay VAT at the Dutch rate (9% or 21%) but if you’ve already paid VAT in the sender’s country, they don’t charge you for it. Orders from the US are sent without VAT but British vendors pay VAT at home. Parcels over €150 (including shipping costs) are liable for extra tariffs but below that, it’s just VAT + a €6 handling fee.
So my $100 order plus $25 shipping = $125 = €106 + around €25 in costs is €130 all in all. I ordered yardage and two pre-cut bundles (10" stacker and a charm pack) in total 8 yards of fabric at ≈€16,25 / yard. It’s €25-30 / yard here and some brands are hard to find.
We have quite a few quilt shops here but quilting is often a rich old lady thing here. I don’t mean that as an insult but lots of neutrals and florals and generally things that wouldn’t look out of place in Hyacinth Bucket’s house (and the customers are often very much like her as well… don’t say out loud you use a machine and a rotary cutter and non-branded fabrics!!).
It is quite easy to find cotton fabrics with nice prints for a relatively low price, strictly speaking not quilting fabric but a similar weight. Usually sold in large open air markets. I use that type of fabric as well sometimes, especially for backing. But there’s less variety and kind of hit or miss whether you find something you like.
This order is from Fat Quarter Shop but Shabby Fabric’s shipping rates are reasonable too. I haven’t found any great British quilting webshops yet but I order from Wool Warehouse sometimes. We have several friends there and we travel there relatively often. We have it delivered to their home. You can bring up to €400 worth of goods per person back tax-free, and you can bring a very generous amount of luggage on the Eurostar.
Gifts are by the way tax free up to €45 and if the sender fills in the details correctly, there’s no handling fee either. Big companies like Amazon and M&S arrange that stuff directly with customs so there’s no fee either. M&S is one of the few British shops I still order from after Brexit, although I try to stock up when I’m in the UK. Sadly they’ve left NL.
This week’s Quiltalong Bingo prompt is:
Start a new project
Hartford Stitch is a community organization that has classes on sewing and quilting for all ages. They also do projects like a community quilt and donate to a local shelter for teens. You sonate 13” scrap blocks in a single colorway, red, green, yellow, etc. Pops of other colors are just fine. One year I cleared out my scrap stash, making blocks. They are trimmed to 12 1/2 inch blocks and sewn into 4 x 5 block quilts.
This year I used up most of a flannel scrap bag I had ordered from a flannel clothing retailer. I was a bit disappointed because of so many little scraps and long, narrow strips, and so much blue…of one fabric. But they have come in handy for Christmas crafts.
I started with the long strips; some were rather wonky, they are off-cuts after all. I did add in a bit of fabric from my stash. I made 21 blocks. Now I am just left with some of the larger off-cuts and have a quilt top in mind.
Midsomer Quilting is a great shop. https://midsomerq.com/
Not sure what they are like for posting abroad
I love Wool Warehouse.
Thanks, I’ll check it out! That part of the UK is one of the few bits I haven’t visited and it’s high on my list, I might even get to visit it in person one day. Although I’m a bit wary to visit any place called Midsomer ![]()
I wash in Cambridge earlier this year and stumbled upon this shop: https://sewknitcraft.co.uk/ I know it’s not near you, but it was a lovely place for a visit! I bought some really nice poppy fabric there.
I think I have previously ordered from Lovecrafts (used to be Sewandso) but that’s been a while.
Ha! Probably wise. ![]()
The shop (barn) is is now in Chilcompton, (close to Midsomer, probably less murders
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