WIP Wednesday: February wrap-up

Last Wednesday of February, which means Spring is ever so closer for many of you, for us it means Autumn will soon be making it's presence felt.  I've got an awful lot on the go at the moment - here's a quick round up.

The girls and I dug up the last of our Rocket potatoes this morning, this is our haul from the four plants that were still in the ground:

Most days we get 6 eggs, they are usually still warm when I collect them, they all lay in one nesting box, even though there are 4 boxes to choose from! 

In the studio, there are many things in progress - taking priority is my entry for the Radiant Orchid challenge, I told myself I wouldn't give out any sneak peaks, to try and capitalise on the wow factor, but I can't talk about it and not show something, so here is a little snippet:

Scraps 101: we've got a guest post coming in the next few days, so stay tuned for that.  I'm currently trying out some things with selvedge scraps, so far I've sewn them onto some cardstock, and I think I'll slice it up and make some improv style cards with it.

I've got two bed-sized quilts in progress and two new patterns to go with them, one of them is for Pepper-Mae using the lovely Charley Harper fabric:

Also, in January I set a goal of completing a set of 4 improv pieced placemats - I haven't finished them, but I've got 5 of them pieced (made an extra one), here's a peak at them:

Finally, there's still time to enter our current giveaway - so check it out.

Linking up to:

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced 

WIP Wednesday: Basting and backing questions

I basted Ruby's quilt last week and have two questions for quilters out there:

1. Do you baste beyond the top?  I usually baste to the edge of the quilt top, but recently wondered whether perhaps I should baste the back and batting together where they extend out past the quilt top.

2. Do you cut the selvedges off your backing?  I decided not to cut the selvedges off when making Ruby's quilt and this seemed cute smart because a) it meant less work, and b) it saved some fabric.  But I thought maybe there's a reason it should be cut off, like it may affect the give of the backing or something???  The selvedges end up being cut off with all the excess when binding of course, but I was hoping to cut down on some wastage. 

I've been having a little fun with some improv quilting, here's a sneak peak:

Apart from making my husband's cake and basting quilts, here's some other happenings from around here:

I'm picking lovelies like these fresh from the garden at the moment, usually they don't last long enough to be photographed as Ruby and Pepper-Mae eat them straight from the garden but these ones cried out to be shared with the world.

This is my husband's biggest WIP - building a chicken house. We picked up 6 point of lay pullets on Monday, but their house isn't quite ready so they're a bit crowded in a little A frame coop, this is the poultry equivalent of living in a caravan while your dream house is being built. 

Note the lack of Christmas sewing.  One week to go and apart from a superhero cape for Ruby I have yet to make any Christmas gifts.

Linking up to:

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

WIP: Scrappy Bits & Bobs

If you're new or haven't visited for a while, you may not have read about my Scraps 101 Series - I'm making 101 things out of scraps (or partly out of scraps), inspired by Crazy Mom Quilt's current 101 Scraps project.  Here are a couple more Scraps 101 projects as well as some other random WIP bits and bobs.

Scrappy tomatoes ... my tomatoes will need staking soon, I've completely forgotten to pinch out the laterals so they're a bit unruly.  I'm tying them to the stake with selvedge scraps and long strip scraps from squaring up fabric - this is project 8 of Scraps 101.  

Some of you will remember the Sewing Card activity I tried with Ruby - the other day she asked to do it again, I suggested a butterfly but she wanted to do another house.  I punched the holes, threaded the blunt needle and handed it over.  I told her which holes to put the needle through and she did the rest.  She managed this much of it, and we'll pick it up again another day.  So proud of her, that's a pretty good fine motor skill workout for a 3 year old (those are her hands in the photo).

Also, Ruby is making quilts out of lego!! (She calls them quilts, might not be too cosy for her dolls to snuggle under though)  So my recent doll's quilt inspiration has come full circle.

One of my WIPs is a festive lap quilt which has blocks framed in different colours.  I used some selvedge scraps pinned to the blocks so I wouldn't forget which colour to frame the blocks in.  Project 9 of Scraps 101 - and a very handy idea that I'll use again.

A couple of the trees on our town's main street are in bloom at the moment:

Finally, I'm busy getting giveaways ready for Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day - so be sure to come back here on December 9.  That's a slice of my life at the moment, what's happening in yours?

Linking up with:

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Ripe

... almost.

The blackberries are a long way off ripe:

My berry patch has turned into a berry jungle.  I had no idea raspberries could be so invasive, they have totally taken over the strawberry patch, it's now far too crowded and I don't have time to do anything about it.  Some of the plants are not looking too healthy - yellowing on the leaves between the veins like in the blackberry photo above - the raspberry invasion has depleted the soil.

Once we start eating berries we'll pretty much have berries every week til end of summer - we've got strawberries, blueberries (two varieties, one of them is a dual cropper), Waiau raspberries (red ones), ivory raspberries (orange ones, dual croppers), berry delight (a loganberry/boysenberry hybrid) and blackberries.  I love berries, and so does Ruby - she has already eaten the ones in the photos, and any others that seemed ripe enough for her to munch.