Catch Up and Splendid Sampler 13

What has happened to this month?  Over halfway through already and being kept busy I had no idea until today that I hadn't posted anything since the beginning of this month.

A couple of months ago I started subscribing to The Bramble Patch's Box of Delights, similar to the quilt boxes that are offered to quilters in the US.  This is only the second box that they've done and this month contained Tilda fabrics and linen with instructions to make a rabbit cushion.  It was a fairly simple appliqué pattern and the cushion has an envelope backing to it.

It looked really pretty sat on the chair in our lounge.

Ive also been doing some knitting in the evenings, some of it is secret.  I can share this photo though of something I'm knitting for me:

This is a Hitchhiker Shawl, a pattern I've downloaded from Ravelry by German designer Martina Behm.  The yarn is from Kathryn Senior of Crafternoon Treats who hand dyes locally spun yarn and I treated myself to this.  With the variation of colours in this yarn it didn't need a fancy pattern and this pattern fitted the bill nicely.  I found the yarn bowl in the Tiger shop in Bournemouth which contains the ball really well.

I've done quite a few blocks for The Splendid Sampler, which has now at Block 71 today, so well over two thirds through now.  Although there are a few blocks I haven't tackled I may save some of those to the Christmas holidays as I'm only working one day out of the 3 working days between Christmas and New Year.  (Gosh, that's less than 10 weeks away!)  Talking of which I bought some Christmas fabric yesterday in Christchurch.

I digress - back to the Splendid Sampler

Block 63 - Icing on the Cake - designed by Kim Christopherson.  A simple appliqué block, I thought the pink fabric looked like sprinkles on the icing!

Block 64 - Rising Star - designed by Kathy Brown.  No it's not the name of a pub, I think you can just see the little star points in this nine patch block, the bright green really complements the reds.

Block 66 - Happy Thoughts - designed by Vanessa Goertzen.  Made a variation on this block, where each of the outside butterflies were there should have been 2 Flying Geese blocks in each square, but I didn't want to make tiny geese, so I fussy cut butterflies instead. I think that sometimes there's just too much packed into a 6.5" square.  This I've found with block 65 and this will be block to be tackled later.

A bit of a throw back with Block 56.  Appliqued but not stitched down.  This was At Home Anywhere  by Jennifer Keltner.  Had a lot of fun pulling out fabrics to go on this.  I found a shell that I fussy cut for another block but didn't use so it went on the house instead.

Block 67 - Bobbin Chase by Scott Hansen. A simple foundation pieced block and a chance to use some of my Dutch Heritage fabrics as I fussy cut the red for the centre.

Block 68 - Wild Roses (though this block is supposed to have one rose) Designed by Pat Sloan.  An appliquéd block the light grey was a good background for the vibrant reds and orange.

Block 69 - Full Circle - designed by Holly de Groot.  This block went together surprisingly easy, no seam ripper required! Although the finished size came to 6.25" so I had to trim to 6" so i wish I cut the outside of the concave semicircles a bit bigger to trim back to 6.5".  The blue fabric was a good choice as it looks like a whole piece instead of 2 halves.

Block 70 - Bows - designed by Jane Davidson.  This was originally a foundation pieced block and the printer seemed to have printed the pattern slightly small so had to think carefully how to execute this one.  Some people have opted for traditional piecing of the bow tie blocks and I found this was the best way for me too.  The cream fabric was a bit of the stretchy side and I had a few frustrations with that.  I won't be using that for future TSS blocks.

Lastly, Block 71  - First Stitch - designed by Kerry Green.  Again I had problems with printing, the inch measure of the bottom of the pattern page was correct, but I found the block was slightly smaller so I was not going to foundation piece, so working out the measurement of the strips I pieced these blocks, which are meant to represent large cross stitches.  This worked out well as I found this was a simple block to piece so long as the centre point of the strips were marked.

Nine blocks in all since the last TSS posting.  Blimey, I have been busy!

I have just updated my Splendid Sampler page with links to posts about previous blocks, right up to linking this post there.  I also post onto The Splendid Sampler page on Facebook as I've completed the blocks.  If you are on Instagram go to my page @suewilduk where I also post photos of my completed blocks.