Design wall.... Tuesday??

Finally, it is finished.
Behold Chunky Churn Dash* in all it's topness.
From humble beginnings, with the pattern being printed in 2008 I think it was, to languishing in a tub for years half done.
From resting (hah!) beside the fish tank for six months. (Which had nothing to do with the inner border strips not fitting exactly, uh huh, not like me at all)
To being somewhat proudly displayed, even instagrammed and facebooked, as a finished top.
Chunky Churn Dash, a freebie pattern by Bonnie K Hunter
Actually, it's a slight variation on her pattern as I finished the squares-on-point into the inner border where as the original didn't.

And of course, I'll link up with Design Wall Monday

*I'll give the quilt it's own name one day. Probably next decade with the speed I work

New project

Well, ok not that new. Several years ago I ran across Chunky Churndash, a quilt pattern by Bonnie Hunter. So I decided to give it a go and started cutting, raiding Chris' stash in the process using civil war repro's and Thimbleberries fabrics and neutrals from a random neutrals box.

Jump forward a tad (Several years) and I discovered the project box I'd stored these cut pieces in. So I decided to start piecing them. 37 blocks pieced and another 29 prepped ready for sewing. Also have one of the two fabrics for the hourglass alternate blocks. (Actually a fabric Chris bought for one of her projects that was the wrong dye lot by just enough to matter.)

Only the one pici:

Another one done, squared

President Fillmore completed.

Took a few days longer than I expected too. I suppose I got lazy.
President Fillmore is an interesting one in some (weird) respects. Whenever he's mentioned I always think of the Simpsons as he was one of the 'Mediocre' Presidents.

Not sure I'd call him mediocre though. Second Vice-President to ascend to the oval office, last President who was a member of the Whig party. Amazingly for a sitting President he failed to gain the party's nomination for the 1852 election.

He also ran in 1856 for the so called "Know nothing" party. Love that.

Unfortnately, I suppose, he was really mixed up in the slavery problems, especially with the various compromises that seemed to do more harm than good.

Still, he started the Whitehouse Library and sent Commodore Perry to Japan. There's a couple of good things. :)


On to different endevours. Went on a 20 minute ride today, ok, 18.5 minutes :) This time I just rode the local streets, covering around 6.5 km. I forgot that cars were so much 'fun'. But being the weekend I was worried that the track would be being used for a race, so I decided not to go down there and see. To be honest it also saves around 30 minutes total travel time getting there and back again and the kiddies weren't behaving the best.

Little bit of leg and knee soreness. Need to build them up a bit :)

Oh yes, the bike. Stole this pici from their website :)

Bike

Well I finally got out and rode my bike yesterday, after picking it up nearly two weeks ago.
Bit of a saga really. Brought it home but didn't get a chance to take it out of the box for something like 3 days. Another couple of days to finish putting it together and, well lets be honest, to really stuff up adjusting the derailers.
So wait a few more days, well swearing, and in the end take it back to the shop and ask them to "adjust" it for me.

Then another week goes by before I get a chance to hit the track, yesterday.

Yes a track. About 10km down the road there's a criterium track, and since I've not ridden in 20 years I thought that a crit track would be a good place to get used to it again. No cars.

Hard on the knees though :)

Got my 20 minutes, though I took a little break lol. Next ride tommorow.
Maybe a photo.
It's a HASA R4 by the way. About the cheapest new bike you can buy in Oz.

Block done

Well I've finished another block. Actually, I started it when I started the blog I started President Franklin Pierce, who I have now finished in record time (for me)

President Pierce, despite winning in a landslide turned into an extreemly unpopular president who was dumped by his own party, partly for being a northener who supported slavery.

Actually, am I the only person who immediately thinks of Hawkeye from MASH whenever president Pierces name comes up? Hope not.


Hard to picture him as a soldier actually, but like a lot of early presidents, it seems, he was also a general during some war or another. The one against Mexico in this case. Also a lawyer, from what wikipedia says it sounds like he was a good one.

President Fillmore next, whom I'm hoping to have finished before Le Tour hits the mountains.
World class cycling, great for sewing too :)

Welcome to my ramblings and suff: Redwork

A long, long time ago
in a galaxy that you are probably familiar with
....

Going back a few years ago now, I was working in a Patchwork and Quilting type shop and ran across a book on redwork embroidery. Can't remember what it was called now, but it was a kind of historical thing with some traditional patterns in it.

I thought it looked pretty cool and wanted to tr it but the patterns were all a little 'girly'.

Anyway, after a few months and some fiddling around with ship patterns and some terrible Napoleon things I picked up one of the wholesaler's catalogues and discovered a book called: Presidential Redwork, A stitch in time and thought I have to have this.





It contains redwork embroidery patterns for all the then presidents, and some other nostelgia things.
That would have been about 2002 or 2003, I remember that Goerge W Bush had only recently been elected and that his pattern was an insert in the book.

So I came up with a layout and started doing it.
An 8 by 7 grid comprising of 43 Presidents (Actually, 42. I started before Obama came onto the scene and have decided not to add him, but since Grover Cleveland was president on two seperate occasions I'm doing him twice), 7 normal sized nostelgia blocks (1 per row), and 2 specials that together count as 6 blocks for 56 total.

I'll post photo's later, and hopefully I'll get lots done while watching Le Tour.
Luv me my TDF :)