Hug-a-Bit Quilts.

Monday, 21 September 2015

Trying to stitch a few blocks

Hi all,
It has been a while since I posted a quilting related post except for the regular Monday Makers! posts. Before I move onto updating you on what I have been trying to accomplish for a while, I want to let you know that Monday Makers! is taking a little break until after my baby is born. My subscription to Inlinkz has expired last week too-good timing. I have to say that I will miss seeing your projects. I thank you for your participation and support to Monday Makers! You guys are awesome!!

I am in my last weeks of pregnancy; only four weeks to go now unless my baby decides to stay in there until 42 weeks like my son. I am praying for this not to happen! Daily chores are getting harder and harder to do, sleep is almost impossible; therefore, I am always cranky, feeling tired constantly...you know how it is; but all for a good reason lol.

You will remember the quilt I have been making for my son.

I made some progress on quilting it last week. I went to my quilty friend Monica's place (she is super talented, go check her IG!) to use her Sweet Sixteen to finish it. Well, I couldn't finish it because we kept on chatting, but I made some really good progress.

I just did freehand straight stitching on the stripy area with the same variegated thread, Superior King Tut, and I really like the texture and effect it has created.

I had already finished quilting the grey negative space on my machine.

I have only this small area left to be quilted, then I will move to the binding business-God knows how long the binding will take!

I also managed to finish my July and August do.Good Stitches bee blocks-I know I am very late- and even started making the September one!

The theme was a super soft tulip for July and a super bright tulip for August with a low volume background.

August tulip

July tulip

For September, our host wanted flying geese with a grey and orange combination. For this one, I decided to do something different than a normal, big flying geese block and did curved paper pieced geese for the first time.

This block is 6.5"x6.5''. I am making another one to make it to 12.5"x6.5". So far, I really like it and enjoy making it.

I need some technical help. My photos look fuzzy once I upload them to the post. This has been the case for a while. If anyone has an idea about the reason and has a solution for it, can you please share it with me? I really appreciate it. Thank you!

So my friends, here is a quick update from me. I am going very slow here, with everything. I hope to be able to post again soon but can't promise anything to myself at the moment!

Stay well,

Nurdan

Monday, 7 September 2015

Monday Makers!#53

Hi all!
I, again, totally forgot about today's Monday Makers!;so, this will be a late and boring post without any photos. You can find the link below for you to share your beautiful finished projects and new starts. Thank you for sharing!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas.
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday, 31 August 2015

Monday Makers!#52 and a forgotten treasure

Hiya all! Hope you had a good weekend.

I am aware that I have become a "Monday Makers! poster only" and this is making me a little upset. On the other hand, I can't do much to change this and post more often. I am not talking about becoming a serial poster like one-post-every-day. I would be pretty happy with myself if I could make a little more and post at least three times a week. Being pregnant also doesn't work for my advantage. These days, I can't get a bar of sleep because I developed RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome); therefore, I wake up so cranky (I would use another word to describe me...starts with b and finishes with h!). I can't attend the Spanish classes; once everybody leaves the house, I go back to bed and try to get some sleep. I still go to work in the afternoons but thank God, this week is my last week. When I come home, I have a light dinner and go to bed without even studying Spanish.

I was being very hopeful upon our return home from Europe. I was full of energy, new ideas, sewing mojo, and everything. I was going to finish my son's quilt and start a baby quilt, finish that one and start another one, make progress with my EPP hexies. Everything looked perfectly pink. Now I realise that I was being quite unrealistic-like I didn't know what it was like to be heavily pregnant. Of course, because I can't reach even a single goal in this list, I feel pretty useless at the moment. I am reminding myself that growing a human being inside you is not a very easy job but...yeah, I still feel useless. Anyway, enough nagging.

Yesterday, I helped hubby with decluttering in the garage. What I mean by helping is basically sit down and watch him open the boxes and order him "keep" or "chuck". Then he opened up a very dusty box and said "my love, I think you will love this, better come here". I walked to him curiously and looked inside the box. It was full of forgotten treasures; old photos, CDs, letters from friends, some jewellery, hair clips...It was amazing how all these items took me back to my university years; some items were even older. And this is one of them...

After I graduated from high school, I attended several hobby classes organised by different community organisations in my hometown. Antique painting was one of them. I think I was eighteen when I painted this cute box and I remember I enjoyed it a lot.

I used this chest for a very long time and packed it among many things for our move to Australia. When I opened it, I found another surprise inside...

This is the veil and mittens I used in my henna party. In Turkey, the tradition is that you have a henna night the night before your wedding and you cover your face with a red veil during the ceremony. In this ceremony, all the ladies of your family and friends come together, form a circle which you sit inside of, dance around you while passing the henna tray from one to the other. At the end of the dance, the eldest-normally your grandma, if not, your mum, holds the tray and applies henna in both of your palms. Then she wraps the henna with some fabric to secure it in its place and you wear these mittens in the picture. It is also a part of the tradition that she puts some money in the mitten- I found ten Turkish Lira :)

Finding these put a smile on my face for the rest of the day...

Bonus...

Quite a blurry picture. Me in traditional costumes and my mittens. This is the residence that hubby and I lived before he finished his job in Canakkale. What a lovely night it was...

Now to Monday Makers!
Come and share with us your projects!