My Claytons SAHRR 2025

Here in New Zealand (and Australia too, I think) there used to be an advert for a drink called Claytons with the byline, the drink you have when you're not having a drink. The word Claytons rapidly became part of every day language to mean something you're doing when you're not really doing it.....or similar renditions. 

I feel like some of my projects are Claytons projects.....I'm doing a quiltalong but at my own rate, or a challenge but I don't join up with the link parties, or make my own rules for a sewalong. I pretend I'm taking part,  but aren't really!

The other instance is that I start a new project,  but it isn't really a new project because it uses scraps, stash, or orphan blocks.

(OH the things we tell ourselves!)

I've realised that I love the inspiration,  I love to be making something......hmmmm starting something new is always nice.....I love visiting blogs and seeing how different people are interpreting the theme, but I feel bad when I don't join in physically,  comment, link up, or have breaks to the routine......this has happened a lot over the last couple of years and so I've developed this thing of sitting on the sideline, participating but not quite participating in a Claytons sort of way.

Which brings me to last year's SAHRR (January 2025). The annual Stay At Home Round Robin, hosted by Gail at quiltinggail. You stay at home and your work stays at home; as opposed to many Round Robins where the quilt (often) travels from maker to maker for each new round.

Gail and her team post regular prompts for each round. 

So in my Claytons way, I joined in.

I started with an orphan block. You may remember that in the past, I test sewed patterns for Juliet of Tartankiwi designs. This block is part of her Singing In The Rain  collection and I sewed it back in July 2023. I always wanted to come back and sew all the Dancing in the Rain girls and the cloud, but never did.

I decided that this was an ideal time to use it.

The first round's instruction was to make a King's Crown block OR a block that begins with our initial. 

To be honest I can't remember the exact logic behind my choice, and my notes are back home where I'm not right now.....I will come back and update the details at some stage.....I'm sure it was something to do with Royal (my initial) which I thought quite cleverly tied in with the King's Crown idea too. And I think I elongated it to form the frame -

Round Two asked for Half Square Triangles which was nice and straightforward-

The third prompt was Stars. I felt it was the perfect time to bring some of the red liberty fabrics back in. And a pop of colour with the gold.

You can see that I've also decided to do chains heading out to the corners. 

The next instruction was to make a split block. Basically slice a square of fabric, add in a strip of fabric and sew it back together again. I had some ideas for this round but my work hung untouched on the wall for quite some time.

Fast forward to this year and my Claytons participation of the Chookshed Challenge AND a monthly challenge with the Thursday sewing ladies at my work. 

While I was busy sewing my Show and Tell blocks, I leader-ended my simple rectangle split blocks.  

Whoops I forgot to take a photo of the individual blocks but you can sort of see them here-

The narrow gold strip finishes at half an inch.

And joined to the centre-

The photo doesn't show the fabric variation in the border very well and you could say that it would have been a lot simpler to use one long strip of light blue, one of gold and one of the dark blue......but where is the scrappiness fun in that?

I feel like I will probably be tempted to come back and swap out the latest cornerstones for a triple patch,  rather than a 4-patch, but I'll see what happens when the time comes.

Even though this latest round frames the quilt quite nicely,  there are two more rounds to plan. I'd like some more red and gold. 

So this is where I'm at with last year's Stay At Home Round Robin. One day there could even be an update!

Sorry I got a little wordy,

'til next time, 

Happy stitches,

Raewyn

Some (sort-of) finishes

The Country Yard held its New Year's Launch on Saturday - I've been sharing lately about trying to get my Show and Tell quilt finished in time for it.

As time went on, with lots of life getting in the way, I realised that the best I could hope for was to get it to a 'presentable state' rather than completely finished.

That was a realistic goal which really took the pressure off me. (And being stubborn, I like to quilt my own quilts even though I don't always have the time or the skills for it!!)

If I could master Edge to Edge designs on my Sweet 16, it would make life easier. One day maybe.

Prior to quilting  - yes it's a big quilt! (The pattern has other size options but of course I went for the largest!) —

Anyway, I've had lots of requests to show the completed top and here it is —

The quilting I did achieve was outlining all the animals and their quilts, quilting the mini quilts, some in-the-ditch quilting to stabilise it, and then basting around the outside. And trimming the outer edges to 1/4".  (All the pins were removed!)

At the shop, we hung it above the door as it has great impact there. The incomplete quilting wasn't very noticeable, and quite a few of the ladies I spoke to on our open day didn't even realise that it wasn't quite finished.

(The twins' family has claimed this quilt when the quilting is done and shop has finished with it.)

I quilted the mini quilts with a variety of techniques - some were meander style quilting, others had a little bit of ruler work and some were cross hatched.

They don't need anything else doing to them, but I would like to quilt some features in the animals and of course come up with a suitable background fill.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of these four ladies discussing it from across the mezzanine floor —

[As encouraged by Andree, I have now linked up to her regular I Quilted This linky party, which celebrates free motion quilting (FMQ), ruler work and walking foot done on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. I use a sit-down Sweet 16 for my quilting. You can visit Andree's linky party *here*.]

The launch was a good day; it was great to show off our new projects and ideas.

Another thing I completed for the launch was this bag using the blocks I shared in my last post—

It's a Sewbe pattern and once I'd made the blocks, it came together really nicely.

The pattern asks for sewn fabric ties but I preferred to use the cord - luckily I had the perfect colour at home.

The above blocks also appear in another Sewbe quilt which we are making as a sewalong - more on my version in another post.

I keep coming across things I haven't shared......last year a few online friends and I decided to make a Temperature Tree.

It used the high temperature from each day, each branch is a month and each leaf is a day. It was fun to do it and I actually kept up quite well and finished it not long after this year had started!

I would have liked to have done it with the low temperatures as well as the highs but I'll have to save that for another project....and besides I haven't quilted my 2020 temperature quilt yet!

It was interesting to make this with the Australian ladies whose daily highs were right off MY chart!

I have yet to decide how to finish this - I'm thinking it will probably end up in a frame?

I know I've bombarded you lately with Lily and George's sewing adventures (with school holidays and their mother attending a 2 week training course I've seen rather a lot of them recently) but I have one last make of theirs to show you.

Lily made this little pouch prior to making the cushion of my last post. At the time George was piecing a 'blanket' which I don't have a photo of.

Four squares of fabric and a strip for the flap. Totally designed by her. I suggested sewing Right Sides Together to neaten it, and of course I cut the fabric for her.

She chose the pretty button which I sewed on but it took a while to work out the loop for the button. I was going to use some cord or something but then came across the wee hair tie which worked perfectly!

I think I'll sign off here before I find more things to talk about!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Chit chat

It's been another mixed up week of sewing,......while my main aim has been to get Show and Tell finished for The Shop's new projects launch, there have been plenty of interruptions.

Now that Tammy cat has discovered this quilt,  there is no keeping her away!

At least this time I had the time to turn the back over for her to lie on!

Slightly cooler nearly autumn days help, too 😊

(There should be a photo of the finished quilt top in my next blogpost!)
Just as well there are plenty of other things to do in The Palace while the cats take their naps...

I've been making these cute little blocks for another shop project — 

 

And another Split 9-patch, RSC block...this month's colour is green — 

It's nice to have these straight forward blocks to plan and sew in between the more important things going on.

More Very Important sewing over last weekend was helping Lily make a cushion for her Christmas kitten Betty. 

She planned it on their previous visit after finding some offcuts of Minky fabric in my baby/children's sewing box. I told her she needed to draw her design so that we all knew what she wanted to do. 

(If you can make it out, she'd originally thought about sewing the two colours side by side, but then decided to put the pink on one side for the summer and the blue on the other for winter.  Interestingly,  the back/blue side of the cushion is drawn on the back of the paper! Don't you love how young minds work?! 
Wider sewing foot attached and speed turned to low.

She allowed her brother to help her fill it with 'fluffy stuff'.

The slippery minky wasn't the easiest to sew, we had varied seam allowances, but she did well.

The wee kitten is a cute (mass produced) hanging I'd offered her for her dollhouse; she decided it needed to be sewn onto Betty's cushion instead!

Other important sewing this past week was to resize 2 pairs of shorts for YD. One was sort of easy, the other more tricky because they were fitted, but they actually came up the best...

I had to unpick the side seams, cut a one inch strip off each side, and then sew them back up again.

I know she was pleased with them as she was wearing them the next morning when she left for her week-long hockey tournament!

Thanks for reading along🌝

'til next time,

Happy Stitches,

Raewyn