I Spy a finished quilt

Olivia's quilt, finished, bound, and embroidered. 

The backing is the same measly pink with red spots as the binding and the name patch.

 

Got to love Ikea fabrics!

Bits and Bobs

I have been doing some sewing - an I spy quilt for a customer, but I haven't yet taken a photo of it (and its downstairs waiting for the binding to be stitched on next time I watch TV and I'm upstairs!!!)

But I can show you the layout of Stained Down Under (which needs to be imagined with black sashing, not mother's cream carpet sashing)

And one of the Fun With Fabric ladies' finished floor cushion

And my very exciting new template ruler from Jill at TabSlot  that arrived this morning.  Jill sells acrylic templates and rulers from her ETSY shop, and will cut them to size.  I quite understand that this looks a strange template . . .

I wanted 73/4 inch sides, (13.5 inches side to side), but Jill's acrylic sheets are 12 x 24, so she couldn't cut the size I wanted.  If you look closely at the two right hand side corners (marked in white) she has cut the start of the final two sides, so I can use the template to cut 4 sides, then flip it around, swapping the two yellow angles with the two white angles, and cut the final two sides.

Less hassle than it sounds,and VERY exciting as not having had this template has resulted in my long planned hexagonal calender quilt being mothballed for several years, and now I can start working on it again - yippee!

 

School Story Sacks

Last week the Literacy (English) Co-Ordinator (senior teacher) spoke to me about Story Sacks - a sack that contains a number of items that are used as prompts for making up stories.  She's looked into buying some but instead emailed me . . ."You can buy story sacks which are basically like your year group medical/ inhaler bags but much less pretty. The idea is you fill the bag with random items and pull them out to make up a random story. Of course you could use any bag but how much more exciting would it be to have one of your specials."


So now that she had the creeping out of the way, could I please make 10 Story Sacks, a bit like the medical bags that I made a while ago

So today I designed a book embroidery,

and stitched it out on bag fronts in (eventually) ten different colours

And started to make ten bags - Now I just need to stitch the cord channel

Creating with Colour

It seems ironic that my house is covered in a thin layer of orange brick dust, as most of Australia looks orange as you fly over it, and I've been working with my Australian Fabrics (and ignoring the brick dust!)

I now have 20 completed 15 inch blocks, so am heading for a Stained Down Under quilt about 60" x 75" (about 150 x 180cm) which should make a good sofa snooze quilt.  I'm not sure it qualifies for the Stained Quilt-a-long as I haven't even looked at Sarah's instructions - instead I looked at photos of her two quilts and then made it all up

I'll be taking all the blocks to mum's on Sunday to lay them out on her floor and play the auditioning / speed dating game while she helps me decide which block goes where, but meanwhile here are all 20

(apologies for the awful photos -  artificial light and flash :-(  and the phone was changing its mind about the focusing, and the colours it wanted to show!)

 Hopefully I'll be able to post photos of the final layout, taken in natural light, after the weekend

Broom Farm sewing

At last I remembered to take photos of the creative loveliness that is happening at the Adult Education class I teach at the Broom Farm Army camp on a Monday afternoon:

Monika is working on two pirate pieces which will become floor cushion covers

 
 Jane brought some traditional sampler blocks last week, but this week wanted to work on this advent calendar.  The work was unpicking rather than stitching, but she's much happier with it now

Sally is working on a craft caddy for a mug - I'll get a photo of a mug 'wearing' a caddy, then it will make lots more sense!  This was a 'back of a cupboard' for two years but she's steaming ahead now . . .

and has inspired Katie to make one too!

Creative weekend

I haven't switched on the sewing machine, or even picked up a needle . .. Instead we've used hammer, chisel and jack hammer, and created a door from a window!!!

4 trips to the tip with rubble yesterday, and cleaning thick orange dust off everything in the two rooms today!

Mola applique technique

 One of the ladies who comes to Chertsey Museum's Fun With Fabric class brought in this panel that her mum had brought back from a holiday

 It's quite amazing - reverse applique in that ever decreasing shapes are cut away to make the coloured outlines, and also needle turn applique in that the raw edges of each layer have needle-turned under and stitched.  Additional detail is then hand quilted on.

I googled the technique (Mola), and found that these usually have between 3 and 7 layers of fabrics: nearly all have black layers, but the other layers are usually brightly coloured

 

I only went for 3 layers in my trial sample, and used fleece so I could avoid the needle turn bit,  and think I need to take a bit more care cutting away the shapes, but I quite enjoyed doing it, so will be getting a few more pieces of felt over the weekend, to have a  better go

Last weekend husband and I took both mothers (!) to Bletchely Park.  Partly to see the  history of the code (cypher) breaking during WWII, but also to see the quilt exhibition.

This fab map of the site was on show as were loads of other great quilts using the theme of secret codes.

I loved most of them, but this one particularly caught my attention as I have also used braille in a  quilt recently.  Some great interpretations of the theme.

More Stains!

I've had a bit of time to play with my Australian fabrics: making more 15 inch blocks for the Stained Down Under quilt

They are looking much brighter in the photos than they really are.  I am really enjoying making them, enjoying the maths of them and the different arrangements for the sashing

(I will get round to trimming them eventually - at least these have been ironed!)

 

Yesterday was World Book Day, and all the children came to school dressed as their favourite character. One of the draw-backs of working in a school . . .  is that staff were expected to come dress up as their fave too.  I had lent out my Winnie The Pooh outfit, so toyed with Pippi Longstocking, but finally went as Joseph and his Amazing Technicoloured Dream Coat:

 

SOOO glad I didn't have to get out of the car on the way to school

Colourful Stain

I know I still have loads of UFOs and PHDs to complete, but I have reduced the total over the last few weeks so I felt I could give myself permission to start on the Stained Glass Quilt (what sort of stain were you thinking of???)

I am not following Sarah's instructions, because I'm rubbish at following instructions, and the thought of cutting all those pieces accurately filled me with a deep foreboding (there's a work I've never used before!).  Another excuse is that I am making a much bigger quilt than Sarah's instructions allow for, and that I have some fabrics I want to fussy cut, and they are quite big prints.

So I started today, and fussy cut my biggest print - Hissing Sid (you probably had to be in your teens in the UK in the late 70s for that name to be familiar, what did he promote? was it Milk? Or was that Humphrey?), and he needed to be cut as a panel 15 inches wide - so that is my starting point: 15 inch blocks.  I have used sashing (lead) cut at 1.5inches, and can present block #1

Untrimmed, and unironed, but a start :-)

Blog link

I have a great niece - she's a terrific niece but also a Great Niece in that she's my nephew's daughter - I usually refer to her as my niece to stop me feeling quite so old!

Anyway, I digressed (as I often do) She goes under the pseudonym of Roxi Flame, and is nearly 12. She wants to be a writer, and she reads *loads*. She writes book reviews for her blog, as well as posting some original short works. If you need to buy a book for a trainee teenage girl, or want to support a young writer, she'd love you to visit her blogs at Sewing The Seeds.

Love you Roxy x x x

(S)cream

I shall scream if I have to do another cream quilt soon

I started with two - one for a January baby,
one for a February baby. 

STOCK = 2

The January baby was Henry,

but I managed to embroider Harry on the quilt, 

so that went on the waste pile

WASTE = 1

STOCK = 1

I used the spare one for Harry

WASTE = 1

STOCK = 0

DELIVERED = 1

Then Lisa's friend, Roseena wanted a cream quilt
for her 21st, so I made a whirly gig one

 

    WASTE = 1

STOCK = 0

DELIVERED = 2

Then the February baby arrived: Luke. 

I made the prefect point quit for him, which looks fab,

but is stiff like cardboard - so onto the waste pile

 

WASTE = 2

STOCK = 0

DELIVERED = 2

Then I made another Orphan block D9P, 

and successfully managed to embroider Luke's name
onto it, and deliver it to the customer

WASTE = 2

STOCK = 0

DELIVERED = 3

Phew!

Pointless Perfect Points

I was really chuffed with my perfect points, and started quilting it, but it is too thick to be a baby's quilt - it's like cardboard!

So all that work (plus time, fabric, wadding) was a bit pointless . . . and to make it worse the customer texted to say the baby she wanted it for has arrived!

The baby is to be called Luke (shame it wasn't Henry) so I'm frantically making another Orphan Block Vanishing 9 Patch, and will hope to get it finished by the weekend.

There was enough fabric for the top, but I need to get to a fabric shop tomorrow for the backing!

Sewing Saturday

Last Saturday I hosted a Fun With Fabric session in the morning, and a Crafty Church session in the afternoon. I didn't get any photos in the morning, but one lady was cutting quite large hexies (2" hexies) for a flower garden, and a new 14 year old started on appliqued flowers onto a gingham background for a cushion. With three new people there was lots of chatting and looking at samples and examples, but not much decision making!!

At crafty church we had 7 I think. Lesley brought along a felting kit that much much better than mine! Mine was one lethal needle which was difficult to hold but hers (a) had five needles, and (b) had a comfy handle, so I know what I'm going to get!

She was cutting out felt flowers which were going to be felted onto a scarf

Lesley's sister, Alex, is working from Quilting for Dummies, and was finishing a lovely trapunto patch, while their mum was working on her tapestry.

Pam is waiting for a pink jelly roll before she starts a new project, so she was on teas, while Carolyn was helping Yasmin with her crochet and knitting

 

Reverse Applique

The Chertsey class yesterday was learning to do reverse applique, from this great book lent to me by the lovely StitchinScience. 

Not only did she lend me the book, but also her carefully made samples pieces for all the stages - so I didn't have to do ANY homework - thanks A!

Debra chose an oval shape and started to quilt it too

While Kay went for a circle

 I was a bit late getting the camera out so the others had packed away before I got photos, so here is mine, front and back (with the flash not working it would appear)

I found some pirate ship fabric in the box, so did some fussy cutting and used a ship for my insert

 

***  TOP SECRET ***

The Assistant Curator at the museum is going on maternity leave soon, so with a barrage of 'innocent' questions, we have established she is expecting a girl, and the nursery colour scheme is yellow - so next month's plan is to make a sample quilt for the baby!

Perfect Points!

I do NOT claim to be able to stitch with perfect points - partly because my attention to details is too scant, so my cutting is only close to correct, and then whilst I will tweek and, um, encourage seams to meet up, I generally work to the 3 metre rule - is there an obvious fault if you look from 3m away? No? then it's good enough for me (In my head I say "It's good enough for government work" is that from a character in a book?  I'll guess a Stephen King novel, but I cant name the character)

Anyway, back to points (sorry I drifted off a bit there).  A while ago, the lovely Hadley showed how she made a panel for a zipped pouch using an iron on method that gave perfect points (I'm not, of course, suggesting that her points aren't always perfect) so I thought I'd give it a go.  She demonstrates her method [here], but as I took photos of my version too I will show them as well

 I got some fusible interfacing/stabiliser, and drew a 2.5inch grid on the non-fusible side

 

 I cut my fabrics into 2.5" squares and ironed them on in a tessellated cross design

I folded along each line and stitched (right sides together)

 I trimmed the fold

I cursed as I tried to press the seam open, and gave up.  Trouble was my points would now be very bulky, so I snipped at each junction so I could push the seams in alternate directions as I stitched the perpendicular seams

I stitched and then trimmed the second lot of folds.  I considered trying to press open these seams, but eventually gave up

Instead I flipped the whole thing over and leaned heavily on the iron to flatten the whole thing into submission.

I'm very please with the points, but if I ever do this again, I will (a) use light interfacing, (b) use bigger seams so I can trim and still be left with enough to press the seams open, and (c) maybe read Hadley's post in full so I see where she has added a link to a full tutorial, sigh!