YEH! WIP finished

I am so pleased to announce my First WIP finish for 2013!  My Siblings Together Charity Quilt using fat quarters won in a Giveaway that Katy of Imagingermonkey fame hosted last year.

The winner had to make a quilt at least 50" square for the Siblings Together Charity to give to children who had been separated from their siblings and were meeting up at a summer camp.

The fat quarters were called Savannah Bop, a children's novelty-style design.  I found them pretty but not enough contrast in colours for me and a couple of the designs did not lend themselves to being cut up into patchwork pieces. So, I really had to think how to use them.  I love Gwen Marston quilts and her liberated style so I decided to make a Medallion Quilt in her style, using the giraffe print for the centre square.  Then I used some strong coloured fabric from my stash to add ZING!  An orange with white polka dot, a bright egg-yolk yellow stripe and a bright lime green Kona cotton.

I used the idea from Emily Cier's book of circles to showcase the fat quarter designs appliqued onto the lime green Kona cotton background as another border.

The final border was made from squares of the fat quarters interspersed with piano keys of the scraps.

The Giveaway asked for a quilt measuring a minimum of 50" square.  My quilt finished at 56" square.  Result!

Now for the backing.  Because of the size I was into piecing the backing and really didn't have anything suitable but I did have a vintage sheet used originally on my son's bed in the 1980s.  Just the colours and surprisingly, a patchwork design of hexagons.  To add more interest I added appliqued circles of the fabrics used in the quilt:

I did a combination of hand quilting:  Perle cotton to outline stars, giraffes etc and to outline the piano keys. I used ordinary quilting cotton to quilt in the ditch between the borders.

Then the binding was made from three different yellow fabrics I had, including one I had used in the Wonky Stars borders of the quilt.

So, here at last is the finished quilt:

I am really pleased with it.  It is bright, cheerful and has lots of things for a child to look at and discuss.  I used a good quality batting and, along with the soft sheet backing it gives a lovely feel to the quilt.

I am sorry it took so long to make but I hope it will make one child feel loved and wanted.  I will be posting it next week to Delma Hughes, the Siblings Together Group's organiser.

Scrap Vomit Swap

I am taking part in a second round of the Scrap Vomit Swap on Swap bot. Yesterday we were given our five partners and I have two in Wales and three in the USA.  This afternoon I am getting the swaps ready to hopefully post on Monday, weather permitting.  We had 5" of snow yesterday and today is bitterly cold.  I don't like snow and cold so am staying indoors as much as possible.  Fortunately our local Post Office is within walking distance so I hope to post the little packets  on Monday.

Here's a quick photo:  Each pair is one Swap, but they are easier and flatter for the post divided in this way. I have tried to include a good variety of colours and prints, some spots, stripes and fun fabrics too.

It's been a very popular Swap with 50 people swapping squares.

Now off to start sewing my Zigzag Quilt  rows together.

Hurrah! I have got some photos

This is a photo of my latest I Spy Bubbles Quilt which I tried to show a photo of yesterday. My clever husband discovered Blogger had a problem with their system and has managed to circumvent it, so, here are some pictures! The quilt is 30" square, a nice size for a new baby.

This photo shows the backing, which is a recycled vintage sheet from the 1980s.  I have already used some of this sheet to back another child's quilt which is in the process of being hand quilted. And there is still some left over.  Very thrifty!

I took this close up of some of the I Spy Bubbles before I hand sewed the binding down.

Then I had an idea of how to use up some of the many Crumb Blocks I had been making and storing in my biscuit tin.  I combined 72 of these 4" Crumb Blocks with 72 x 4" Kona solids blocks, in ash, yellow and orange. 

Then I laid them out in a Zigzag pattern.  Here they are:

I am really pleased with how well the zigzags show up.  Now I have to sew them together, perhaps tomorrow?  This will make a baby quilt to add to my stash. Several babies due this year so I should have a few to choose from.

I still have a lot of finished crumb blocks and some leftover 4" Kona cotton blocks which I hope to arrange into another baby quilt-top.  Watch this space!

I am so FRUSTRATED!

I tried to write a post today including photos of my First finish of 2013 and my first ongoing quilt for 2013. Since I last uploaded quilt photos on my blog at the end of 2012 the system seems to have changed and, as a novice computer/ blogger I could NOT find out how to access my file of quilts photos so that I could share some pictures along with my blurb........... The WHOLE POINT of my post!
Before I was able to click on Upload, type in the name of my file and then click on the photos I wanted to use.  Not today. There is now a message in the space where you could previously Type in the name of the file which says something like" you can upload various sorts of files" they are named, JPG or whatever ( I said I'm not a computer bod) but if you click Upload nothing happens and I cannot see any way of accessing my photos. Can't even find a way into the Help Desk for advice. The advice I did find told me to do what I always have done in the past! Great help that was!

 So, one frustrated quilter here. The only thing I can do is to direct you to my Flickr photos. My name is Koshka2 and you will find my finished I Spy Bubbles quilt there. Yellow Kona cotton background with my usual I Spy bubbles. This quilt is destined for New Zealand, a gift for the expected grandson of very good friends, Frank and Miriam. I have used a recycled vintage sheet, circa 1980s for the backing and used a bright green fabric for the binding. This has been in my stash for a while now and after I had finished cutting the binding there was enough fabric left to cut  two 2.5" x 16" strips for my Scrappy Trip Along quilt and a few 2.5" squares for my Swap bot Scrap Vomit swap with a few squares left over for my own SV stash.

Then the next photos would have been of the layout of my blocks for my Zigzag Quilt.  I have combined 72 of my 4" Crumb Blocks with 72x 4" solid Kona cottons in Ash, a yellow and an orange. I am really pleased with how it looks and now need to start sewing the blocks together. Not tomorrow though as we are on "Grandparent duty" looking after our not-quite 3 year old granddaughter as our daughter is really poorly in bed with a virus.

So, of you have any idea how I can add photos to my blog, please leave a comment!
THANK YOU!!!

A New Year of sewing

Well, I have started 2013 with a burst of sewing.

I have made another I Spy Bubbles quilt, this time with a yellow Kona solid background and today I sewed on a bright green binding. That's all ready for me to hand stitch down when I watch a
bit of television tomorrow evening. The baby it's intended for is due any time now so it's good to know the quilt is ready for it's label when the little chap arrives.

Then I've been making  my 4" Crumb blocks like mad for the past weeks, just sewing a few strips together here and there as " Thread catchers". I had a whole biscuit tin full of blocks, far too many to make into more Preemie quilts so I hit on the idea of making a Zigzag Quilt, combining the Crumb blocks with some solid Kona zigzags. A lot of cutting, sewing, slicing and trimming to size but it's all done and laid out on my Sewing Room floor ready for final tweaks to the positions of colours etc. I think it's looking good.

The cutting of Kona blocks for the Zigzag Quilt has left me with s few spare 4" blocks and there are still loads of Crumb blocks in my tin so I'm thinking of combining them to make a simple Cot Quilt. There are a few babies due in the next few months so I can add them to my stash of quilts.


I have joined the Scrap Vomit squares swap again on Swap bot. This time you send 49 x 2.5" squares to five partners so I have started to cut out a few squares as well as 16" x 2.5" strips as I would love to make the ScrappyTrip Along quilt that has got me very excited on Flickr. I must be quite mad, thinking of making so many quilts!

And of course I still have lots of WIPs and several sets of blocks from Swaps that need making into quilts.  But all these new ideas lure me away from the projects I should be finishing first.

Will post a few photos in the next day or so.