This one’s a keeper!

 When I rearranged my sewing room after last year’s revamp I was careful to label every box of scraps, ribbons, threads etc. As you might imagine, many things came to light, some of which I didn’t remember buying or being gifted.

I’m always on a mission to use scraps and for some while I’ve been making small quilts for donation: two sizes for our local hospital’s Maternity Unit and a slightly larger size for Project Linus.

Last week I decided to make a Happy Blocks quilt for a Project Linus quilt and whilst I was rummaging in the appropriately labelled box I found a piece of fabric measuring about 12.5” square. I consisted of 6 rectangular pictures of nursery style characters, in muted colours. An ideal candidate for a small Maternity Unit quilt so I set to work cutting the pictures apart and framing them with strips from the Happy blocks box. Then I fiddled about deciding how to arrange them..... 3 rows of 2 pictures or 2 rows of 3 pictures? I decided on the latter then went back to my stash to look for suitable sashing fabric. I found a lovely mottled turquoise piece (another “find” during my mammoth sorting out last year). Again I have no idea how it came to be in my stash but it was just the piece I needed. 

Then I had to decide on borders and thought of a bag of small HSTs I had tucked away. The members of one of the groups I belonged to realised I loved scraps and one lady regularly gifted me bonus triangles. About three years ago I started pairing them and trimming into HSTs measuring 1.75”. I sorted through these and paired them into little pyramids and used them for a narrow border to frame the sashed picture  blocks. I was aiming for a little quilt measuring 24” square so I added another border of the mottled turquoise fabric. Back to the stash I went and found a piece of fabric I recently bought was just the job for backing and binding. It’s a pretty turquoise with tiny white bows scattered all over.

I machine quilted it, the best I’ve ever managed I think. I had recently watched a Pat Sloan video when she mentioned a book about machine quilting using a walking foot. This is what I use when machine quilting  but I’m not very adept so I treated myself to the book.

I intend to try some of the more complicated designs in future quilts but I’m happy with the straighter lines and more even stitches that I achieved in this little quilt.

So a few photos of the finished project:

I showed it to my husband and he said he thought it was one of the nicest quilts I had ever made and I agreed with him. I said I was going to donate it to the hospital but that I did love it. John said you should keep it, so that’s what I’m going to do!  I have sorted out two packs of fabrics and scraps to make two more little quilts to replace this one, so that’s my next two projects kitted up.

I’m so pleased that I decided to give myself permission to keep this. I think I’m going to call it “In the Nursery”.

Finished ! A Rainbow of Twinkling Stars

Just before the end of the year I have finished the scrap quilt made using Cathy's Twinkler Star blocks idea and that I made over around nine months as part of the RSC on Angela's So Scrappy Blog.

 

I have renamed it A Rainbow of Twinkling Stars

 

The quilt is machine quilted with a double row of Perle hand quilting around each star.

It measure 53" squares and is completely made from scraps and pieces of fabric from my stash.

 

I had thought this would be  a Donation Quilt but I'm afraid I can't part with it, I love it!

I have two other flimsies that will be donated and they will be finished in the New Year.

 

I am joining up with RSC 2017, this is the first Rainbow Scraps Challenge quilt I have ever done.

 

Happy Christmas and all good wishes for 2018.

Does "Practice make perfect"?

I have never done much machine quilting as I enjoy hand quilting, especially using  larger stitches with Perle threads as I think they add interest to the quilt.

However I have tried machine stitching in the ditch and sewing a machine foot's width either side of rows and columns.  I'm not too successful with in the ditch quilting as I find it incredibly hard to stay in the ditch and it is so noticeable when you wander off.  I tend to use this method if I want to machine stitch between the blocks before adding Perle hand quilting elsewhere in the quilt.

On a few baby/children's quilts where I have done the double row of machine quilting, sometimes more successfully than others.  I have a tendency to wobble a bit and find the stitch length can vary too.

However, I had two baby quilts ready to sandwich and quilt and decided to do the double row of machine quilting on both.

Happy Cats was done yesterday and "What's in the Square" this afternoon. In fact I sandwiched AND machine quilted "What's in the Square" this afternoon so I am feeling pleased with myself.
I've had a close look at the quilting and I am really pleased as it's pretty even and the stitches all look a even length, no sudden bits of tiny stitches.  So I am beginning to think that the old adage "Practice makes perfect" may be right.  I'm not perfect but vastly improved!

Here's Happy Cats:

I have no idea why this photo has been turned around, all the other 5 photos are correct!

 

.A close up of the stitching:

 

 

I will hand quilt around each picture with the thread I used for machining.

It's Mettler Silk-finish 100% cotton. Recently my LQS decided to change the range of threads they sell so had a sale on Mettler threads and I bought a few spools of variegated threads in colours I thought I would use in future projects. This blue/green/yellow spool is just right for this quilt.

 

 

What's in the Square?

 

 A close up of the stitching:

Again I have been able to use one of my Mettler sale spools, a pink/lilac mix.

This is the thread I will use to hand quilt around the pictures. It's Pearl Crown Rayon  by YLI.

 

So now I have two quilts well on the way to being finished. 
Happy Cats is first in the queue and I will start hand quilting this evening whilst I watch some TV.

 

 

Queen Bee duties completed

This morning I finished The Wee Bees April Quilt!
And I am ridiculously pleased with it!

TA DA!!!

 

Three other Wee Bees contributed 2 blocks each to which I added 3 more blocks. Then I put them together, added borders, quilted using mostly machine quilting but hand quilted with Perle thread around the stars to make them stand out.

I made the outer border from 2.5" squares - my stash of squares plus gifted ones from the other Wee Bees.  I think the mixture added a lot to the quilt.

 

The completed quilt measures 60" square, a lot larger than most of the quilts I usually make.

I thought I would have to piece a backing as I don't really have huge pieces of fabric in my stash.

I found the largest piece I had, a bright pink and turquoise spotty number which, with a bit of cutting and piecing, created a backing of the right size.  Because of the busy print the joins aren't particularly noticeable.

 

 

 

As the quilt is already bright and scrappy I felt a quieter binding was needed.

Another rummage in my stash and I found a large piece of white with pale blue wiggly stripes. This was gifted to me by one of my lovely Patchwork Group friends.  It was a piece of a valance she had made for a bed sheet but as it was no longer needed she gave some to me. 

I felt this was just the fabric for this quilt and I am really pleased with the gentle way it completes the quilt. I like re-purposing fabric too so this ticked two boxes.

 

 

I am so pleased that I chose this block style for the Wee Bees April Quilt.

I think the charm of the quilt is all the lovely, quirky fabrics everyone chose for their blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 3 blocks:

Purple centre block

Bottom right pink block

 

 

 

Blue block

 

There was a lot of work involved in making this quilt but I am thrilled with the end result.

I will be sewing on the label this afternoon and then it will be ready to be parcelled up to send to the Siblings Together Charity.

 

Thanks to Nicky Eglinton who asked for Wee Bees to volunteer to make quilts for Siblings Together.

The Wee Bees has now completed three quilts and the fourth is in the pipeline.  I think we have worked together so well, especially as we all live in different parts of the country and have never actually met - other than on line!

Have a look at Nicky's blog: mrssewandsow.blogspot.co.uk

Packaged and in the Post

I finished my other 4 QAYG blocks yesterday. It has been very useful Machine Quilting practice for me. 
I haven't done a lot of Machine Quilting. This is for 2 reasons: I like hand quilting ( I find it relaxing and therapeutic) and I have had great difficulty putting my walking foot attachment onto my machine( you need to be left handed - I'm not! - & very nimble fingered to fiddle with an extremely short screw).

However, a few months ago I was gifted another sewing machine and in a 'light bulb moment" I decided to leave my machine fitted with the pesky walking foot so it was ready for action.

Today I am hoping to tackle sandwiching my Wee Bees April quilt and that will be mostly machine quilted.

In addition to the two QAYG blocks I showed in my last blog post, here are 4 more:

 

All six blocks packed up and about to go to the Post Office when my husband and I walk into town.

 

I have just added up how many of these blocks I have sent to Nicky and it's 17, just 1 short of 2 quilts-worth. I think I have got the addiction out of my system for the moment, so back to the 2 quilts that I am in the process of completing.

Off the Back Burner

I recently sewed up a pile of QAYG blocks for Nicky's Block Drive (mrssewandsow.blogspot.co.uk) The Siblings Together Quilt Block Drive!for Siblings Together.
I ran out of batting so had to put two of the blocks to one side.

I recently had some batting delivered to my house as I am now ready to sandwich the Wee Bees April quilt and needed more batting urgently.
Before I start that big quilt I decided to get some smaller things finished so the QAYG blocks came off the Back Burner and here they are:

 

Nice and bright - just how I like it.

 

Of course I have now got the bug for making more so there are 4 more in progress.

 

I am not really procrastinating about sandwiching the bigger quilt but I haven't been well again ( this time a balance issue connected to the virus I caught 8 weeks ago!) so kneeling on the floor battling to get the quilt sandwich smooth is not for me at the moment.

 

So, in the meantime I am cleaning out a few more scraps for a useful project.

 

Happy sewing!

On a roll! Turning out the blocks

It's the start of May already. Here in the UK it is May Bank Holiday and it's wet and horrid.
I feel sorry for the folk who work and this is the day they were hoping to go out for the day, spend time gardening etc. As my husband and I are retired we don't usually make plans for Bank Holidays.

However, I have been very busy over the weekend churning out blocks to make into QAYG blocks for Nicky's Block Drive for Siblings Together. (Siblings Together Quilt Group post from Thursday 28 April 2016).

Here they are, spread on my bedroom carpet:

 

 

All bright and colourful - they are so much fun to make and it is good to see partly used FQs and scraps being used up for a good reason.

 

I have definitely got the bug for making these blocks and whilst I was on a roll I made 10 blocks! 

Then I had to ferret through my stash looking for low volume fabrics for the backings and also batting scraps.  It's surprising how much fabric and batting pieces I have used up in order to create 22" squares. Nicky said we could piece batting and also backing scraps which I have done for several of the blocks.

But I am now completely out of batting  apart from one large piece I am keeping on one side to use on the April Wee Bees Quilt I will be putting together later this week. A shame because I just have 2 more QAYG blocks to assemble.  Never mind, these two will have to wait until my next visit to a Quilt Shop. Not sure when that might be, perhaps mid June when my Patchwork Group usually has an outing.  Otherwise I hope there might be a little left over from the Wee Bees April Quilt so they can be finished sooner.

I have started to machine quilt the other 8, two finished and this one had its ends sewn in whilst I was watching television yesterday evening.

 

The blue & lilac flowered fabric which looks like 1970's bed sheets is  actually from a pack of (very) roughly cut 10" squares of fabrics I have had in my stash for several years. I picked them up at my NZ Patchwork Group when one of the members was getting rid of unwanted scraps and stash.

These QAYG blocks seemed as good a project as any to start to use them up.  I have used quite a few: pink & lilac and yellow & pale orange ones too.

 

Off to machine quilt the rest of the blocks.

 

Happy sewing!

First Quilt finish for 2015

I have just finished hand sewing the binding on a baby quilt.
My first Quilt finish for 2015.

My daughter asked me to make a quilt for a friend who is expecting a baby in about a month's time.  The parents know it is a boy and my daughter loves Overall Bills so they had to be part of the design. DD hand blanket stitched a few of the blocks but the design, fabric choices etc were my ideas.  The parents lived in Australia for some years so as I had a small piece of Koala bear fabric I included that as the centre block.  My intention was to have Overall Bills walking in different directions throughout the quilt as if they were seeking the koalas.

Finding Koalas

 

The quilt is vibrant, much brighter colours than in my photograph.

I pieced the backing, using some of the fabrics used in the quilt front.

The pieced backing:

  

 

The Overall Bills were hand blanket stitched and I echo quilted with Perle cotton around each appliqued figure.  Otherwise the quilt was machine quilted.

I used two of the Pearl bracelet fabrics I won last year in a Giveaway - almost nothing of those two pieces are left!  Lots of small scraps were used to make the Overall Bills.  Everything in this quilt came from my stash......... nothing extra was bought at all.  Just how I like it!

Passing it on to my DD this weekend, so she has it ready for when baby puts in an appearance.