Sewing purple in June

 I haven’t done much sewing this month as we have had a nice spell of weather so I’ve enjoyed sitting in the garden reading lots of library books. 

But I have made some RSC blocks using this month’s colour purple.

Firstly I was tempted to make some little Flower Baskets which I had seen on Cathy’s blog Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting. Cathy used 2” squares so I worked out how to make them using a cream background fabric, a purple square for the basket and various coloured waste triangles for the flowers and the base of the basket. I’ll add more blocks as the colours change in the coming months and probably continue into next year.

Then I made some more Wonky Stars - I never tire of making these.

And 4 Ticky Tacky houses.

I turned the two Premature baby quilts into fished quilts, measuring 15” x 20”.

I’ve read some books I saw mentioned on various Quilting blogs: 

This is set in WWl and I have the sequel to read too. A good story giving an insight into how soldiers tried to cope with horrific life changing wounds.

And these three:

Sorry this photo is sideways! 

Peter James and Peter May are both authors I enjoy and both books have topical themes. 

Dead at First Sight by Peter James deals with Internet Dating fraud, the story moving along at a page turning pace with a satisfactory ending.

Lockdown by Peter May is very topical as it deals with a pandemic. Apparently it was written before Covid as the author had done a lot of research on Bird flu and decided to base his next book on that theme. However, he had difficulty publishing it as it was thought to be too far fetched! It is surprisingly close to what our world has and is still dealing with during our current Covid Crisis.

Anne Tyler is a new (to me) author. She has written lots of books and I picked this one, A Patchwork Planet, for obvious reasons! I enjoyed it, she has an interesting writing style and her storyline appealed to me. I shall read more of her books, our library has lots more titles.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog for RSC 2021.

All that Jazz

I had a productive day at my Vintage Quilters Patchwork Group yesterday.

I used 16 already made 4.5" Crumb blocks and a FQ from the same bundle that I used for my last Strawberries and Butterflies Quilt and make a Premature baby quilt top.

During the day I made the top, sandwiched and machine quilted and bound it.
My second quilt finish this year.

 

It measures 21" x 22".

The backing I bought from Spotlight, not for this quilt, but for my UK stash.
I didn't have enough strawberry fabric left for the backing so used this pretty animal one.

Both of these photos are far too pale: the actual quilt is much brighter and vibrant,
hence it's title: All that Jazz

Strawberries and Butterflies - a finish

My first finished quilt of 2017..............................  Drum roll please!

I present "Strawberries and Butterflies"!

This little Premature baby Quilt was made from already completed 4.5" Crumb blocks, alternating with 4.5" butterfly fabric blocks cut from a FQ which has been in my NZ stash for some years. The sashing is a Strawberry one which I bought this year at Spotlight. I also used the Strawberry fabric for the backing and binding.
The quilt measures 22" x 24" which I understood to be the size required by our local Maternity Unit at Motueka. Apparently those are the maximum measurements: anything from 18" x 21" is required.
Thankfully mine was acceptable and I received some nice comments following Show and Tell.

So pleased to finally have a finished quilt to show for all the sewing I have done since being in NZ from the beginning of January.  However  today at my Quilting Group I put together another Premature baby quilt and sandwiched it ready to quilt and bind at my Saturday Group meeting.

I handed in Strawberries and Butterflies at today's meeting and will give my current project in at the next meeting on 15th March. It's another variation of Crumb blocks

Last Patchwork Group before Christmas

This morning we had our last Patchwork Group meeting before Christmas.
All 20 of the Group's Premature baby quilts were on display and I took a few photos:

 

I love the rabbit in his Carrot Car!

 

Amazing what can be made from scraps and orphan blocks.

 

Happy Christmas!

Final finishes

 I have just completed the last Premature baby quilt for my local hospital which I think my Patchwork Group will hand over just before Christmas.

I have made 5 and they are nice and bright and cheerful.

 

 

3 were made using 4" Crumb blocks & 4" squares from stash:

 

 

 

 

 

 

One used up my last remaining scrap from a piece of novelty fabric I was gifted several years ago.

I used the elephant/jungle scrap as the centre for a medallion-style quilt. The 2.5" squares and strips for borders were all from stash:

 

 

And this last quilt used my last frog squares:

 

I have enjoyed making these little quilts ( 15" x 20") and hope they will bring joy to the parents of premature babies.

 

 

 

 

 

Charming Charm squares

I have really been enjoying looking through my scraps,strips and squares to find inspiration to make more premature baby quilts. The quilts are fun to make and it's lovely to get the creative juices flowing , finding ways to use up scraps that have languished in my stash for far too long.

The 6 quirky 4" squares are a good example of what I mean!  They have been in my Squares stash for so long I can't even remember where they came from. There were actually 7 of these Charm squares so I still have one left over! Quite cute pictures which I framed with strips from my Strips stash.
A while ago I won a Giveaway and ordered a few metres of fabric that could be used for bindings ( my favourite spots and stripes). The turquoise one with white spots was the fabric I chose for the borders and also the backing of this little quilt. The binding is aqua Kona Cotton also from stash.

The finished quilt measures 16" x 20".

 

Linking up with Nicky's Mrs Sew & Sow's Scraptastic Tuesday - November Link Up

Tiny premature baby born

Life never ceases to amaze me.
On Thursday morning last week  my Group made little quilts to gift to the premature baby unit at our local hospital. On Saturday I learned friends in our town had become grandparents - far too early at 28 weeks - to a tiny premature little boy, Nathan ( Gift from God).
Nathan was actually born very late on Thursday evening, just a few hours after our Workshop.
I had completed three little quilts by then so decided to gift one of them directly to tiny Nathan.
I also added two lemon premature baby hats I had knitted some months ago, intending to pop those into the hospital with my next lot of little quilts.

I chose this bright frog quilt to gift to Nathan and hope and pray he pulls through. 
At present he is holding his own but is very tiny at around 2lbs in weight.  I have seen photos of him and he is unbelievably tiny, fitting into his Daddy's two hands cupped beside each other.
Please hold baby Nathan in your prayers.

Premature baby quilts Day

At our group meeting last Thursday we made Premature baby quilts.
Lynne started the group 20 years ago and I have belonged for 19 years. Every now and then Lynne organises a Workshop at her house.  In the past we have made tote bags, a lovely drawstring bag with outside pockets, a scissors case and even tried Foundation piecing.

Lynne had been clearing out a cupboard and had organised her scraps into pieces large enough for backing, and strips, squares, larger strips, orphan blocks, thin strips etc.  She had set out a cutting station, an ironing station and displayed her scraps in areas so we could mix and match to make premature baby quilts. Our local hospital requests they are 16" x 20" so that was what we made. Seven of us, happily sewing and chatting and enjoying the delicious coffee and cake supplied by Lynne.

What fun we had, delving into her scraps - always more interesting than your own!  Lots of chatter and new ideas tried by some members. Our newest member had a great day, learning so many new things. We all put together one little quilt, some completed two and then they were taken home to hand stitch the bindings.  Every one was completely different.

Here are my two:

 

 

This one used 6 of Lynne's orphan blocks. Nice and bright with their cute frog centres. Lynne and I have a similar taste in fabrics.  I bought a strip of these froggy pictures a few years ago and made a baby quilt for my friend's grandson with most of them.  It was a very quick quilt to assemble as most of the work was already done. I added a simple green and white gingham border from strips which had already been pre cut. Quilted on the machine but I did add a line of hand quilting with Perle thread around each frog centre which made them stand out more.

The second quilt was also quick to make. The centre piece was a larger scrap which was pretty much the right dimensions.  A flowered piece was cut in two and added to each side of the centre houses strip.   A narrow border top and bottom made the quilt just the right size. Again, machine quilted.

 

Of course we barely made a dent in Lynne's scraps!  There were enough left for us to have many more Premature Baby Workshop Days.

 

I so enjoyed making these little quilts I had another sewing day at home on Saturday.  I finished another one and have three more in various stages.

 

Here's the 3rd finished quilt:

 

 

The four animal pictures were in a strip which I have had in my stash for years - gifted by a friend who was sorting out scraps prior to her house move. I have never been able to find the right project for it until now. I cut up the strip of pictures and framed them with strips from my stash of scrap strips.  Two 3.5" froggy fabric strips were added as top and bottom borders and the top was done.  I even used leftover binding scraps to make the scrappy binding.

 

We hope to gather together all the completed quilts at our Patchwork Group meeting on Thursday so I hope to get more photos then.

 

 

What a small world!

Yesterday I visited the Trinity Quilters Show in Sutton Coldfield.
The Show happens every 2 years and this was their 10th Show.

I immediately met an old friend, Marion.  We originally got to know each other about 14 years ago when we were both Quilt Angels at the Festival of Quilts Show in Birmingham. Then we met every year, even after we both stopped volunteering as Quilt Angels.  However, we have rather lost touch over the past couple of years - but, as I had hoped, there was Marion, taking ticket money at the Trinity Quilters Show. Marion has been involved with the group for many years, perhaps even since their inception 20 years ago. It was so lovely to see her, catch up on news and so on.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking round the Show.  Lots of lovely quilts all made by members of the group.  A table of cushions, another of bags of various kinds and a display of premature baby quilts which will be donated to Project Linus.  The baby quilts were this year's Chairman's Challenge idea.  Other years the Challenge has been small wall hangings with different themes. I thought making Linus Quilts was an excellent idea. The local Project Linus branch had a display table there too, with examples of simple and colourful children's quilts, patterns and two ladies who were so interesting to talk to.  I discovered that this group has gifted over 17,500 Linus quilts since they started (6 years ago, I think).  Isn't that an amazing total?

Here's my favourite Chairman's Challenge Quilt:

 

And a close up:

 

Coincidentally, my Patchwork Group is having a Linus Day in a couple of weeks time when we will make some premature baby quilts which we will gift directly to our local hospital. Various members in our group - including me - have donated quilts to the hospital before.  I think I may try to make a quilt like the Funky Cat quilt shown above.  I have lots of novelty fabrics which would be great in a quilt like this. Dimensions are small: 15" x 18" so they are quick to make.

Now a few of my favourite quilts from the Show:

 

This Japanese Applique Quilt was beautifully made, including such a lot of detail as you can see by this close up of one of the blocks:

 

Another Japanese style quilt also caught my eye:

An amazing Hexagon Quilt - the hexis were very small!

 

A cute baby quilt - I loved those teddies:

 

And a close up:

A large Red and White quilt with redwork blocks featuring different African animals:

 

And the quilt I voted for in the Visitor's Choice:

 

This was a beautiful Art Quilt entitled Marjorelle Gardens.  Made by a very well known UK quilter, Pauline Barnes who is also a member of Trinity Quilters.

Her programme notes said: Bamboo, Benganvillea and Waterlilies. Beautiful gardens in Marrakech which were created by the artist Jacques Majorelle who gave his name to the vivid blue colour with which he painted his studio.

 

It is the most beautiful blue and the quilt was exquisite.

 

There was a lovely quilt with sheep and borders made from snippets of Kiwiana fabrics.

I had noted it and then got chatting to the steward on duty only to find she had made the sheep quilt which she called New Zealand Lunch.

Her youngest daughter lives in NZ, in Nelson which is very near our house.  During our conversation I discovered that her daughter and husband own a restaurant (he is also the chef).  My husband and I know this restaurant very well, eating there each time we are in NZ. In fact for the last few years we have our last evening meal there as we stay overnight in a nearby motel which is handy for the very early morning taxi ride to Nelson Airport next day as we begin our long trip home.

So, what a Small World!  Here's the quilt that started my discovery:

 

 

Overcoming jet lag and exploring connections

We arrived back in our home in Warwickshire late on Sunday night after a weekend's travelling from New Zealand. It's a long journey, over 12,000 miles.

We have spent a wonderful three months on the other side of the world and now we're back, picking up the reins of life here in the UK. It has been lovely to see our daughter, son-in-law and beautiful little granddaughter who was so excited when we went to have dinner with them on Monday that she went pink in the face and literally jumped up and down on the spot - just like Tigger!

So now we are trying to overcome jet lag! On Monday night we suddenly crashed and had to go to bed at 7.30pm. I did quite well on Tuesday, managing to stay awake until 10.30pm which meant I slept through till 6am. Last night it was back to feeling weird (tired out, not thinking straight) so off to bed at 8.30pm.  Having these too-early bedtimes means we are awake for ridiculous periods during the middle of the night.

So, what do I do?  Look at my iPad, gaze at Flickr pages, flit from BlogSpot to BlogSpot.
This brings up some very interesting connections:
I have had a Flickr page ( Koshka2 ) since September 2009, quite a long time.  Over the years I have 'Favorited" many photos, 2,737 in total! During one of my extended wakeful periods I looked back through my Favourites.

Firstly it was very evident from my choices what sort of things appeal to me:  Bright, Scrappy, Stars, Log cabins, Applique ( not the Baltimore style, more naïve flowers ), String Quilts, Pictorial Styles ( like Gwen Marston or Freddy Moran would produce ), Coin Quilts etc.

And then if you look at the quilts I make, there are the same themes again.  No surprise there, I guess.

And my Favourites include many creations from blogs or Flickr people I follow:
Blue Mountain Daisy, Little Island Quilting, s.o.t.a.k. handmade, I'm a ginger monkey, niftyquilts, Elmosmate, Helene408, roccogal, Mary@Molly Flanders, littleguineapigs, Linda Rotz Miller Quilts, Peoniagialla and many more.  If these folk are new to you, check them out on Flickr - you will be in for a treat.

During my nightly flitting though blogs I discovered a new name, Mary Johnson.  Her blog is MaryQuilts.com or, if you Google "Mary Johnson blog quilts" you find a different blog of Mary's with another whole pathway of links to follow. An Aladdin's Cave!
I spent ages and ages scrolling back through Mary's blog, following her older posts, her Links, Instruction sheets, her tips for improving your quilts and so on.  Along the way I found her HeartString section, quilts she and many other people following her instructions, make for many different charities.  Here I found a definite connection as one of my recent finishes was a String Quilt which I named "Heartstrings".  How about that for a connection? I emailed Mary and received a lovely long email reply. So kind.

I am off to my Patchwork group this morning. It will be lovely to meet up with old friends again and catch up with their news and see what they are currently working on.  Me?  No quilting as I haven't been in my sewing room yet but I do have some knitting that I started in NZ when I hadn't yet started a new quilt.  It's a white basket weave style premature baby-size blanket which, when finished, will be donated to our local hospital. I am accumulating a stash of items to take: premature sized quilts and little knitted hats.

Donation quilts handed over

I love making small quilts, especially if scraps are involved. I enjoy making Premature baby quilts to donate to my local hospital which is dear to my heart.

I have been a presenter with Hospital Radio there for 17 years, over 11of those years  as Duty Producer.  I recently stood down from this role as I have had health problems for almost 3 years now but I will continue to produce and present some programmes.

As a retired Primary teacher, children and babies are of the utmost importance to me, so I love making quilts for the Premature babies.  Since the latter part of 2013 I have been making some Premature baby quilts, completing two more this year.  Our hospital prefers a size of 20" x 15" so now that I have completed six and I had a hospital appointment there too this afternoon, I decided to take them into the Unit today.

This is the 6th quilt I finished a few days ago:

 

This quilt was made from bright scraps left over from a bundle of fat eigths which had been given to me as a gift.

 

All six quilts are bright and made mostly from scraps.  Two feature Crumb squares turned into HSTs paired with a lime Kona solid  and two more have a rabbit novelty fabric and small HSTs made into small blocks and made into rows.

 

Each quilt has a variety of binding fabrics: some have the same binding for the whole quilt, some have a scrap binding effect using leftover bits of binding from my stash.

 

Backings are a mixture too: 

The 2 Crumb/lime HST quilts have a recycled sheet for the backing.

One has a recycled blue gingham shirt which came from one of my husband's shirts as the collar was  worn.

 

The other two backings were suitably sized pieces from my stash.

 

All of the quilts are hand quilted, some with Perle cottons, some with regular quilting thread.

 

Here they are:

 

The two on the Top Row were made this year, the Bottom Row were completed in 2013.

My next photo shows the backings:

The nurses were delighted with the quilts and I was thrilled to hand them over.  I hope they bring joy and happiness to some families.

 

 

 

Little People Premature baby quilt

 

 

First finish of 2014! Ta da!

 

This is my first finished quilt of 2014.

As I have been in New Zealand since the beginning of the year I have done very little sewing.  I belong to two Patchwork groups here and I needed some sewing to take to meetings so  I had some hand quilting to do.
I made two simple Premature baby quilts and a few days ago I finished the first one.

All the fabrics were in the small stash I keep here.  I can't even remember where I got the feature fabric but think it was some fabric scraps someone in the group was clearing out.  It is very quirky and I wonder if it is from the 1940s or 1950s. I think it was originally used to make a child's dress and the scraps were odd shapes, like you would have left over from dressmaking.
If anyone has an idea about the age of the fabric please leave me a Comment on this post.

Today I went to my last Patchwork meeting before we go back to the UK and I worked on the second small quilt.  Same design, different fabrics.  I will donate both to my local hospital in the UK.

I have also been making some Soy Amado blocks for Alison of little island quilting and will blog tomorrow about those.

Last 2 quilt finishes for 2013

I am a fan of Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog.  I love scrappy quilts and think Bonnie's ideas for using up small scraps accords with my approach to quilt-making.  Hence my Crumb blocks and the quilts that I create from them.

Another of Bonnie's ideas is her "Leaders and Enders" projects.  Instead of using scrap bits of fabric as Thread-catchers she adds to blocks for her next project.  In this way she sews a whole pile of blocks as a sideline to the quilt she is focussing on.

This is how I make my Crumb blocks and how I have made these two little Premature Baby Quilts:

 

I had been given a huge pile of scrap triangles, trimmings from blocks a prolific quilting friend had collected together.  She knows I enjoy using the tiniest of scraps, so as a series of "Leaders and Enders" projects I first created the small HST squares and then put them together in fours to make the kite-style blocks.

 

I had some of the Rabbit fabric left over from a child's quilt I had made for Ava so cut strips of this to intersperse with the kite-block strips.  Then more scrap string for the borders and I had made two Premature baby sized quilts.

 

I had a quick sort through more small left over pieces of fabric for the backing  and another look through my bag of leftover bindings and I was able to complete the little quilts.  One has pink binding scraps joined together and the other a mixture of blue scraps.

 

 

So, my final two Quilt finishes of 2013.

 

After these were finished I sorted out my sewing room.  Put all the scraps away neatly in drawers and sorted out my Crumb blocks-in -the-making tin so I could leave it with the lid shut!

Then a big dusting and Hoovering session and the room is packed away until 2014.

 

Only one more thing to do now - embroider a label for this quilt:

 

Baby Charlie was born on 11th December so this is a gift to welcome him to the world.  I will post it after Christmas to, hopefully! , avoid it getting lost in the Christmas Post Rush.

 

 

Strangely I have just realised that the Rabbit fabric leftover strips were from Charlie's big sister Ava's quilt!

 

Happy Christmas!

 

 

Rainbow Strippy finished

I have finished my Rainbow Strippy Quilt this week and I love it.

It is based on the Beeline Quilt from Emily Cier's book Scrap Republic.
However, I have increased the size as the one in the book only finishes at 30" square.  That's a nice size for a playmat or pushchair/Moses basket quilt but this will be useful for a cot too.
I made the centre panel around 30" and the borders 5" or so and the bound quilt measures 38" wide by 42" long.

Every single part of this quilt was made from stash:  scrap strips (many of them given to me or ones I received in Swaps), the various colours of Perle Cottons, the batting, binding and also the quilt backing.  I bought this piece of fabric about three years ago and had never found it quite right for any quilt I was making.  Until this one and I decided it went really well. It was obviously meant for this quilt as the size was perfect!  I have just been left with the trimmings which have been added to my strips stash.  Nothing gets thrown away here!

It looks pretty and shows up the variously coloured rows of Perle quilting very nicely.

I added photos of the quilt yesterday onto my Flickr Photostream and added it to the Scrap Republic Group's photos.  As I have made several quilts from the book I now appear as No 1 on the list of most photos in this group.

During the week I have also made another little Preemie quilt top, similar to the one I showed in last week's blog post.  They are both sandwiched ready for quilting and I have started to hand quilt one of them.

I have also sandwiched the Freckles Quilt top I made a couple of months ago and this morning I started to hand quilt this one at my patchwork group. Again this is based on a Scrap Replublic pattern.

Hope you have all had a successful sewing week too.

Linking up with Maybush Studio's Thursday Brit Sewing Linky.

Another finish for 2013

I've had a busy week, finishing one quilt, sandwiching a WIP quilt top and two little premature baby quilts ready for hand quilting and labelling a little quilt I made exactly one year ago.

Firstly, my finished Zigzag Quilt:

 

I am so pleased with this quilt, all made from stash, nothing new bought at all. 

A few statistics:

Quilt measures 40", which I think is a nice size for a cot quilt/playmat.

I used 72 of my completed 4" Crumb blocks and paired those with 4" squares of yellow, orange and ash Kona Cottons to make the 144 HST units. 

Borders cut at 2.5" from a bright orange polka dot fabric I also had in my stash ( just a small piece of that left now)

Bound in a marbled effect bright green fabric which was sent to me recently in one of the Swap bots I joined.  I had a fabulous parcel of scraps from Shevvy, several of which were very generous sized pieces, including this green one.  Again, I have a little left over.

Hand quilted with a variegated yellow and orange Perle cotton.  I just outlined the zigzags and quilted 1/4" inside the borders.

 

Exactly a year ago I made my first Freckles Quilt fron Emily Cier's Book Scrap Republic. I didn't have anyone in mind for the quilt and put it away with my pile of finished quilts. However, a good friend has recently become a grandmother again so I decided this pretty quilt would be an ideal gift for little Nisha. 
I have embroidered a label ( I have called the quilt Rainbow Bubbles) and sewn it onto the quilt and it is now ready to be mailed.

Here's a reminder of the quilt:

This Close up shows how the circles are constructed from strips of scraps joined together.  It's so effective, especially as the concentric lines of hand quilting make the circles pop out of the background fabric.  I shall have to make another of these quilts!  Again, the quilt was all made from scraps I had in my stash as I even pieced the background of this quilt.

There are three babies due in April and May, all grandchildren of New Zealand friends so I am making a few cot quilts to add to my little stash of finished cot quilts. My Zigzag Quilt was added this week and I also decided to turn a quilt top I made some months ago into a baby quilt.  It's orange, blue and lime green, featuring a lovely Owl fabric.  Simple squares and rectangles.  I managed to find enough pieces of fabric in my stash to stitch together for the backing and sandwiched the quilt a couple of days ago.  The batting is a pale green one made from recycled plastic bottles, a Cot sized piece I won in a Giveaway ages ago.
I even had enough of the batting left over to use for two Premature baby quilt tops that were also sitting in my WIP box. Last night I sandwiched those together, backing them with more of the vintage sheet I used as backing for my Siblings Together quilt.

So, all in keeping with my New Year Resolutions to finish WIPs and to use up my stash!

So, a productive week!  I can now enjoy looking after our little 3 year old granddaughter this weekend, all sewing put safely away, out of reach of little hands!

Have a great weekend and do comment on this post if something has caught your eye.