Every Friday on Confessions of a Fabric Addict there’s a linky party called Can I have a Whoop Whoop! Well I definately giving myself a whoop whoop today! I have stitched and gifted my Thankyou quilt all within about two weeks!
I was on a tight timescale as my family Doctor is retiring this week, she’s been looking after me and my family for 25 years, she’s been brilliant and will be greatly missed. I decided to make her a quilt as a thank you. Continue reading
I had a couple of evenings this week when I couldn’t crack on with my quilting as I was waiting to buy some batting, I didn’t really want to start another big project, so I decided to make some Christmas cracker fillers. Continue reading
Sometimes when you’re creating something you hit a problem, you can’t think of a solution you’re happy with….so you sleep on it, and in the morning the answer suddenly comes, clear as a bell, so it was my current quilt top…
I’m making a quilt as a thank you gift, I need to make it fairly quickly as it needs to be gifted by the end of November, so really it’s taken priority over Christmas presents! I decided to used the disappearing 4 patch block as it’s fairly quick to make but effective. I had a Moda Layer cake in my stash called Hearts Content, by Laundry Basket Quilts. I bought it on line on the basis of the flowery patterns, only to find the layer cake included rather a lot of spots, I’m not really into spots, so it had sat in a drawer ever since! For those not into quilting yet, a layer cake is a co-ordinating selection of fabrics, cut into 10″ squares, with the Moda ones you often get 20 different fabrics, so two squares of each. Continue reading
This morning, having posted earlier about having too many things on the go, I picked up my Bouquet Sampler during my elevenses coffee break from housework. I realised just how near to finishing I was! I had about ten leaves and a last few inches of border to do. Domestic chores went out of the window… Continue reading
Ever get the feeling you’ve started too many projects at once? That’s me at the moment, they’ve all been started for valid reasons but it would be nice to finish one…
I started James’s quilt last week, it’s his birthday in January so I need it to be ready for then. I know what it’s like with January birthdays, it’s too easy to think wait until Christmas is over, then suddenly it’s next week! I’m making a chevron quilt in batik fabrics. Last weekend I managed to piece the main part of the top, so it’s coming on nicely. I’ve lost a few points on my triangles, but on the whole I’m really pleased with it. I need to put some side borders on and then a wide border to get it up to double bed size. I’m hoping to get the border fabric at the Harrogate show at the end of the month.
Last week we had some really bad news, our family doctor is taking early retirement, she’s been looking after me and my family for 25 years and she’s the best family doctor ever! She will be sorely missed! I decided I wanted to make her something as a thank you and I’ve decided to make her a quilt. As she retires at the end of the month, it’s taken priority over James’s!
I need a quick quilt pattern, the last one I made was a disappearing 9 patch, this time I’m using a disappearing 4 patch. With the 9 patch you start off with 9 squares stitched into a block (3×3) and then cut it into quarters before rearranging it, whereas with the 4 patch you start off with a block of 4 squares, then cut it into 9 pieces, invert the narrow strips before restitching into a block.
I had a Moda layer cake in my drawer which made life easier. Layer cakes are precut 10″ squares usually containing 40 different co-ordinating fabrics. I paired the colours into light and dark sets and cut each layer into 4, giving me lots of 5″ squares. I’ve stitched them all into their blocks of four, it took me a while to arrange them in an order I was happy with, I’m not very good a completely random, so I’ve got colourways going diagonally across. Last night I cut and stitched half of the blocks into their disappearing patches, as I made two mistakes on the last one, I decided it was time to stop!
I do a night shift once or twice a month, I like to take some hand-sewing in to keep me awake during my break, I usually take my cross-stitch, but this week I decided to start a Christmas project as it’s my last night shift before Christmas. A couple of weeks ago on facebook someone posted a photo of a stunning fabric wreath, isn’t it gorgeous, the maker kindly put some instructions up on Pat Sloans web site. I’ve decided to make a Christmas one, I usually have a big natural wreath over the fireplace, so this one will go there instead. I’m putting my own touches to it, I found a tutorial for making fabric flowers, so as well as 60 leaves, I’ve made 5 flowers. The leaves are made from a square folded twice into a triangle then gathered along the bottom. The flowers are from a circles, folded in half and gathered, I just need to put centres on the flowers. I’m thinking of using buttons for berries, mounted on wire, and no Christmas wreath would be complete without a ribbon! All that’s left now is to cover a polystyrene wreath and glue everything in place.
Of course I ‘m still stitching my Bouquet Sampler, but it has taken a bit of a back seat this week!
I had a delightful few hours today at a workshop organised by the Women’s Institute (For my sins I am President of our local one!) It was called Little Wire Birds and it was run by a lovely lady called Chris Moss. She was a great tutor, very patient and everyone went home with several birds that looked like birds, always a bonus!!
Chicken Wire Sculpture
Over the last few years I’ve made four wire sculptures, but they were quite big, made from chicken wire so it was quite a physical process, I made a chicken, a duck, a goose and a heron, they’re all life-size and situated around our garden.
These little birds are made from 1mm galvanised wire, as the tutor described, it’s sort of like doodling with wire! We made coils of wire round a doweling, then twisted them into random clusters, these made the basis of the body. We then added legs, beak and the tail. We could make them to whatever design we fancied, some made pure fantasy birds with frothy bodies and huge tails.
Over the day I managed to make four, my first two were just simple birds, sort of sparrow like. For the next one I got a bit more confident and decided to try a wren…it’s a lot more difficult trying to make a specific bird! Luckily once attached it’s distinctive little tail it did (I think!) look like a wren. The robin was my last one, the red is from a wire gauze that had been sprayed red, it was very fiddly to attach.
It was nice spending a day making things without taxing the brain too much, you could just sit and fiddle with them. It would be rather nice to get a fine wire with beads on to wrap round for an extra dimension, but I’m not sure I’ll get round to it, I ‘m happy with them as they are, they can sit on the window ledge in the conservatory.
Well, I’m on the final stretch of my Sampler Aux Bouquets from Jardin Privee, I quite like the stage when you can stitch a colour and know that’s the last stitch in that particular shade, it’s like ticking the boxes as you near the end! This last bit does seem to be taking a while though, it’s a bit like walking, whether you’re doing 6 miles or 16 miles, it’s the last mile that hurts!! Continue reading
This post appeared on the So Sew Easy Chatroom facebook page today;
Good morning ladies,
I posted a challenge yesterday about no fabric buying December and got an overwhelming response so I decided to make up some rules for it. Remember this is all in good fun,here we go: Continue reading
Despite having decided only last week that I need more clothes for the winter, common sense won over and I realised it would be less stress on myself if I made various presents first, I’ve got a cardigan, a shirt and some mini bags to make, plus a few Christmas decorations….first on my list however was a quilt for James, my son. It’s his birthday in the middle of January so you just get Christmas and New Year out of the way and all of a sudden it’s next week so a bit of advance planning is required. It’s actually his 21stbirthday. He celebrated his 18th bigtime and in our family you get the big celebration for one or the other, so he won’t be expecting anything major. He asked me last year to make him a quilt after he saw Helen’s black and white one. The problem was he couldn’t decide what colour he wanted and didn’t particularly enthuse about any design I showed him.
A couple of months ago I ordered a book on Amazon called Say it with Quilts, I bought it for a gorgeous pansy quilt design, but another quilt design I liked was called Sunny and Hazy, it’s a chevron design, I love the way it was quilted down the chevron pattern. I immediately thought of James as it’s not a traditional quilt style.
The next issue was fabric, he’s a typical 20 year old lad, into cars and loud music (well he calls it music…) he certainly wouldn’t want your typical flowery quilt fabric! I decided to look at batiks, I realised that the pattern was made from triangles cut from 10 3/8″ squares, so a layer cake would be near enough with a few fat quarters to top it up. At the Harrogate Quilt show in August I chose a gorgeous layer cake from Bali Batiks and a co-ordinating set of six fat quarters, Helen helped choose the colours we thought her brother would like, I love them, sea blues and greens with browns too.
This week I decided to set to and start it. I cut out all the triangles and then started arranging them on the floor as it’s the only flat space big enough. At first I spread out the very light ones and the very dark, but it just didn’t look right, then I tried having a chevron of light triangles, still not happy, it just didn’t sit easy on the eye. In the end I took all the very light ones out and arranged the chevrons in colourways and I’m much happier with it.
Final layout
I’ve just started sewing it. I ended up posting a question on a quilting facebook page as although the book gives instructions, they’re not aimed at a novice! What concerned me was how to sew the triangles in such a way that when I stitched the lengths together, I won’t lose the points of the chevron. Someone finally explained how I need to line up the seam line, not the edges, so I end up with little ‘tails’ at either end! It’s worked most of the time, they’re not all perfect but I’m getting better! I’ve stitched three lengths so far, I’ve about 8 to go before I stitch the lengths together to make the quilt top.
It’s going together fairly quickly, what’s delaying it now is Bonfire Night (5th November) so there’s lots of fireworks going off and my old dog Zac hates anything that goes bang, my sewing room is upstairs which is out of bounds for the dogs, I haven’t got the heart to leave him downstairs on his own so it’s hand-sewing this evening with him sat as near to me as possible!
Last week Ali (AKA Thimberlina) blogged about her Woodland Stroll Cape, it looked lovely and so easy to wear. It’s a pattern designed by Liesl & Co and available to download from Oliver & S. I must admit I’ve not used a digital clothes pattern before, I’ve done little things like bags, but not garments. I purchased it straight away and printed off the pattern. So thanks Ali for the inspiration!
I spent an enjoyable 10 minutes with scissors and sticky tape, sticking the pattern together, though I was rather puzzled at the end that I had one piece left!! Still not sussed that one out! The instructions were great, easy to follow with just enough pictures!
The pattern recommends wool, corduroy, velveteen for the outside and something silky for the lining. Last year at Goldhawk Road I bought some corduroy, it is beautiful, with a very fine cord, but you know when you buy something on impulse and then think Why oh why?? What was I thinking? Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous, but it’s cream…with cording and sequins on…I have dogs and chickens…I just don’t have the lifestyle for say a cream winter skirt! I decided it would make a perfect cape, maybe more for a stroll to the theatre than a woodland stroll though! The lining is one of the few remnants I’ve bought on ebay that I’ve been disappointed with, it just wasn’t as pretty as it looked on screen. It was cheap so it wasn’t worth returning but it’s sat in my stash ever since. This was it’s moment to shine!!
I cut the corduroy out first. I was very careful to position the pieces so I didn’t have sequins and cording along the hem, or where the buttonholes would be (that was more tricky!) I also cut the back neck facing from the very edge where there wasn’t any embroidery. I removed all the sequins and excess cording from the seams, the sequins are clear ones, not too blingy but very well stitched on with three stitches each, none of this one snip and four fall off!
The lining proved a very slippery customer! It was one of those fabrics that moved every time you looked at it, never mind when you tried to cut it! It was such a slippery customer that having stay-stitched the necklines and shoulders, I returned to it having stitched the outer fabric together. The two fronts had completely disappeared! I searched the sewing room, the overflow on the landing, the ironing board area…in the end I cut another two fronts out! And no, they still haven’t appeared!
Stitching the outer fabric to the lining is the tricky bit with this pattern, it recommends lots of pins, I nearly ran out, it’s a very long seam!! I laid it out on the floor to get it as smooth as possible then checked the hang on Florence, my muse!
It’s turned the right way through the shoulder seam in the lining, I decided to edge-stitch round to reduce the risk of the lining peeping through. The pattern calls for 1″ buttons, mine are about 3/4″ as I couldn’t find any I liked the right size at a price I was prepared to pay! £1.30 per button was a step too far! 30p for these was much more like it!
I have a buttonhole attachment for my sewing machine which does make life easier. I always have a debate with myself as to which buttonhole to do first, obvious ones, or less noticeable. I usually plump to do the obvious ones last, thinking I’ll be in the swing of it by then, inevitably they are the ones I make the mistake on as I’m so into the swing of it I lose my concentration! So it was today! The final buttonhole, the bottom one on the front, it looks perfect from the front, but the lining decided to move and ruck up, I said it was a slippery customer! Very frustrating!
I’m really pleased with it, although I think I need to get used to the look, I feel somewhat large in it at the moment, maybe it needs a straight skirt with it. I think it’s be rather nice to wear on my next trip to the theatre to see the musical Calendar Girls next month.
thecraftycreek 