Sunday Stash #8

This weekend I just had to add these six adorable fabrics to my stash.  I popped in to Craft Den, saw these beauties and quickly had them in my possession!  They are Big Bear, Little Bear by Lewis and Irene and it was hard to limit my selection to just these prints as there are many more in the collection and they are all so adorable!

I don't usually work with browns and beiges as I think these can be tricky colours and I think they can look dated, but these look really fresh and modern and I can never resist critters and cutesy!  A work colleague is having a baby boy in the next couple of months and she has painted the nursery in neutral colours.  I think these fabrics could well make it into a quilt for her baby shortly.  They'll be stashed close by as they are definitely coming out to play soon.

Happy Sunday!

Liberty Squares Quilt: A finished quilt

It is so great to show off a finished quilt, it has felt like a long time since I worked on a big project and could boast a finish.  This quilt has been a lot of work to cut, piece and quilt and has been hours in the making but I am thrilled with it now and I am never parting with it!

All the top fabrics are Liberty tana lawn.  It is so freeing to put so many different prints and colours together in this haphazard way.  Providing you avoid similar colours being adjacent to one another, I don't think you can go wrong.  I love the mixture of dark and light, pastels and brights, as well as large and small scale prints.  Most of these fabrics are florals, but I am glad to have sourced some Liberty prints with animals in them.  It wouldn't really be a very "me" quilt if there weren't critters in amongst the fabrics!

I decided to have a go at "stitch in the ditch" quilting for two reasons; firstly, I need to perfect this type of quilting and to "skill up", secondly (and more importantly) my usual choice for tramline quilting felt like just too much work.  Stitch in the ditch meant half the amount of quilting I would ordinarily do.  I know that it's not a great job, but I don't think it's too shabby and I am definitely going to practise this again in the future.

The backing fabric is not by Liberty, but is a cotton lawn and goes really well with the front fabrics.  I bought the fabric in a sale and don't know which company produced the fabric.  The only thing I can say is that I love both the pattern and the feel.

The binding is from stash -  a simple pink and white stripe which is sweet for the front and goes beautifully with the back.

I am so pleased that I cut up some of my most recent (and most limited) Liberty purchases.  Alice and the Mad Hatter both make an appearance in this quilt.

 Quilt Stats:

Finished dimensions: 57" x 75"
Number of 2½" squares: 1064
Over 100 different Liberty tana lawn prints included

This quilt is staying with us.  I love it and it seems to be a hit with Brutus, too!

Thank you for visiting!

Liberty Squares Quilt: A quilt in progress

In an earlier blog post I showed off some Liberty fabric purchases from the Festival of Quilts.   Normally I squirrel these fabrics away and save them for a suitable project, but this time I didn't stash all of the fabrics away.  Instead I started cutting some of the prints into 2½" squares (what else?) and adding them to other cherished Liberty fabrics.

Working with tana lawn is a real joy.  Believe it or not, it has been a pleasure to cut up 1000+ squares - the feel of the fabric, the colour combinations, the patterns.  I reckon there are over 100 different prints included here.  It surprised me that I have so many different prints, but it has been an opportunity to remind myself that I am very fortunate to have such a wide selection of such a quality fabric.  In this quilt I have now used up some prints from stash and I don't know if I will be able to get hold of them again.  That doesn't feel sad, in fact it feels really satisfying.  I am going to keep hold of this quilt for me and knowing that there are some fabrics making their "last outing" will make me treasure this quilt more.

This quilt is now ready pinned and ready for  and quilting.  Let's hope I can get that completed speedily so this quilt is keeping me warm very soon.

The end of summer

It was the first day back at work for me today after what have been lovely summer holidays.  It's always a struggle to get out of bed after having six weeks off and I will miss being at my sewing machine during the day, but September always comes around and it is time for me to start earning my next summer holidays.

I have three small projects to show you, and in typical fashion they are all pouches/pencil cases.  I continue to love making this little gifts, and now I know how to use my zipper foot they look better than ever.

First up is a little ballerina pencil case for my niece, Ava.  She's four and attends ballet class.  She has to push the furniture to the sides of the living room "to practise".  She takes her ballet very seriously and I loved making this simple gift and filling it with colour pencils.

The next one is for my friend Di and it has lovely Liberty prints.  Di lives in Australia and a couple of years ago I made her a Liberty quilt.  She recently got a new teaching job and I thought this would be a nice best of luck gift.  She's a classy lady, so it always has to be Liberty for her.

I included a strawberry fabric on the inside to remind her of English strawberries.  I always try to put a memory of home in there somewhere.  I hope that it will encourage her to come back to the UK!

The final one I made last night.  At 9pm I was supposed to be getting ready for bed and having an early night before returning to work.  That didn't happen!  I decided that I needed a new pencil case.  I opted for the most part for purple fabrics.  I do love purple accessories!  But I just included a couple of other colours to personalise it.  The cats had to be in there, as well as the red ladybirds.  They really are my talisman.  I also included one of my favourite Liberty prints, Ros, for good measure.  I think the pencil case was worth the last minute effort.