Back to my bestie

Anyone who reads my blog or spends time sewing and quilting with me will find out pretty quickly that my all time favourite fabric range is Wee Wander by Sarah Jane Studios.  I truly adore it!  It might be approaching two years since it was first introduced, but I still think it is as fresh as ever and I use my stash of these fabrics selectively.

In March I finished a quilt top which uses each of the fabrics in the range alongside white, and then I put it away for a while so that I could look forward to spending time with the fabrics again.  I know this sounds crazy, but think of me like Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who nibbles a bit of his precious (and limited) chocolate in order to savour it.  This weekend I decided it was time to savour more time with this fabric and begin the quilting.

 As ever I am using my walking foot for the quilting.  Usually I use the seams to keep the quilting lines straight and this usually ends up being about a quarter inch from the seam.  This time I decided to quilt in that way but also close up to the seams as well.  I love the tram tracks look I created on the squares which are making up the sashing.

For the foundation pieced stars I wanted to emphasise the star shapes.  I have done this by quilting just inside and outside the seams.  I love the way in which this makes the shapes stand out and it also creates a nice texture.  As ever, I am quilting with Aurifil thread.  I opted for white throughout to add to the crisp feel of this quilt.

The backing is a fabric I've only recently discovered, Holly Hobbie by Spectrix in Pretty Flowers White.  I think it is ideal and has the right blues and a touch of green to match the front.

There is still plenty of quilting to be done, binding to add, ends to sew in.  But surely I can manage a Friday finish!

Today I'm linking up with Lily's Quilts.

Wee Wander quilt: a finished quilt top

The word and concept "mindfulness" keeps cropping up in my life.  I see it mentioned on line, people mention it to me, I've seen books in bookshops with it in the title.  I've no clear sense of what it means and I've certainly not read up on it, but I think this quilt with its foundation piecing may have been an exercise in mindfulness for me.

I've made six of these foundation pieced stars in total and I got into a real rhythm; drawing the templates, cutting the fabrics, piecing, ironing, trimming, piecing, ironing a bit more.  This is my favourite fabric range, so it has been wonderful that I have enjoyed the process of sewing with it so enjoyable and meditative.  

When the six stars were finished I then cut simple squares from the rest of the Wee Wander range to create a form of sashing.  Some of the fabrics were just perfect for fussy cutting.  I thoroughly enjoyed placing the fabrics for the sashing in the right order.  I wanted to balance out the pinks and blues and have them work nicely with the low fabric prints.

My fear that I would not have much fabric left at the end of this project seems ridiculous.  I have metres of the fabric left.  I can clearly make many quilts with this range and I am sure that is what I am going to do.

Now I have to decide what to back and bind the quilt with.  This is where my Sew My Stash 2015 challenge falls down a bit because I don't think I have the right fabric in the right quantity to back this quilt.  I know I have lots of the front fabrics left, but I don't want them hiding on the back.  I'll have to think about what to do next and see if I can justify a purchase (eek!)  More mindfulness for me!

Happy stitching!

Two new projects

I have a couple of projects to post about today and I am excited about them both.

As I have mentioned many times previously I am trying to sew as much stash as possible this year.  My favourite fabric range in my stash is Wee Wander by Sarah Jane.  I love everything about it - the patterns, the images, the colours, the quality of the cotton.  I have had it in stash since February 2014 and my love for it over that year has never diminished.  I have used the odd small square in other projects, but I have not made much of a dent into the half yard I have of each print.

If I am serious about getting down my stash I have to stop hoarding fabrics, even my favourite ones.   I had justified holding on to it because I had not found the right project for it.  That's all changed now, though, as I am turning the mini quilt "Drawn Together" from Little Quilts into a larger quilt.

I'm having a lot of fun!  I've made three of the pink blocks so far and am about to start on the blues.  I love foundation paper piecing and this pattern creates such lovely shapes.  To make my fabric go as far as possible I am using lots of white fabric, which I think makes the shapes and colours really striking in any case.  I think these favourite fabrics are going to turn into one of my favourite quilts.

The next thing I have to show you contradicts the Sew My Stash mission because these are fabrics which have arrived this dinnertime.  How do I justify these amazing Kona Solids in such beautiful colours?  They already have a destiny and will be made into a quilt soon for Village Haberdashery's blog The Daily Stitch.  They are not going to be stash fabrics because I will be cutting into them this weekend.

This quilt will be my first pure solids quilt but I have already enjoyed playing with these fabrics and the pattern idea, so I doubt it will be the last.  When the fabrics arrived I spent a while organising them into their colour groups, which made me feel like a child again as I used to organise my Crayola wax crayons (happy memories!)  I won't be showing what I make from these fabrics until the tutorial is written and on The Daily Stitch.  Hopefully it won't be long.

Happy creating!