The Power of Three - A Finished Quilt

There I was, saying I was back into blogging and it takes me over a month to write my next post.  Oh well, I am true to my word in saying I am getting back into blogging, albeit if I am delayed doing so.

My quilt for triplet boys is finished and I call it The Power of Three.  It's a big quilt and will be used as a play mat and as the background for baby photos.  

As it's so big I found it difficult to photograph, so you will have to piece it together in your mind from the photos I've included to get a true feel for the quilt.

My favourite part of the quilt is the rainbow border, which was an unnecessary addition but which I think makes it more fun and frames the whole quilt.  I opted for a black binding so as not to imbalance the rainbow effect and I think it makes the whole quilt dramatic.

The backing is some lovely fabric by Robert Kaufman but I am not certain of its name.  It has astronauts, space shuttles, planets and stars on it and the bright colours and fun images are a happy backing.

More quilting posts coming up soon and this backing fabric will be making another appearance then.

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!

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.

When in doubt...

make a zippy pouch!

I'm starting to think I must have been a marsupial in a previous life.  All of these have been gifts and the recipients have loved them because they have all been made with them in mind.

Be warned - there are lots of photos to follow!

First up, a bag for a friend who is moving to Japan.  I got to use my Drunkard's Path die for this project to create the Japanese flag.

The other side is a mixture of Japanese and British.  Last year at the Festival of Quilts I bought this sushi and tempura fabric on a whim.  It turns out it would come in very useful.  All the other fabrics are redolent of Britain (weather, food, icons etc.)  My friend loved receiving this!

 Next up we have a leaving gift for someone who loves his cats.  I have made a created patchwork images of his cats as I did for my craft room.

The ginger boy has a black growth on his mouth, which I wanted to capture.  My friend sussed this straight away (phew!)  The black and white cat is like their girl cat as well with her white splodges and white chin.  He was thrilled with this, though I suspect I enjoyed making this project even more!

More purple and more cats in these next two pouches.

It's just so nice to put together random fabrics and to have a project very quickly.  Simple patchwork and straight quilted lines are always going to be popular with me.

Thanks for visiting!

Sew My Stash 2015 Challenge 1 Finished

I have completed the first challenge of Project Leasa's Sew My Stash 2015 and it feels great to have made a mini quilt in a short period of time and to have made something which I otherwise would not have considered.  Until Friday I didn't know I was making something "heart themed" and now here I am, proudly showing off my project and I am just so pleased with how it has turned out.

Now, I know this project is made from small bits of fabric, which means I have made no dent into the stash, but it has given me ideas for some bigger quilts that would mean reducing the stash considerably.  In that sense it's a small step towards something more significant.

I'm very into "rainbows" at the moment and this is going to be on the wall of my craft room shortly.  I've included some of my favourite fabrics in this wall hanging, so it seems apt that it should reside there.

I really enjoyed quilting the squares and triangles in coordinating threads.  I treated myself to four new spools of cotton to do this, which is possibly a little naughty when I am trying to reduce my stash, but I don't count those as stash.  Stash for me is exclusively fabric.  (That's my disclaimer in any case!)  However, I can boast here that all the fabrics (including the backing and binding) were already in my possession.

There a number of other people taking part in this challenge.  I've really enjoyed seeing their progress and ideas on Instagram.  To find other projects use the hashtag sewmystash2015challenge1 and you are sure to find some lovely hearty projects.

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum...

As it is now the end of November I feel justified in showing off some of my Christmas sewing.  I have attended two Christmas sewing workshops this month and have another one booked for mid December.  We don't go overboard at Christmas at our house but slowly we are starting to get some nice Christmas decorations together and more recently these have been made by me.  I like the idea of heirloom Christmas decorations which come out each year and then having the feeling of being reunited with an old friend.

First of all, here is my Christmas Tree wall hanging which I made with a group of friends at Patchwork Garden.  The pattern was written by Sarah Williamson and we had the privilege of her tuition as well.  The pattern is amazing and it was wonderful to see the different variations we all created.  Sarah is a super talented sewer, quilter and pattern-writer and she taught us lots of tips and tricks along the way.  We had a wonderful time and I am already keen to book onto another course with her.

This Christmas tree does not have traditional Christmas colours, but it will look perfect in our house at it matches a table runner and some bunting I made last year.  I wanted to create a "scene" so added blue fabric for a winter sky and white fabric with a silver print to create the look of snow.  I love the crispness of the look.  I then tarted it all up with plenty of ric rac and then buttons to look like baubles.  I did two "shadow" quilting lines around the tree in silver thread to give it that blinged look.  I need to put a star on to finish it, but I couldn't resist including it here today.

As if that wasn't enough, I have also attended an Advent Calendar class, again at Patchwork Garden.  A friend bought me the panel last year, but I did not get around to making it (and I also felt rather daunted as I was not as good a sewer then.)  I had so much fun making this and already want to make another one next year.  My mum loves traditional Christmas scenes (I usually spend lots of November and December hunting down nativity Christmas cards for her) so this will be going to her.  She loves Christmas decorations and will love putting gifts in for her grandchildren, especially as it tells the story of Christmas.

In typical fashion I have put quite a lot of quilting on here and could not resist gold thread to outline the stable, to include in the sand and to outline the star.  As it is a wall hanging I used a cheap man-made wadding, which was trickier to work with, but as it had greater "loft" (listen to me!) it gave the overall hanging more depth.  My mum will love this so it quickly needs to get in the post so she can start advent promptly.

I did both of these projects with sewing friends and sewing classes so it seems appropriate to link this blog post to Lorna McMahon's blog Sew Fresh Quilts who has a Wednesday "Let's Bee Social" link up.

Happy Advent!