Back to blogging

Was it really October 2015 when I last blogged?  The difference 19 months can make...
The reason I stopped blogging was because I wasn't doing nearly as much sewing and quilting.  The reason I wasn't doing as much sewing and quilting was because I was pregnant and I now have a lovely baby.

I did manage to do some sewing during my pregnancy and I am doing the odd bit of sewing now and then, but now that baby is in more of a routine I am finally getting a little time to myself on an evening and can get my beloved sewing machine out on a more regular basis.  Hurrah!

I can't possibly mention the many different things I have worked on and finished between my last blog post and now, but I will tell you about a big quilt I am currently working on.

I got a request from a family member to make a huge baby quilt for a friend having boy triplets.  The triplets' mum had seen other quilts I had made and was desperate to own one and use it as a backdrop to the many future photos of the triplets.

I am calling this quilt The Power of Three because I have based much of it around the concept of three.  I have pieced three different shapes in the three primary colours.  I have shadow-quilted these shapes three times.  I have quilted numbers 1, 2 and 3 as well as the letters G, H and J, which are the boys' initials.  The rainbow border also has three colour coordinated three shadow-quilted lines.

I like this quilt because it has all been made from stash fabrics.  I am further on with it than these photos suggest.  I have put a black binding on it to make the rainbow border stand out.  The backing fabric is a fun Space fabric which I think is vibrant enough to match the primary colours on the front.

Here's hoping you come back and see the finished item.

Big Bear, Little Bear Quilt: A quilt in progress

My last post was a Sunday Stash post in which I showed off some fabrics from the Lewis and Irene range Big Bear, Little Bear.  It didn't take me long to cut into these fabrics and I can now show off a pieced quilt.

I felt the prints needed to be seen and not cut up into too small pieces, as this would not do the print justice.  I decided to have some pieces cut into smaller squares and bordered by 2½" squares.  The larger squares are 8½" before piecing and I think this size works really well with these prints.

I have a lot of 2½" squares already pre-cut and stored in colour order.  It is so nice to have useful squares of fabric on hand when you want to make a quick quilt.  Many of these squares have also been donated by friends who know I find these squares so useful.  I did cut into some some new fabrics as well.

The browns, coffees and creams of the Bear fabrics are not my usual palette.  I felt that I needed to be brave and add some bright colours to this quilt to make it feel very autumnal and to make it slightly more boyish.  I love the blues, greens and additional browns I added.  I think it makes this quilt a more interesting quilt for a baby boy as it is less predictable than baby blue or cream.

This quilt is now ready to be quilted.  I have a light fabric for the backing and a nice brown for the binding.  Here's hoping I find time to finish it this week.

Happy sewing!

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!

Poppy's Rainbow Quilt: A finished quilt

This quilt feels like an achievement.  I imagined it on Sunday evening and by Tuesday evening it was finished, and everything (fabrics, wadding, backing, binding) came from my stash.  I didn't have to purchase anything extra.  Somehow (rather insanely) this makes me think that this quilt was free to make.  Who am I kidding?

Anyway, this quilt is following in the footsteps of my other rainbow quilt and other quilts made predominantly with 2½" squares.  But I added some 4" strips to make this quilt a bit different and also to reduce the amount of cutting and piecing I would have to do.

Pink has made an appearance in my rainbow again.  I think most girls will appreciate this addition.  I opted for a low volume backing with light grey flowers and mint green leaves.  I found a grey binding which I think makes the colours on the front really stand out.  The observant will have noticed that some of my new fabrics from the Festival of Quilts have made it into this quilt.  This one quilt now justifies all those purchases!

As this quilt is for a little girl called Poppy I included a couple of Liberty prints with Poppies on them.  You can see a couple of them in the photo below:

I opted for some straight line quilting again.  I quilted tramlines along all the width seams.  I changed the colour to match the rainbow them.  I can boast lots of Aurifil threads to make this possible.

Quilt Stats:

Finished dimensions: 41" x 52"
Number of 2½" squares: 140
Number of 4" strips: 7
Approximately 100 different fabrics included (Many thanks to my friend, Amy, who donated 50 or so squares from her stash.)

Thank you for visiting!

Scrappy Snowballs and Squares: A quilt in progress 2

The piecing of my current quilt is finished!  I cannot express how relieved I am to tell you that.  This quilt is turning into a mammoth project where my ambition has been running ahead of me and I have only just managed to catch up.  This quilt was originally going to be for a single bed for one of my nieces, but as I enjoyed working with so many different fabrics I decided to make it much bigger and to keep it for me and the husband.  Worry not - my niece'll get another quilt at a later date.

I have used so many different fabrics in this and it has been great to raid my stash.  Some of the first fabrics I ever purchased have been included, as well as some of my all time favourites, a handful of Liberty prints and donations from my sewing friends.  It's such a hotchpotch of colours, styles and images but I think it works.  I am getting much better at using up my stash and mixing it all up.

The low volume snowballs are a revelation.  Initially I had thought these would just be plain white but I am glad I mixed it up because it makes the quilt more interesting and a lot less predictable.

The quilt is made from 1388 2½" squares.  I must be crazy!  There are also 196 half square triangles.  That means there are 1584 pieces that I have sewn together.  And, just to confirm my craziness I am now wondering whether to add a chequerboard border to frame the quilt.  I need to think about that and see if I can face more cutting and piecing.  If not, the quilt top is already plenty big enough and will look amazing on our bed.

Have a lovely weekend!

Scrappy Snowballs and Squares: A quilt in progress 1

This week I am working on another scrappy quilt and I have chosen to work with my current favourite sized square again - 2½".  This quilt will alternate between patchwork blocks and snowball blocks.  It's a very simple design but I hope it will have visual impact as I have picked out some of my brightest and boldest fabrics from stash.

There are some pastel shades in amongst these blocks but by and large the fabrics I've picked out are bright in colour and bold in pattern.  Many of the fabrics also have white backgrounds or patterns.  I have also included lots of fabrics with black backgrounds, which is not common for me, but I think they complement the bright fabrics.  Some of these fabrics have also come from friends, who have seen what I am making and donated a suitable fabric.  This is the joy of the 2½" square - other quilters will gladly share some of their stash with you!

I have not been exacting in how these fabrics are sewn together.  I have done lots of chain-piecing and hoped for the best!  This has made it quicker to sew together and also more "random" in composition, which I think works well in this scrappy quilt.

The snowball blocks are not yet made.  I have cut many of the low volume fabrics, but there are still many more to cut.  I decided against having a pure white contrast.  Instead I have used different cream and lightly patterned fabrics as well as white fabric.  Hopefully this will make the quilt more interesting and less predictable.

I have made a start on piecing the half square triangles for the snowball corners, but there remains still more to do.

Thank you for visiting!

Scrappy Dresden Plate: A quilt in progress

Last month I started sewing some scrappy Dresden plates with the intention of making a quilt.  I really enjoyed making the plates and had good fun using the ruler I purchased.  I knew I wanted to turn them into a quilt but when I realised I would have to do some handsewing to make the middle of the plates my progress came to an abrupt halt.  I just don't like handsewing and instead began work on my rainbow quilt.

This week I've decided to resurrect this project and complete the very small amount of handsewing involved.  The handsewing was completed on an evening and the progress of this quilt has progressed as a result.  Yay!

I pinned the Dresden plates to a plain white fabric and then basted the whole of the quilt as usual.  To secure the plates I have quilted them with the walking foot to create a slightly thicker quilt sandwich.  I know others may have handsewn them to the white fabric but with my aversion to handsewing that was never going to happen!

I have just sewn lines where the fabric seams meet and I am sure they will keep the plates in place.  I have double sewn the points of the plates, which creates both a nice look but is also good at keeping everything secure.

As ever, I am quilting with my Aurifil threads.  White on the front and the most beautiful turquoise on the back, which matches the backing fabric perfectly.  The quilting I have done is creating a lovely flower-like pattern on the back of the quilt.

This project is now progressing at a pace, though I am now wondering whether I should add some smaller scrappy Dresden plates to the corners where there is currently a lot of white fabric.  Hopefully this will be finished this weekend.

Happy sewing everyone!

Rainbow Scrappy Quilt: A finished quilt

If you listen to the Chris Evans Breakfast show on BBC radio 2 you may have heard him invite people to share their Smug Zone stories.  I am definitely in the Smug Zone with this quilt because I am so pleased with how it has worked out.  This is definitely a quilt I am holding on to.

The backing fabric I've chosen is by Lewis and Irene and is called Without the Rain we wouldn't have Rainbows.  This is a gorgeous fabric in its own right, but I think it's perfect for this quilt on two levels; firstly, it has rainbows on it which is the theme of this quilt.  Secondly, the writing is in French and I love foreign languages, and as this quilt is staying with me, that feels rather apt.

I used lots of different coloured threads for the quilting, though they were all Aurifil.  I decided to make the most of the rainbow aspect and quilted in colour zones with matching threads.  I did not overly think the quilting.  I just decided to use the walking foot to follow the lines and sometimes just made a 90° turn as the squares met.  As a result lots of the quilting does resemble stairs, which I like because the backing has images of the Eiffel Tower.  I've been up the tower twice and on both occasions I remember there being a lot of stairs to climb.

After umming and ahhing about whether the pink squares belong in rainbow I decided to use a bright pink fabric for the binding.  I've decided that my rainbows definitely include pink and I think this particular pink goes beautifully next to all the different fabric colours.  The fabric is Dimples by Makower which they have in lots of different colours and which I think makes a beautiful binding choice.

Quilt Stats:

Finished dimensions: 41.5" x 62.5"
Number of 2½" squares: 520
Approximately 100 different fabrics included

I'm really pleased with the reception that this quilt has had both with friends and people online.  My next post will include a grid of where to place your own fabrics if you wish to make a similar quilt.

Rainbow Scrappy Quilt: A pieced quilt

The rainbow scrap quilt is now pieced.  I had spent ages putting the fabrics in the correct order, but in the end I moved some fabrics around and I am pleased with the final placement.  I am very short-sighted, but this ended up being an advantage with this quilt because I kept taking my glasses off and even my blurred vision could make out the rainbow effect.  If it looks like a rainbow when I'm not wearing my glasses, I must have got the placement right!

This quilt is fast becoming a favourite of mine and I am savouring the time I spend on this project.  I loved how I could see the rainbow coming together with each row that were pieced together.  

This quilt has lots of different fabric prints in it, which is a reflection of my stash: solids, near solids, stash builders, florals.  But there are still lots of novelty prints, especially with animals which I always seem unable to resist.  Some favourites to mention here are: Socks the Fox by Patty Sloniger, Chicken Party by Creative Thursday, some Briar Rose prints by Heather Ross and Wee Wander by Sarah Jane Studios.  Is there anything nicer than combining your favourite fabrics together in a quilt? 

I think not!

 

I made a mid-week visit to Craft Den for the backing and binding and I love my choices.  I'll share them with you when the quilt is finished.  Tomorrow I'm going to baste and begin the quilting.  A lovely sewing weekend awaits me!

Rainbow Scrappy Quilt: A quilt in progress

Not so long ago I made one of my zippy pouches in rainbow scraps.  I found putting the rainbow order together really satisfying, so it was only a matter of time before I would be inspired to make a baby quilt with rainbow colours.

It took two days to cut out all of the 520 2½" squares but by Sunday evening I was ready to start piecing the squares together.  It took me quite a while to arrange the fabrics into the correct rainbow order and I decided to take poetic quilting licence and include pinks in the rainbow, even though technically pink is not present in a rainbow.  (That does make me wonder whether pink is a colour or not, but I digress.)

My husband rarely comments on my quilts until they are completed.  He says he cannot imagine what they will turn out like until they are finished, but he commented on this quilt off his own bat when he saw the squares on the bedroom floor and he says he can tell it will be lovely when it is finished!  High praise, indeed.

Better photos to follow later in the week.  Have a happy sewing week!

Scrappy Quilt finished...almost

Do you remember that commitment that I would have my scrappy quilt finished by today and also blogged about?  I've got very close to completing it, but I have fallen at the final hurdle.  The quilting is done and the binding is on and I've even taken a couple of photos, but there are just so many threads that need sorting by hand that I cannot possibly finish this quilt by the end of today.  I've decided to give myself a little leeway for that final task.

My husband picked the colours for this quilt because he likes "earthy" colours and I am thrilled with his specification.  I quilted squares in matching threads for each of the 25 mini square blocks.  It seemed to take forever to do that but I like this kind of quilting - its repetition is meditative and I like to tally in my mind where I am up to after each square has been quilted.

I mentioned in a previous posts how I had used scraps to get the backing to the right size.  I was very "freestyle" in my piecing, which explains that funny angles and not straight stitches, but I am pleased with how it has turned out.  I have used up lots of fabrics and scraps in the process, which is what this quilt is all about.

You can't see it so well in the photos today (but I will show it in the final post about this quilt) but the binding has curly hearts on it and I love that touch as this is for my hubby.  (Fear not, the soppiness is over, that's as slushy as I get!)

Friday, definitely Friday, it will be finished.

Scrappy Squares Quilt WIP

I really shouldn't be surprised that my scrappy squares quilt is taking a while to finish, but each day I think I'll make more progress than I actually do and then my anticipated completion date gets put further back.  I need to have some patience, but it feels I have spent a lot of time with these fabrics and this quilt and I want to make some new fabric friendships.

This quilt is about 62" square so my backing fabric was never going to be enough.  I wondered about putting two large strips down the sides but then I thought that I was missing a trick to get down more of my stash and scraps so I opted to piece together random fabrics of random quantities and I think it adds to the overall scrappy feel.

I haven't worked out the total amount of fabric I've used in this project, but both the front and back felt heavy when I was getting them ironed and basted, and this was very satisfying.  

There are 49 blocks in total and I have decided to quilt each block with a square with a coordinating thread.  At one point I had creative ideas of quilting different shapes (cats, carrots, a house) but then I reverted to my dependable quilting style.  I have now quilted 33 of the total number of blocks, so I am two thirds of the way through.

Tomorrow and Sunday I don't have much planned, so I am hoping that this will be finished then.  There is another Sew my Stash challenge over on Project Leasa taking place this month and it's a "Precuts Party".  At Christmas a friend gave me some 5" Liberty squares and I really want to get them sewn together now.  I feel I have not even got my glad rags on and yet everyone else is already sipping the champagne.    When this is completed I will be hitting that Tana Lawn and joining in the fun straight away.

How true to my word am I?  Here's my commitment - this will be finished and blogged about on Monday,  Ooh er - I've got to finish it now!

Locally grown finally finished

Today I am showing off a quilt which has taken me far too long to finish.  I started it in August 2013,  I pieced it but then was unsure what fabric to back it with so it was stuffed into a box and forgotten about.  It only saw the light of day when I was sorting out some stuff in my craft room and I realised that it was close to being finished and that it really needed to have its day in the sun.

The quilt has many imperfections and I think my piecing has improved considerably since I first worked on it, but it is quite nice to recognise my own progress in sewing and quilting.  The fabrics come from Locally Grown by Creative Thursday.  I love the patterns and colours.

I was particular about the squares being the right way up, but not with the "framing" fabrics.  I remember that my brain couldn't take the calculating to get everything the right way up.

The backing was made from left over fabric and I think it works well.  These were fabrics I would otherwise have been holding on to without a project in mind.  I think it was a good idea to get them used and out of my stash.

The binding was some plain fabric I found in stash which I think brings both the back and front together.  There are a lot of busy fabrics in this quilt so a simple red makes them stand out and does not compete with them.

This quilt will be given to my niece, Ava, who got a knitted blanket when she was born, a quilt when she was one and who is due a bigger quilt now she is three.  She's quite a character with a big and busy personality - this quilt should suit her perfectly.

Thank you for visiting.

A Friday Finish - 2015's first quilt

I love a Friday finish.  I always feel I've met a deadline, even though the deadline is imaginary.  I think I like it because it means the weekend is ahead of me to let my creativity go wild and to devote time to a new project.

Today's Friday finish is my rainbow quilt which I only started last weekend.  It's not been as quick to make as I had hoped.  There was so much quilting of those tramlines, and then I quilted a fold (probably because I had not basted it properly) so I had to undo lots of quilting and re-quilt it.  It was a little frustrating.  I think my sewing machine got frustrated as well - the needle kept falling out and the tension went off.  I was panicking a bit because my warranty ran out last month, and isn't it always the case that electrical things break just after your cover runs out?  Anyway, I did some troubleshooting and I think I have solved the problem.  Here's hoping!

This is a big quilt (81" x 43"), but I wanted to include all the colours in the jelly roll.  I quilted using matching threads.  Some were exact matches, some less exact.  I know I have a lack of orange threads in my collection, so the orange strip was quilted with more of a golden brown colour.  It seemed to work.

I love the backing fabric and binding I chose.  I think a delicate grey works wonderfully against every single colour and is worth remembering for the future with other bright combinations.

This quilt will eventually be in my craft room.  There is a rainbow theme being developed in there.  We still don't have the storage from Ikea (grrr!) but when we do I will take photos of the room and this quilt in situ.

Keeping with the rainbow theme, my next project is going to use these fabrics:

As I mentioned on a previous blog post I am taking part in Project Leesa's Sew My Stash 2015 and there is a Weekend Challenge taking place now.  In summary, you have to make a project by Sunday from at least 75% stash and it has to have a "heart" theme for upcoming Valentine's Day.  I'm going to use all stash (promise!) and make a rainbow heart mini quilt to hang in my craft room.  I'm sure there are people making things for loved ones, but I've just made my fella a quilt so this project is going to be for my lovely craft room and is a homage to my beloved hobby.

I'll be posting updates on Instagram (I'm @stitchandpieces) but pop by on Sunday to see the finished piece.

Enjoy your weekend!

Ribbons Quilt: my pattern!

I seem to have been slack with my blogging recently, not because I haven't been sewing much, but because I have been doing so much sewing.  There is so much going on right now that it is going to take a few posts to explain everything.

Today's blog post is especially exciting for me because I get to show off my Ribbons Quilt and direct you to the pattern and tutorial I wrote.  I have mentioned this quilt pattern in a couple of previous blog posts but this week it was posted on The Village Haberdashery's blog The Daily Stitch.



It's called "Ribbons" because I used three colours and pieced them in such a way as to create ribbons of colour.  I was really keen to use the unicorns from Far Far Away in the blue, green and lilac colourways but the rest of the fabrics were picked out by the ladies at The Village Haberdashery and they did a great job!  The colours look fantastic together and in this pattern they all seem to shine.  This is the top pieced but not finished, but you get to see the pattern.



The Half Rectangle Triangles took some working out.  I have previously used a Bloc Loc ruler to create them but I had to work out a different technique in order that anyone could make them without expensive equipment.  I made all of the HRTs using my own tutorial so I knew it could be done.

I really am proud of this quilt - I hope you like my efforts too.  Thank you for visiting.

Normal Service Resumed

I am now back to quilting and blogging after returning from a lovely, relaxing holiday in Austria.  I had a great time and worked on a couple of projects (Briar Rose hexagons and knitting a pair of socks) but I missed the sewing machine and within my first 24 hours back home I have worked on two projects.  Sewing hexagons and knitting socks make for relaxing and therapeutic projects but there is nothing like hitting the sewing machine and making fast progress.

I am on a bit of a money-saving mission at the moment because I really do want a long-arm quilter at some point, so I am going to try to work with stash fabrics for the next few months and become reacquainted and fall back in love with some earlier fabric purchases.

At the recent Festival of Quilts (did I mention I went?) I bought some Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury Gardens fabrics to add to some existing fabrics I already owned from the range.  I bought two metres of backing as well so this fits my money-saving mission as I have everything to make a complete project.  To make this quilt a little funkier, I have also added some other fabrics from my stash (elephants and CND symbols aren't original to the range.)  I have already made two projects from this range (a quilt and a cushion) and I love these so I know these are going to be fun fabrics to work with again; the pinks, blues and greens are the prettiest ever. 

I am making string blocks and so far have made 30 4" squares.  I like the look but think I am going to make a chequerboard quilt with white squares.  I have plenty of white fabric in my stash so I still won't need to make an additional purchase for this quilt.  I think this quilt will be ready in no time so I am determined to get a Friday finish this week.  That's almost a promise!