A busy blogger

I have a lot to share on this post.  First of all I am proud to show you a tutorial I wrote featured on The Daily Stitch blog.  I made the table runner, table mats and coasters last month and really enjoyed the challenge and experience.  Annie from The Village Haberdashery took lovely photos and I'm really pleased with how my project looks.  I got a real buzz from seeing my handiwork on a different website from this one.  I'm making a baby quilt and tutorial for her blog again soon and I'm excited about that as well.





As I try to save money for the long arm quilter, this week I have worked on a project made entirely from scraps.  The only thing I had to buy this week was the wadding because the front is pieced from scraps and the backing I had in stash.  I know that it is ridiculous but when I work with scraps I feel that I am getting something for free.  All the fabrics on the front have been used in other projects, some of them in projects on here, so it feels great to have a by-product quilt.

A friend lent me a book this week, Sunday Morning Quilts, which has been a revelation.  There is a great section on making a slab of fabric and this is the technique I've used here in this baby boy play mat.  I'm really pleased that I joined colours together and also used scraps to make the binding as well.  The binding I did on the machine and is my best so far - I feel I am getting better at this.  It wasn't planned, but this would also work well as an "i spy" quilt and there are lots of possibilities for playing pairs.  This quilt is now on sale on Etsy here.

"Scrapisfaction" is how I am feeling about this.  I've decided to set myself a challenge each month of making a "scrapisfaction" project.  I think that using scraps makes you think harder about what you are doing but also makes you more creative as a result.  I, like every quilter on the planet, have a few scraps and I would rather make them useful than leave them languishing in bags and boxes, waiting to see the light of day.  What scrapisfaction project do you recommend I try next?

Thanks for popping by!

Trusty Tablemats

My first quilting lesson took place on the first of December 2012.  As it was the beginning of advent I decided to make a Christmas table runner.  I still have it somewhere but I won't be using this Christmas or any other Christmas because it is hideous - awful fabrics, terrible piecing, poor quilting.  It was good practice and a great introduction to patchwork and quilting and my table ware obsession was born.

It's a bit of a joke in my local patchwork shop that if I see a new fabric and ask "what could I make with it?" the lovely Saturday girl, Emily, suggests "tablemats!"  I have tablemats for the different seasons of the year and have no doubt that at some point I will increase this to twelve sets, one for each month of the year.  Tablemats are just a great way of adding colour and interest into your life and are quilts on a mini scale so easy to put together.  I also think they make a great gift and the ones I have made this week are going to Marion for her seventieth birthday.

Marion helps my husband at the allotment shop.  She is a great gardener and a lovely person.  She is always cheerful and optimistic.  She likes a laugh and enjoys life.  I think these fabrics are perfect for her because they have the gardening theme and have a bright, happy look which reminds me of Marion.  Like me, she enjoys her crafts so I think Marion will appreciate and enjoy using these.

I decided to do some simple tramline quilting.  The thread is by YSL and called Havana Market.  I like it because it contains all the different colours of the flowers in the middle of this mat.   The binding I finished by hand, but I want to learn how to make binding by machine to speed up the finishing.  I am really pleased with these mats and I am also pleased that they are finished long before the birthday bash.  For once I am not up against it, trying to meet a deadline.

Later today I have a friend coming around to sew with me.  I am looking forward to that.  I will be working on a simple baby quilt which I began cutting last night.  This quilt is being made from random fabrics in my stash and uses simple squares and rectangles.  If I press on, I should be able to get this finished reading for a Finish It Up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Thank you for visiting.