A little quilting...

Began (finally) quilting this baby quilt on the weekend - about halfway done, maybe a little more. As I leave for America on Friday next week, I really need to get it finished!  Pattern is just a large clamshell type freehand, with black and white variegated thread.

Low volume baby quilt

Due to various changes in my weekend plans, I had a little time today to do some quilting - luckily, there was only a little quilting to be done. This is one of two tops I put together from the low-volume heart blocks I won recently in the block lotto.  The other top will go into my baby quilt stash for the next time it's needed, but this one is going to the Friends' group at my local library to help fundraise at their summer fair. 

It's not quite finished yet - still have to do the binding, which I hope I have a chance to attach tomorrow - but at least it's quilted - I just used a simple loop meander with some hearts thrown in. Quick and easy.

Funky house finish (almost)

Resisting temptation to just piece and piece today (always the task for me - to do what I need to do and not simply find something interesting to piece) I worked on finishing the quilting on this piece. I did lots, including several colour changes to get all the roofs, skies and houses done (I'm not quilting the doors and windows). I even tackled the sky..

using a sort of cloudy pattern,

and the grass, with leaves.  Brought it downstairs to photograph, and realised...

I missed this one green house!  Oh well, one little bit of green quilting tomorrow before I work on putting binding on this piece and a quilt which is back from the longarmer...  Maybe even some time for piecing tomorrow!

A little quilting

I spent a good chunk of time this weekend sewing - even managed to do a little quilting during the time - not at lot at once as it can be a bit hard on the wrists.  This little house quilt is a wedding present for a friend and colleague of Geoff's; I am quilting it in a variety of ways and colours a little at a time - it's not the sort of piece for an allover pattern anyway. 

I'm using various kinds of meanders - a square one,

a swirly one

one which echoes the shapes in the fabric

and a regular meander (doesn't show much here).  There will be more - and the houses and roofs will be quilted, too, though not the windows and doors.  And then, I will have to think of something to do in the grass and sky. Time for that later, though!

Quilting start

Despite not being a large piece, I did not get this finished today. This was sort of my fault and sort of not my fault. It's my fault for leaving pins in things (I know, I know) but it's not my fault that my machine decided it didn't want to fmq backwards anymore (regular stitching and forward FMQ was fine, backwards FMQ, not so much).  Problem appears to be a nick in the bobbin case on which the thread is catching; little man in sewing shop will sort it out either by sanding it down or ordering a new part. And he'll service my machine at the same time (needs it anyway, hasn't had one in a couple of years).  Good timing, really, as he says it should be done by next Wednesday and I'm going away until Tuesday evening to visit Karol Ann, anyway! 

A bit of quilting

So, today the kids were all at tennis camp for the bulk of the day - so after I did some grocery shopping I went home, set up the sewing machine on the dining room table, got out my cutting out and laminating for school in September, and made myself a carousel of activities. I can't quilt for too long at once as it makes my back hurt (and my hands), so I did a little quilting, a little cutting &/or laminating, a little going on the computer then a little doing small jobs around the house.  It all worked nicely, and I finished quilting this small piece - it's only little, but I quilted it quite densely with a sort of swirly pattern.  

Tomorrow I am taking a day uptown while the kids are at tennis, but Thursday, I'll be doing my sewing carousel again with another small quilt - not sure which one yet. 

What I've been doing

I know I haven't blogged much lately, but that's because we've been out doing things a lot during this half term holiday, and what time I've spent sewing, I've spent quilting this piece. I decided to do it with a clamshell pattern, which I love, but which takes a bit more time than some less dense patterns.   But anyway, I've finally finished the quilting, so now it will only need binding and it can go home with my mother to be mailed to a friend in the US. Hoorah!

A quilting start

I made a start this weekend on the quilting for the black and white and bright quilt. It's going to be quite heavily quilted - both in the colours (which is partly needed to hold down the coloured pieces, which are only fused) and in the black and white (it will have to be, or it won't lay flat). I am hoping to do it a little at a time rather than all at once, which will be a strain on my hands and back - but I do have a deadline, so I'll need to be sure not to leave too much space between quilting sessions. I did think I might get some done in my free afternoons this week - that was, until we found out Monday morning at school OFSTED was coming this week (schools inspection for those of you outside the UK) - needless to say, my free afternoons this week have been less free. Maybe next week!

Green and Purple Baby Quilt

Got one of the remaining baby quilts quilted today - which leaves one more to quilt before mid October and the other not until Christmas - I'm beginning to feel less stressed about this!

I used a kind of adapted sun pattern - pointy bits with circles. I saw it in a book I have of longarm doodles and modified it a bit (i.e. when I stitched it, I didn't worry about copying exactly!)

Works well I think - here it is on the back, where you can see it much better.

Another baby quilt finished - mostly

On my quilting day the other day, I not only managed to strew bamboo across my mother's quilt, but I also did a quick clamshell pattern on this small baby quilt, which will be for Sarah's form tutor, who is having a second baby later this autumn (she's leaving at October half term). Only (only!) about 3 more baby quilts to go...

This is one of my favourite quilting patterns, but as it's labour- and thread-intensive, I only do it on small quilts.

Quilting day

So, with various members of my household sent off in different directions - to work, to see the film of Glee Live, to the Victoria & Albert Museum, to the living room to play Monopoly with a friend - I managed to commandere the dining room table and quilt my mother's oriental quilt (she pieced the quilt together, and during her last visit I had an abortive attempt to quilt it, but the batting was really puffy and not cooperating, so she took it home and tried a few things - wasn't happy with any of them, so I said I'd quilt it, but this time using 80/20 or something sensible like that).

It's a lap-sized quilt, so I didn't want to quilt it too heavily as it's quite a nuisance to move around under the machine if you are doing much more than wavy lines or meanders. So I did a wavy line with some leaves thrown in. The variegated thread shows a lot in the border fabric, though less in the main fabric, but I think it works well enough. Later in the week I will attach the binding to it, though she'll do the hand-sewing part.

I actually quilted one of my pending baby quilts as well, but I'll show a photograph of that another day...

Triangle meander

...is what I used to quilt this - doesn't really look that finished in this photo, but the observant among you will note the lack of safety pins... It's not heavily quilted (for once) but it will certainly do for what it is - a quilt of favourite fabrics of a small boy. Binding soon, I hope!



A closeup of the triangle meander - not very exciting, but gives an idea - it's like a loop meander but with triangles instead of loops. It's actually a hard one to do on the DSM as you need to move the quilt quite freely, which I find tougher under the DSM - probably why I usually end up doing dense quilting - not so much need to always be travelling large distances!

A bit of quilting

So, here's the quilted article. Tomorrow I am going to attach a binding, which I will probably sew down on Monday at my quilt group. I think I'll use the blue fabric for binding, though it's possible that I might go with a scrappy brown. Will have to audition them, I guess. Then I just have to find a space somewhere on my walls (ha) to hang it!

Clamshell quilting

Started quilting this piece today - as I expected, I really like the pattern of the quilting with the design of the quilt. But then I like this quilting pattern on most anything, it's just time- and thread-consuming, so I don't use it on big pieces. At the moment, there's just one big clamshelly feather extending across the quilt - but I'll do more on it tomorrow - perhaps even finish, time permitting - it's not a big piece, after all...

Quilty Day

So, apparently, in the mathematics of family life, tennis camp + new computer game = sewing time for mummy. Olivia started her week (M-Th) at tennis camp (10am-3pm) today, had a nice time apparently - came away chatting animatedly with another girl her age ("Her name is Georgia; she's a really good singer; can we get a Michael Jackson album?") and claims to have enjoyed herself. The other two spent a large chunk of the day playing on the computer - but as I wanted to do some quilting and as they were working as a team rather than arguing, I let them.

Consequently, I have quilted the quilt I pinned together on Sunday. Admittedly, I chose a simple quilting pattern (what I call a flame meander, which is essentially slightly flame-shaped wavy lines), so it was fairly quick to do - probably took about 3 hours total, though it's hard to tell as I always take frequent breaks for other stuff to make sure my back isn't killing me at the end of the process. In the end, I went with not a purple thread, but a dark reddish colour. This was, I admit, entirely due to what I happened to have in stock, but it looks nice, which is what counts.

Tomorrow I think we will be out for the day, but the next time I have some free sewing time, I think I need to get binding on this and the rainbow mini quilt - and then I really need to bind some of the things sitting in my binding pile - it will be up to at least 4, counting these two, possibly five. Yikes!

Quilting & pinning

Well, I did actually manage to do some work today - I quilted the little rainbow piece, to start with. I used the clamshell pattern which I used on the corn and beans quilt, which I really like. It's very time-consuming, so it's a good one to use on a small piece rather than a larger one. I chose to use a brightly variegated thread as I couldn't think what else to do - nothing really matches (or everything does, depending on how you look at it). I will bind the mini in the sky blue fabric (it's actually sky fabric - has clouds on it) to make it seem even more like a rainbow in the sky.



And I also managed to get this quilt pinned together, ready for quilting. Not totally sure what colour I will quilt it in (leaning towards purple) and what pattern (no idea), but I'm sure I will come up with something. Don't think I will work on it tomorrow as I feel like doing something else, but you never know. I kind of fancy piecing or maybe some mixed-media stuff - and I should start by attaching binding to the rainbow mini. Nice to be back sewing - I missed it - not so much on holiday in Scotland, as that's different anyway, but during the last few weeks' of school I was so busy I didn't get much done at all, and was left feeling a bit at a loose end.

Batik baby quilt

After the better part of a week of nothing happening, it's nice to finally have something to show. It would be nicer to get some of my free time back, but I don't suppose that will happen any time real soon. Anyway, this morning I did finally get a chance to quilt this baby quilt for a friend who is having a baby in about 2 weeks' time. It's a small quilt so didn't take long to do. I just used a hedgehog spiral with some wavy echoes around it - very simple and quick. Tomorrow I have a lot to get done, but hope to at least get some binding attached to work on during the week. I miss having time to sew. I miss blogging about the stuff I make! In a few weeks' time perhaps things will settle a bit and there will be more sewing!

Clam shell quilting

Although I spent a large portion of today doing very little, I did do a bit of quilting this morning - as the right foot was already on the machine, I decided to pull this out and quilt it - or start, anyway. The quilt is the corn and beans quilt from some time ago, and I thought I'd try this sort of clamshell pattern on it. I like it. I only quilted a small portion of the quilt, as I only worked on it for about an hour, but I should get some more done later in the week. I had intended it as a possible baby quilt, but actually, I thinnk I might keep it. For one thing, I really like it, but for another thing, it's a little large for a baby quilt. We'll see.

Olivia's Easter card & other stuff

We'll start off today with something different - this postcard with an Easter theme was made not by me, but by DD2 Olivia for her friend Jiwon, who recently moved back to Korea. She perhaps left it a bit late to reach Jiwon in time, but it's a lovely card nonetheless. I did help a little - I cut out the sun (the background part) and oversaw the general construction, but the design and most of the work is hers. Not bad for a nine-year-old. I especially like the nest, which was entirely her concept and work - very clever.



What I did myself today, was to finish (!!) quilting the Contrary Wife. We ran some errands this morning, including a trip to the department store for more thread (of which they didn't have the same colour, so I have use a very slightly different colour to finish - I couldn't tell the difference myself when going back to check later, so I don't think anyone else will be able to spot it, even if they look!) and some notions (like Olivia's Easter themed buttons, above, and my booty, below). This afternoon, the two kids who were here (Sarah was at a friend's house for a birthday sleepover weekend - she was there almost two whole days) parked themselves in front of a DVD and I did some sewing. And amazingly enough, finished it. Tomorrow I shall make and attach the binding, then hopefully a few evenings in front of the telly will finish it completely. I did tell my customer I'd try to finish by mid-April, and it looks like this will actually happen, which is great.




Here are the other two insect blocks. Another dragonfly and butterfly, this time I have reversed them so that butterfly is uppermost (or maybe it's the other way around - anyway, it's opposite to the right side, so the ones that are the same insect are diagonally placed from one another).

And here are some treats - the aforementioned notions, most of which came from the sale bin, and the thread to finish the quilt - I bought two similar colours to what I had bought before (which of course, I hadn't taken with me, only having made a note of the number) - one of which was much better than the other, but hey, one can always use up thread, right? And on the right, some yellow fabrics - this month's club from eQuilter. If Joyce is reading, she will no doubt spot the yellow/orange colourway of the blue fabric which makes the border of the Contrary Wife quilt - I know from her blog that she's recently acquired some of this herself...

This and that - and the other

Forgot to blog yesterday - not that there was much to show, as I didn't do any work - though I did get some nice post, so I'll show that here, a bit further down. Today I had a few hours in the morning, so I worked on two things with common elements - an altered tin for a trade on FAT - only requirement was that it have a heart somewhere on it. Mine has several. The trade was originally an altoid tin, but some leniency was allowed for those who might not have access, I have used this cookie tin instead - it held a single cookie - it's about 5 inches across and about an inch high. The fabric on top is glitter felt, with the heart made of a silk fabric. The ribbon around the edges is from India - a birthday gift from my friend Lana...



This is a padded heart ornament for a swap on Textile Challenges - it's actually not a good representation of the colour at all, but I took several photos and none of them came out well in terms of colour - there's quite a bit of blue and green as well as some coppery overtones. Anyway, trust me that it looks much more interesting in person.




Here's something lovely I received in the post today - my first house front for the house swap (also on Textile Challenges) - this one was made by Michelle - my chosen theme was House of the Rising Sun (first thing that popped into my mind - plus I've always liked the song) and so she's gone back to the lyrics of the song and pulled out the cards in relation to the gambling theme. And a bonus - a piece of the ice-dyed fabric she used on the back. Lucky me.



And finally - what I received yesterday - these great fabrics from Margaret, in return for the blocks I sent her way a little while back. And two placemats, which I bound tonight at my little quilt group - these are small pieces I've tried out quilting patterns on. I have about 5 or 6 - eventually, I will have enough to use as placemats or give as gifts, etc.

I heard from Helen that my African block (which I teased you about the other day) arrived with her today, but I'll wait until tomorrow to show that, as I will need something to blog about on my no-work Friday...