Thank you!

This week I was pleasantly surprised by a parcel of gorgeous Bonnie & Camille scraps and off-cuts from the very thoughtful Audrey.  Thank you Audrey!

Although not a blogger herself, Audrey has been a long-time reader of my blog and was a faithful contributor to Bee Blessed for a long time.  She is one of those people who reaches out thoughtfully and with kindness and generosity, and I must say, it was a lovely surprise to hear from her again this week and be blessed myself with the results of her stash tidy-up.  

Thank you from my heart for these, Audrey.  I wonder how you could have known these are my favourite designers?  ;-)

Strippy Heart Quilt - Ta Da!

Here's the finished Scrappy Heart Quilt.  I need two tall, willing volunteers to help me get a proper shot of this quilt but since none are currently forthcoming, I'll have to make do with a floor shot.  Sadly, this doesn't show the quilt at its best but hopefully you can imagine its better than it looks.

I experimented with an echoed continual curve when quilting this heart and kind of regret it.  I feel I could have done better and am worried that it washed and dried a little oddly because of something to do with the quilting.  But, it's too massive to unpick and re-do, so I'm hoping that with time it will wear in a little crinklier perhaps, instead of just looking creased like it does now :-(

I know it's very hard to make out from the picture, but it is bound with a green print from B&C Vintage Picnic to finish the quilt.  I'm glad I chose it as it's actually a little more subtle than I thought it would be, whilst still adding a colour boundary and doesn't vy for attention with the heart design itself.

Another finish in the bag and soon to be gifted!

Coming soon ...

It seems that even though I try to be disciplined and finish up my WIPs, I am always looking ahead to the next quilt (or the next 5 quilts, to be honest).  I think many of us are like that, aren't we? (Please tell me I'm not alone.)

Having knocked a few finishes off my WIPs list since May, I am itching to start another quilt that I really want to make as a gift.  If my calculations are correct, this little lot is a quilt top in waiting.  I've got to say, though, that this doesn't look anywhere near enough fabric for a reasonable sized quilt. (Puzzled and slightly worried look on face.)

SO, the next part of the plan is that from this bunch of strips I will create a continuous length of low volume strips and a second continuous length of the coloured prints.  Want to know what happens then?  You'll have to wait and see - assuming it works - lol!

Scrap Vortex Progression

I haven't shown much of my Scrap Vortex quilt since this little bundle of pieces, but it did progress a bit more back in April/May time.

Working with the vortex scraps gets very untidy and the mess gets bigger as the pieces do!

I think I spent a rainy afternoon watching BBC iplayer catch ups and pinning all of these next seams ready to stitch on during the pauses and gaps in the making of my See-it-all pouches.  Though honestly, it was hard to keep it to just working as leaders/enders and it did take on a life of its own at times.

Gradually, the pieces grew until I needed to make some kind of decision as to where these are going.  So I've opted for blocks around 15" or 16" tall.  Originally, I tried to make them square but it was forcing thing a bit falsely (namely, trimming things a bit too close to seams for comfort), so I'm happy to grow them to whatever widths they work out at and will have some rows that are 15" high and some 16".

I love this scrap happiness!

This is where I got to.  None of those are completed rows, they're just various widths laid side by side.  I think I will keep this just a small lap quilt. So, next is to decide what width I'm aiming for and fill in any gaps in those top three rows and then do quite a bit of work on filling out the bottom row.  There are still plenty of scraps in the basket to do the job!! 

BTW - the problem with my blog comments seems to be ongoing (i.e. I don't receive notification of them by email and cannot, therefore, reply).  Blogger help forum seems to suggest the problem has been resolved, but it seems they forgot to tell my blog! So, if I don't respond to your comment, you'll know why, but know I am reading and appreciating that you took time to leave me your thoughts.

Something to think about

Have you ever started a project, left it for a while and when you came back to it wondered what to do with it again?

I feel that way about these hexie diamonds, as I refer to them.

I think when I first cut a gazillion hexagons from my B&C stash I had thoughts of a quilt laid out in a diamond grid with a pathway of white/cream hexies separating them like sashing.

Three years on, and only 6 hexie diamonds actually stitched (!!!), I don't know how I feel about this project.

Have I stopped liking it?

Am I just disappointed because it's so lacking in progress?

What to do next -

do I hide it back under the bed and hope one day to be struck with inspiration? or that it might in fact just get 'lost'?

or do I make up more diamonds and see what happens? - there are many, many more hexies already cut for the purpose.

It has potential and options, doesn't it?

Maybe I could learn to love it again if I just spent some time with it.  I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, I don't think. And, if it's the design I'm not so hot about any more, that can always be played around with later, right?

Perhaps I should nudge it up from that UFO list on the left over there into the WIPs?  Oh, go on then!

Bonnie & Camille Around the World Quilt Finish

I have finished binding my Bonnie & Camille Around the World Quilt!

It is made up of 2" squares (2.5" cut) from many of my beloved Bonnie & Camille fabrics.  It was pieced on my Singer 99k hand cranked beauty but quilted on my Pfaff Ambition Essential.

I had thought to quilt in the ditch on this one, but choose the serpentine stitch (wavy, snaky line) instead and basically followed what would have been the ditch lines anyway.  The quilting isn't as hidden as it would be with 'in the ditch' and I'm pretty happy with the result.  The fact that serpentine stitch is a very forgiving alternative to stitching in the ditch is a huge bonus!!

I am also congratulating myself on making a reasonable dent in my B&C stash with this quilt and the quilt I made for my friend last year.  Three boxes has become two, and pretty as they are all folded up, they look so much better as quilts!!

And, just in case you aren't tired of looking at this quilt yet either  ;-) here's a final shot - 

11 WIPs has become 10!

Great Big Fabric Hug

A little while back I told you all how I was liberating more of my Bonnie & Camille fabrics to make a quilt for a friend.  Well, I just managed to finish the binding last night for a final finish of 2017 - here it is:

Late night finishing shot.

As you can see the light wasn't much better in the daylight.

I knew when I laid this one out that it would be hard to part with and I was sort of right.  I ADORE this quilt.  I honestly think it's my favourite quilt ever made by me.  You already know the fabrics sing to my heart, but I love this pattern too. (Thanks to Just Jude for her inspiring Autumn Boho quilt design which set me to work.)

When I quilted this I wanted to try something I hadn't done before.  So, inspired by Yvonne (Nellie's Niceties), I used the curvy stitch on my machine to quilt in a grid pattern.  A few lines in I admit I started getting nervous about whether it was going to work, whether it was overkill on this quilt that I want to retain an 'unfussy' feel on, but I ploughed on reminding myself that often in quilting you have to think bigger picture and see the whole thing not just a part before you can assess. (Yes, I know that's risky.)

Crinklicious!

I'm so glad I didn't reach for the stitch ripper though.  The quilting has given it so much texture and crinkle! I only wish I could capture it properly on camera for you to see.  I will definitely be using this stitch to quilt again.

If this quilt wasn't going to someone who will appreciate it, then there is no way I could let go of it.  But it is going to someone lovely and deserving and it is exactly what I wanted it to be - a great big hug for her.  It's going to her very soon with all my love and blessings and I hope it makes her feel as special as she really is.

SaveSave

Bonnie & Camille Around the World Quilt Top

I thought I'd share my Around the World quilt top today after the Sunday night's marathon to get all the piecing finished.

I love how it looks but am very relieved to actually get it to this stage and just be able to fold it and put it away for a while.  To be honest, I choose a fairly silly way to construct the quilt, working in rounds and piecing the rows with partial seams as I went along.  It all made sense in my head and in a way still does since I didn't have the space to lay it all out before hand and keep it all in situ as I pieced the quilt top in sections (which is the way I would choose to do it next time).  However, in practice it meant I had strips of 2.5" squares growing and dangling and sometimes coming apart as I worked at other rows.  I think working the quilt up in this way simply meant too much handling for such small pieces and there was much fraying and unravelling and many, many loose threads travelling across my house!!

You may remember that I chose this quilt as the first project to make on my lovely vintage Singer.  She did a smashing job stitching beautifully on my beloved Bonnie & Camille fabrics.  So, I am considering her officially christened now that the top is fully pieced, and I have been broken in to using her.  I even managed to stop the phantom foot pedal work about half way through the piecing!  I think that I'll move back to my other machines to finish the quilt off though.  I'm not sure I'm up to quilting a whole quilt top on her!

As I say, I have now folded and laid away the quilt top for a little bit while I decide what to do with it next. I need to work out how I want to use this quilt - lap quilt? sofa throw? wall quilt? bed topper?  I'm not really sure yet, but I'll let those thoughts percolate while I see if there's still time to squeeze in a finish or two before the year closes.  I'm dreaming of a Christmas break where CT lets mummy sit on the sofa for an hour occasionally.  Never gonna happen, but you know, a girl can dream!

Around the World - start of the trip

It's been a while since I told you about my plans for the Around the World quilt on my Singer 99k.  Since then, I have actually managed to start stitching on it and am slowly adding rounds of squares and my progress has gotten me this far -

Ignore the pink and yellow post-its which are marking my row numbers
and spoiling the effect of the Around the World colour ways for now.

It's quite the learning curve working with the hand-cranked Singer and figuring out how to grow this pattern sensibly, even if I am doing it without using handy strip piecing techniques.  The Singer is lovely but I didn't realise how hard it can be to hold fabric single handed while using your other hand to crank the handle.  Small pieces are grand, but as that block has grown bigger, it's heavier and harder to support with just my left hand.  Also, no matter how hard I try, my foot is still looking for a pedal to press EVERY time I start sewing. It takes my brain a few seconds to stop anticipating a power surge ;-) 

 

I should have listened to my own plans to only select and cut fabric for a row or two at a time.  I got a bit carried away one evening and it took a LOT longer than I had imagined to press and cut fabric for all these rows.  I think I just got excited about choosing the next colour and then the next, and the next.  Those B&C fabrics are just so inviting!  Not happening again though - max two rows at a time.

So far all those many squares have only reached about 36" square.  Feels quite small for all that piecing, but that's the result of using 2.5" squares instead of bigger ones.  (The rationale for which is on my first post here.)  Anyway, no hurry on this and no definite idea of finish size either, so I'm not committed to anything I don't want to do.  The cut fabrics for rounds 12 to 19 have yet to be added so I think I have plenty to be getting on with for now.

Hope to do a little more Around the World travel again soon!

Around the World with my Singer

I've been trying to decide what I really want to make as my first project on my vintage Singer.  I want it to be pretty, to be fun and to be for me.  How very selfish!

Of course, this beautiful machine has sewn before I came along.  She's a 1939 Singer 99k hand cranked machine (and my Christmas gift from hubby last year). I wonder what she has been used for in her lifetime?  Wouldn't it be nice if she came with a little video montage of her work?

Anyway, I digress.  I've found it surprisingly difficult to decide what I want to make on her first.  So, I narrowed it down.  Yes, I want it to be a quilt.  I want it to be with really pretty fabric, so my Bonnie and Camille fabrics it shall be and I just want to sew simple squares.

My B&C stash, except for one layer cake.  I promise I'm not hiding any elsewhere.

All of that sounds pretty good to me.  I don't need complicated right now, especially not as an extra, new project on top of the list of WIPs I already have.  It will allow me to get used to the machine and find a consistent quarter inch seam, I hope.  And, it's going to help me with my plan for 2017 to sew from my stash and reduce what I'm storing.  Yes, my B&C fabrics are my absolute favourites but you know, I feel that now is the time to use them not keep them all neat and tidy in a box.  I've also noticed a lot of folks destashing fabric this year because they have too much or no longer love fabrics they once couldn't wait to buy. I don't want that to happen with my B&C collection and, after all, I bought it to sew with, didn't I?  It's not like there won't be further collections to come, is it?

High tech planning. (That's washi tape, not a quilt border!)

So, a quilt of squares with a mix of whatever B&C lines are in those boxes?  I think it's time to make an Around the World quilt, or is it a Trip Around the World Quilt?

I've been calculating.  Not exciting, but it was an interesting exercise that proved to me that because most of my stash is fqs I will probably get a more varied range of fabrics in my quilt if I work from 2.5" squares. It also showed me that as the rounds of the pattern get bigger, I will be needing to buy more whole metre cuts (a considerable number) if I plan to keep each round a single fabric.  So, because I want to use up what I already have, I think I'm going to work on my rounds in a single colorway, rather than a single fabric (i.e. a green round will have several different green prints in, not just one).  I'm sure that's all clear as mud, but it makes sense in my head.

Squares on the starting block!

I know there are clever ways to speed up the making of this quilt pattern but I plan to do it the slow, hard way.  Just because.  I'm in no hurry and I don't particularly enjoy that strip piecing and unpicking method anyway.

I want this to be a relaxing/de-stressing project. So, I will choose and cut fabrics a round or two at a time and sew slowly and prayerfully.  Did I ever tell you how my sewing time is often my prayer time?  I want to sew more prayerfully again because there is so much in this world, in the lives of my friends and in my life that I need to chat through with my Father.  I look forward to that quiet time immensely.

Sounds like a plan for getting acquainted with my Singer, doesn't it?

Moda Modern Building Blocks Quilt - finally finished!

This quilt has been 2 years in the cutting, stitching and quilting and is one of those quilts that is going to be forever associated with a particular season of my life. Do you have those kind of makes - ones that take on resonances and memories as you work through them?

There was a bit of a buzz about the Moda Modern Building Blocks pattern around the time when I bought it and started to work on it, but of course, it has taken me so long to finish that the buzz is now a faded hum somewhere off in 2015!

I enjoyed making a quilt of different sized blocks, even if those HSTs were the bane of my stitching times.  The range from 36" to 6" blocks was fun, though I have to admit that near the end, I wished there'd been a few more 24" and 18" ones and not quite so many tiddlers!

As you can see, this quilt has had a professional touch from the awesome Trudi Wood as there was no way my abilities were going to cope with quilting all 84" x 96" of it on my dining table!  As ever, Trudi has worked magic on the quilting, breathing life and flow into the blocks.

Even with my friendly helpers this quilt is a biggie to squeeze into shot.

With the hardest part contracted out, all I had left to do was bind and label it for a finish. So, hooray for another tick of the WIP list and a finish to declare for FAL Quarter 2!

Moda Modern Building Blocks - Blocks 4 & 5

I have finally cut all 48 of the blocks for the Moda Modern Building Blocks quilt and am enjoying picking up the packages and stitching one or two here and there as I have time.  I'm off to a good start but am definitely expecting a slow down after the next couple of weeks.  Still, that's why all the cutting has been prepared, right?

Today I will show you blocks 4 & 5 just to keep things chronological here (on IG you might have spotted that I'm not necessarily sewing them that way).

Moda Modern Building Blocks - Block 4

Block 4 is the only 24" square block in the quilt top and while it's not quite the giant that the first three blocks are, it is still a biggie!  I have a bit of a soft spot for this block although I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps it's because it mixes more colours than most of the blocks in the quilt do, or perhaps I just like the mix I've chosen.  Whatever the reason, it's a good one and it came together nicely for me.

Moda Modern Building Blocks - Block 5

This green paisley print from Scrumptious is very striking against the dotty white background.  I love all the Scrumptious paisleys (green, white, red and orange) and kind of wish I'd stashed more of them than I originally did.  This 18" block is Block 5 and wasn't too difficult to stitch together.  When I was cutting for all of the blocks I noticed a bit of a trend that quite a few of the blocks in this quilt top will be built around an economy square base.  I guess I'm going to get lots of practice at them then!

Until next time ...

Perfect Quilted Tote

I"ve been wanting a tote bag big enough to take my laptop to work for so long.  I really should have gotten around to making it before now, but it kept falling down the list while I thought about what pattern? what fabrics? just how big?

Front

I saw Di's wide tote when we met up for a day in York last summer and knew that it was about the perfect size.  Her bag was made from the Elizabeth Hartman Perfect Pleated Tote pattern.  In the end I decided to go with the tall tote version so I can sling it over my shoulder and it is a perfect fit for the Macbook Air I use at the office.

Back

Of course, it's way too pretty to use only for work so I'm quite sure it will get plenty of other outings too!  I chose to work up the QAYG panels from my Bonnie & Camille scraps and paired them with some Essex Linen in denim.  I just love the combo!

If you are looking for a pattern for a QAYG tote this is another good one to choose.  Although the instructions are in what seems like a rather overwhelming 80 steps, each step is detailed and very well explained and importantly, supported by photos you can helpfully refer to.  The double pocketed lining in the pic above was a cinch to whip up with such clear instructions.

My only area for concern is the topstitching on the very top seam of the bag.   With the placement of the magnetic snap so high on the facing, it was almost impossible for me to get a good line around the snap with my machine and if I were to show you, you'd see a very jagged and wonky topstitched seam.  It kind of bugs me, to be honest, but since the stitches blended in quite well to the textured weave of the Essex linen I don't think anyone else will notice.  Might have been quite different if I'd used another solid to add the contrast to the QAYG.  Next time, I think I would fit the magnetic snap lower down on the lining fabric instead to avoid this issue.  Other than that it was a great pattern with nice easy steps to follow.

So, that's my second bag done and dusted.  Thanks for the inspiration of your gorgeous version Di.

Sew Together Bag no 2

Back in September when I made my first attempts at the Sew Together Bag I knew I wanted to stitch up another for a friend's special birthday last month.  So, having gotten my head around the pattern and  still being a little in the first flushes of romance with matchstick quilting I decided to stitch it up right after no 1 so that I wouldn't forget how!

Now that it has been gifted I can show you how it turned out:

My friend loves the rich colours of French General but has also been known to be partial to a little bit of Bonnie & Camille so I found these lovely Bliss scraps in the wee bundle Rachael had sent me in the summer that seemed to me like a perfect bridge between the two.

The outer background fabric is a cream linen cotton blend which I matchstick quilted with slightly wavy lines in a variegated neutral thread.  It is hard to photograph but it compliments the linen beautifully and lifts the plainness of the light colour to give it a bit of depth and structure.

Outside is calm and elegant (I hope) but inside is full of happy, smiley, floral prints and pretty pinks from various Bonnie & Camille lines.  I like how they mix together and I think they make a really feminine combination for this birthday gift.  Hope my friend does too!

Just in case you were wondering, yes, the Sew Together Bag was definitely easier to stitch second time around!