Heart quilt

 

Another quilt for a customer. I used the same square design as the previous quilt in the border and wavy lines in the background to make the hearts pop. I need to find a quilt of my own to practise my FMQ now that Matthew has raised the back bar for me and the machine can move more smoothly.

Farm quilt

This is a customer quilt that I quilted last month using the Popcorn digital pantograph. I have heard today that the quilt was well received by the recipients .

ALYOF September 2015 - what was I thinking

 

This quilt has been in progress for about five years and was a book club pattern. I decided to use up Thimbleberries yardage and didn't have enough of either the cream or the blue so did half and half. I started quilting this after a Philippa Naylor course as there are feathers on some of the areas. Having decided to finish this as my September project, it was soon loaded on my long arm.

 

 

 

I thought I might rip it all out and use it as a quilting practice piece, however once I reminded myself that this will be donated to Project Linus, I decided to just unpick one zig zag that hadn't been completed. You may notice my markings on the quilt , which will need a wash once finished to get rid of the marks.

 

 

Whilst I was machine quilting this quilt on my Bernina, I obviously thought it was a good idea to trim away some of the excess, which made loading it on the long arm, a little bit of a challenge. I then found the greater challenge was moving the machine smoothly and I found that my bar was too low and was restricting the movement of the machine. My son was kind enough to fix that whilst I was away.

 

 

So even though this is my September goal, I have already finished quilting it, it has been fully trimmed and any ends sewn in, ready to be bound. The next challenge is to find the red version of the green stripe for the binding. At last this quilt may get finished.

Sunday Stash - Harrogate edition

A quick update on purchases at the WI Centennial Show in Harrogate and some online purchases that arrived whilst I was away.

 

 

 

In the craft area of the show there was lots of fabric, but I resisted. At one point I was holding two bolts which I put back. However I did succumb to two balls of wool from West Yorkshire Spinners which are the Blue Tit (centre) and Bullfinch (right). I did ask on one stand if they had Blue Tit and I was met with a frosty reception. They obviously didn't know the limited range of  wools that they had on their stand which included many WYS wools, however around the corner, was the much more friendly Pendle Stitches. I then made this bag at the HP stand including a photograph of the said Blue Tit yarn. I also bought Crazy Zauberball in the colour Indisch Rosa from Jane's favourite shop - Eternal Maker.

 

 

This appalling photo shows  a purchase from Deramores, which I hoped would arrive before we left for Preston so I could continue knitting my socks. Despite advertising that they post out the same day, this parcel only arrived after we left on Thursday or Friday and was despatched on Tuesday. Very disappointing service and I could have saved myself money if I'd known that it wouldn't have arrived in time.

 

 

The I Want Her Stash Club has also arrived and I knew who had curated this bundle immediately. It's very me and was selected by Camille Roskelley and includes many fabrics from Hello Darling. I also received the bundle curated by Amy Sinbaldi, but it's too peachy and insipid for me. It will get used, but not as quickly as other bundles.

Farm Girl Friday - in a rush

Just time before a flight to share a few pictures of this week's blocks. First of all a simple star in 6".

 



 

Then the spring star:

 

 

And a group photo:

 

Sunday stash - modern minis

 

As you know, I have been piecing the blocks from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage book. Justine of Simply Solids posted a photo of some of the fabric panels on Instagram and free post too. I was quick to reply and I paid the invoice the following day and the fabric was with me by the following morning.

 

I love a good text print and the typewriters are so cute. I have cut apart the four fat quarters in each panel and they have been put away as part of my plan to clean up my craft room. So far the table is tidy.

Tula Pink project bag

I haven't done much sewing this month so to get back into the swing of things, I decided to do a quick project. 

I cut into the Elizabeth Selfie by Tula Pink and paired it with some Essex linen from I want her stash. Add some Kam press stubs bought from Amazon and it was finished. There are some changes I would make when I make a blue version, but overall it was a success.

I also made a DPN cover in the leftover fabric. I added iron on interfacing to both projects to give them some extra body.

Ready to add my new 3S shawl started at the Fig Tree yarns knitting group that I went to on Friday for the second time.

Don't these stitch markers match the project bag beautifully.

Farm girl Friday week 28 strawberry and maple leaf

Wow, where have the weeks gone, only ten more blocks to go and I have made none of them. august continues to be busy and September looks much the same with two trips planned.

 

The first block this week is a scrappy maple leaf with fabrics straight out of my scrap bag. I'm not sure about the Cotton & Steel arrows but as the quilt will have 100s of different fabrics I'm hoping it won't stand out too much. This is a six inch block. There's only one more block I want to make in the six inch size so I may have to make some more canning blocks to fill spaces.

 

 

And another scrappy block - this time a giant strawberry. It looks little unripe. Having used so many fabrics from my scrap bags, how come they aren't looking any less full?

 

 

And another group photo. It's amazing how many different fabrics can look good together linked by the white and low volume backgrounds.

 



Beachside quilt

 

 

Doesn't this pretty quilt remind you of all the good things about living by the sea. I have been on an Angela Walters course recently at The Cotton Patch in Birmingham. I was planning to put the classes into practise, but Anne wanted a quilt for a gift quilted and slipped this one in the bag too. So I was very bold and have tried out two of Angela's designs on this quilt.

I did have issues with thread snapping, but thanks to lots of hand holding from the Longarm learning FB group, I got is sussed for the larger quilt. Here you can see the back and forth lines that I thought looked like either the sea or wind. I also did a square design in the borders and sashing and treated the yellow and green outer borders as one.
 

Farm girl Friday week 17 pinwheel and postage

 

I must start sewing some more blocks as these were sewn several weeks ago and August has been full of short trips. Again I made a six inch and a twelve inch block this week.

 

First the six inch postage stamp block which is from my scrap bags and is a little bit not square. However once it's in the quilt, I hope it looks better.

 

 

I'm loving this block with it's cheery colours, full of dots in every fabric. The turquoise is from the last I Want Her Stash bundle that I received.

 

 

And here's a colourful group shot.

 

Siblings Together August blocks

Nice simple disappearing nine patch using 7 inch squares for Mary. Finished just in time to post at the airport on Saturday.

Sunday stash - I knit London edition

Lizzie and I were in London for two days last week to enable her to go to GOSH for an injection. Whilst we were there we did a spot of shopping and also went to see the play 1984. Very disturbing and not recommended for young children. we also tried for tickets for Hamlet but weren't prepared to queue all day.

 

 

We shopped at Westfield Stratford where we also had lunch at Wagamama. There I bought some disposable piping bags from Lakeland - what a spend thrift I am. Even Lizzie was restrained. Lizzie was ahead of me in developing a sinus infection and I blame that for my errors of our trip - losing my boarding card and taking a wrong turning to get to the theatre.

 

Any how, I had researched the locations of all the stops on the London Yarn walk in September and found I Knit London near Waterloo. So off we toddled. With directions from the shops owner we were soon there. I was like a woman possessed. I bought two balls of mass produced sock wool - Regia stripe mania in colour 06371. I want to try out a recipe for Vanilla bean striped socks by Emily O'Grady so this wool will be caked up ready to put in my suitcase for my trip to Birmingham in a couple of hours. That's if I can buy some smaller needles at John Lewis as my order hasn't yet come. Whilst packing this morning, I've realised that not only did I leave my row counter on the plane ten days ago but also my tin of stitch markers. Double damn.

 

The other ball is Austermann self patterning wool in colour 257 with no plan.

 

 

The next three beauties were dyed by the shop owner. I've just realised there are no names on the wools and they are all on a  Ziggy Stardust base which is 75% superwash merino, 20% nylon and 5% stellina. From the website the middle colourway is moonage daydream.

 

Time to go and finish packing. I only have hand luggage for five days so I need to choose what to pack very carefully.

Farm Girl Friday week 16 peas and carrots and pie cherries

I'm keeping up with these blocks and this week I have made one six inch and one twelve inch block. First is the 12 inch block called peas and carrots. I've kept to the them with my colour choice using mini pearl bracelets and some Carolyn Friedlander.

 

 

For the six inch pie cherries block I used another piece of the Carolyn Friedlander green with some hexagon low volume for the background and then raided my scrap bags for everything else.

 

 

And here the two blocks are in a group shot. I'm loving how they're coming together.

Hap Bee birthday

 

I had hoped to see the recipient of this needle case last week, but our paths crossed over the English Channel. I thought I'd share it today before I forgot to take a photo.

 

The pattern is by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery and is called bee keeper. I used the bee linen which I bought at Frau Tulpe in Berlin. The spotted binding is a premade binding.

 

On the inside I picked out the bright green from the linen and the brown of the bee hive for the felt.

ALYOF August 2015

 

Well July was a bust, I can't even remember what my plan was, but not much got done. This month I plan to quilt my Moda Building Blocks quilt once I have finished a customer quilt which arrives tomorrow. There are lots of new Prostitcher block patterns in the recent update so I plan to try some of those out.

 

This isn't the best of photos, but it does illustrate a good use of some temporary scaffolding that my DH has erected. This is a big quilt and I plan to ditch around each block and then work on the blocks one at a time. The biggest blocks might have feathers in the setting triangles and then ruler work elsewhere.

Farm Girl friday - Out to Pasture and Patchwork Pumpkin

And I'm still keeping up on week 15. Wish I could say the same about the My Small World sewalong.

 

 

And first we have Out to Pasture in 6" from my scrap bag - I see some vintage Sweetwater and Summerville.

 

 

I don't have many oranges in my orange scrap bag so I had to chop into some FQs. Lots of favourites here including pearl bracelets, Zen Chic and Carolyn Friedlander.

And here is how the blocks might look together with Old Glory from last week.

Farm Girl Fridays - week 14 - Introducing Penny Pig

Week 14 already. and I'm keeping up. Lori Holt has been doing a number of Farm Girl Vintage retreats with extra block patterns for participants. One such pattern is Penny Pig, which was released yesterday along with a delicious apple. Here is Penny Pig minus her embroidered details. we are about to go out for my early birthday lunch so I will embroider them after lunch. we are celebrating today as Matthew is working a double shift (lunch and dinner) tomorrow.

 

 

Then the blocks from the book are Old Glory

 

 

 

And Old Red Barn. I even found the quarter square triangle block in my scrap basket and it was the perfect size. The grey fabric is Little Apples by Aneela Hoey.

 

 

And here are the two 12" blocks together. My design wall is now overflowing, so I'm considering starting to sew a few blocks together when I tackle next week's blocks.