Prepping for our trip

 

Whilst most people would be busy packing clothes if they were going on holiday in a few days time, I am busy prepping projects to pack. My travel project is the 2023 collector's heart by Heart in Hand which is perfect as it came as a complete kit. I've even found my travel scissors and a needle case and it all packs up neatly.

The big sew off is happening on Monday and there are four hour bookable sessions at Sew Confident in Glasgow so I have booked us in for 10am until 2pm. I need to prep two projects for this event where we get to use the shop's sewing machines.

My main project is the Stevie dress by Tilly and the Buttons. I made this recently, so the pattern is traced, and I just need to cut out the fabric and interfacing. I should interface it at home too. I even found the matching button that I purchased last month, stored safely in the project wallet.

Just in case I achieve that in less than four hours, I am going to die cut shirting fabric to make my son two cushions to go in his new home. Friends have been VERY generous with shirting from their stash and I've pulled two shirts out of Matt's wardrobe to use the front of the shirt on the back of the cushion. No need for zips or snaps this time. 

There has been a tortoise trail in aid of Durrell zoo in July and August so I have also been chasing down the last few tortoises out of the 115 total. Just three more to catch. It was a lovey day when I caught this one and you could clearly see the coast of France one the horizon.

Maple and eucalyptus blocks 1 to 60

We are moving at quite a pace with this sewalong. One block a day makes quick progress every week. The purples are all finished now and we're moving to the end of the blocks with pink in them.

We are very much into the greens now and starting with turquoises before moving into blues. These strippy blocks are satisfyingly quick to stitch.

And this is all 60 blocks sewn into six rows with the last row still to be attached and the top five rows need to be pressed. As we are away from Friday for 11 days, I am working on the next row, so I don't fall behind. 

 

Vinyl boxy pouch

I purchased a mystery bag making box from Studio7T7 for my daughter for her birthday in June. It included pineapple themed items including iridescent vinyl, zipper tape and zipper pulls along with same lovely summery labels. Lizzie then gave me half of her box when I saw her earlier in the month. My job was to work out how to make the items into a boxy vinyl pouch and I'm pleased to say it was a success. 

we cut the vinyl in half so we ended up with a rectangle about 13" by 12" but you can use any measurements you want. I'm going to let you know our approach which was very simple. Put your zipper pull on the zipper tape. Cut the tape longer than the size of the vinyl so that you have wiggle room. 

We attached the zipper tape to the right side of the vinyl with two rows of stitches. We used black thread for this to match the zipper tape. I used a Sewline glue pen to stick the vinyl to the back of the zipper tape but Lizzie used Clover clips. Don't forget if you want to add a label under the zipper tape to do it now, I basted it to the zipper tape before attaching the zip to the vinyl. Repeat for the second side making sure the ends match and move the zipper pull out of the way. I used a Teflon foot but that wasn't essential.

Then turn the vinyl inside out, fold the vinyl with the zipper tape at the top and gently mark the halfway point. Match the zipper tape to the mark and stitch along both sides, going slowly over the zip. I changed to a white thread for this part and the thread is almost invisible. Keep in mind to trim any loose threads as you go along. For my second version I used a seam allowance of about 3/8" which I preferred to the 1/4" seam.

Now it's time to box the bottom of the pouch. Draw a 1" box onto the four corners of the pouch. It is 1" from the fold of the vinyl and 1" from the seam you've just sewn. I used a thin Sharpie marker and a pair of scissors for this. Stitch each corner by pinching the edges together and I folded the seam allowance away from the zip.

I think they turned out really well for just winging it and all I had to add to my half of the kit was one black zipper pull to make two pouches.

Gathering Stitches

I was very pleased to finish this piece last week. Gathering Stitches by Luminous Fiber Arts was stitched on 32 count line in the colour cream and Sugar from Fiber on a Whim using candy Apple by weeks Dye Works.

Yesterday I framed the piece myself using a charity shop find painted by my husband with blackboard paint. I am pleased with how it's looking. I'm now keen to stitch another red work piece. 

I contacted Sue at Peakside Needleworks last week for some recommendations of suitable modern patterns of a reasonable size. Amongst Sue's recommendations were Bower Birds by Hello from Liz Matthews and Heart in Hand 2023 Collector's Heart. This chart comes with the linen, thread and limited-edition button so it's ready to go and I think I will start it today. Once I've worked out the size of the piece, I should get hubby to prep another frame. I love the fancy frame pictured in the pattern but only have plain frames in my charity shop purchases.

We will be off to Scotland in a week's time so I should prep a couple of projects to take with me, just in case I have time to stitch.

Maple & Eucalyptus 1 to 50

 

We are already halfway through the Maple & Eucalyptus sewalong and I'm keeping up so far. I was a few days ahead of schedule, so I have taken the opportunity to now sew these five rows together and put another WIP on my design board. However, I will need to restart stitching blocks and I hate to fall behind schedule.

I did find just a few Alison Glass fabrics at the Festival of Quilts. We were also on the lookout for pretty labels to make up our own Advent Calendars for this coming Christmas. we were more successful with this than we had expected as there were more dressmaking stands this year.

I knew that I mainly needed turquoises and blues for my Maple & Eucalyptus quilt but also ordered a few more along with a large pair of the Karen Kay Buckley scissors from Sew Hot's sale.

I think the colour progression is working well and I'm trying to use all the fabrics I have to hand but I also wish that I had a few more choices!! I pick out the fabrics one block at a time to make sure not to use the same fabrics in adjacent blocks. Sometimes I get it wrong and have to move the blocks around, but that's fine by me.

Sewing plans

I am working on finishing my magazine project this week and planning for the binding to be ready to hand sew on Saturday at our Group meeting. So today I'm going to share some more of my Festival purchases.

Lizzie was very generous with my birthday presents - too generous IMHO so I had to start being sneaky so she couldn't offer to pay.

Labels from Srah Ashford's range at Home Bargains

A clapper from Modern Quilt Club. I have been encouraging (some would say nagging) Lia to get some made and she sold out at Festival.

Our first port of call on the first day and before the show was officially open, was to Rosenbergs and Lizzie bought me this pink hearts on navy viscose for the Wilder dress and bought another colourway of the same fabric for herself.

Lizzie also gifted me a ruler that I'd reserved with Modern Quilt Club but also purchased the show pin and a sewist pin for me. I need to put them on my pin pennant.

On the Saturday, Matt my son, once again, willingly ferried us to Guthrie and Ghani for some extracurricular shopping. I had seen the Cassie dress online so dashed into the Festival at 9am to pick up the pattern from emporia and returned later to buy the turquoise fabric.

I was quite restrained at Guthie and Ghani and purchased a metre of their own fabric in the pink, a tube turner and cream, a remnant of denim for a bag and was given an extra piece of fabric as the remnant qualified for an extra gift. The Kylie and the Machine tin for our labels was so tempting but I didn't give into temptation.

Sunday purchases included some Thermofax printing screens along with two more fabrics for the Cassie dress. More hearts from Rosenbergs and the pink and royal blue from Rainbow Fabrics.

I would be lying if I said that I was going on a spending freeze on my return from Festival, as I have made a few small orders. I treated myself to an Apple watch for my birthday and once I'd activated my card and mastered the double click, it is just too easy to spend with gay abandon. Next, I need to sew up some of my purchases.

Mini sampler blocks

 

I am still stitching along with the Mini Block Sampler with Art East Quilting. I was home last Monday between Festival of Quilts and a trip to London, but I needed to assist an elderly relative with medicines and then later that same day, sit in A&E where excellent service was given but I just needed to recover from my time in Birmingham. 

So last week's fly block wasn't stitched until this week. To be honest a fly block didn't inspire me to stitch but when the tree was released this week, I thought mistletoe!! I think it's a successful conversion.

And then block 33 of 49 this week was nice and straight forward. I have now finished all the blocks with this background fabric. We are two thirds of the way through the sewalong. Yeah!!

I tried to source some of the grey bumbleberries fabric which is from Lewis & Irene. Apparently, there are lots of different greys but Greenhill Patchwork has told me to get in touch and they will check all of their stock which was very helpful.

I did top up my Ruby Star Society stash at the Festival. The top two fabrics are canvas for bags. The moonglow was a fat quarter stack prize from A Beautiful Thing. It was lovely to meet Jo and her husband. We even manned the stand for about two minutes whilst Jo dashed to get some zips from Purple Stitches. The middle column of fabric was my additions to my RSS stash from Jo and Lizzie bought the butterflies. For every Moda purchase made you received a raffle ticket for a raffle and a gift too. The little zipper pouches are just the right size for my charging cables and one plug.

Monday Make - Gathering stitches

I am going to share our Festival of Quilts adventure over the next two weeks. I bought a lot!! We were fortunate enough to win tickets to the VIP area on the Sunday and as we were tired after three days of walking our feet off, we appreciated the place to rest, and we could drop off our purchases. My daughter Lizzie, brought a stitching project to work on.

I bought my supplies for this project from Peakside Needleworks.

I used Fibre on a Whim 32 count in the colour Cream and Sugar, Weeks Dye Works thread in the  colour Candy Apple and the pattern Gathering Stitches by Luminous Fibre Arts. I liked the pattern so much that I also bought a copy at the Festival. In my defence the first copy hadn't arrived before I left for the Festival. I am planning a red work wall in our kitchen.

 My husband is painting a frame with blackboard paint for me to frame this piece and there are three cream buttons to complete the piece.

Purple Stevie dress

 

I bought the pattern for the Stevie dress at Guthrie and Ghani last August along with two fabrics to make up the pattern. Feeling guilty, I started the dress just before going to the same store this year.

I made a toile from an old duvet cover and found that the dress was much too short for me. No one needs to see my knobbly knees. I added 5" to the length and that made it the perfect length for me. I need to learn to smile in photos and not grimace at my husband's rubbish attempts to take a photo of me.

I didn't have any buttons for the fastening so hot footed it to my local store and found a pretty good match. I also bought a button for the second version in a dark denim. I finished the hand sewing on my birthday so wore it to go out for lunch. Paired with sneakers and a denim jacket I thought it worked for smart casual.

Whilst looking for a hairbrush, I found this Kipling bag which was a gift from a friend who was decluttering and it's the perfect match.

The weather was intermittently rainy and windy on my birthday but some sewing, a nice lunch, tortoise hunting and reading a good book, made it a good day for me.

Maple & eucalyptus 1 to 40

It's not always the tricky or complicated blocks that have you reaching for your seam ripper. Block 31 was my nemesis. I sewed the centre into a nice block design, which was unfortunately not to the given design, then some triangles were pointing in the wrong direction. After multiple unpicking sessions, it's no wonder I couldn't get the block to lie flat and here's the evidence!! I did go back later and fix it. It's looking much flatter.

This is the most complex block in the quilt so far and is number 36. We were sent a foundation piecing template, but I couldn't find the email anywhere, so I drew up my own. It turned out better than block 31. Very low contrast, but it fits in with the colour scheme.

The first 40 blocks of 100 are now complete and I have just a few blocks to sew together, and the first four rows are complete. I'm looking forward to some simpler blocks next.

 

July 2023 achievements

No big finishes in July but five finishes nonetheless and two orphan blocks used up.

The Eena bag from my CCC course which I am way behind on as the final garment is being tackled this week! 

Barbara Ana design for the July cross stitch camp with Colorado Crosstitcher

A trio of scrap baskets already gifted to Lizzie. Free class with the Crafty Nomad.

Two mini quilts for SCBU using orphan blocks. All ready for our September meeting. I decided a Halloween mini quilt wasn't perhaps the best idea to use up some blocks from a quilt I've designed.