My Small World Quiltalong

I failed miserably with the hand piecing of Jen Kingwell's current Block of the Month, but I spotted pictures of this smaller endeavour a few weeks ago on Instagram. Then a sew along was announced. I'm in!! The lovely Verykerryberry is one of five bloggers leading the sew along.

 

The first task was to locate a copy of the magazine. WH Smith and Superdeals didn't have a copy locally so I took to the internet and soon had a copy winging its way to me from the running chicken. Excellent service and it arrived the following day.

 

 

I even read the instructions from start to finish before diving in. I spotted the little hexagons in part 5. Hmm, 1/2" hexagons, will they match the Sizzix die that I bought last month? They do. I located my Cuttlebug machine and plates and soon had 100 small hexagons cut from freezer paper. If you would like 40 die cut paper hexagons to take part in the sew along, email me with your address and I'll pop them in the post next week.

A quick e-mail to my friend Lorraine and I had borrowed her 3/4" Sizzix die. Apart from two hexagons that I fussy cut , I quickly cut 30 hexagons for myself and a few extra for friends.

 

And I'm so pleased that I bought some refills for my glue pen from Simply Solids last month as they make basting the hexagons a breeze. After dinner, I think I'll settle down in front of the telly and sew these hexagons together.

Farm Girl Friday- autumn star and baby chick

 

This is week 2 of the Farm Girl Vintage Sew along, I'm not sure if I showed you last week's one block called Apron Strings.

 

 

I cut into one of my I Want Her Stash bundles for this block and the next two months have just arrived. This is a 6" block. The blocks are being sewn in alphabetic order, so the next block is Autumn Star.

 



 

I am doing my own thing with sizes as I liked the variety of sizes in the Moda Building Blocks quilt. So I supersized this block to 18". I drew it up in EQ7 and then worked from there. Again the blue, background and green fabrics are from my IWHS bundle.

 

 

I've just bought an A5 planner for my crafty projects to keep track of the projects and their instructions. I cut and paste the schedule for the sew along into Word from the Fat Quarter Shop blog and then printed the six pages on two pages to a sheet of A4 paper. Cut them apart, stuck washi tape down the left hand side of the page to reinforce where the page is punched. The result is I can quickly see my progress at a glance.

 

There are two blocks this week and the second is Baby Chick which I made as 12" square. the book has instructions for both 6" and 12" blocks. I like the chicken wire fabric I used for the body by Katy Jones for Art Gallery Fabrics. The rest of the fabrics were straight out of my scrap bags.

 

Last week I walked into town to complete an assignment and I also bought some 15" squares of mount board to make design boards for the 12" blocks. They were laser cut at the framers and I soon had four boards made. however I have no more diamond glaze glue left, which I find useful for all sorts of sticky situations.

 

 And here are the three blocks so far.

Farmer's Wife quilt for customer

Jane has made this quilt from blocks we made each month at our guild and it's a present for her mother's birthday later this month. My long arm was not doing as it was told so this quilt took longer than I had planned as I left it for a week. However I took it to my morning guild to finish sewing in some ends and was able to drop it off to Jane's work on the way home.

 

I love the pops of blue in some of the blocks, it really makes the quilt. The side triangles and backing were a cream with a hint of green. An unusual colour but it worked very well.

The pantograph is a new one called hickory which isn't dense and apparently Jane's colleagues decided I'd made a good choice. I hope to get my last Siblings Together quilt on my machine tomorrow and do some freehand quilting.

ALYOF - Kaffe quilt for Siblings Together

 

In May, it must definitely be my priority to finish Siblings Together quilts with labels so that they can be posted to the charity in time for this year's camps. Over 50 quilts have been completed so far so 100 quilts for the 2015 camps seems achievable with help. I have three more that are completed but I am waiting for labels before I can consider them finished.

 

 

Provided byFund-Raising-Ideas-Center.com

 

 

I've gone from a pile of Kaffe Fassett fabrics picked up from donations at my Guild UFO day,

To a completed quilt top waiting by my long arm. I finished a customer quilt this morning, so this is next in the list.

 

I have even found time to clear out the cupboard in the room where my long arm sits. I found a couple of backings hidden away too as well as some pantographs on a roll to pass on to a friend. The big scraps of wadding have been bagged up neatly and I can see more quickly what I have. The next job is to clear the table of offcuts from quilts and either giveaway the wadding or bag it up and put away the leftover fabric once I've unpicked some quilting from each piece.

 

UK mini swap - goodies sent

 

I'm not sure if I ever shared with you the parcel of goodies that I sent to my partner in the Instagram UK mini swap. I was satisfied that what I sent matched my brief. No low volume fabrics so I used a plain white for the background.

 

To go with the rainbow theme, I made a sewing case using instructions from Lori Holt on Instagram and I also included some embroidery floss by Aurifil.

 

I love the Clover soft thimbles so included one for my partner along with some knitting needle protectors that Lori Holt uses for the ends of her scissors, which I think is genius.

 

 

And I packed everything into a tote bag that I screen printed in a Lu Summers class, so this is a one of a kind bag.

 

ST2 May 2015 double heart block

Catrin asked us to use her instructions to make two double heart blocks in bright colours. These were fun to make.

 

I just picked fabrics off my desk to make these blocks. The background for this block is from January's I want her Stash bundle from Art Gallery Fabrics. The pink is left over backing from a recent quilt and is from Ikea. The turquoise is from another quilt and is by Tula Pink.

 

 

Catrin did say bright!! The green is also from my January I want Her Stash bundle. The orange on white is Sweetwater and the centre is some scraps from a 2012 UFO that I'm working on slowly.

 

 

I enjoyed making those blocks and finished a Farm Girl Vintage block and some border blocks at the same time.

Sunday Stash - Black Sheep Wools

A week ago I won a giveaway on Lucy Brennan's blog for a £25 voucher for Black Sheep Wools. The card arrived the following day and I soon started browsing, the voucher was burning a hole in my pocket. I have been a follower of the Attic 24 blog since I was recommended it by Michelle. Claire gave me a kit for Xmas for the rain drop pattern which I have started but am not 100% happy with so I decided I'd have a go at the cosy stripe blanket.

 

 

They didn't have all the colours in the pattern, so I may have placed a second order. I don't have the confidence to substitute colours yet. I bought a colour card too but I must have lent that to a friend on Wednesday as I can't find it. I've put the wools in their own basket and they have now been joined by a copy of the pattern and a colour crib sheet to which I'll add samples of each colour. Then I'll laminate the card for ready reference. The wools are now in order of the stripes in the blanket. I just need to find a big needle to add to my tin of tools, so that I can darn in the ends as I go, or at least once a week. The Crabtree & Evelyn bag is in the basket so that if I'm going out I can put the next two balls of wool in the bag along with the tools and blanket and go.

 

 

I also bought two fat quarters of the blue and pink Elizabeth selfie in blue an pink. One of each has already been given to Jane as I knew she was drooling over it online.

 

It's a long weekend in the UK, so I'm a little disappointed that I won't be able to make any more progress with the blanket, but a wool lover friend thinks she has a ball of each of the five remaining colours that I can borrow until my wool arrives, but that won't be until Tuesday. I've also found out that locally, I can buy the wool at Country Wools, but they were low on stock when I popped in yesterday.

 

Linking to:

 

Work in progress Wednesday - Kaffe edition

The yardage that I picked up in Jill's destash on Sunday has been turned into a pile of 4.5" squares which are almost made into a quilt top. There's no rush for this one as I have another quilt on my machine already and another customer quilt arriving today.

 

 

This will be 48" square so I'm thinking of adding a 4" border all around to make it 56" square. I'm not sure I'll have quite enough fabric for backing but I have enough for binding.

Tuesday stash

A sale on Bonnie & Camille - what's not to like. Thanks to Jo for the instagram tag. This bundle of fun arrived yesterday.

I planned to us the top dotty fabric for my Farm Girl sewalong but it's cream not white, so I'll save it for a future project. The two scalloped fabrics have been added to my big Bonnie & Camille stash and will make lovely binding for a future project. The dotty circles have already been cut into for the large blocks in my Farm Girl plan.

 

I have another parcel to collect from the Post Office, but as it only cost me 80p for £40 of stash, I'm calling it free. :)

Farm Girl Friday

 

Yes I know it's only Monday!! I have 84 square in a square blocks to make for a quilt border and needed something else to sew alongside them, so I broke out my new book. I prepped four 6" blocks to take to my Guild's UFO Sunday on their own little design boards.
 

 

Here's my first little block and it's a cutie. I plan to make a mixture of 6", 12" and 18" blocks for this project. One down. Join the Sewalong with Lori over on Instagram.

Sunday stash - the Kaffe edition

I had planned to write a Sunday Stash post this evening after my Guild's UFO day and tell you about the book I'd bought this week. That changed at the UFO day!! My plans for sewing also changed a little. The day officially starts at 10 but we all know that Jenny likes to open up early so I usually arrive around 9, so that by the time I've emptied the car, put out my table, paid my dues and done some socialising, I'm ready to start sewing at 10 and get plenty done in the six hours.

 

 

I was so pleased that I turned up early today as Leslie brought two bags of fabric that another member wanted to destash for free. I was the second person to have a flick through and I picked out a few fat quarters. Two FQs jumped out at me as they were produce themed and I returned to the table this afternoon to add the labels to that pile. I am planning to join in Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage sew along which starts next Friday and I thought that cherries and watermelon fabric would be fun to add in small amounts and the red and white check too.

 

Visit Lori's blog for more details of the sewalong and her new book pictured above called Farm Girl Vintage. I had planned to sew a couple of these blocks today and finished one. Another is scheduled for some frogging.

 

 

In the fabric I had spied a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabrics, and I know Jill has been on classes with the man himself several times and made some lovely quilts. There were some scraps and large pieces alike. Not wanting to appear greedy, I ummed and aahed, but was persuaded that Leslie didn't want to take any home. As there was sufficient fabric for a top, backing and binding, I decided to make a simple quilt top of squares for Siblings Together. I think Kaffe's fabrics suit a simple treatment so that the fabric is the star.

 

I have a few strips pieced, but will return to this tomorrow whilst a client's quilt is on my machine being quilted. I didn't work only on my square in a square blocks for a 2012 BOM today, but I have ten more made, and another new quilt in progress.

 

 

Here are a few more pieces that I picked up, I can't resist spots and I thought the green and red could join my modern Christmas stash. A nice surprise for the day.

 

 

 

Linking to:

ALYOF April 2015 - Quilty Fun

 

My April goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes was my Quilty Fun quilt, which only needed some borders and to be quilted. With this quilt finishes, I have felt that my easy UFOs are finished and I have pulled out a big UFO to work on this week.

 

 

I particularly love these apples in the top left hand corner with one which has had a bite taken out of it.

 And then there are these cute little flowers.

 

I'm pleased with how this has turned out and I'm now ready for some Farm Girl Vintage. Linking to:

 

Engaging brain

The postman gave me a lovely squishy parcel this morning, along with an annoying letter from great Ormond Street Hospital who have changed Lizzie's appointment from July, which was doable, to June which was in the midst of exams and it is now August. GRRR. Not doable as I'm in Preston and Lizzie will just be back from her Duke of Edinburgh expedition.


I looked at the parcel with bemusement as I hadn't bought anything recently, After opening the boring post, I opened the Jiffy bag and spotted "Sewninbelfast" written under the flap. the penny dropped, my mini quilt swap. Eek.

The mini quilt was wrapped around some extra goodies. I think Terri has been stalking me and spotted my recent interest in planners etc. Clever girl. I don't know how she knew about the Yankee candles love too. I must finish this month's book group read before diving into this book, which Terri tells me is very amusing. I particularly love the flower tag. Very cute. What to put it on?

 

And then there's the mini. A great pop of colour and a dotty binding. Gorgeous.

Sunday Stash - Cherry Christmas

Did you ever see a fabric range after it was generally available? That was me and Cherry Christmas by Aneela Hoey for Moda. I spotted that an Instagram picture of some fabric she'd bought in a destash on Aneela's.  I soon started to follow Aneela's Instagram feed and this week she announced another destash. I found Aneela's website at Bigcartel and refreshed that page at least one hundred times. Nothing showed, then the website was being update, another hour went by, and then there was something there. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Should I choose two packs or would that look greedy?

 

 

 

First eight fat quarters. Lovely

 

 

Then a scrap pack. Nice.

 

 

I already had a few modern Xmas prints in a plastic bag in my stash, so perhaps it's time it had it's own basket.

 

 

 

There you are, all ready to put away. The cream holly print is almost ten years old but I think it works well with the other prints. It's a Debbie Mumm print I bought at a workshop in Bristol, years ago. I'm now ready for any sew alongs that might tempt me in November and December.

 

CQ Quilt bee blocks

Today is a bit of a funny day, and I wasn't sure what to do, despite a long to do list. In the post came some blocks from Sue B, which she made for me after my last blog posting. So I finished sewing another block which was prepped ready to sew. A little unpicking was necessary as I had the first row

wrong.

 

Several of the strips came from my stash of Moda scrap strips. Neither of the packs I've bought have been my style, but they add to scrap projects very nicely.

 



 

I added this block to the three I'd already made. I'm pleased with the secondary design as the block itself is very simple.

 

 

Then I added my four blocks to Sue's six blocks and don't they look great, Thank you Sue.