Belated July roundup: two finishes

Another month gone and time to catch up again.  I hope you have stayed well at this time and have managed to sew a little.  Sewing has been a rare but real treat for me as I have been swamped by admin for local issues.  I have valued being able to escape the computer keyboard, even if just for short periods of time, to use my hands for something other than typing.

So the two completed projects featured here are not recent fixes, but have been waiting patiently their turn in the spotlight since early July.  I have done a little more sewing since then to tackle the WIPs so hope to write a follow up post before August is out.  Then, who knows, September might be a new start: despite my kids being all grown up, September always feels to me like the start of the year, with summer hols behind us and a fair time before Christmas, I can really get stuck in.  That's the hope anyway...

So let's get on with the roundup: first is a cushion with a foundation pieced Dachshund with a flyaway felt ear (lovely to stroke, just as one absent-mindedly would stroke a real dog's ear when he is snuggled by you on the sofa...(apologies to all cat lovers out there, just substitute you favourite animal in the mental picture of comfort and relaxation).

I cannot claim any credit for the pattern which was designed bu Jo Carter and featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting Issue 52 (a while ago now, sorry).  I put the magazine aside as I wanted to work on a project with my young friends which was a more complex foundation pattern than the Circle of Flying Geese they made a while ago [stop press: I have finally finished mine and and made the tops into cushions, to be posted next time]..  

Needless to say, having pulled the fabric from my stash, it sat around for some time.  Lockdown made me get on with it.  I am not the greatest fan of foundation piecing but it definitely has its uses in this sort of project.  The design was actually for a pair of dogs on a wallhanging, but I thought one dog would be just right the right size for a cushion.

I finished the cushion back with a concealed zip, using this excellent tutorial by Sotak Handmade.  I even made the cushion pad, as the cushion is an unusual size: 12" x 18 1/2".  I recommend using featherproof ticking, not ordinary calico which is a looser weave, if you are going to make your own cushion pads; french seams will also help ensure the feathers are less likely to escape over time.  The feathers came from an old feather duvet.  It is a messy job filling the cushion pad, but very satisfying to have made it from what I had in the house and to find a new use for the duvet's contents.  Done!

My second finish is this small green floral quilt, made with mostly Japanese fabrics by Lecien.  I am ashamed to say that the completed top has been waiting almost twenty years to be quilted.  The folded backing had slightly faded, but hopefully only I will notice.

I bought all the fabrics many years ago when I worked in my LQS and lush Japanese floral fabrics were first becoming available in the UK.  The pattern is a simple one to make, composed of strips and squares, but in a blended, blurred style with the lovely fabrics doing most of the work: I was inspired by the book, Blended Quilts by Marsha McCloskey and Sharon Yenter which came out in 2002 which is full of glorious quilts using marvellous complex florals and reproduction fabrics.

The top didn't take long to make: why then so long to complete the quilt?  The sticking pint, as so often the case for me, was how to quilt it.  I had this great plan to hand quilt Amish Waves/Baptist Fans all over, but my handquilting isn't great and so I kept putting it off.  During lockdown I dug out a huge pile of unquilted tops, and have has to recognise that I will never be able to complete them if I go down the handquilting route.

Finished is always better than perfect, so my aim over the remainder of this year is to tackle and finish all completed quilt tops for which I already have backing fabrics set aside.  This top, being fairly small, was the prime candidate, so I layered it up and pondered the quilting: the large squares lend themselves to a curving design, so I went with a favourite quatrefoil leaf shape which is easy to fit to the size of the square.  You will see that I made a template out of template plastic and marked the design with a Hera marker, the lines showing up clearly on this fabric.

The complementary strip squares I quilted with diagonals, but I felt I didn't want a regular cross-hatch.  The elongated diagonal crosses seem more elegant and in keeping with the spirit of the quilt.  There were a reasonable number of ends to tie in with this quilting pattern, but it was worth it and I am very pleased with the result.

Here's the back to show the quilting.  You can just see the fading where the backing had been folded, but it sort of looks vintage, or so I tell myself.  Lesson to self about not keeping fabrics where the sun might get at them...and maybe using stash a bit quicker?

The quilt measures 45" x 58".  The large squares measure 6" finished (cut 6 1/2") and the strips 11/2" finished (cut 2").  There are half blocks around the edges and a 4 1/2" (finished size) border of the feature fabric, the green floral, to frame the quilt and link with the large squares.

These photos were taken in July before the fierce sunshine we have had recently, so the garden is looking quite green still.  The metallic blue of the globe thistles in the foreground of the photos below bring out the grey-blue tones in the quilt (serendipity as I didn't plan it like that).  I am not a fan of green quilts usually, but I do love this one: with such a soft palette it is easy on the eye.

No time to sit and relax in the sunshine - on with the next projects, there are plenty to choose from!  Hope you have some time for sewing - or sitting in the sun, as takes your fancy!

Student progress

Although my sewing progress wasn't great last year, my students, Miriam and Sophie continued to work away at their projects.  As this blog functions as journal for their work as well as for mine, here are a few of the smaller projects they fitted in:

Miriam has been working on Anna Maria Horner's Feather Bed Quilt for her own bed.  Here is a photo of the rows of strip pieced feathers waiting to be joined:

Miriam's top is together since this photo was taken and she is quilting it.  The weather here has been  too dark and dreary recently for good pictures so you will have to wait a little longer to see the finished quilt.

She took time off from making the quilt to make a couple of feather cushions as a gift for her aunt, using a stripy Indonesian fabric which looks amazingly like feathers and a gorgeous teal shot cotton for the background:

Beautiful concealed zip using this excellent tutorial from Sotak Handmade:

Miriam also made a trio of boxy pouches for gifts using a tutorial from an old issue of Love Patchwork and Quilting.  You can see her distinctive colour palette summed up in the paisley style lining:

There's a tutorial for a similar boxy pouch on Sotak Handmade, without the strip of pieced flying geese but with a smart contrast strip edging the zip: I'd like to give this one a go this year.  You can never have too many pouches.... and they make great presents.

The girls both made lined drawstring bags using In Color Order Jeni Baker's tutorial here.  Photo above is Miriam's bag, below is Sophie's.

Miriam had a stack of tiny bonus HSTs from a previous project.  We felt it was time for a challenge, and we don't like to waste fabric (haha!), so earlier in the year she tackled the North Wind block.  

These delightful blocks finish at 3" so there was quite a lot of unpicking and fabric 'manipulation' along the way, but the result is great and beautifully showcased in the useful bag (which holds more sewing stuff!).

Sophie has been working on a blue and cream version of the North Wind quilt block for her new bed quilt: the blocks are time consuming and accuracy is important if all the small pieces are to fit together, both in the block and at the end of the process when the rows are joined together.

Even though her blocks are twice the size of Miriam's, finishing at 6", there are many challenges to accuracy with this block, some of which only show up as the blocks are joined together into rows, so it has been good for learning.

She is now at the stage of deciding what to do for a pieced border.  Look out for future updates as I promise it is going to be a beautiful quilt.

Other small items she has made recently include:

Calico drawstring bags for loose vegetables to reduce the need to use plastic bags when shopping.

A trio of wide mouth pouches for gifts: this is the Noodlehead tutorial she used.

And Sophie had a go at waterproofing some of her own fabric for this pouch below, so it could be used as a washbag:  she used Odicote and here is a Youtube video explaining how to use the product.

She made another threadcatcher basket (tutorial here from The Sewing Chick) in her favourite blues.

These sturdy little baskets are great for all sorts of things.  I use mine for keeping my worktable clear of  scraps and threads when I am trimming blocks, but the girls use them for all sorts of other purposes.

Here is another basket: this time it is from a pattern by Beth Studley.  I made a couple of these baskets in the early part of the year as gifts for babies expected by the daughters of dear friends: I filled the baskets with small gifts, cuddly toys, a first book, toiletries and small items of clothing.  Filling the basket just added to the fun of making.

Sophie got to grips with the new techniques required for a round basket and made an excellent job of it.  Her basket is used in her family's living room for keeping the TV remote control and other necessary detritus of modern life!

I especially like the way Beth has designed the handles.  The basket is interfaced with Bosal In-R- Foam so it is quite 'bouncy' but it is robust and keeps its shape well.

And as though you can never have enough baskets (which you can't!) the girls also made in the summer a fleet of new baskets for their growing fabric collection.  

Sophie made the two on the far left of the picture, and Miriam the three on the far right.  Each basket has its own character because of the fabrics chosen.  The size is really useful, not too big or too small, and folded fat quarters fit snugly and don't flop about.

The pattern is the one hour basket tutorial by kelbysews and is also available now on Bluprint at a low cost.  Highly recommended, Miriam and Sophie interfaced their baskets with Bosal In-R-Foam again and found they could make this quite economically if they planned the cutting carefully to minimise waste.

So lots of sewing fun has been had by us all this year, even if I have less to show for it than Miriam and Sophie; lots of new challenges and skills acquired.  And hopefully the chance to do more in 2020.  

I am grateful to all those creative people out there who design and post patterns for all the lovely things we sewers get to make.  I appreciate their generosity, often in posting free tutorials which must take hours to write and test.  There is such joy in creativity and making - let's keep on sharing it.

Enjoy your sewing this year!