Secret Garden Scrappy Trips - finished

Some photos of the finished quilt on a cold but beautifully bright day.  Quilts always look good in natural surroundings, don't you think?  And not just so that I don't have to tidy up at home...

I started this quilt back in September 2014 with fabric purchased at the NEC in August.  It was meant to be a Scrappy Bargello, but turned itself into a Scrappy Trips: see this blog post for the story.

Quilt stats:  quilt measures 76" square.  The individual squares were cut 3", finishing at 2 1/2".
Made from two bundles of FQ's of Nel Whatmore Secret Garden plus some Fair Trade Fabric stripes and plains and a couple of Oakshott shot cottons.



The border fabric is part of the Secret Garden range and it was so luscious I felt it merited the mitred corners, something I rarely do.

On the back is a bright coral/orange print I got in the sale at my LQS - not really one of my usual colours but it worked perfectly.

Quilting nothing special, just a crosshatch in the middle and straight lines in the borders, but I didn't want to detract from the fabrics and felt the diagonals were in keeping with the diagonals in the design.














































This quilt makes me think of summer heat and tropical fruit, all in short supply here just at the moment!

Project roundup

Working on lots of bits and pieces this past couple of weeks.  Never seemed the right time to blog; husband hogging the computer or I didn't have the right photo and the light was dreadful.  We are still quite grey and chilly here, with only the occasional stunning blue and sunny day interspersed.  But Spring has been sighted, and the mornings and evenings are not so dark when I take my daughter to/pick her up from the train station.



I managed a small finish, having put together a baby quilt from squares left over from this quilt top, pieced in May 2011, nearly its third fourth anniversary, and still waiting to be quilted.

Would you believe I've just seen the same quilt design/block made by Lee of Freshly Pieced which she blogged about yesterday - that's happenstance!





It's the classic Jewel Box block and Lee has a tutorial or you can look at the pattern I used which was a free one from Moda Bakeshop called Sunkissed Jewel Box by Mary Lane Brown (here).


The fabrics I used were Verna and Hunky Dory from Moda and Lizzie by Anna Griffin, plus an assortment of neutral just-off-whites.  I like mixing collections for a speedy quilt which isn't too predictable.










I love being able to make something from 'nothing' and the little squares had been sitting around in a bag for far too long.

I was inspired by the huge Checkerboard quilt in Sunday Morning Quilts and quilted  it just like Amanda Jean, to one side of the seam lines in two directions.  Just enough quilting as the squares are 2 1/4" unfinished, 1 3/4" finished.

You may just be able to see the large pink spot on the back - not quite long enough so I pieced in a strip of plain white.  Stripy binding from stash - it was by Heather Bailey from an old collection. Quilt measures 28 1/2" x 44 1/2".

I also quilted the fresh and fruity Not-quite Bargello top from here - I stopped because I was waiting for the border fabric and then was waylaid by other projects.  I haven't had a chance to sit and hand sew the binding - I like to save this sort of job for when I am not able to use my sewing machine - maybe a finish by the end of the week.  I don't have a photo so that will have to wait till next time.

Plugging on with my EPP Lozenge quilt.  At the last minute I decided I needed the quilt to be slightly longer than it is wide so had to make a few more lozenges.  It is almost square - but I couldn't bear it being wider than it was tall, it just didn't feel right.  Again, I will save the reveal on this one till I have squared off the top.

What I will claim as my WIP for the link up today is that I have finished hand piecing all 16 of the Rose Chain blocks which I started back on last November.  I am ready to join the blocks and then tackle the applique borders, so it's not going to be really finished for a while yet.  However it is satisfying to have got this far after a 10-year lay off....

Now for confession: today I went shopping for a white cotton wadding, full of resolve to quilt the Jewel Box quilt top mentioned above, having dug it out of the cupboard, and equal resolve not to buy any fabric, having been inspired by Crazy Mom Quilts' 6 month fabric fast.  I can do that, I thought...

Maybe not.

I don't feel too bad though as I didn't buy any fabric when I wasn't well - hah!- and didn't go to the sale at Farnham Maltings or the Ardingly Quilt Show in January, so this was my first splurge in a while.  I LOVE what I bought, the 'plains' are Peppered Cottons and have a real depth of colour, and the spots are so subtle I couldn't pass them by.

The musical instrument fabric is by Fabric Freedom (no name on the selvage, I'm afraid) and I couldn't resist: my younger son plays bass trombone in a brass ensemble so I have to make him something with this!

Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced today - always great to see what she is up to, and all the other link ups.  There's so much making going on out there - what are you busy with?

Scrap happy Spring fling

It actually felt like Spring today, after endless grey, cold days.  It was good to see the sunshine and hear the birds singing again.

A friend gave me these daffodils a week ago when they were just two inches high and there was no sign of any flower buds.  They have rocketed up these past few days and burst into flower yesterday: perfect timing as my friend came round with her lovely daughter to pick out fabrics for a wedding quilt.  More of that in future posts - the wedding's not till August so I am not panicking just yet...

So what have I achieved since I last posted?  Not a massive amount as I am trying to finish quilting a baby quilt for a magazine, and it's somewhat overdue.  But to limber up for quilting I did a bit of my favourite string piecing.

Some of the scraps go back nearly twenty years, and I love how unpromising rags turn into the riches of string blocks, all neatly trimmed and stacked ready for assembling into a quilt top.

I won't be progressing to joining up the blocks for a while: this is a true work in progress.  I like to make the blocks when I feel the need for some mindless piecing, then I pack them away till I have had enough piecing sessions and am ready to complete the quilt.  When that time comes I will show you the last few stages.

This will be my third 'free' string quilt of this type : here is a photo of the second.

Despite all my efforts over the weekend, the bag of scraps seems just as full.  In fact, the scraps have expanded now that air has got in and I need two bags for the leftovers - sounds like there should be a parable in there but I'm not quite sure how to frame it!

Small 'Christmas in February' finish in amongst all the WIP's.

I made a couple of fabric baskets (mentioned in my last post) to the correct size, using 2" squares of leftover Christmas fabric.  These are a much cuter size (refer to Ayumi's tutorial for more details), and were so quick to make.  I could easily become addicted to making them to co-ordinate with every big quilt project!

 Linking to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.  Back to the machine quilting...

Salt Air fabric basket

For ages I have wanted to make a fabric basket using the tutorial by Ayumi Mills on her Pink Penguin blog.  Having just realised how quick it is to make a little project rather than a whole quilt, even a crib size one, I jumped right in.

I had some squares left over from this little quilt which I made a while ago using a pattern from Another Bite of Schnibbles by Carrie Nelson.

It was fun to make and if you have never tried stitching partial seams, don't be afraid; they are not hard to do and you get the really cool effect of the pieces evenly balanced around the centre square.  This looks especially good if all four pieces are different fabrics.










The line is Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket, and two charm packs plus a metre or so of the linen and lining fabric were enough to make the quilt and the basket.

I love the way the fabrics remind me of beach huts and summer days: the rings make me think of lifebelts, though I also refer to this as my doughnut quilt!









Amazingly enough, I had exactly the right number and shades of buttons in my button box.  I didn't need to hide my seam intersections as the pattern went together really neatly - so nice when that happens.  I just felt an extra pop of colour was called for in a fun little quilt.


So back to the main object of this post and this week's finish:



I found I had enough 2 1/4"squares left from the quilt border and these were already stitched together in rows, so rather than unpick and trim down to 2" as per Ayumi's pattern, I made the basket a little larger.

I had just enough of the linen-look fabric and the lining (which was the quilt backing fabric) too.  So it was definitely meant to be.
















I think I made the handles a little long, trying to rescale the pattern, so I will make the next one exactly as per Ayumi's design.  Mine is a bit more of a bucket than a basket, but maybe that's in keeping with the seaside theme? 

Linking to Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Happy weekend!

Taupe WIP's - update

How useless am I?   I thought it might be a mistake, committing to something in my last blogpost (the FMQ challenge I set myself for February).  Sure enough, I have not even managed one day so far - too much family stuff going on which takes priority.  Maybe I'll defer the challenge until March...

So all I can show you is a very small amount of progress on my Quartet BOM: I have managed to stitch two of the blocks together and press them - no mean feat as the seam allowances are many and fiddly.  Remember the individual blocks measure only 2 3/8" unfinished - the big block made up of 49 tiny blocks is 13 1/2" square.

















I pinwheeled my seam allowances on the hourglass blocks to help with the bulk of the seam allowances, especially in the centre of the block, and I pressed the long joining seams open.

I thought I was going to hate removing the foundation papers from the Square-in-Square blocks but in the end I became obsessed and couldn't stop!









Maria of Pinwheels kindly supplied tweezers with one of the monthly postings - I didn't use these to start with but soon found my fingertips getting sore: the tweezers were brilliant, I can definitely recommend them if you have papers to remove as they get a grip on even the tiniest torn pieces caught in the stitching.




I forgot to leave the papers in the blocks around the edge, to stabilise them till we get around to the sashing, but it can't be helped - I'll know for the next time.  It's how we learn, isn't it; doing things wrong, not reading the instructions, etc etc.?


I have also managed a bit of hand stitching on my EPP lozenges and triangles.  It probably doesn't look to you all that different from last time but I am getting there; most of the lozenges are stitched together now and I have even removed some of the papers.  As the piece has become larger it is getting too stiff to work with comfortably..

I have just a few more whole and half lozenges to make to square off the bottom of the piece, so I have started thinking about borders and backing.  In the spirit of the piece I want to use what I've got in the stash, so I am thinking of the brown for the backing and the blue/grey for a border.  I only have a metre of the brown so the whole thing cannot not end up more than 40" square.




Final taupe treat - I cut out the fabric for these four bags well before Christmas and have done nothing to progress till this week.  As usual with my procrastinated projects, I am always ashamed when I do pick them up again, just how quick and easy they are to finish off...  Anyway, three are completed, the fourth needs a better grey/brown thread so I can hand stitch the zip invisibly.




I do love metal zips with the ball and chain ends, and I like this pattern (bought from Pinwheels at a show a few years ago), even if the zip does need to be handstitched in place last.

There are lots of great looking purses/pouches out there in blogland so I am hoping maybe to tackle some more small projects this year.  They don't use up much fabric but they do get finished rather quicker, in theory at least...

It is a taupe time of year here in England: everything in the landscape is in shades of grey-brown, and sprinkled with snow earlier this week.  Not much here in the south thankfully, as too much happening to want to have to cope with tricky travelling conditions.  It is jolly cold though,I have just been outside to try and get photos without flash, and my hands are protesting.

Do you know the dictionary definition of taupe?  It's a funny word and I've never thought to look it up until now: it means 'Grey colour with brownish or other tinge' (Concise OED) and comes from the French word for a mole (the mammal, not the skin blemish!)  Makes perfect sense but I would never have guessed - would you?

Hope you are able to keep warm this week (unless you are in the southern hemisphere and would rather keep cool!) and that your WIP's progress to your satisfaction.

I am linking to Lee's WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Looking forward, looking back

First of all, apologies for disappearing from the blogosphere for so many weeks: I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't been well, and I have continued to be not well until just now.  Today it is exactly 2 months since I stopped taking the pills which made me ill, and it has taken this long to get back to something approaching normal.  Two months: that's a sixth of a year feeling horrible and unable to sit to sew or use the computer or sleep properly.  Yuck, I really don't want to look back on any of that.

So I haven't had anything to post about or share that you would want to hear (my nearest and dearest have had to hear quite a lot more than they wanted to over the past few weeks!), though, on reflection, I did have a good eleven months in 2014 when I managed to get quite a lot done, including resurrecting and finishing, or all-bar-the-quilting finishing, several quite ancient UFO's.

Looking back through the blog, however, I can see that I also started a few new projects which have now acquired UFO status and I am resolved to tackle these before too much of this newish year has elapsed.

Looking forward, therefore, my challenge for 2015 will be to finish the year with fewer uncompleted projects rolled up in bags at the bottom of the cupboard, and a lot less fabric in my stash; scrappy string-y quilts will feature, I hope.  I want to keep up with my Quartet BOM, even the applique circles (not my strong suit...) and finish several old projects where I have got stuck on the hand quilting/distracted by the lure of lovely new fabric.







Here are some of my Quartet blocks in progress.


I also want to challenge myself to spend 10 minutes every day in February practising free-motion machine quilting.  I am looking on it as equivalent to piano practice: having nagged the kids for years to do their music practice I am going to give myself the same talking to, with the added incentive that I will have to admit to you all whether I have kept to the task.  Anyone fancy joining me?

For now, I have a small finish, which is a cushion I made before I got ill.  It is made from a bit of piecing I did in a workshop with Janice Gunner when I was still relatively new to patchwork and quilting, back in 2001(!!!), so don't look too closely at the seam intersections.

I found the bag of bits when looking for something else (as you do) and realised that the piece was big enough to make a 20 inch/50 cm cushion, so I quilted in the ditch, made an envelope back and finally stuffed it today.
 

I have given it to my youngest who is of a scientific turn of mind and appreciates the optical illusion of the 3-dimensional hollow cubes (squint and you'll see them - the design slightly reminds me of M.C.Escher drawings).

I am claiming this as a finish to link up to Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts as today was the first day I could go out and buy the cushion pad to go inside.

Close up to show the construction: basically you cut 60 degree triangles and border them on two sides with a contrasting coloured strip, then set them together in rows.  The tricky part is getting your head around the order for the colours so the hollow cubes appear and it doesn't just look like an unusual star block!  I guess it is a variant on Tumbling Blocks.

And here's a tip for you (though you may know this one already): when I have finished a quilt or other project like this cushion, before I use it, give it away or photograph it, I like to get rid of the tiny threads and lint fibres which I always find have migrated from the wadding on to the top of the quilt during the quilting.  I don't get on with proprietary lint rollers so I use a length of Post Office parcel tape which I wind round my hand, sticky side out, to make a sort of lint-removing mitt.  Stroke it over the surface of your project and pick up all the little bits of fluff - very satisfying!

Have a great weekend where you are, and stay warm and well.

Chandelier QAL

I haven't been terribly well the past few weeks which isn't at all like me.  I had a severe allergic reaction to some medication, which is taking ages to clear up.  It has made me appreciate how great it is NOT to be ill most of the time.

So my progress has gone in fits and starts, but mostly stops!  However I can report that I have finished making my Chandelier QAL blocks.  As you will see from the photo, I ran out of the Bella Solid background and am waiting for a fabric delivery before I can complete the top.

 I am really pleased with it, however: fabrics all pulled from stash and I love the way the clear colours sparkle against the off-white.  They remind me of Christmas baubles, appropriate given the time of year.

I also finished making my Thimbleberries Mark 2 star/flower blocks, blogged about here.  I had to buy three more plains for the flower centres, but everything else came from stash, so I am feeling good about that.

I ended up making 35 twelve inch blocks and, set 5 x 7, this will make a reasonably big quilt.  Not quite finished joining the blocks together but you can see the layout here.

Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday - thanks, Lee, for the Chandelier QAL: I hope you'll agree it's better I'm late than never!

Wishing you all good health and good progress both with your projects and with your Christmas preparations over the next couple of weeks.