Did I mention I love quilting books?

So today was a happy day, because not one, but two stunners arrived in the post.

 

I order Sarah Fielke's new book Handquilted with Love a couple of weeks ago and have been anxiously watching out the window early each morning since hoping the postman would arrive with it in hand. Today, finally, the van stopped outside my house and I opened the door before he could even knock. And I was not disappointed.

String Sane

The Made to Measure quilt on the cover  is what drew me to it - but there are even more beautiful treasures inside. I took some pics of a few of my favourites - just a few, I love pretty much every quilt in there.

Ups and Downs

This book is stunning. I love quilting books but sometimes I love just looking at them and end up feeling I wouldn't/couldn't actually make any of the patterns for myself. But this is not one of those books. There is just one gorgeous pattern after another all the way through. It's fab.

Lady Marmalade

 My biggest issue now is - which one am I going to make first?

Bangles

 

I really can't decide! I think I need a few more days poring over it to decide. Whatever one I pick, I have no doubt that any of these patterns would be perfectly suited to reducing the size of my overflowing scrap box. 2013 is going to be a stash busting year for me, I'm on a mission to clear out my mahooosive stash as much as I can! (Of which, more anon...)

The Bass Line

I also got a book which I have had on my wish list for a very, very long time. Free motion quilting is something that I can do in the most basic of fashions, but I'm tired of looking at fabulous quilting on other people's blogs and not being able to even attempt it. After finding a project that I made a complete mess of last year attempting to pebble quilt it, I decided to order it at the same time.

When the kids were in their music lesson today and I was sitting in the car for half an hour, I sat and started reading it. I am SO thrilled I got this book. It is inspiring and practical in equal measure and I can't wait to start trying some of the patterns.

Check back in tomorrow when I am doing a small giveaway to help my destash process and celebrate the fact that my "sewjo" is back! In fact, I'm doing 2 giveaways. The first is currently running over on my Facebook page for 4 bright and cheerful FQs so pop over there to enter that. And I more to give away here tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you!

Free Motion Friday 3

Don't you think Cindy's Free Motion Friday is an inspired idea? I have to say I'm really loving trying the new designs each week and seeing how everyone else is doing. I didn't get to link last week, or to comment much although I did manage to visit and have a quick look at a lot of the drop art on my phone.

This week I'm doing a little catch up. After the first week's disaster I decided it was time to get serious and equipped myself with these:

A pair of ladies gardening gloves from B&Q for the princely sum of about €3. They're pretty lightweight but give me a good grip and I definitely found them helpful.

My first attempt at the drop art didn't really look like drops. A bit squidgy and squashed:

But I went back for a 2nd attempt later in the week and was much happier. Not perfect, but it looked a little like drops and I felt I had much more control on this one.

When I saw the challenge for this week, the Slate Tiles I was really happy. I love this sort of design and the imperfection of the pattern is totally my style. I loved it so much I gave myself a good big area to work on and although its by no means near the standard of the video version, I really like it. I can definitely see myself using this one in a mini quilt or placemat or something similar. I also like that I can see improvement as I move across on this one - that 2nd last column is my fave!

I did another version, but I actually think there's not much between them.

 

I can't wait to see what we're working on this week - this practice-along is so much fun! Linking up to Cindy - go check it out and jump in with the rest of us :-)

PS. - Don't forget to pop over and link up to my Winter Stitching list & link up. You can read up on what you need to do here and the linky post is here! The linky is open till 31st October to give you plenty of time to figure out your list and write up your posts :-)

Double Trouble: Baby Boy Quilt Finishes

 

The best things come in pairs right? Quilts are no different and I seriously was not joking last Sunday when I proclaimed that I was in a super productive phase right now! So I'm going to post lots of photos here - just because I actually got a sunny morning to take pics and took loads, all of which I love! I'm really pleased with these two. **If you're looking for the ticket giveway for the Knitting and Stitching show Dublin, it's here**

First up - the Frogs and Snails quilt is done! This one was made for my MIL and is a gift to my husband's cousin who has a new arrival and I love the freshness and crispness of the triangles. I decided to free motion quilt it rather than quilt the diagonal lines and love the effect.

I had some tension issues on the back (and had to rip back about 1/3 of the quilting, eek!) but got them sorted by actaully adjusting the tension successfully (a major achievement for me, I am usually a "don't touch the manufacturer's standard tension" kinda girl) and flew through it.

I used a very soft blue and white gingham on the back and love how the quilting pattern shows up on it.

I found this little hearts fabric in my local store - its a really lightweight cotton and perfect for binding, I'm really pleased with it.

All in all a successful make.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Frogs and Snails baby quilt
Made For: Baby J, a new arrival in our extended family
Fabric: A wide variety from my stash - mostly from my scrap basket. Including Riley Blake's Hooty Hoot, Wheels, All Star 2, Saffron Craig Beetle Bugs, Moda Just Wing It, Ann Kelle's Urban Zoologie Owls and Whales, and Ready Set Go, and lots more!
Batting: Warm and White
Measures: 37" x 46" approx
Quilting: Meandering stipple by me
Pattern: Simple half square triangle design

Next up, the Autumn Baby quilt. This is one my friend A asked me to make some time ago and she was pretty clear on the colours she wanted - greens, browns and oranges. I have had this quilt in my list for a few months now, but wanted to wait till we hit autumn to make it - those colours being so seasonal and autumnal and perfect for a new baby arriving this time of year. I really was inspired by the falling leaves in the countryside around me and when baby F arrived a little earlier than I had expected last week, I was ready! And delighted, as originally I had planned it to be a gender neutral quilt but now I had a great opportunity to use some complimentary boy fabrics I had. I cut my fabric, did the layout and ran up the quilt top in the 2.5 hours I had free on Wednesday morning when E was in playschool. I basted it very quickly and last night I was just in zone and got it quilted completely (plus finished the Frogs and Snails one). The binding went on this morning (you know I love a machine bound quilt!) and I rushed out to get the pictures in the October sunlight, seeing as how it was the first sun we have seen for about 2 months here. So, like its friend above, its not all crinkly after washing and drying but its on its way to that right now :-)

I stuck to a simple 6" square design to let the fabric do the talking. This quilt came mostly from my stash too - there are some really precious fabrics in there - my 1001 peeps, the Spring Street, the Ann Kelle cars, my prized Saffron Craig Beetle Bugs and my last big pieces of Michael Millers Hedgehogs. I really love the interaction of the colours and how autumnal and natural it all looks.

I free motion quilted this one too with Gutterman cotton thread - the 919 colour which is a natural, ivory type shade. At first I wasn't sure about it over brown blocks but as I went on, it really grew on me.

I backed in it a piece of Amy Butler fabric from the Love range called Bali Gate. Not only was the colour perfect for what I wanted, but the feel of the pattern had that lovely natural, slightly bohemian type of feel to it that complimented the front. I appliqued  on the baby's name in some of the leftover brown fabric - and handstitched to secure. The handstitching gave a bit of texture around the edges of the letters, giving them a slightly "distressed" look which I like.

(For the curious, that's an Irish name pronounced Fee-un-awn -the Fee is a very short sound, emphasis on the last syllable!)

The binding is another lightweight cotton from my local store in a tan colour - not a colour I'd normally go for, but I wanted a neutral and a darker brown would have been too heavy against the rest of the quilt and overpowered it. I wasn't sure about this one till I put it on but am really loving it now.

So this one has been washed and is drying now, ready to be parcelled up and posted off to A in Germany tomorrow.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Autumn Baby quilt
Made For: My friend A
Fabric: As above - a total mix!
Batting: Warm and White
Size: 36" x 48"
Quilting: Free Motion quilting
Pattern: Simple squares

So, there you go. Two quilts in two weeks. And I'm working on a third, plus the Christmas table runner, no wonder I can't figure out where the weeks are going ;-)  Don't they look all squashy and lovely together on the chair?

I also did get to my Drop Art FMQ practice for Cindy but just couldn't get to post it over the weekend, with laptop trouble. So I'll save it and post it with next week's. Plus, I'm sorry I've been a bit flaky about visiting blogs, commenting and replying to comments the last couple of weeks - I'm spending so much time staring at a screen in work these days I'm finding it hard to turn on the laptop in the evenings, particularly when its being so temperamental. And I've been trying to clear the decks a bit sewing wise, and when I'm online, I'm not sewing! But another week or so and that should improve! And lastly, by popular request, I'll be starting up a Winter Sewing plan & linky in the next 2 weeks so get started thinking about what's on your lists and start preparing your posts :-)

So, having 2 quilt finishes, you can be sure I am going to be doing some serious linking up this week. Watch out for me hanging out with some really talented ladies over at Sew Modern Monday, Manic Monday, Fabric Tuesday, (buttons all here) and also I'm entering my Autumn Baby quilt in Celebrating Colour over at Stitched in Colour:

Frogs & Snails, Free Motion practice and other random sewing news...

This is a bit of a mixed bag (and a lucky bag for one super lovely bloggy friend) of my sewing news for the last week. Bear with me, its all a bit random!

First up, another weekend, another quilt top! I'm not getting a whole pile of time to spend sewing these days, but when I do get to it I am being super productive. No faffing about, just the very model of efficiency! So, here is the latest sewing result - my Frogs and Snails quilt for a new baby boy. I'm making this one for my MIL who wants a present for her grand-nephew. Its a small, cot size quilt and a little bit akin to an I-Spy quilt, as a lot of the half square triangles have interesting detail for a baby boy. There are owls (of course!), cars, traffic lights, buses, whales, bugs, kangaroos, spots, stripes, stars and of course a frog and some snails :-) No puppy dog tails though!

I could have gone a number of different ways with my HSTs in terms of layout, but after playing around for a little bit yesterday afternoon with different combinations, I thought this worked best and I really like it. I have a lovely soft piece of blue and white gingham print fabric for the back and i nf the gods smile on me, I might even get it basted tonight.

I'm also working on cutting two other quilt tops - one for a baby girl in red, pink and aqua with these lovely fabrics:

And one for a baby boy in these lovely orange, brown and green fabrics!

 
Also on the agenda this morning was catching up on Cindy's free motion practice-along so I could link up to Free Motion Friday, even if I am a little late. I watched the video and got my little scraps of fabric and batting ready. And then I almost collapsed laughing when I saw the result.

 

Bloody, horrendously awful. You know I like to show you my craft fails from time to time, this one is definitely up there in the rankings - serious wobbling, stitch length all over the place, rubbish tension (look at the pic of the back) and general crapness.

I even made a 2nd attempt.

 

Its a little better, but not by more than about 2%. And that's because I moved the fabric around at the end of each wave so I was working towards myself, to give me more control. And I remembered to breath! Still didn't work :-)  Moral of the story? Need to practice!!! Now, I do think I should probably go a little bigger on the fabric I'm using - there's not much scope for control on a scrap this size. And I need to look at my tension issues, so the manual will have to come out for next week. But it was definitely fun and I can't wait to try this week's drop art. Think I will have to go reading up a little before tackling it. Because, imagine if I could do it? How cool would it be!

In other news, I am getting started with my stalking of my partner for the Modern Christmas table runner swap. I pulled out my stash of Christmas fabrics from last year - aren't they nice? But I might need to add some to them to get a colour palette my partner LOVES, off to do my research this afternoon.

And I got CeLynn's fabrics for October in Sew Bee Blissful. She wants us to make these super cute owl blocks, I can't wait to get started on them. Really love her fabric choices:

Last, but by no means least, I want to say thank you to everyone for linking up to my Summer Sewing wrap up! It was amazing to see what you all got done, isn't it the best feeling to look back at all your achievements? I've had a few requests for a Winter sewing list to keep you all on track - are you interested? If so, I'll get working on it and post it sometime in the next week or so, just let me know in a comment. Now, back in May I did promise a little giveaway for people who participated and I have consulted with Mr. Random. I had 7 people complete from start to finish (love you all!) and of these he picked:

 who is my lovely bloggy friend Susan! Susan, I've emailed you :-) If you haven't checked out Susan's blog before, you are missing out. She is super talented, and very funny, and she is swap mama to the above mentioned Modern Christmas Table Runner Swap, which is an inspired idea. Go get over there and say hi!

So, there's my random news. Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Across the Sea Quiltalong Finish!!

Today is the big Ta-Dah day for our Across the Sea quiltalong. It seems like a long time since myself and my lovely friend Jennifer announced our Quiltalong back in August. I'll never forget the morning we posted it, waking up so nervous wondering if anyone would join us!  We quickly had some great peeps on board and it has just grown and grown since then, with over 100 people in the Flickr group - 100 people!!!!! It has been inspiring and amazing watching you all interpret the design, give it different looks with your fabric and layout choices and make it truly your own.

Today, I am really proud to be showing you my own finished version. Apologies for the quality of the pictures - they were taken in a misty drizzle this morning which is the best weather I have had in the 8 days since I finished it up. (I'm so jealous of peeps across the small pond in the UK who have had a glorious week of weather. Yes, I mean you Hadley and you Susan and you Nicky - I am completely jealous of your beautiful pics!!!) Despite the moaning I'm still going to bore you with lots of photos, just because I love it so much :-)

This quilt is for my beautiful new niece R who is just a few weeks old. I used a FQ bundle of Momo's Just Wing It for Moda, and mixed a few other fabrics in there for a little colour balance including the owl print from Its a Hoot, and a yellow print from Dream a Little Dream with Me by Keri Beyer for In The Beginning. I really love how the colours worked. It is girlie without being too pink and the aqua and green and touches of brown give it a nice depth of colour. I love Jennifer's cross block design and think she was inspired to include the scrappy border, it really ties it all together for me! I went superscrappy on my border because I just love that look, but I do wonder if it would have been even nicer with the longer border strips.

The back was my design and I really appreciate all the people who kept faith and made it - I know how strong the temptation is to not bother with a pieced back when you have the quilt front done, so thank you! I hope you feel it was worth the extra trouble - personally, I am very happy with it. I really love the bordered cross block, and I love how the other crosses just float there - particularly that cute little baby cross. Here's my finished back:

I used a white fabric with a baby pink polka dot for my backing - its hard to see here (thank you, crappy light conditions) but it really does add to the quilt and looks very nice.

When it came to the quilting, I went with an all over meandering stipple, a little larger than I normally stipple. I will definitely be using this sort of scale in the future, it was much quicker and looks just as nice - I was definitely over-quilting before!

You saw my binding last week - I'm still in love with it. I used to have some of this fabric in a blue/green colourway and I'm heading back into my local fabric shop this week to see if I can find it, its absolutely perfect for binding.

So there you go, I can't believe its all over! I'll be so sad that our little quiltalong crew is disbanding, but I know that I've made lots of new friends and discovered lots of great blogs in the course of this process.

I want to say a huge thank you to Jennifer, my partner in crime! She's just the best and we had lots of fun doing this, despite the challenges of being in two completely different time zones.
So, a really big reminder that you need to have your finished quilts posted in the Flickr group by tonight to be eligible for the giveaway this week. Winners will be announced on Wednesday. Also, instead of doing a linky of finished quilts which might be hard to manage between two blogs, I have set up a thread in the Flickr group for linking up your quilt finish posts - I hope you all go round and visit the blog links and spread the quilt love. That thread is here.

So, last but not least, here are my quilt stats in summary:


Quilt Stats:

Name: Across the Sea quilt
Made For: My niece R
Fabric: Just Wing It by Momo for Moda + some additional fabrics
Batting: Warm and White
Size: 46" x 58"
Quilting: Meandering stipple by me
Pattern: Mine and Jennifers quiltalong pattern.

Ok, and after all that I'll be doing a bit of linking myself! Linking up to Sew Modern Monday, Manic Monday and Fabric Tuesday with this one :-)

         

A little more about quilting:

Today, I want to talk to you a little bit more about the process of quilting your quilt! I touched on it briefly last week but didn't go into a huge amount of detail so thought I would spend a little more time on it today. Don't forget to check out Jennifer's post too for her thoughts on quilting!

As I said, there are lots of ways of quilting. Personally, I was always going to use free motion quilting on this one. However, I think it would work really well with straight line quilting also - something like the quilting I did on my Picturebox quilt:

Straight line quilting is a straightforward method to use if you're learning how to quilt. I like to quilt quite densely with my lines close together, using an extra wide foot I have and moving my needle to the furthest point over on each row. I mark the first line, then use that to follow as a guide. I find it important to alternate the direction - so I quilt in one direction then turn around and do the next line in the opposite direction. This can be slow work, if you're using narrow lines. Your machine may also have a quilting guide which fits onto your walking foot and allows you to set the width of your quilting line. This would allow you to quilt wider lines. My straight line quilting is always a tiny bit wonky - I like it like this! The one tip I would give for straight line quilting is to let the machine do the work - use your walking foot and allow the feed dogs/walking foot to control the feed of the fabric through the machine. I just hold/support the quilt so as not to have any drag on the fabric and it will keep your stitch length nice and even.

You could also keep the quilting very simple and just quilt around each block. This would hold the quilt together, and if you wanted to, you could add some hand quilting around the crosses which would be really lovely!

For free motion quilting, I have to say I'm no expert. But I have learned a few things since I've started.

1. The first is practice - I practiced a lot on small squares of scrap batting / mug rugs/ mini quilts etc before tackling a big quilt.For me one of the biggest challenges of FMQing is managing the weight of the quilt and I find this harder when I'm FMQing for some reason.
2. The secret is the balance between the speed of the needle and the speed you move the fabric around. I usually put about 3/4 of full pressure on my foot pedal (if that makes sense) i.e. the needle is moving pretty fast, but I'm not flooring it either! I move the fabric around at a medium speed to give a nice stitch length. This is definitely something that comes with practice and my stitch length is becoming more and more consistent as time goes on.
3. Find where works best to place your hands. I put my left hand under the quilt and I use my right hand to keep the fabric taut and control the movement of the quilt. This works for me - find what works for you! Lots of people recommend gloves. I have yet to try them because I do not like stuff on my hands, but I suspect they would help!
4. Go with the flow. I try to cover areas reasonably logically but I do go where it takes me. I try to work moving the quilt towards me rather than away from me - its much easier to see what I'm doing!
5. Maybe this should be no 1? Prepare your supplies. Have a few bobbins wound up. Have your spools of thread ready. Have a little box to put your safety pins in as you take them out. Have your small scissors for clipping to hand. Try and have a child free, distraction free environment if you can - especially if you are starting out. Constant interruptions do not make for good flow, and flow is really important for FMQ.
6. Don't quilt too close together! The first few quilts I did using FMQ, I quilted very densely with small movements. I realised this was creating work and was unnecessary. Now I try to have a larger meandering pattern which covers more ground much more quickly and looks nice too!

7. Experiment with what you like - sometimes I do loops and swirls. Sometimes I like to not have the lines cross over each other - see what works!

Lastly - check out the links over on the Flickr group and do a bit of googling yourself - there is so much information and inspiration out there! I'll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with!