A Flowery Finish

I love little pram quilts. They are so sweet and pretty and so practical. My last two babies were winter babies and I got so much use out of little quilts and blankets when we were out and about, I loved having something pretty to put on their prams/car seats/buggies, particularly if it was a little quirky or different.

So when I get the chance to make a pram quilt, I love it. A friend of one of my best friends had a new baby girl before Christmas, and I happily agreed to make a little quilt for her for my friend to gift her. This sweet little retro flowers quilt is the result.

I used 3 Bonnie and Camille prints - 2 from the Scrumptious line, and one from Ruby. The soft pink is an Aneela Hoey print. They all play so nicely together. This was one of those quilts where there was no fretting about fabrics, no fabric auditioning. I made the blue Ruby block first. The next morning when I woke up, I knew exactly what fabrics I wanted to use to work with it. I just love when a quilt top just comes together for you, almost as if you had it in your head all along just waiting to come out.

This was a lovely little block to make and came together quite quickly - possibly because I'm now totally comfortable with curved piecing thanks to Leanne's fabulous tute. I never thought, after my first miserable attempt at curves back in December 2011, I would ever say this about curves, but I really enjoyed sewing those blocks and they came out pretty close to perfect! I used my Accuquilt Go! Baby to cut the curved block pieces using the drunkard's path die - I really love it for those tricky pieces. I'd never attempt blocks like this, or hexies, without it.

I had a soft pink ditsy flower print in my stash for a long long time that I used for the back - its a very soft lightweight cotton, not dissimilar to a lawn, and its beautifully soft as a backing. I quilted it with Aurifil 50wt white thread - I flew through the quilting as its so small, and when I washed it, the shrinkage was just about perfectly giving it a lovely crinkly texture.

The binding is a cotton poplin in a heart print - colour wise its a pink toned red and works nicely with the rest of the colours.

This little quilt measures 30" x 36" and has gone to it's new home where I believe it was very happily received and I hope it gets lots and lots of use.

Medallion-ing Along in scrappy style

Being on annual leave is great. It's been a really productive week here in my house and I have piles of things to show you over the course of the week.

For now, I'm going to stick to Medallions.  Posting my inspiration mosaic last week worked exactly as inspiration mosaics are supposed to work. I was, really, truly inspired. I loved every single one of those blocks (as I should, I spent ages whittling down my list), but the ones that really caught my imagination used curved piecing - the butterfly and retro flowers block. I did a bit more browsing around online trying to figure out block construction for them, then took out the Accuquilt Go! Baby and got cutting. First I tried the butterfly block - inspired by this tute by Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations. I needed to change up the measurements a bit for my block but it worked beautifully. The first one I made used yellow scraps - nice, but a bit insipid for a central block. So then I tried a pink version using all pink scraps. Bingo. I added a white border to bring it up to the recommended size (15.5")

I fell head over heels for it and my path was set. (I also then tried a retro flowers block which worked fabulously too - but I made that into a different quilt) Next I neeed to add the borders. The QAL offer a few different options for how blocks and borders work. Because mine is not set on point, I needed to add a couple of borders. Firstly, I added a lovely Tanya Whelan paisley print. Then I pondered what to go for on the 2nd border. I originally thought about triangles but then decided on HSTs. I've done a similar border in my Made to Measure quilt top (she who is still unfinished 8 months later, shame, shame) and love how those triangles appear to whirl around the central block, bringing so much movement to the quilt.  I used a low volume grey print for the background, and I cut some more scrappy squares to halve for HSTs. This brought the quilt top up to 24.5"

If you're following me on Instagram you'll know I've already done another couple of borders which soften out the brights a little bit but I want to keep track with the QAL linkys here on the blog so I'll post that the next day. I need to start the next pieced border tomorrow - I'm thinking triangles for this one (I have loads of pretty ones leftover from the triangle quilt, it would make really good use of them) and for the cornerstones, economy blocks sized down slightly. What do you think? Any other suggestions? For now, I'm going to sit back with a mid-week-it's-allowed-because-I'm-on-annual-leave-this-week glass of wine, and admire what I've done so far.

Pyramid Quilt..1st quilt finish of 2014

I find it slightly hard to believe that we are half way through February and this is my first quilt finish of the year. I finished this on Saturday and dashed out between the downpours today to get some picture. Happily, finishing it appears to have kick started my sewjo and I finished another quilt yesterday which I will be showing off tomorrow.

I called this beauty Pyramid. I love, love, love it. It is everything I hoped it would be.

 Love those rows of triangles although they nearly broke my heart. As you know, I had some doubts about using the low volume triangles and breaking up the pattern but now that its all done, it really truly works as I hoped and draws the eye through the quilt and make the brights pop beautifully.

This is, to a degree, an I Spy quilt. I fussy cut loads and loads of the triangles and there is so much there for a little girl to look at.

For the back, I had a lovely Zoology print in my stash - unfortunately not enough for the whole back, but a little bit of pink brought it up to size. I was hoarding this for the right project, and this was definitely it.

 Love the pink and grey and those pretty giraffes and elephants.

I originally planned to quilt this in a pattern of multiple loops in the white/grey triangles, and tried it on the first few rows. But it really didn't work for me and I didn't like how it looked. So instead I went with a loopy stipple quilting pattern and this worked much better. I used a pure white Aurifil 50wt thread and its sunk into the quilt beautifully with the slight shrinkage after washing.

 

Perfect texture, I think. Rachel's little pals agree.

I put out a question on Instagram and Facebook last week, asking for opinions on binding options. I was really surprised by the number of replies I got, and it was really interesting to read people's opinions. A big part of me wanted to use the grey fabric binding, but when I put it against the quilt by itself, it didn't work like I thought it would and kind of sucked the life out of the bright prints. So I used the pink, and although as I said at the weekend, I felt it was a bit obvious, it's really grown on me and I feel it was the right choice.

So little miss Rachel finally has her own proper quilt for her room. This is not really a baby quilt - its more of a little girl's quilt and will grow with her, coming in at 72" x 48". I hope she gets lots of use out of it.

 

Starting a new Medallion QAL......

Sewing and quilting do not bring out the logical in me. Nor, I suspect, in most of you either! Despite the fact that my Made to Measure medallion quilt top is still shaming me, hanging unfinished (but only 4 cornerstone blocks away from completeness) in my sewing corner, I still absolutely feel the need to start another. It's all Cindy's fault, obviously, kicking off a Medallion QAL over on the Modern Quilters of Ireland blog. If you want to join in, please do. You don't need to be a member, or even Irish, the more the merrier!!

I'm pretty intrigued by this QAL - we are going to be following Melanie's instructions to construct our own medallion design - so it's exciting and challenging and a little bit of a mystery. I have no plan yet. All I know is that I am making my Medallion a baby size one, as I have a few baby girl quilts to make.

I've been trying to pin down what pattern to use for my central block. I'm still not sure - but this is my inspiration.

Lots of prettiness in here, right? While I love some of the really complex ones, I'm not sure an unsuspecting baby girl needs to be the subject of my experiments with paper piecing. But you never know, maybe I'll be brave! I'm drawn to stars, but I've made lots of stars. So maybe I'll try something different. The retro flowers are calling to me too - I've seen this block set on point somewhere and like it a lot.

Anyways.....I'll mull it over for a few more days before deciding. In the meantime, here's my pretty little fabric pull - perfect for a little lady don't you think?

If you want to join in, please do. The first linky ends tonight (inspiration posts) or feel free to join in at the next linky if you want.

Back to being a bag lady

It's a long, long time since I made a bag. Too long. I forgot how much fun they are, and how challenging the fact that they are 3-dimensional can be.

A couple of weeks ago, I was catching up on my blog reading and came across Heidi's tutorial for the Ellie travel case. It was one of those tutes that just jumped out at me - super cute and I felt like I just HAD to try it.

So on Saturday, I had a moment where I actually had nothing to do - the house was tidy, everyone was fed - those moments come along very rarely these days. (Well, honestly, the basics were done. There was, obviously, plenty I could have been doing, if I was the sort of person who didn't avoid housework like the plague.) So I jumped at the chance and decided to make something quick and fun - and this was the obvious project. There were no fabric choices to be made - as soon as I thought of the bag, I knew I wanted to use the black Nordika print FQ I'd been hoarding for a special project, and I knew I wanted the pink for contrast.

So I grabbed my stuff, got cutting, interfacing and sewing and in a few hours, hey presto I had a bag!

It's small, but beautiful.  I love how the Nordika plays together. The top pic is the front..the back is equally nice, the fabric is just placed slightly differently.

I used some leftover hexie print poplin for the lining which works great in it.

The long zipper makes this a very practical little bag to pack stuff in and out of. My zip ends definitely need a bit of work. I haven't done a zip insertion in so long, its a little bit on the messy side, but no one will be looking at it anyways.

I'd definitely recommend trying this, the tute is great and its a lovely make. Thanks Heidi for the inspiration - I had the most sewing fun in ages making this!

 

January Finishes - Put Your Scraps to Work 2014

It's hard to believe that this is the last day of January. It has flown by in the blink of an eye, full of work, kids activities and a little bit of sewing. Today is also the first month of the Put Your Scraps to Work 2014 challenge and I hope you'll join me in showing off your scrappy sewing this month.

My plan for the month included a scrappy fabric basket (check) and a scrappy cushion (sadly no check).

I made good progress sorting out my scrap basket - I'm not quite finished, but almost there.

And I made 2 sets of scrappy blocks.

First up, I made these two QAYG blocks for Alison as part of her appeal for quilts for street children in Mexico city:

I did a version of a log cabin block with strips of increasing size. I would have liked to do a few more, but had to accept that my time is limited and that contributing something was better than having great intentions and ending up contributing nothing. I really like these cheery, happy blocks. I quilted them in an expanding square type pattern - you can see it better on the back of the block. I hope Alison can use these, and they definitely made good use of my scraps!

The last of my makes for the month were my Bee Blocks for Ruth in the Modern Irish Bee. These blocks used teeny tiny 1" squares so they were a little bit tricky, but fantastic to use up those tiny pieces of fabric you can't bear to throw out. The Kona Ash sets of the little scrap blocks perfectly, I can't wait to see what this quilt turns out like.

 

 
My aim for February is to use these orphan blocks I found in my scrap basket, and turn them into something lovely!

 So, lets see what you've been up to and what lovely scrappy makes you have for this month! Please link back to me in your post, and go visit some of the other peeps linking up. You have a week to link up so get writing :-) Don't forget to add your pics to the Flickr group, and to tag them on Instagram using the #putyourscrapstowork2014 hashtag.

An InLinkz Link-up

Great big scrappy fabric basket

The last 10 days have gone by in a bit of a blur. Returning to work is hard....it takes so much time to get used to the pace of a working day again, doing all the family stuff in the evenings and even having to travel for a couple of days for training. So crafting has been a bit hit and miss here in the last couple of weeks and I haven't gotten close to replying to emails unfortunately.

But I did manage to get one of this month's scrappy projects finished for my Put Your Scraps to Work challenge .....a lovely fabric storage basket made out of scraps, for my scraps. Seeing as the scrap pile was completely out of control, I needed something new to put them in and decided to divide them up by colours - cool, warm and neutrals & multicoloured/novelty. As I said previously, I really want my scrappy projects to be practical as well as pretty so a basket was a great project to start with.

 I meant to post progress pics of this, but what with the travel and the kids and falling asleep on the sofa within an hour of sitting down in the evenings, I just didn't get to. So here's a recap - you'll have seen some of these pics before if you follow me on Instagram or FB.

I started off just piecing random scraps together. It is improv in terms of the method - no plan, I just put pieces together - but I didn't go completely crazy and wonky, I kept it reasonably squared off to fit with the shape of the basket. Some of my fave scraps went into these panels; I love the hedgehogs, and the tree, all the dots. The bear and the whales and owls. I really had fun making it.

I decided to try matchstick quilting. It's pretty haphazard, not a straight line in there (I believe the official word is "organic"). I really love how dense it is. And how it turned out. I used Aurifil medium turquoise 50wt thread. I'm normally very boring with my thread colour choice, sticking to neutrals, but decided to give this a whirl and I have to admit I absolutely love it. The turquoise pops off it and gives the quilting an extra nice feel.

I used Nova's great pattern to make these. I did think a bit before buying it, as fabric baskets are not the most complicated thing in the world to make, and I've made them before. But I love how all the measurements are done for various sizes, and there are lots of options there that there are additional measurements for too. Well worth the few euro for it when I keep using it over and over again.

 

 I made the 9" basket and I could probably go up a couple of inches as my Expedit bookcase would take a bigger basket, and I certainly don't have all my scraps in here yet. Aren't those little scraps there pretty? I love looking at this from different angles. I keep seeing favourite prints. See that tiny bit of blue and red paisley over the navy Saffron Craig print with the birds? That paisley is a Tanya Whelan and one of my all time faves. I sadly put the tiny last bit I had in there....and then someone was selling it in the IG destash on Sunday night and now I have 3/4 yard of it again...hooray.

I used a few large scraps for the lining. Honestly, apart from the green dinos, none of them are prints I really like a whole pile, but I wanted to use them as I suffer from quilter's disease (I cannot throw out perfectly useable, if ugly, fabric) and they won't really be seen as I'm anticpating that this basket will most likely fill as fast as I can empty it. 

I am very pleased with this. Love how it turned out. And love how useful it is.

How are your scrappy projects coming along? Are you making progress? Don't forget I'll be posting a linky on the last day of the month for you to show off your makes. I had a few questions about the degree of finished-ness required to link up. This is a very relaxed kind of scrap challenge.I just want people to have fun and use up their scraps in the process. So blocks, quilt tops etc are all fine to link up. It doesn't have to be totally 100% finished (although it probably works best if you are finished a "stage" rather than right in the middle of piecing something).

Can't wait to see what you've been making :-)