First WIP Wednesday of the Summer

 

Can you believe its Wednesday again already? All those bank holiday weekends and holidays in the last few weeks have made it hard to keep track of the days. Here's this week's progress!

Completed:

My Dresden plate mini quilt - really happy with this one, its very pretty in real life. It measures 30" x 30" and is a perfect wall hanging!

I also got my Summer Sewing plans straight in my mind and blogged them to give me a little focus. For those list-makers among you, I'd love if you had a look and joined up your own summer sewing plans at the linky here. I've tried to do a button for you to link back your posts, let me know if its not working!

<div align="center"><a href="http://fairyfacedesigns.blogspot.com/2011/05/summer-sewing-plans-add-yours.html" title="FairyFace Designs"><img src="http://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/j433/FairyFaceDesigns/summersewinglogo2.jpg" alt="FairyFace Designs" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

In Progress:

I have the Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt just about ready to baste, I'm hoping to get that done tonight. I had some issues with fraying on some of my seams that I've had to spend some time repairing (why? its never happened to me before. I used a layer cake, but can't imagine that's a reason? I'm not having any similar problems with the Pips layer cake.)

I also got a lot done on my Pinwheel Pips quilt for E. Not least because I can't cope with the constant "is my quilt done yet Mam" questions. I've done all the piecing using a chain piecing process for the first time, which made me be super organised to stop getting everything mixed up, and it was surprisingly quick - I've only a few more seams to do to have all my blocks done. I'm loving the pinwheels - I was a bit worried about my points all matching up but so far its going better than I expected. And I just love the movement in the blocks. Looking forward to laying out all my blocks next and piecing the quilt top together. I used quite a few white solid charms in with my half layer cake to keep it fresh, as there's a lot of pink and grey and to get a decent size.

That's pretty much it for this week, it's been productive! I'll be linking up as always to Lee's WIP Wednesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar for the links :-)

P.S. - I've got a button!! For those of you who asked, feel free to grab it for your blogs. It's on my sidebar :-)

Dresden mini quilt - finished!!!

Here it is, my Dresden plate mini-quilt, all finished and looking quite cheerful if I do say so myself!! This was the first quilt-along I've ever participated in, and I really enjoyed it. I can't recommend Lynne's instructions highly enough - it was the first time I've pieced a circle in quilting and she made it a doddle! If you want to do similar yourself, you could do worse than head over to her blog and follow along.

I am glad that I only did the one block mini-quilt. I think this will make a super pretty wall hanging but as the blocks are so big (30" x 30"), I'm not sure if a whole quilt of these big blocks would be entirely my taste, although I'm very tempted to adjust the pattern and do a quilt with smaller size blocks in the same style!

I backed it with plain white cotton. I used poly batting on this one as its for the wall, but its very see-through and anything coloured or patterned would have shown through batting and the white outer circle on the front. And when I came to bind it, although I would have preferred to use the blue or brown fabrics I have in the circle, the only fabric I actually had enough of was the Riley Blake Love Birds, so I used that. It turned out nice though and the blue, green and red running through it coordinate quite well with the pieced circle.

When it came to quilting, I was seriously tempted to do spiral circles all the way round, as in Lynne's original block for the QAL - but I wanted to practise my free motion quilting for the It's a Hoot quilt which I will be starting to quilt next week, so decided to go with this. I'm getting better all the time at the FMQ. It took me a while to get going on this quilt but once I got a rhythm going with it, it went well. I now have a good feel for the speed I need the needle to work at, and the speed I need to move the quilt at. But I need to figure out a better way to move the bulk of the quilt around particularly for the bigger quilt sizes. I was so pleased with the improvements I've made, I even took a closeup!! What do you think, its looking ok, isn't it?

So, all in all, a good Saturday's work! Now I just need to see if my mother really does want this.... if she doesn't, I'll be quite happy to keep it for myself, but I think she just might! I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar links!

Lastly - I want to say a huge WELCOME to all my new followers! I'm stunned and amazed at the response to my giveaway, and so pleased to have so many people join me. I hope you enjoy reading my little blog. I couldn't possibly respond to the hundreds of comments left for the giveaway, but I did read each and every one and I want to thank you sincerely for all your lovely words on my blog and my projects. It was so nice to realise that people had explored my previous posts and liked what they saw. I hope that you continue to read and, please - keep commenting!!

Wednesday WIP once again!

Where did that week go? It just slipped away, one leisurely day after another! So without further ado, here we go with the WIP report for this week.


Completed:

A few small, fun projects, including, just tonight, this Central Park wedge pincushion, lightly quilted from the scraps I had after cutting my lovely, yummy, scrummy half yards which arrived in the post today. I'm going to be including this in my scrappy giveaway tomorrow so stay tuned :-)

I also did this blanket for my friend's baby girl - its backed with lovely soft minky dot fabric and has a few of my fave fabrics in there.

And this little zipped bag with some scraps:

Work In Progress:

I'm surprising myself with the amount of projects I have on the go at the moment. The list is starting to freak me out ever so slightly, particularly since I have a commissioned quilt I need to start next week. I'm kind of wondering why I joined 2 quiltalongs this week - the Bottled Rainbows (finally!) which I am doing in a mini version - with smaller sized individual blocks as placemats. Here's my red block, I think I like it! Just need to figure out what to use to bind it and it'll be done.

 

I also joined the Crazy Scrappy quiltalong. I attempted my first block last night and really, its a good lesson in why you shouldn't sew late at night. I'm not that happy with the construction of this block but like the look of it so I'm going to leave it for the moment. I did it entirely from my small scrap basket and really, it would need some wider, longer scraps too. I'm looking forward to doing another and seeing how I get on!

Let me just say that I blame all you bloggy friends who are doing these quiltalongs and cajoled me/inspired me into them! When I fall down with exhaustion I'll blame you! You know who you are!

In other WIPs - I got my mini Dresden quilt basted and started to quilt it with a meandering FMQ which is looking interesting on the poly batting but didn't get far as the kids needed their dinner :-)  I'm thinking this will finish up as a wall hanging.

Finally, my backing and binding fabric arrived (with the Central Park) this morning so I'm hoping to get moving with the It's a Hoot quilt later in the week, I'm keen to get it finished in good time.

Started:

I cut my Central Park fabric as soon as it arrived. Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the cool shades and can't wait to get piecing with it. I'll be making Kate Conklin's Skittles pattern with it. So now I have two quilts in the cutting stage (also my Sherbet Pips Pinwheels).

And a little extra.......

So, I take it from all the comments on my last post that a giveaway is in order. Check back in tomorrow for your chance to win some of my lovely scraps, big and small and the little Central Park pincushion in the top photo!

I'll be linking this up to some great blogs including, as always,

It's another WIP Wednesday!

Source: etsy.com via Amber on Pinterest

I did warn you all that there would be lots going on on my blog this week! I'm having such a lovely week, lots of sewing, lots of time with the kids and Himself...what's not to love!

As an aside, isn't this the most AMAZING April ever? I don't think I remember such warm balmy sunshine in April...ever!! The kids are loving being out in the garden all day, I'm loving being out with them, or in the kitchen with the windows and doors open sewing while listening to them off adventuring as only 3 and 4 year olds can. Is this only a Cork phenomenon or are other parts of Ireland getting it too? Hope it lasts. I might even BBQ this evening!

Ok, so down to business. Unsurpisingly, its been productive here in my little patch!

Completed this week:

Drum roll please.......I finished my Cosmo bag!!! Woohoo!! I almost can't believe that it has left my WIP basket (having accumulated some serious fluff along the way, that navy fabric shows up every strand of thread making it not as practical as I would have thought!) and become an actually-very-nice finished bag. What do you think? It's made with the Memento midnight fabric from Amy Butler's Love range. The green contrast and the lining fabric are from my local fabric shop, I was sorry I used that green in the end as it was slightly heavier than the other fabrics and made the final sewing on the handles quite tricky.

 I do love the bag but there is no way that I would rate it as an "easy" pattern as it is in the "Style Stitches" book. A lot of the construction is very straightforward, but the handles and the curved band at the top are really not beginner level sewing in my opinion, and definitely the edge stitching around the insides of the handles at the end was quite tricky and I poked myself with pins a gazillion times. If I had tackled this a few years ago as a beginner I would never have managed it and I would have totally lost my sewing confidence I think! I didn't have a quite big enough button for the closure, but I think its ok and I like the effect of using the Memento fabric instead of the green for it.

 

I only did the inside pocket on one side as I ran out of the lining fabric. This is a big, roomy bag and I added some very stiff, cardboard like interfacing to the bottom to strengthen it a little more. I think I'll be using this when I'm out and about, its got good weight and structure and is really very pretty :-)

I also finished this little tag comforter once I got to do the hand embroidery:

In Progress:

I now have 2 quilt tops awaiting quilting - my Dresden from Lily's Quilt QAL

 and my It's a Hoot/Walk in the Woods for my goddaughter.

I really want to quilt the Its a Hoot using free motion quilting so need to get in some more practice in the next couple of weeks before I try it. I was going to do the Dresden in the circular quilting Lynne used on the original QAL block, but now I might FMQ it for practice instead. Still thinking about this one.



Started:

Remember a couple of weeks ago I won a giveaway for about half a Sherbet Pips layer cake, courtesy of the lovely Kristie? Well, I have been trying to decide what to do with it for a while now and finally made up my mind this morning. My 3yr old daughter E is insanely jealous of the quilt I'm making for my goddaughter! She keeps asking for her own and loves the picture of this "The Burbs" quilt from Material Obsession

(which I plan on doing later in the year), but that would be a detailed and time consuming one to do if I was to do it really nicely and do all the hand quilting and E is not a lady to keep waiting! So I got thinking, and realised that the Sherbet Pips has 3 of E's favourite things - swings, scooters and - mostly importantly - dogs. I showed her the fabric and she absolutely loved it.

 

This morning I cut the layer cake squares into 5" charms and I intend doing a simple pinwheels design. I will need to cut some more white charm squares to balance the colours but now that I've made up my mind I'm itching to get started piecing!


Still Stalled...

The stupid curtains are the major item still in my basket awaiting attention. Now that I've gotten a lot of progress on other stuff I am determined that I will have made progress on them by next Wednesday.


As always I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced and some other great blogs!

Better Late than Never

Ok, so I didn't manage to do my Friday Night Sew In on Friday night. My parents were visiting and I could hardly disappear out to the kitchen and sew for hours as I planned! I did it today instead. But that still counts, doesn't it?? Maybe I should clarify: - my plans for the FNSI when I signed up were to finish the inner and outer circle of my Dresden circle for the Lily's Quilts quiltalong.

I was a little nervous about piecing the circle but thanks to Lynne's great instructions, it was pretty straightforward. I had been procrastinating on doing this and now I know why - I wasn't happy with the blue background I had originally chosen.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, it works really nicely, it just didn't feel as.... well, as "fresh" as I wanted. So I went with with some Ivory white Kona cotton instead. I do love it and can't wait to quilt it now! And I'm pretty pleased that I've caught up with the QAL too, so I'm all proud of myself :-)

Even though I didn't manage to sew the Dresden on Friday night, I still did some hand-sewing while I sat on the sofa watching the new Harry Potter DVD. I had the bones of this tag comforter sewn up ages ago but it had gone into a pile of stuff waiting for me to do some hand embroidery on it to complete it. I finished off the seams and some decorative embroidery, including the name on the back and it turned out to be a cutey!

With no work this week I'm hoping to get seriously productive on the sewing front, children and life permitting...so watch this space!  I'm linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory and some other great blogs - check out the links in my sidebar!

WIP Wednesday #9

  

I can't believe we're at Wednesday again already! It seems like about 5 minutes since I was writing last week's WIP report. This week has been a dramatic improvement on last week (it wouldn't be hard!) and I'm feeling much more energised. Maybe the prospect of being on annual leave from work from Friday afternoon for 10 days is helping :-)

Completed this week:

I had one finish this week, my Floating Away mini quilt . I love this little one and it seems, from all the comment love in the last few days, that you all did too! Thanks so much for your lovely comments, I'm so inspired by them all and it gave me such a boost after a really exhausting few weeks to get such a great reaction to a truly improvised piece. I have now hung it on the wall over the staircase and even Himself approves!

Work in Progress:

My It's A Hoot quilt. I have all 20 blocks done now, some of them are a little off but I will be able to fix up any little errors when I join the sashing between the blocks. I constructed a makeshift design wall on my kitchen wall this evening with an old flannel cot sheet to lay it out and after playing with lots and lots of combinations of the blocks, this is what I think I'm going with:

I'm sorry the picture quality is rubbish, the only space I had to do this layout is under some spotlights and I had to use the flash to get any kind of focus (and it's still not good) - but still, it gives the idea of the layout. What do you think? I found it a bit tricky getting the colour balance right, this is the closest I've come. I'd love any feedback you might have!

I've been thinking about what colour to use for the sashing between blocks. I was tempted to use an Ash gray type colour, but I've finally decided to stick with white, I'm not sure how it would work in the gray and I'm not sure that my 8 year old goddaughter would like it! I might use up some of the scraps left over to do a little detail in the border, I need to measure it to see if I'll fit it in. And I need to order the backing fabric for it, and fabric for binding. I think I'll use one of the brown or gray dot fabrics for the binding, but still need to decide on the backing.

My Lily's Quilts QAL dresden block:

 

I was planning on piecing the inner and outer circles for this on Friday night as I've signed up for Friday Night Sew In over at Handmade by Heidi. But I now think that I'm not going to be able to do this as my mum and dad are visiting for the weekend. Hopefully I might do Friday night sew in on Sunday night instead!

Other Stuff:

I have a few projects hanging around waiting for some time - the Cosmo bag, the curtains, a 2nd matching mug rug for one I did a few weeks ago. I also have a few projects I need to get started. I'm hoping next week when I'm off work, I'll get some quality sewing time in to catch up :-)

And finally....my Sherbet Pips giveaway fabric arrived - over half a layer cake of it and its GORGEOUS!! Thanks so much to Kristie over at Obsessive Crafting Disorder. I'm thinking of using some of it to make this quilt in the hope that one of my pregnant friends will have a baby girl!

So, for this week, that's all folks! I'm linking up as always to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wedesday #7

I've spent a lot of the last week in the car! Visiting my parents, away at a work conference, its been all go here. I still found some sewing time however, so here is my little progress report for the week.

Completed this week:

Actually, its been a pretty good week, in terms of finishes. I sewed like a woman possessed on Thursday night to get gifts finished for my little niece for her birthday:

  

 

I also managed to get a few small scappy pincushions done - this one with my Its a Hoot scraps:

 

 And this one with some nice Amy Butler scraps I had in my stash, both for some friends:

I also finished this cute little mug rug, after being inspired by all the lovely tutorials for Mug Rug Madness over at the lovely blog Two More Seconds.

 

Its not dissimilar to the wonky stripes one I made a few weeks ago, but I kept the strips quite straight and wonked up the quilting after seeing Jeni's tutorial. I'm really pleased with how it turned out apart from my mitred corners which did not go well (I might pick them back and redo, or I might just leave them!). I've had this fabric in my stash for a while now and it works really nicely as the backing.

  

I have another identical set of strips pieced that I might cut back a little in size and make a complimentary smaller one. I'm thinking that these might work nicely as a Mother's Day present for one of the kids' nanas!

Work in Progress:

I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment. I'm still at fabric layout stage for my Its A Hoot quilt blocks. Nothing to show you yet there, its packed up at the moment but I'm hoping to do more work on it tonight and get piecing the blocks.

I have some baby girl patchwork pram blankets to get done for some friends who had babies in the last few weeks - hopefully will get to finish them this weekend.

I'm working (slowly) at my Dresden plate block for the Lily's Quilts quiltalong. I have the blades pieced and pressed.

I read Lynne's post on piecing the inner circle yesterday and want to do this later in the week. But I want to add an additional inner circle in the brown fabric (like this)

and am not sure how I'm going to do it. I could piece it. But I'm more inclined to applique it on using a nice small zigzag stitch. Much easier and less work. Will it work nicely though or just look weird against the rest of it? I'd love some opinions on this one as I'm really not sure what to do. If its not going to look good, I will (maybe not very enthusiastically) go ahead and piece it - I'll have to do a bit of tutorial searching as piecing circles is not something I've done at all. But I do want it to have a nice finish so I'd appreciate advice from all of you experienced quilters out there :-)

On Hold:

The curtains have gone back in the box to my dismay. Must, must get them moving again!

The Cosmo bag is on a little break, I intend picking it up in a week or 2 again.

Thinking about:

I can't get the Bottled Rainbows QAL out of my head this last two weeks. Really, I so want to do this one but I don't have a) the time or b) the fabric to do it, and I can't justify going buying another FQ bundle for it. Any ideas? Maybe I could size up the blocks and do a few single blocks as placemats / mug rugs in the colours that I do have in my stash? What do you think?

I'm linking this up to Work In Progress Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced, go check out the great projects linked up there, I love seeing what everyone is working on each week! I'm also linking it to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day:

Lovely weekend

 

I know its still only Saturday night, but I'm having such a lovely weekend I thought I'd do an update! Even though it seemed like I was one of the few people in the country who had to work on Friday, it feels like an extra long weekend because of St Patrick's Day. Its been all about family and friends the last few days. We took the kids to a small parade on Thursday, and they absolutely loved it. When we were there, we met up with some friends and then brought the kids to see their grandparents when the parade was over where they were spoiled rotten, as always.  Today, we saw both my brothers, their other halves and my little nephew which was fab, as I hadn't seen them since Christmas. Its starting to feel like spring and the kids are loving being out and about in the fresh air. I took the picture above earlier today when we were out on a little walk. I love how the kids' energy is captured in it! They had so much fun. So, its all good here!

I also wanted to report on what I achieved in my Friday night sew in.

My plan for last night was to see how much I could get done on my Cosmo bag from Amy Butler's Style Stitches. Having cut the fabric for this in early January, I then managed to let it slip into my "stalled" list for a long time, mostly due to the fact that I couldn't face all the interfacing! But I rescued it from UFO land almost 2 weeks ago (when I needed something to take out my bad temper on and decided the interfacing was a perfect target!) and it was all ready to go last night:

The first part was the exterior. I love this Amy Butler Memento fabric and paired it with a lime green solid for the handles. This pattern is the first in the book and is rated as easy, but I have to say that I would have had difficulty with this pattern as a beginner. The band and handles require some sewing knowledge to get right - I used loads of pins on the curved seams (and I am not a pinner where I can avoid it!) and had to read the instructions a couple of times before I was sure what I was doing. An extra diagram or 2 would not have gone amiss here to be honest. But the effect is lovely. I used a lavender coloured thread and it contrasted nicely with the lime green handles for the top stitching.

I got both main sides done and made up the side pockets. By then it was getting late, and although I would have loved to get the exterior finished, I only managed to get the side panels attached to one main panel before I left it for the night. But I was really pleased with how much I got done and will definitely be up for the next Friday night sew in. It was lovely to think that in lots of places around the world, some of my bloggy "friends" were also sewing away happily! That feeling of connectedness was very strong.

Tonight I flew through the remaining exterior seams and ended up with the exterior finished:

Then it was on to auditioning fabric and starting cutting for my Dresden plate mini block which I'm doing for the Lilys Quilts Quiltalong. I did a bit of agonising over what fabric to use here. The pattern uses a layer cake and I have an Origins layer cake that I'm just itching to use. But because I'm only doing 1 mini block (due to time constraints), I didn't really want to break into the layer cake and use only part of it. Eek! So, off I went (to Himself's dismay) and pulled out my 2 big boxes where I store my fabric stash. 20 minutes later and there were fat quarters and half yards strewn all over the kitchen table while I chatted away to myself and tried out colour schemes and combinations. Eventually, this is what I came up with:

I still don't know what I'm going to use for my backing fabric and the circle centre! I have some fabric that might work, but there's not enough of it. Any ideas? I'm thinking a cream base with a small floral print or something similar. The leaves mix a heap of different fabric ranges from different designers and ranges so I'd like to keep mixing it up.

I'm pretty happy at this stage with this arrangement; I tried out lots of combinations of the leaves before settling on this one. All I need to do is head off with E tomorrow to shop for some backing fabric!