Some more swapsies

My friend Geraldine and I decided back in August to do a little private swap, for a little fun. She made a doll quilt for my little lady, and I made some placemats for her kitchen table.

Geraldine went for a pink theme for my pink-mad little girl. When this arrived in the post, E was utterly thrilled. She never let it go all day and went to bed with it that evening. It gets used the whole time in her games and is never far from her. While she loves its colours and the fact that it has her name on it, I love the clean lines, bright colours and the beautiful stitching - the pebble quilting is fab and its just gorgeous as a mini quilt. It really appeals to my taste in design and colour! So thank you Geraldine, it really was and is a big hit!

In return, I made some placemats for Geraldine. I mused over what to go with design wise - I knew brights would be a hit, and I wanted 2 pieces that were complimentary but not the same. I found some linen/cotton mix in my stash and decided to piece it in alternate strips with some colourful prints, one warm colours and the other cool. I used paper to piece the linen in a similar manner to piecing a string block as I was afraid it would distort too much with all the pressing and it worked great.

In addition to light machine quilting in the linen, I did a row of hand quilting in matching perle cotton in it too and felt that it really lifted the whole thing.

I backed them in some complimentary prints and used Kona solids for the binding. I love the backs as well to be honest, I think they could be used this side up too!

These have gone off to their new home where I think they are very happy :-)

Twirly Hexagon mug rug

 

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling pretty tired and lethargic...you know that feeling. When you know you have about 5 projects you should be doing but can't summon the energy to do any of them.

One of the projects was a mug rug - well, actually, a few people had asked me to make some. I was trying to think of an idea for one of them, incorporating the theme of 3 people and wanted to get away from squares, plus give myself room for something really colourful. I pulled out my scrap baskets and happened on the idea of hexagon wedges twirling around. I don't know what inspired it - maybe it was because I was thinking how much I loved pinwheels but they wouldn't work for 3! 

Then Felicity's gorgeous potholders came into my mind and I decided to try and do the hexagon wedges a little like what she had done for some of her piecing - made up of scraps.

So I drew up a template really quickly as a guide, dived into my scrap basket and came up with the three wedges you see here. Pink/red, Orange/Yellow and Blue/Green. As I pieced, cutting randomly without a ruler and flinging fabric around the table in fine old style, I really suddenly felt my sewing mojo return with a bang. In no time at all, they were done, I used my template to trim them back and cut my white wedges and pieced them together.

(Then my hubbie arrived in the kitchen to cook the dinner and groaned. Quote: "one thing I haven't missed about you not sewing so much is the fabric bombsite in this room".)

Later in the evening, I returned to it, pulling out my perle cotton and handquilting 2 lines on either side of the coloured wedges while watching some football with himself. I had stitched in the ditch to secure beforehand.

No doubt about the binding - it had to be black - perfect to set off the fresh colours. I never use black in my sewing, as you will know, and I just LOVE how it works in this. I think you'll be seeing a lot more of black in my binding from now on.

And hey presto - it was done. And I can't wait to make a few more, to be honest. It feels like summer when I look at it :-) I'm not sure whether this is what that original person had in mind when she asked me to make mug rugs, but it doesn't really matter as I have a few other ideas floating around for that order, and I have other mug rug orders to do for someone who I am pretty sure would love this one :-)

Speaking of summer, I have a little giveaway coming up next week so be sure to pop back and check in!

I'm linking this up to Jennifer's Summer Sewing Contest over at Ellison Lane Quilts and {Sew} Modern Monday.

 

Circles Mug Rug

Last night I finished the binding on my second Circles mug rug, and the sun came out for some pictures this morning. I'd almost forgot what the sun looked like!

It feels like I haven't been finishing too many quilting projects here lately, so it feels really nice to have a ta-dah moment!

The circles are appliqued on, and I used a variegated perle cotton to hand quilt it. I still am in love with Rachel's pattern for this. This is the most fun to hand quilt and following the shapes of the interlocking circles makes it interesting to work on. The fabrics are a mix of scraps from my stash plus a tiny bit of FMF, and the binding is a Hope Valley print.

I got a little picture of my new label in action for you too. These are double sided.  I'm really happy with how they turned out, I got them here.

The mug rug is a present for one of  my best friends, so I'm hoping I get to meet up with her soon to give it to her.

Hope you're having a good weekend! I have a great giveaway on Monday, so don't forget to pop in to visit then.

Skittles Quilt (my hand quilting heaven!)

It's been a glorious weekend here in Cork. Hazy, sunshine filled days...something we had almost forgotten could happen in the last couple of years. The garden has been weeded and the grass has been cut. The kids bikes have been ridden for miles up and down our road. The local insects have been adopted as pets.

The washing has all been line dried. A lot of ice cream has been consumed. (The house has gone to pieces, but who cares when you spend the whole day outside?)

And I finished my Skittles quilt. Yay!

This quilt was my biggest and longest-standing UFO. I started it last April...almost a year in the making. When I cut the fabric for it, Kate Spain's Central Park was high on the trendy fabrics list, and I remember seeing it on so many blogs. One year on and I really think these fabrics from that line still look fresh and gorgeous. I love the purples and blues together.

I used Kate Conklin's pattern to make this quilt, and I really loved it, plus I learned a new technique for piecing while doing it (Stack and Slash). There's no reason it took as long as it did to make, as it was relatively straightforward to piece...I think it was just the size - the thoughts of quilting it! - and trying to decide on the backing that delayed me.

Once I decided, after doing some small handquilting projects, that I wanted to hand quilt it, suddenly I couldn't wait to get to it and I have spent a very pleasant couple of weeks working on this in the evening in front of the tv.

 

I loved the original Skittles quilt so much that I decided to use the quilting in that as my inspiration, and meandered a line in deep purple perle cotton across my rows. Occasionally I broke it up by adding in some turquoise and teal threads, outlining individual stitches. I like how the different colours break it up a little.

 I didn't worry too much about the stitching, figuring out early on that a few crooked stitches would not be noticeable in the overall effect and how right I was. In fact, most of it I am pretty happy with, I managed to get my lines pretty straight.

The back is a lavender whole cloth piece of Klona solid, with appliqued small panels of Saffron Craig's magical land. I had intended not running the handstitching through the panels, but did one by accident and loved the effect so much I kept at it.

I really like how the stitching looks on the back of the quilt!

I used an aubergine coloured dotty poplin to bind it. Its a much darker purple than those in the Central Park fabrics, but it matches the thread colour pretty closely and I think it works really well to frame the quilt. The finished size is a generous lap size quilt at 72" x 52" approx.

 

I can't tell you how proud I am of this quilt, or how much I love it! I adored the process of making it, and I just love the effect of the hand stitches. Hubbie loves it too, and even the kids have commented on it (and I found them using it one morning when I came downstairs, while it was in the process of being quilted. The raw edges and messy bits of batting sticking out didn't bother them at all!

This is a big finish for me so I'll be linking it up to {Sew} Modern Monday, Manic Monday and Fabric Tuesday.

A little me-time trip!

As you know, Thursday I got to pack my bag, set off all by myself in the car and head to Dublin. What bliss, a whole journey without having to look over my shoulder into the back seat constantly! And I even got to listen to the radio in peace and quiet :-)

I landed at the Knitting and Stitching show reasonably early, it was already jammed with people. But I valiantly founght through the crowd in search of fabric goodies and I did not fail in my mission to overspend my budget ;-)

The very first stand I arrived at was, by chance, Oakshott Fabrics. I have seen their shot cottons on a few blogs, mainly Judith's lovely Needles and Lemons, but I'll be honest, I found it hard to really see the difference to regular cottons online. Oh, how wrong was I!! I was completely blown away by these fabrics. Take my word, they are absolutely and utterly fabulous. Really gorgeous quality, the array of colours and fabrics looked like they were shimmering in real life. So vibrant and beautiful. Here's one of the pink shot cottons I bought, to give you some idea of the colour balance:

 

It is really true that browsing fabric online is nothing like seeing it in reality and this was especially true here. I spent a long time drooling and stroking fat quarters in an amazing array of colours before finally deciding on an Elements fat eighth bundle in Spirit. They are a little bit pricier than your regular cottons, but, oh my, SO worth it! I have tried to pick up the quality of the fabric in my photo here, but in the watery November sunlight today, it was really very hard. All I can say is if you like solids and you want to treat yourself, you should definitely check them out.

Next I wandered around the corner and found the Pippablue stand. Now, lots of you will know that Eva there was one of my secret partners in Cindy's Goodie Swap back in August and even though they are up in Galway, I've never been to their shop or met Eva in real life. So meeting up with her was one of the things I was really looking forward to and chatting with her and Ger was a real highlight of the day for me. Not to mention their gorgeous fabric - I hadn't realised what a lovely range they stock. Look at this FQ bundle I picked up:

They also have a fab range of Japanese imports and myself and my friend Helen picked up these 3 lovelies to go with the Russian doll fabric (top) that I am basing a quilt for Helen's niece on.

Pippablue have also started to stock some Klona solids, so all in all I think I'll be doing a bit more online shopping with them in the future!

I also found The Crafty Fox, who are a new shop in Drogheda and picked up these super cute Tilda fabrics there. I'll definitely be popping in to visit them next time I'm up in my mum's!

And I picked up these half metres from a huge fabric seller called Doughtys at a great price.

In addition to all my fabrics, I got some great basics - batting at fantastic prices, new cutting rulers, etc. And I also discovered another thread brand - Wonderfil - who had a stand. I grabbed a trial pack of variagated threads in 50wt cotton to try:

And also found some perle cotton tucked away in the corner of another seller's stand which I promptly bagged. I'm slightly scared of that orange, its for a particular project but its so bright!!

All in all a great day was had. I also managed to have a chat with Anne Marie of Kilbora Quilt Shoppe where some of us Sew Irish girls are heading for a quilting retreat in Feb (places still available if you're interested! Just drop me an email) and to Sherry of Irish Quilting magazine. Plus I had a lovely wander around the quilts exhibition which was really interesting.

It was then on to an evening meetup with my some of my real life buddies who, for the first time in over a year, were all in Dublin on the same night for a meetup and we had lots of fun over some good food and wine. I scarily realised that we have been friends for almost 20 years - since our early college days -somehow, it really doesn't feel that long!

The next morning, I finally got to meet my great blogging buddy, Cindy of Fluffy Sheep Quilting. We met for a coffee and yapped happily for over and hour and a half and I think if I had not had to leave for home, and she for the show, we possibly would be still there talking! We had so much fun chatting and I can't wait to meet up again. I am always a little nervous meeting people in real life who you have an online relationship with - in case it doesn't turn out the way you expect, but happily this trip showed me that there's nothing to fear - they are all even nicer in real life that they are online. And now I have faces to put with the names. Happy days!

So, yesterday evening it was back to real life and I realised that I am really a big softie - 24 hours away from my kids and hubbie and I just couldn't wait to see them all, it was like I was away for a week. So now I need to put away all that new fabric and decide what I am going to use it for. But in the meantime I'm fancying some handquilting on the sofa this evening catching up with the new series of Grey's Anatomy on the Sky Plus :-)