Quilty Love......

It's getting to that time of year again when its practically impossible to get decent photos. During the week its pitch black by the time I get home from work, and even at the weekends the daylight tends to be cloudy, grey and miserable, even when its not raining. The rain stopped this afternoon for a few minutes and I ran out to the garden with hubbie in tow to try to get some pics of my latest quilt top which is just too big to get an indoor photo of.

This is my red, pink and aqua quilt from my Winter Stitching list and is for our friends' baby girl...just in time for Christmas! It's more of a toddler/child size quilt than a baby quilt but that is the way its intended.

I really love this combo of colours, I think its my absolute favourite at the moment. And, because its my fave, I had a huge range of fabrics to choose from in my stash and my scrap basket - so much so that I would say I only cut 2/3 of what I had pulled for it!  Some of my last scraps of particular lines went into this one, and the tiny inner squares were perfect to use up the small pieces I had saved. I went with a square within a square type design for it (although some of the internal "squares" are actually rectangles!) and used 3 different block designs to bring interest and movement to the quilt.

I previously posted pics of some of the blocks - many of which are fussy cut to make the best use of the prints I had. Don't they work well together? Two of the block designs have the internal square/rectangle off-centre, which actually worked great because I could move and turn them around to have the same blocks side by side but with a completely different look.

I am going to use some of my lovely IKEA hearts fabric to back it, although I need to add a fabric column to it to get it wide enough - going to use some large fabric blocks in the front colours for this. Once I have that done, I'm ready to baste it. I have a big can of 505 basting spray that I got from Janette in River Fabrics and I absolutely can't wait to try it out on this one. It will be my first time spray basting, so wish me luck! I'm slightly nervous as I have the pinning down to a fine art at this stage and hope the spray basting works ok.

I'm planning to free motion quilt in my usual meandering stipple, although I'm thinking of trying some hearts in the quilting pattern like Jessica did in this quilt - I'm thinking that would be perfect for a baby girl!

I'm also pretty much done with my Christmas runner swap items. I just need to handsew the binding to the back and handfinish the little ornaments tonight in front of the fire so it will be all ready for the post office on Monday morning.

Hope you're having a great weekend :-)

Progress Review: Across the Sea QAL

How are you all doing with your quilt tops? Are you done yet?

These are the last few days for finishing up your top, as we will move on to cutting and assembling the back next week. I just can't wait!!

Have you been contributing over in the Flickr group? Its really great seeing the different interpretations people have of the design....so many different perspectives, I already want to make another quilt using different fabrics and giving it a totally different look!

Here are some of my faves from the Flickr group. I just couldn't fit them all in but if you're interested, pop over and have a browse through!!

 

So, see you Monday when we'll start on the back!!

Piecing your Borders: Across the Sea QAL

Have you decided on your block layout? There are great options turning up in the Flickr group and I love seeing the different interpretations everyone has of their blocks.

Today is all about putting together your borders, so head over to Ellison Lane Quilts where Jennifer is all ready to show you how. As you can see, I went for the super scrappy look in my border! I'm totally in love with this baby girl quilt - hope you like it too!

Skittles Quilt Top

In between the raindrops this morning I managed to get some pictures of my Skittles quilt top which I finished up this week. See that bit of clear sky? It was there for approximately 3 minutes and its gone again, the rain is back to pelting down :-( Seriously, its like November out there. Sorry this pic is so dark, its the best I could get. You'll get a better idea of the colours further down in the indoor pics!


It feels like I have been making this quilt top forever but in fact, its actually a very quick make. I just did bits and pieces of it here and there over a few months, but if you sat down to make it you'd have the top pieced in no time. I used Kate Conklin's pattern and it uses the "stack and slash" method which is very quick and lots of fun. It really suits a quilter like me who is looking for low stress quilting rather than needing to have pinpoint accuracy in blocks. It's also incredibly economic in terms of fabric usage - because of the way the blocks are constructed, you are slashing across big blocks rather than cutting squares/rectangles etc from fat quarters, so there is really suprisingly little waste. So, if you like this kind of look, which I do, I would definitely recommend checking out this pattern. It includes a second pattern along similar lines and measurements for both lap and baby size.

The first stack of blocks I "slashed", I made my cuts quite evenly - but after that, I made them really randomly, going in the same and then different directions and I love the randomness and unevenness of how they work:


I used some of the purple and blue fabrics from the Central Park line and am totally delighted with how they worked together. The original pattern is in a purple colourway too which I think influenced my choices here, but as soon as I saw those trees and the big flowers in Central Park, I knew they were made for this :-)

Next decision is how to quilt this one. I could outline quilt the blocks and handquilt around each fabric slash as in the original pattern. But I've never handquilted before so I would be a bit nervous about it. And I would need to source some perle cotton somewhere. Or I could FMQ it which I'm leaning towards as I love the texture. One way or the other, I still have to piece a backing for this one before I can cross that bridge so I'll keep mulling it over - but let me know if you have an opinion, as always!

Linking up to:

Another finished quilt top

I managed to get finished today this quilt top which is for a commissioned quilt. Its based on my previous "Sophie's Dreams" quilt, using a similar colour palette but with a different colour balance and many different fabric prints. I'm happy with how its turning out :-) I'm hoping to get the baby girl's name appliqued on the backing and get it basted tonight so that I can start quilting it on Sunday after picking up some natural cotton thread tomorrow.

Not sure what I'm going to call this one - I don't want to call it Sophie's Dreams 2! Any ideas?


I also decided to join up with Elizabeth's Kaleidoscope Quiltalong which I'm really excited about!

These are the fabrics I have picked - I'm going to do the baby size quilt for a little boy.


What do you think? I love them!!!

WIP Wednesday

Well its been a super busy week round here, how about everyone else? Isn't the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway just the best? I've had so much fun entering giveaways and discovering new blogs. If you want to enter mine, there's still time, you'll find the post here.

Completed this week:

Last week I was struggling a little with energy and ideas. I had a day off work on Thursday and just grabbed some fabric I liked, took out my notebook and tried to make up one of the ideas I had in it. It worked out great and I ended up putting it in my giveaway! I'm really happy with this little iPhone cozy, I'm definitely going to make more and even write up a little tutorial when I have a few things tweaked.

I had fun with some scrappy pincushions - they always leave me in a good mood!

I also made a pillow (or cushion as we would say here) with some leftover blocks from my Pips quilt:

This was another impulse make and my daugher is delighted with it, she loves the dogs on the fabric. I lightly quilted it on the diagonal lines using a leftover bit of cotton batting, and then backed it with some lovely soft red polar fleece for a really snuggly feel.

In Progress:

Well, I'm really excited to have finished my Pinwheel Pips quilt top. (Sorry the photo is so bad, it was taken in the evening and the light was really poor.) I decided on this layout because I love how it gives an optical illusion and you have to really look to see where the blocks are. I kind of wish I'd maybe had some more fabric to get a better balance of colours (I had half a layer cake) but I like how it turned out. I added the sashing to bring it up to a slightly better size for a child's throw, and really like the girls on the swings fabric I used, I think its my favourite print in this collection. E is very excited about it being nearly done. My lovely hubbie really wants me to quilt it with batting and backing rather than fleece as I was planning (he loves the texture of quilts and wants her first quilt to have that) and I picked up a pink flat sheet in Heatons on sale for only €5 for the backing - result! Maybe, if I'm very lucky and get some time at the weekend, I might just get it finished as I'm planning on light quilting similar to the pillow for this one.

Started:

I got most of the pieces cut for the next quilt I'm making which is a commission for a quilt similar to the one I made for Sophie a couple of months ago. It is a simple pattern of big squares intespersed with some 4 patch blocks. I'm sticking with red and green as the dominant colours but have some different fabrics and prints this time and I'm looking forward to laying these out, I love mixing up the colours and patterns to make the quilt really work.

Well, that's it for this week, its been a good one. Hope you are all enjoying the giveaway and welcome to all my new followers - please jump in and comment so I can get to know you!

I'm linking this up to Freshly Pieced as always, as well as some other great blogs.

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!

It's a Hoot quilt top finished!

 Can I just say that I love and adore this It's a Hoot fabric? It's so summery and bright and cheerful. And I love being on holidays from work, I got so much done last night when I wasn't wrecked after a day at the office, and again this morning. So much that I got this quilt top finished!

 You know how I love to put names on my quilts, I can't help it, I just do! So I'm calling this one "A Walk in the Woods" - isn't it apt? I was really pleased with how it came together although I noticed one or two seams that I'm not happy with when I was taking photos, I need to do a little repair work to strengthen them up.

 

After I put all my blocks together with the sashing, I decided it needed a little something extra and I had lots and lots of scrappy 1.5 inch strips left over from cutting the framing strips, so I pieced them all together randomly to form a little extra sashing line around it. I'll be honest and say that I got the idea from the sashing on the Dresden quilt top I'm doing for the Lily's Quilts QAL so I have to credit Lynne for that! I do think it draws it together though.

And happiest of all, we had a nice day here today so I could get some good pics - I love the ones of it blowing in the wind so apologies for indulging myself with lots of pics! Look at the blocks though, aren't they pretty? I love how the white space in the "tree" blocks creates its own little spatial pattern.

I have ordered the backing and binding fabric but it will be next week before it arrives from the States so I'll put this away for a few days and take a break from it now. I'm linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory and some other great blogs - check out the links in my sidebar!

Picturebox Quilt Top



Picturebox Quilt Top

What a week its been here in the FairyFace household! I don't think I've put down as hard a week since the time D was in hospital a couple of years ago. We had both children sick, one with a very high temperature and the other off form and increasingly lethargic and distressed for a few days until she was finally diagnosed with a pretty bad infection in both ears. I have been suffering from the "mother guilt" ever since, because the first day I suspected she was resenting the attention D was getting with the high temp and playing up as a result :-( Bad mammy moment! And my poor little lady, it turned out, was in a lot of pain - by Thursday afternoon she couldn't sit still or get comfortable, she was so sore. But antibiotics are a great thing and she is well on the mend now and almost back to her cheery self.

In addition to the stress of minding both of them when sick and not getting much sleep what with being up with both of them every night, juggling our jobs took its toll. Its awful have to take unplanned days off from work, you feel like you're letting people down (even though there's nothing you can do - the kids need to be minded when they're sick) and you get so behind and end up working late at night on all sorts to try to catch up. We sent out a cry for help on Thursday and both my and T's parents galloped hastily to our rescue, providing dinners, entertainment for the kids, childminding and other essential services. We're just so lucky to have great backup, I know so many families who can't do that and it really makes life easier when a little help is around.

So, with all that there was not much crafting done in my house at all this week. However, I did get finished the quilt top I am doing for a special boy and want to show it off because I'm so happy with how it turned out.



This is the first quilt I have really "designed" in more than a simple straightforward squares or stripes template. So I'm really proud :-) I found it pretty challenging to figure out the measurements for the different pieces (Maths never having been a strong point of mine) and I must admit that it is quite different to how the original idea was planned. When I laid out the original design template after cutting my fabric, it just didn't work. I don't know why, it looked great on paper, but it just didn't flow! So I went back to the drawing board, took what I had cut and spent a long time playing around with combinations until I came up with this. Then I had to sit down and re-work out the measurements and cutting requirements and happily, it seemed to flow better.

I have seen "design walls" on a few blogs and I really need to figure out a way to set one up on some wall space in my house. I currently do all my layouts on a white sheet laid over my big bed, which works fine from a functional sense. But I like to leave designs/fabrics laid out and come back to look at them and tweak them over and over until I'm happy which isn't really feasible when I need to get to bed! I end up clearing up and then laying out again the following evening which is a terrible waste of time.

I had the big panels sewn up last weekend and when I was at home this week those few days, I left my machine set up at the kitchen table. The side columns were a perfect size for sewing up very quickly so if I got 5 minutes at all during the day, I sat down and sewed one up. Its amazing what you can get done with 5 minutes here and there, it seemed slow doing them one by one but in fact, I had the columns done in no time and then was able to sew up the sashing and put it all together one evening when the kids were in bed.





And doesn't it look cute? My inspiration for this quilt started with two of the prints I use in the big panel - the Jungle Friends and the Hooty Hoot Kangaroo.

I was thinking a little of the "I Spy" type quilts too and imagining a little boy exploring the fabrics seeing all the different animals and bugs and birds. Sort of like pictures really and from there the idea of framing the prints came. I used a simple green/blue on white print to frame up each big panel and then used strong colour scraps around this for an extra layer of detail. I love those picture frames that hang vertically with 3 to 5 photos in them and that is where the idea for the columns came from. I have mostly used animals and birds in this quilt, but threw in some "Wheels" fabric for a little extra charm. The sashing is a Kona solid in Ivory and I really love how it makes the prints stand out.

So, now I have my two quilt tops done and I have my backing pieces ready - next stop, basting! I have to admit I'm not a lover of this stage so I think I will bite the bullet later on and just do both in one huge basting session. Take all my punishment at once, so to speak :-) And then I am going to quilt both with lengthwise straight lines. Can't wait for that part!

I'm featuring this quilt top in some great crafty linky parties:

    

**PS - I have to apologise (again) for the fact that my pictures aren't nearly as good as I would like. What with the still lost good camera, the grey light and the fact that its lashing rain outside, all I could do was try and snap some in front of the playroom patio doors. Otherwise there would be no blog posts at all!

** Also - it being Saturday morning and trying to get as much done as possible, I was too lazy busy to iron the quilt top again before taking the pics - so please excuse all the creases and stray threads!