Goodbye 2011!

FairyFace Designs: Mini Quilts 2011

2011 was the year of quilting for me. And a good year it was. I had so much fun this last year with this blog - it really took off for me in January and not only did I learn to quilt, but I discovered a huge circle of crafty, blogging friends out there. 2011 was the year I realised that I did, contrary to my very long held belief, have a creative bone in my body - more than 1, it turned out. The year I realised that online friends could be just as important as real life ones. And where I realised that, through your writing voice, you could be who you wanted to be and really be yourself because you are among friends.

FairyFace Designs: 2011 Quilts

2011 was not easy in some ways - but I don't like putting too much personal info out there for privacy reasons, so I'm not going to bore you with the details. But quilting and writing proved a welcome relief and an outlet for me from the stress. The comments I received brightened many a day. The fun and the wittiness of some of you continues to crack me up and I love the banter :-) Winning the odd giveaway, seeing my stuff featured elsewhere, having people make a quilt to a tute I wrote - all brilliant!

And now 2012 is almost upon us!! I'm still thinking about my goals - have you decided on yours? Is there anything you would like to see on FairyFace Designs in 2012? More tutes? More quilts? Another quiltalong? More giveaways? Featuring other bloggers/projects? Linky parties? Anything else? Any suggestions gratefully received!

I will be doing a mid-winter update on the Winter Stitching in the next couple of weeks so if you are taking part, start getting your posts ready for the linky!

I also have an exciting project starting in January for followers who love to ready sewing blogs but are new to sewing or haven't touched their sewing machines since their school days...watch for more information coming next week!

In the meantime I will leave you with some of my favourite makes from 2011. Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2012 brings everything you hope for.

FairyFace Designs: Fave Small Projects 2011

Mid-Summer check-in - Summer Sewing project!

Well ladies (and gentlemen!) how are you doing with your summer sewing? Lets have a little mid-summer update and see how everyone is getting on. I've updated the button for this - if you want to replace the old one, please do; if you prefer to keep the older version, feel free - whatever you want. Also if you want to join in now, please do! I'll be doing a little giveaway at the end of August for people taking part.

<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/newsummersewingbutton.jpg" alt="FairyFace Designs" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I'm quite proud of my mid-term report card :-) I put items from the original list in green to make it easier to read. So here goes:

1. Finish my Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt for my goddaughter's First Communion. Yay! This was done, delivered and loved by my lovely goddaughter and her Mammy :-) It also got so much quilt love from my readers, thank you to everyone for all your lovely comments on it!


2. Make a quilt for my daughter, the most demanding customer in the world ever. Oh yes, demanding is the word but it was done. At the time I was a little disappointed by the backing but as it spends most of its time being dragged around the garden I think I was being a little precious ;-)


3. Commissioned "Sophie's Dreams" quilt. This quilt was renamed "Summer Dreams". I fought with this one a little bit at quilting stage but it turned out quite lovely and baby's mum was delighted with it!


4. Quilt for my son D. He's now feeling a little left out of the action and asked me this morning could he have a train quilt. Haven't gotten near this one yet although I have the design drawn and its going to be a simple one. I need to stock up on some solids in charcoal and brown for it.

5. My Central Park Skittles quilt. I've pieced half the blocks for this quilt top but had to put on hold for a few weeks to create some time for the Kaleidoscope QAL! I know a couple of people were curious to see how this quilt is going to be laid out - here's a little preview of how the blocks will work.


6. Finish making my bedroom curtains - they've been sitting half made in my basket for almost a year now and they need to be done! Slowly, slowly I'm getting there. I have one hemmed and the other basted; once that's done I'll be working on the lining. I'll definitely have these done by the end of the month.

7. Baby quilt - I have a pattern idea for a baby quilt that I want to try to make up and if it works, write up the pattern for. Eeek, nothing on this yet and its looking the most likely candidate to get bumped off my list to make way for some other things!

8. Bottled Rainbows QAL placemats. One done, bar the binding, 3 more to go! Haven't moved these on at all but they are definitely still on the to do list.


9. Crazy Scrappy QAL - I'm going to see how many blocks I do with this and then decide how I'll use them. Well, I thought a couple of weeks ago that this wasn't going anywhere for me but I got a flash of inspiration last week and you saw the result on Wednesday. I'm still in love with this!


10. Quilt for my new niece/nephew when he or she arrives in August (please God, all going well). Nothing done yet on this one although I have plans. I also am pretty sure what colours I'm going to be using :-) but won't share that here until baby arrives.

11. Simple Sewing tutorials. I've done a lot of prep work on some tutorials but haven't published them yet. Hoping to get these up and running in the next couple of weeks.


All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far! I've found my big list really motivating and good to keep the mind focused. I did a few other bits and pieces too which weren't in the original plans, including:

12. I got the Sew Irish Flickr group up and running (thanks to all the lovely ladies who jumped in to join straight away) and its great to see people adding projects every week! I've "met" a few lovely new Irish quilters that I didn't know and we're now planning a meet up at the Knitting & Stitching Show in November. If you're living in Ireland and interested in sewing or quilting, whatever your level of experience, please come and join us!

13. I took part in the Rainbow Charm Swap over at Ellison Lane Quilts and can't wait to get my charms - I'm hoping the postman will bring them next week! And I also joined Fluffy Sheep Quilting's Irish/UK Japanese fabric import charm swap and need to get my charms off this week to Cindy.

Of course, I couldn't help but add a few things to the big project list (being unable to resist some of the fab things going on out there in quilty blogland), so are some new projects to add:

14. Kaleidoscope QAL hosted by the very talented Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy - I'm a little behind on this one as it started when I was away on holidays, but I'm busy catching up! This quilt will be for my friend's new baby boy and I'm really excited to see how it turns out, I think this pattern is so striking and I tried to pick really fun fabrics in varied prints in blue, red and green colourways.


15. Secret project - I have a project that I'm totally excited about but still in planning stages so my lips are sealed!

16. Some other commissioned baby gifts/baby quilts for friends :-)

17. Swaps - I'm hoping to sign up for the next round of the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap and the new For the Love of Solids [a modern swap], both of which look like great fun!

Well, I think that's enough to be getting on with! I can't wait to see what you've been working on. Get linking!

Walk In the Woods (It's a Hoot) Quilt Finish!

Here it is, my biggest quilt to date! If you're a regular reader, you'll already be familiar with the story of this quilt so feel free to skip the next little bit and enjoy the photos! If you're visiting my blog for the first time from the Blogger's Quilt Festival (or elsewhere!), welcome and I hope you pop back to visit often! Here's a little info about it.

This quilt is made for my goddaugher's First Communion. F is the eldest daughter of my oldest, childhood friend and I wanted to make something special for her to mark the occasion. I wanted something fresh and pretty, but not too pink and girlie, as I wanted it to be something that she would be happy to bring with her and use as she grew up. I spent some time browsing through fabric before deciding to use Moda's It's A Hoot - which is whimsical, colourful, full of lovely prints and quite girlie in an understated kind of way.

I drew up my own pattern for this quilt and it is made using two simple block types. One is a simple four-patch with a border, the other is a larger charm framed with a double border. The prints were so lovely they were crying out for fussy cutting techniques wherever possible and I think I managed to make the best use of the layer cake for the various squares.

I used white sashing to make the squares pop, and an additional skinny sashing block made from the scraps left over from cutting the frame borders around the outside edge. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is my 4th quilt ever and (I think!) my favourite so far! It's the first time I've made a quilt entirely from one line/range of fabric. Normally I mix and match elements I like from different lines, and I found it a little strange (and maybe a teeny bit limiting!!) to work totally within one line. It makes for a lovely quilt although I did miss the challenge (and those moments of utter satisfaction when something just works) of putting together my own coordinates more than I thought I would.

I used free motion quilting for the first time on a quilt for this one. Its not perfect by any means, but I'm very happy overall with it, even if it was a little challenging! I love the crinkly texture from the quilting :-) Because it was a special quilt I used backing from the same line - the Owls in raspberry

I went with the Marshmallow dots for the binding. I think I'm in love with the binding actually! The dots are much more striking than I thought they would be. And happily, I have a half yard left so I'll be saving that for binding for another quilt.

In summary -

Name: Walk in the Woods quilt
Fabric: Moda - It's a Hoot by Momo layer cake + yardage for sashing & backing/binding,
Batting: Warm & White
Quilting: First time free motion meandering
Measures: 69" x 56 "
Pattern: My own!

I'm linking this quilt up to the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. As this was a huge project for me, you might also see it linked up on a pile of other great blogs ;-) including {Sew} Modern Monday, Fabric Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday and more- check out my sidebar for these links! If you'd like to see other quilts I've made, check out the tab link at the top of the page "Quilt Finishes 2011".

WIP Wednesday

Wednesday again, and my WIP is pretty short and sweet this week!

Completed:

My Walk in the Woods quilt using an It's A Hoot layer cake. I will do a separate post for this quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival later in the week so I'm just showing the rolled up finished quilt here.


This took most of my time all week. I spent the weekend quilting it, and was pretty happy with my FMQ despite a slightly crazy start  (new quilting techniques and small children are not a good mix!) I am chuffed with how this quilt turned out and can't wait to put up the final pics. It just needs to be washed and dried to give it an even crinklier look so its ready for delivery on Sunday.


In Progress:


I've finished all my blocks for the Pinwheels Pips, they're pressed, trimmed to the correct size and I need to piece together my quilt top next. I've changed my idea for the quilt top layout a couple of times this week (lots of doodling!) so I need to finally decide what I'm going to do in the next couple of days. I'm also thinking of backing it with fleece as its intended as a throw for E - how does fleece quilt up? And if you have quilted with fleece, do you use batting as well? I'm afraid that might make it too heavy and warm. And as fleece is so much easier to work with and more stable than Minky I was wondering if I would be able to leave out the batting layer? Would love to hear any experiences, good or bad, if you have them!

The other little project I've been working on is a lovely piece of embroidery using this pattern:

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Another great example of how much I love Pinterest - I found this pattern as a pin there a month or two back and just couldn't get it out of my head. I found a nice, natural coloured linen/cotton mix and am doing it bit by bit in front of the tv in the evenings. Hoping to get this finished up this week, I'm almost done with it and loving how it looks, even if my embroidery skills are pretty basic.

To Start:

I need to do a few sets of bunting for baby boys' rooms before the weekend for my nephew and my friends' two nephews.

I'm linking up as always to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - get over there and check it out! And check back in later in the week to see more photos of my finished quilt.

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 :-)

Summer Sewing Plans - add yours!!

So here we are, the 1st of May and the first day of summer. Here in Ireland, where we rarely see anything but a rainy summer, we seem to have been bathed in summer sunshine for the last month. So it seems a little funny to be talking about the start of summer, but that's what it is. Even if the sky is threatening rain for the first time in weeks here in Cork.

I love the summer months, the long, bright evenings and the cheery light of summer mornings, even if it is raining! I always feel more positive and really motivated. I've been thinking for the last week or so about what I want to achieve this summer, sewing wise, taking into account the great light and increased energy I always have. And I thought it would be interesting to see what other people plan to do too. So, I've listed my plans for the summer here and I have set up a linky below for anyone who is interested in doing the same on their blogs and linking up. Please do! I'd love a sneak peek of what I might expect to see on your blogs this summer :-) And its a great way to discover new blogs. If you link up, please go and comment on other people's links. Let's have some fun!

1. Finish my Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt for my goddaughter's First Communion. That's coming up pretty fast now, I need to get it done in the next 10 days.

 

2. Make a quilt for my daughter, the most demanding customer in the world ever. I'm making this from half a layer cake I won in a giveaway of Sherbet Pips and I'm trying Pinwheels for the first time. It'll be a Pinwheel Pips quilt!! I have all my HST sewn up and waiting to be pressed and pieced. Every morning she wants to know is it done yet so I'll be sewing up a storm on this one. I did a trial block last night (top pic!) and love the movement in it :-)

3. Another version of my "Sophie's Dreams" quilt for a Christening gift for a baby girl which I'll be starting to cut this week.

4. Quilt for my son D. He's now feeling a little left out of the action and asked me this morning could he have a train quilt. I have lots of lovely boy's fabrics and I think I'm going to do a simple strip quilt for him.

 

5. My Central Park Skittles quilt. This is for ME! I love these fabrics, I love this pattern, it won't fit with any decor in any room in my house and I don't care, its just for me!!!

 

6. Finish making my bedroom curtains - they've been sitting half made in my basket for almost a year now and they need to be done!

7. Baby quilt - I have a pattern idea for a baby quilt that I want to try to make up and if it works, write up the pattern for.

8. Bottled Rainbows QAL placemats. One done, bar the binding, 3 more to go!

9. Crazy Scrappy QAL - I'm going to see how many blocks I do with this and then decide how I'll use them. I might do a quilt, I might use them for pillows - I'm not sure yet.

10. Quilt for my new niece/nephew when he or she arrives in August (please God, all going well). 

11. Simple Sewing tutorials - I know that in addition to a lot of super experienced followers I have who I go to for advice, I also have a lot of readers who are not very experienced at sewing or quilting and get email questions about sewing questions, how and where I buy my fabric etc. So I thought that it might be of interest to do some tutorials on how to sew simple items - e.g. pincushions, bunting, simple baby blankets etc. I'm also going to do a tute on how to find and buy fabric on Etsy for those people who are interested - particularly people based in Ireland who can't get access to the lovely fabrics available overseas. If you are interested, please leave a comment saying so, or drop me an email to fairyfacedesigns@gmail.com with ideas you would be interested in me covering in tutorials.

So, I'll be busy this summer. How about you? Please link up your summer sewing plans below. I'll run a little mid-summer catch up at the end of June, and a final "review" of how we got on at the end of August and will do a little giveaway for people who participate over the summer.

WIP Wednesday #8

 

This is going to be a short one! My little man was very sick all week and I don't have much to show! Plus, a lot of the work I did get done was prep stuff, cutting, layouts etc. So I'm abandoning my usual format.

I had no finishes this week, but did make progress on some baby blankets for my friends (sorry, I have no pics because I know they read this and I want them to be a surprise! I'll post them once they receive them, but I'm really happy with them, I've used some lovely new fabric).

 

The other major progress I made was with my Its a Hoot quilt. I got all the fabric laid out and decided on each block composition, which took quite a while on Saturday afternoon. I've sewn a few blocks here and there and realised this evening I have 10 of my 20 blocks done.

They need sashing etc in between them, but they're done :-) I absolutely love this fabric, the colours, the design, its just gorgeous! So lovely to work with and I'm having fun with the blocks. Can't wait till I have the rest done and can figure out how to place them.

That's it for today! I'll be linking up to Freshly Pieced as always, I love seeing what everyone is working on each week :-)

2011: First Quarter gone already

I saw a lovely post by Elizabeth over at Don't Call Me Betsy which got me thinking; she was looking back on her progress against her crafty goals for the first quarter. So I decided I'd jump on the bandwagon and do the same, and maybe get thinking about what I want to get done by the end of June.

Back at the start of the year, I was still too much in recovery from Christmas to write out any goals. But I did have quite a few actually - mostly short term focused. Here's a little summary:

1. To finish my Bliss Charm quilt. This was the first quilt I ever made, I started it over Christmas and completely fell in love with quilting while I worked on it.

2. To make more from my own designs and I definitely have done this with lovely quilts I made.

PictureBox quilt

I loved how they turned out, and even wrote up a tutorial for the PictureBox quilt, and at the weekend I got an email from Beverly who has made it - I'll post her version over the weekend. That totally made my day, as you can imagine!

Sophie's Dreams quilt

I also designed this handbag and must get working on more bags.

3. To take part in a Quiltalong....I had been reading about these all over, and was hoping one would come along that I felt experienced enough to take part in. Of course, like the proverbial bus, none came for ages and then 3 came at once. In recent weeks I joined up in the Lily's Quilt quiltalong. I'm loving doing the Dresden mini block, its so much fun!

Also, this week I decided that I'm going to take part in the Bottled Rainbows Quiltalong on a small scale. But sadly, I just couldn't commit to the Supernova quiltalong over at Freshly Pieced even though I'd love to do it - I just don't have the time.

4. To take part in the Amy Butler Style Stitches sewalongs over at My Crafty Crap and JemJam. I'm making pretty patchy progress with this one - the Cosmo bag (January) is half done, I didn't do the February bag (the big shopper) at all and I did one small Origami bag for March, although I'd like to do a few more. I'm looking forward to the next one for April, the chequebook cover, I badly need a pretty one.

 

 5.  To make a Charm Bracelets quilt using Kate Conklin's lovely pattern. I even have the Fandango charm pack. But I haven't even come close to starting it.

6.  To make the Alice quilt from Red Pepper Quilts - I just love this one and reckon I have enough scraps for it but again, no time (yet).

7. To take part for the first time in some Flickr swaps. I joined up for the Scrappy Pincushion one and loved taking part, in particular the lovely pinnie I received.  I'll definitely be looking forward to participating in more!

8.  To grow my blog and to take part more in the crafty blogging community - and I've really pleased I've done this. I'm really thrilled and flattered to have lots of new readers this year and I've made loads of new bloggy "friends" all over the world who have given me great advice and lots of inspiration. I love visiting their blogs every week to see what they're up to!


9.  To learn, learn, learn!! I'm new to quilting and this last 3 months has been a challenging and wonderful time for me as I learned new techniques, got to grips with quilting basics and browsed online resources, tutorials, patterns and blogs voraciously. I'm now completely addicted to and in love with the process and end result - roll on the rest of the year!!

I have lots of goals for the remainder of the year but think I will spend a little time thinking about them and maybe post them next week! In the meantime I'll be linking this up to Elizabeth's post and checking out everyone else's progress.