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!

Style Stitches Origami Bag



Let me preface this post by asking: who hates putting zip in bags/purses? Seriously? How many of you are jumping up and down waving your arms (well, in your mind at least?) Yep. Me too!

I've had a bit of a dubious relationship with zippered bags for a long time. Zips in skirts, fine, no problem. I found a super easy tute on doing zips in skirts last year and never looked back. But zips in bags just freak me out. They never turn properly for me and they always look messy and untidy.

Now, I know the answer to this is practice, practice, practice. But that assumes some level of craft-fail and I'm not good at craft-fail, it totally discourages me and I HATE making something and then not being able to use it. That's why I do buttons in all the bags I make!

So it was with a little trepidation that I  approached the Origami Bag pattern in the Amy Butler Style Stitches book this evening. One thing about the patterns in this book is that they have a lot of written instructions and not very many pictures and diagrams. When it comes to sewing, I'm totally visual (mostly because I have very poor spatial sense, just ask Himself about my parking!) and I was interested to see how I found the pattern as a result. But, I have to say, the pattern was really well put together (as I would have expected!) and anywhere that I really needed a diagram, there was one, which was great.

After faffing about with fabric for a while trying to decide which to use, and chasing the kids back up the stairs more than a few times, I finally settled on these:

Alexander Henry's Willow Wren, Girl Friday Cosmo Cricket and Ta Dot in Berry by Michael Miller.

I found the pattern fairly straightforward to make, there were a few little tricky bits in it around the zip ends when sewing up the seams but nothing too challenging. And I even managed to sew my zip reasonably respectably! Its by no means perfect but its functional (a big step forward!) and looks ok-ish, it could be a bit tidier and less bulky, but I'm planning on making a few more of these so hopefully I'll have it perfect by the time I get to the last one :-)

I really like this Willow Wren fabric, its super cute, I have a half yard and will definitely be ordering more of it! And the Ta Dot lining gives is a great lift on the inside. This little bag is a good size for sewing notions, threads etc. I'm going to make a few of them for my sewing box in this size and the next size up. I also want to do one for my handsewing kit.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased. It was nice to follow a pattern for something like this and not improvise as I went along which is my normal approach. Even better, my bag turned out not a million miles away from the shape of the photo in the book. I'm going back to tackle the Cosmo bag later in the week - more about that later in the week!

I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory and other great blogs -> check out the links on my sidebar!



PictureBox Quilt pattern/tutorial

This isn't a tutorial in the strict sense of the word, but, finally, here is the pattern for my PictureBox quilt. I hope you enjoy making it! If you do, please link up to my new Flickr group for projects made from my tutorials/patterns. I'd love to see them!!!


A couple of small things:
- Please link up to follow me on the sidebar if you make a quilt from this pattern :-) I'd be so thrilled if you did.
- Also, as with most tutes and patterns, it's intended for your own personal use or for gifts but is not for commercial use. Please do not sell quilts made from this pattern.


Ok, so here goes. Please read pattern fully before starting! If you have any questions on any aspects of it, or it doesn't make sense, feel free to ask me any questions via the comments or by email fairyfacedesigns@gmail.com I will answer any questions on the pattern in the comments section rather than back to you via email so that everyone can see the answers.This is the first quilt pattern I've written so please bear with me! And my apologies that I don't have better photos of various stages, I hadn't anticipated doing it as a pattern when I started making it. I also want to say a huge thanks to my friend Fi over at Patchwork Delights who did a sense check on it for me and had some great advice!


The finished quilt measures approx 60" long x 53" wide, slightly wider than cot bed size but not full twin bed size. It is a perfect size for using on a baby's cot bed and then layering over other covers when he/she moves to a twin bed.


Fabric Requirements:

• 3 Fat Quarters of large scale prints for the feature panels
• Fabric scraps for outside "frames" - variety of colours, shades & prints.
• Assortment of fat quarters & large scraps for the small squares - you will need approx 5 FQs or equivalent.
• 1 FQ small scale print/solid colour for framing feature panel
• Approx 1 yd white cotton for sashing ( I used Kona Ivory)
• 1/2 yard solid colour fabric for binding (I used a soft mid-blue shade)
• Backing fabric
• Cotton Batting - I used Warm & White cut off the roll, it was 60" x 64"
• Cotton thread for piecing and quilting. I used Gutterman cotton thread, colour 5709 (white)
• Rotary cutter, cutting mat and quilting ruler

Cutting List:

• From each of the feature fabrics cut a large panel measuring 16" x 10.5". (UPDATED MEASUREMENT) Decide on where best on the FQ to cut to get the best focus for your panel.

• From the FQ of small scale print/solid for framing cut 6 1.5" x 18" strips and 6 1.5" x 10.5" strips.

• From the smaller scraps cut the following, varying fabrics, shades, colours and prints:

          18 pieces - 4.5" x 3.5" (A)
          18 pieces - 3.5" x 3.5" (B)
          12 pieces - 2.5" x 3.5" (C)
            6 pieces - 5.5" x 3.5" (D)
            6 pieces - 6" x 3.5" (E)

• From the FQs/large scraps cut 36 5.5" squares (F) and 12 3.5" x 5.5" rectangles (G).
  
• For the sashing, cut 8 strips 2" x 27.5" (H) , 6 strips 2.5" x 18.5" (I) and 12 strips 2" x 18.5" (J)

Layout and Piecing Instructions:

Use 1/4 inch seams throughout.

1."Frame" the 3 large feature panels as follows:
Attach the small print strips to each side of the large panels by placing right sides together and sewing with a quarter inch seam. Press seams open (or to one side if you prefer). Now take top and bottom strips and sew to the panel & side border piece and press seams open.


2. Decide on the layout of the large panels from top to bottom. Once you have decided how to order them start arranging your small scrap pieces to form the 2nd layer of border frame for each panel.


Each side border should consist of following pieces: [1 x A, 2 x B, 1 x C] and each top/bottom border should consist of following pieces: [2 x A, 1 x B, 1 x C, 1 x D, 1 x E].


How you lay out the scraps for the borders is up to you; I suggest that you move around the composition on each line so that each line does not have exactly the same layout, otherwise it may lack in movement. Consider light and dark shades, colours, pattern etc. and how the bottom and top borders interact with the border on the panel above/below them.

3. Layout the side columns using pieces F & G alongside the large framed panels, leaving gaps where your white sashing will be. Each panel should have 2 pieced columns on either side. Each pieced colum consists of 3 x F and 1x G. I alternated the order/layout in each one, the top and bottom piece in each column should be a square, but I alternated the layout of the 2 middle pieces in each column.

4. Move the fabric around and tweak the layout until you're happy! I find it very useful to take some pics of the layout on my phone/camera and look at them during the process, it gives me a good "big picture" perspective of how pieces interact with each other. I don't follow any particular "rules" (I don't even know if there are any!), I tend to trust my eye in relation to colour and layout.


5. Assemble the pieces ready for sewing in an order that makes sense to you and that you will find it easy to sew with. I ususally pin groups of fabrics for each strip from either top to bottom or left to right and stick a post-it on top of each "pile" numbering them. Taking a picture before starting this process may help you later if any parts get mixed up.


Start piecing! Remember to iron all pieces beforehand and press seams open/to the side after sewing each set of seams. I use a quarter inch foot to get an accurate quarter inch seam.


6. Start with the big panel scrap borders and sew your border strips together. Start with the side borders, piecing the scraps together in a line until done following the layout you decided on. Sew to the sides of the feature panel right sides together. Do the same with the top and bottom borders until your large panel blocks are finished. Set aside for the moment.

7. Piece each of the side columns. Set aside.

9. Sew sashing pieces I to either side of each feature panel block.


10. Sew sashing pieces J to each side of each of the outside columns. Then join the "inside" sashing piece to the outer side of the inner column to make a large column block.


11. Now join each of the large column blocks to the feature panel block sashing, matching up the correct sides.


This leaves you with 3 large horizontally laid out blocks running the width of the quilt top.


12. Take the 8 sashing pieces H and divide into pairs. These will form the horizontal sashing. Join each pair along one of the short edges using a half inch seam.


13. Take the first long sashing strip and sew to the top edge of the top horizontal block, placing the seam in the middle of the block. Do same with next 2 horizontal blocks, and sew final sashing strip to lower edge of bottom horizontal block.


14. Sew middle block to top block along top edge of sashing & bottom edge of pieced block. Follow suit with lower & middle blocks.


15. Trim any excess sashing fabric from edges. Your quilt top is now finished! You will need to press all seams very carefully and trim any stray threads from the raw edges on the wrong side so that they don't show through your white sashing fabric when you start to quilt.

Backing & Basting:

Piece your backing fabric, if you desire. Once it is ready, lay out on a clean floor and, using masking tape, tape to the floor around all the edges, pulling fabric taut but not stretching it. Next, lay your batting down over this and smooth out the surface to lie completely flat. Your batting and backing should be at least 2” wider than your quilt top on all sides. Finally, lay your pressed quilt on top of the batting and take great care to ensure that it is smoothed out.  You will need to crawl around the quilt to get this right, but it’s worth taking the time. You will then need to baste the quilt using your preferred method. I used curved safety pins for quilting; they are much easier to work with than regular straight ones. I start at the middle of the quilt and work outward in a circular fashion, smoothing out any last wrinkles etc as I go. I pin approx every 4-6 inches. Once you are done, remove the masking tape carefully and check that the back has remained smooth and wrinkle free. It is now ready to be quilted!

Quilting:

I quilted the PictureBox with wonky straight lines, but I think it would also look great free motion quilted. It would also look good quilted in wider straight lines.

If you want to do the wonky straight lines, I started by marking a line down the centre of the quilt using a quilt marking tool, or you could use masking tape as a guide. Use your walking foot to ensure even feed of fabric (mine is integrated in my Pfaff machine and works with most of my presser feet). I quilted down the centre line and then used the outside of the widest presser foot I had as a guide for the remaining lines, working out from the centre, and working up and down the quilt in alternate lines. I varied the width of the lines, moving the needle position to get maximum width and allowed the presser foot to vary the line and wobble in and out in places to give the wonky effect. If you're doing this, use the straight seams to ensure you're not going totally "off track" and even things up a little; wonky is good, completely crooked and out of line just looks shoddy. If you want to free motion quilt, you will need to attach the correct foot and lower your feed dogs.

When you are finished quilting, use your rotary cutter and quilting ruler to trim the excess backing and batting from your quilt, and check your lines are straight.

Binding:

If you need detailed binding instructions check out these great, detailed tutorials: Oh, Fransson! or Jaybird Quilts

I use straight grain, double fold binding, but use whatever you prefer. This is how I do mine:

Measure around your quilt to get your total binding length needed and add on at least 10 inches for corners and to give you some spare. Cut enough strips from your binding fabrics to give you the total length, making provision for your seam allowances at the joins – 2.5” is a good width for binding, but you might want to go narrower or wider depending on your taste. Attach the strips to each other, right sides together using a quarter inch seam. I usually use a smaller stitch length here to strengthen the seam. Then fold the long strip in half, wrong side together, and iron the fold the whole length of the binding strip to give a nice sharp crease.

Return to your quilt, pin to your quilt top matching raw edges, making provision for mitred corners and join the ends carefully. Machine sew to the quilt using quarter inch seam. Fold over the binding and sew to back of quilt in whichever method you prefer. I love the look of a machine stitched binding but I know most people prefer it handstitched. Trim any stray threads.

The quilt is now done! Throw it in the washing machine, let it dry and enjoy its lovely crinkly texture. 

WIP Wednesday # 4

I can't believe another week has gone by! Seems like no time since I was writing my WIP post last week!

All things considered, this was a difficult week. I struggled a bit with trying to get things done due to work (see my post earlier this week) but managed to pick up a little in the last few days, much to my relief.

So here goes:

Completed:

Owl baby snuggle blanket for a customer order. I absolutely love this fabric and think it works great as a blanket!

Scrappy mug rug; this was a fun little project I ran up in the space of an hour to make myself feel a little better and give me some instant gratification. I've since brought it in to work where it gives me a smile every time I make a cup of coffee (which is a lot!)

Work in Progress:

Yay! This week I finally moved 2 of my projects which had been stalled for a LONG time to my "in progress" list. This is a pretty major achievement, they were in danger of falling into permanent UFO territory. Drum roll please........ I actually interfaced my Cosmo bag pieces.


Seriously. I can't quite believe it myself! I had been dreading it, but tonight, after listening to the kids tearing around upstairs for over an hour instead of sleeping quietly in their bed and driving me mad coming up and down the stairs, I wasn't in very good form, and then my iron ruined the minky on the blanket I was working on. At that stage I really wasn't in the mood for sewing but wanted to get something done and I turned up my iPod very loud and got out the pieces and stood there working off my bad mood with the iron. (I ruined my ironing board cover with interfacing all over it, but that suits me fine, I'm just looking for an excuse to replace it). After that I was on a roll, so I got out my stalled bedroom curtains and made good progress basting my hems - not done yet but I am thrilled to have gotten it moving.

I also made some great progress in new designs for my baby blankets, and started a design for a quilt for my goddaughter when I was supervising the kids arty crafty activities at the weekend.

I was making good progress with the blanket orders but am stalled now after the iron incident this evening. Hopefully the order I placed last week for more minky will arrive tomorrow so that I can get them finished.

Finally, I'm almost finished writing up the tute for my PictureBox quilt, just a few more details to sort and then it will be ready to go. I'm hoping to have it up by Thursday evening, all going well.

Other lovely stuff:

I got my goodies in the post from the Scrappy Pincushion Swap I was participating in on Flickr and was totally thrilled with them!

I also signed up for the SewSara Scrap Swap which I'm looking forward to!

Stalled:

I have some taggies hanging around waiting for names to be hand embroidered on them - must move those along.

Otherwise, what started out a dificult week turned out pretty well! Can't wait to see what you're all up to too.

I'll be linking this up with WIP Wednesday and some other great blogs ---->>

 

Lucky me :-)

When I came home from work today, a lovely surprise was waiting for me:

My scrappy pincushion swap goodies had arrived!!! This is the first swap I've participated in and I'm so thrilled with what I got, it really made my day to open this lovely parcel!

Have a look at the fab pincushion Rachel made:

Isn't it sweet? I love flowers, felt and bright colours so this was perfect for me! I just love the effect of the felt on the linen and the stitching is so gorgeous! She also included lots of little goodies for me: some lovely scraps, some pretty ric rac, a scrummy little chocolate bar and these cuter than cute little badges:

I adore these - I've been looking for something to brighten up and customise my sewing machine for a little while now and I'm thinking these might just do the trick!!

Check out Rachel's lovely blog: http://contented.typepad.co.uk/

Thanks so much Rachel!



Real life and mug rugs!

There has been very little crafting done in the FairyFace household this week. After finishing the PictureBox quilt I found myself somewhat mentally exhausted from big projects and decided to take a little break for a night or two. But then real life, in the form of my job, rudely interrupted my sewing plans for the week, and suddenly I found myself here this weekend with barely a stitch sewn! It's been truely, exhaustingly busy in work this week; I had a massive deadline to meet for Friday and it took a lot of hours and every last ounce of energy I had to get there. I was completely incapable of even doing some handsewing in the evenings when I got home.

I felt like I barely saw the kids or Himself all week too, so when I finally got home on Friday night, I spent a nice evening on the sofa enjoying my lovey hubbie's company and spent all day yesterday doing things with the kids. We went to Fitzgerald's park - a lovely big park with a great playground - in the city, and then I treated us to pizza in Milanos for lunch, the kids favourites. We have eaten out very very rarely in the last number of months, so it was a real treat. We then went and bought E her long promised big girl's bed, a real milestone! Its all made up today and ready for her first big sleep in it tonight.

All the time supervising colouring/drawing/painting this weekend gave me a little time to sketch out some designs for blankets and quilts, which are still very much work in progress but getting there. I also made some progress writing up my tute for the PictureBox quilt but its not finished yet unfortunately!

Seeing as I'm spending so much time in work these days (that's not looking set to change in the short term either) and I wanted a quick and easy little project to make me feel I'd achieved something, I took some inspiration from my friend Fi and made my first mug rug. I'm going to bring it in to work to brighten up my desk :-) I wanted to try out some free motion quilting, as I'm determined my next quilt will be quilted like this, so this was a perfect size project to get in some practice.

I cut some 3" strips of fabric, then piled them on top of each other (the alternate ones upside down) and ironed them together and cut them into a simple wedge shape, all at once. Once I had them sewn together, I trimmed it into a 7" square. I picked a totally different cupcake fabric for the back, to make it reversible, but actually I'm not sure I really like it now its done!

I got out the free motion foot and off I went. I found it a little tricky and the stitching is quite uneven but I got the hang of moving the fabric around to get the quilting line to flow, so next time I'll focus more on the stitches. I also decided to handsew the binding onto the back to finish (I normally machine sew my bindings) and discovered that I much prefer the look of a machine sewn binding to a "proper" hand-finished binding. Glad I figured that one out on a small project, rather than spending all that time doing a big quilt to discover it!!

Free motion quilters, I have a question: - do you set your stitch length to 0 and control your own stitch length or do you let the machine do its thing and set it to 4 or 6 or whatever? And do you have any tips for a beginner?

And - to all the other mammies out there who craft and look after a family and even hold down a job too - any tips for managing it all? Sometimes, it just gets overwhelming, doesn't it?

I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory, Stitchin' Weekend on That Girl, That Quilt and some other great blogs; check out the links on my sidebar!!

Blog Awards!

I was really thrilled to be tagged twice this week by two extremely talented ladies, Sheila of Bluepatch Quilter and Noga of Noga Quilts for the Liebster Blog Award



Thanks so much ladies! To accept the award I am to do the following:

1) If you are tagged, and you want to accept, then create a post on your blog and add the leibster blog pic.
2) Link back to the person who gave you the award and say if you accept.
3) Choose 3-5 of your favourite blogs to tag, link these in your post too and tell the lucky people they have been tagged.

The aim of this award is to bring unknown good blogs to light, (less than 50 Followers is ideal), therefore, please don't tag somebody with 3000 followers!

So, here goes - some great, maybe not so well known blogs that are really worth checking out:

1.     Patchwork Delights: I love Fiona's style, she comes up with fab ideas, sews beautifully (I love her little mug rugs!) and even though I've never met her, I feel like I know her, we've had lots of crafty link ups and chats through our blogs and she's been so generous in sharing information and advice!

2.     Lisnaweary Quilts:  Gorgeous quilts, tutorials - most recently on Moda Bake Shop with her fab quilt -  and a lovely interesting blog about quilting and life in general which I really enjoy reading :-)

3.    The Mom Blogs: My friend Lory, a published author and feature writer, blogs about the fun and challenges of being a mom of 2 small boys in rural Ireland. I have lots of "me too" moments when I'm reading her posts and sometimes I even feature in them!

4.   Sticks and Bubbles: I found Diana's blog through her comments on some of my posts and I love reading it - her voice is so distinct, her projects are stunning and she makes me laugh :-)

So, go check them out! You won't  regret it!