A New Start for the New Year!

Look what dropped through my letter box this morning…..millefiori quilts!

This one had totally passed me by until I saw an amazingly beautiful completed quilt which planted a little seed in my mind that has been growing and growing.

‘Should I give it a go I asked myself?’

‘Yes, you should.’ was the answer!!

Might take me a while to get all the stuff together, but can’t wait to start pulling fabrics.

I also managed to finish the meditation cushion that I’ve been making for my friend.

I used these instructions, which I adapted to make it a little prettier and stronger as it would be slightly disruptive if it popped during her teaching!!

I ordered a bag of buckwheat to stuff it with and it was way bigger than expected so will be making more of these..one for myself next I think.

Would like to try and put a zip in next time maybe to allow for topping up, plus a handle.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday.

Journal Quilts – May to August

At the beginning of this year I joined the UK Quilter’s Guild and signed up for the Journal Quilt challenge.

Each month I create a mini quilt that will form part of a collection of 12.

There are obviously many, many things I could have taken my inspiration from, but I have always been a little obsessed with the stuff that surrounds us.

Key points of inspiration:

• wabi sabi
• beauty in the every day
• learning to love my horrible house!

Quite vague …yes, but to be exact this is the teeny tiny details in mundane everyday things. Therefore rather than focussing on distant dreamlands (which are easy to love) I decided to consider the little worlds waiting to be discovered in what may seem quite ugly household features.

This lovely bit of skirting board flipped round with a little imagination became this……

And these poorly photographed mirrored tiles…..

Led to this……

And some sketchbook work

For May to August I wanted to try a bit of applique so added some little dome shapes, which was nice to try.

Thinking of using some EPP for the last ones based on our quite spectactular fireplace that I’m drawn to. Here it is in all its blurry glory!!

Hoping to get started on something sooner rather than later!!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday

Oh Vienna!

Summer seems to have come and gone in a flash!

Can’t say I got much sewing done, but it was nice all the same.

We had an AMAZING trip to Vienna where we:

Ate lots of cake………

Saw some beautiful sights…….

Petal Pillow / Cushion Cubed

Before I went to London for the Quilt Bee meet up I knew I wanted to make something to say ‘thanks’ to the lovely Jen for hosting AND for making me not one, but two pants bags!!

I love a good cushion and had an idea I’d scribbled down on some paper that I thought would be interesting to try. So I set about trying to figure out quite how it would all go together.

I grabbed as many pink and purple (I had the inkling Jen likes pink) fabrics as I could lay my hands on and set about piecing some squares within squares. The idea being that I would make three interlocking squares to go across the cushion.

It wasn’t quite as easy as I expected, but got a lot better once I realised that I couldn’t just make the squares and put them together. There needed to be some planning…….and puzzling.

I finished the top, basted and decided that I didn’t want to go with my natural instinct to straight line quilt it. Instead I was going to try a bit of FMQ as I thought Jen would appreciate that more.

Not something I do very often and not something I know much about!!

To start off I opted for flowers within the blocks, I love the chrysthanthemums (thank you spell check!) so had a go at those first with pale pink. The thing is the pink didn’t quite cut it. Although I had wanted a subtle look, it just didn’t look great so I then tried the risky approach of adding darker petals around the lighter flower.

This went ok, which was lucky!

From there I really didn’t know where to go. It didn’t look right to stick with the flowers as the rest looked a bit bare.

I knew that I could probably spend weeks contemplating the sprial vs the squiggle, the pebble vs the loop and still not get any closer to making a decision. So I just repeated the petal pattern around the squares until it felt right to stop. You may have seen this process on my instagram.

After that I wanted something to break it up a bit but repeat the shape so I used a lighter thread to quilt the lines as you can see here…..

Then I went for a little super small squiggling which I love. I hadn’t tried it this teeny before, but it’s so fun to do and feels lovely!

I added some zig zaggy bias binding and pink elephants on the back and away we go.

It is now in its new home, soon to be moving a little nearer to its place of origin…. I hope it will be happy!!

 Cushion Stats

Pattern: I made it up

Fabrics

• Front: Scrappy – out to sea, briar rose etc
• Background: Metro Living Circles – Robert Kaufman
• Binding: Ziggy – Timeless Treasures
• Back: Elephants – not sure they were one of my first fabric buys

Quilting: FMQ by Me using Aurifil 40wt!

Size:   Around 20″ x 20″ probably. I forgot to measure, but BIG!!

 

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes

And Crazy Mom Quilts!

Strip Bee – the big reveal

Back from a lovely weekend in London.

Peepo!!

You might remember that some time ago, in fact around a year ago I joined a strip bee. Six of us took turns in swapping quilts, each time adding a new strip to someone else’s quilt top.

For me it all kicked off with this strip and grew from there.

This weekend we all met up to return the completed quilt tops to their rightful owners!

It’s amazing how well all the quilt strips co-ordinate with each other. Everyone really considered the original maker and their tastes which has resulted in loads of fantastic quilt tops as you can see………..

The lovely host Jen’s quilt

Jen’s quilt top started off with the centre yellow and pink strip, it kind of reminded me of Fruit Salad sweets! It’s such a lovely bright combo and really reflects Jen’s sunny personality. I love the little economy blocks that Fran added at the bottom reflecting the bigger version throughout, it works really well.

Julie’s Quilt

Julie’s quilt is a massive contrast to Jen’s! She is a big fan of organic fabrics and I know I tried to include a fair number in there…unfortunately this meant I just *had* to buy some new fabrics, shame! Mine was the top strip and I think this was my favourite one to make, maybe because I got to make teeny tiny dividing lines, which for some bizarre reason I really enjoy.

Fran’s Quilt

I loved Fran’s starting strip, stars are always a hit with me and those llamas that Sarah added are just the cutest!

Sarah’s Quilt

Sarah’s quilt is such a pretty colour combination. I love the fabrics she chose for the snowball blocks and they are matched so perfectly throughout by everyone else. Jen’s mugs at the bottom are a really fun addition.

Maria’s Quilt

Maria’s quilt is really quirky and has a great theme starting from her houses and then carried along throughout the blocks. The birds of Julie’s at the top are just beautiful. It’s like a little street scene captured in a quilt…. a real story being told.

My Quilt

With me…..

Without me…..

Finally my quilt which is quite simply AMAZING, I can’t believe how well it has turned out. When I created my starter strip I really didn’t know what was expected, I now realise no one else was expecting my strip!! As soon as I saw a little peak of Sarah’s portholes I knew it was going to be fab and it definitely doesn’t disappoint!!

 The question is now…..how to quilt it?!

Keeping it Simple – June Goals

First things first…….. if any of you read this post you may be wondering whether my sister’s baby arrived…well she did in the early hours of Sunday morning. So now I have a beautiful new niece, yay!

We are going to visit this weekend so I will be taking my quilty goodies with me….quite excited. I’m thinking super cuteness!!

Anyway this month is a bit hectic so I’m not sure it’s wise to set any major goals. We’re pretty much going somewhere every weekend. Plus I am determined to try and make it to the gym at least twice a week (that’s twice as much as usual!) which is going to put the pressure on. Is that wise I ask myself?!

I did draw up a design for a cushion at the weekend AND started making it so I will be listing that as my main goal.

The pattern did take some working out, but I got there in the end. It may get added to the list of things to do for a tutorial that I’ll probably never get round to!

(Not a great idea to photograph on a cream wall!)

I actually used white, yes white as the background which is a rare event round here, but it’s being given away so no fear of getting ruined in our mucky household.

So that’s it, anything else is a bonus. I think I might spend some time working out what to make next, what to buy next and how to go about the next three journal quilts.

Linking up with ALYoF

and WIP Wednesday!

I Spy Baby Quilt – ALYoF May

This month has been spent making things for my soon to be niece.

I did think I might be late with these, but actually it’s the baby that’s late!!

She (not sure of the name yet) was due 2 weeks ago and with a little help will be here in the next couple of days.

Anyway when she does arrive she will have a nice pile of quilty goodies!

I made a couple of burp cloths and a light blanket using a stripy knit and some beautiful double gauze. These feel so soft and really comforting I kind of want to keep one for myself. My daughter will certainly be sad to see them go!!

I also finally plucked up the courage to try Ayumi’s fabric basket and found it was actually quite simple. Going to be making a bigger version of this for myself…something else for the list!

If you remember back to this post you will know that I was also starting an I Spy quilt and that I was undecided on what to do about the background.

Thank you very much for all your comments, I did spend a while considering them …no really I did. But then looking for fabrics and not really finding what I wanted the beautiful Lotta Jansdotter fabric caught my eye.

• First thing I thought was……pattern on pattern could be nice
• Then……………it’s dark so not going to get dirty
• And……….babies like the black and white, so it’s got to be good

That was it, it was in my basket and sold!!

I also went for Lotta on the back too as those little seedlings are just too cute to resist.

I was going to go for a grid pattern for quilting, but after finishing the vertical lines I kind of felt that more of those would look better and give a nicer texture to it so that’s what I did.

My quilting has definitely improved since my earlier attempts, it’s still quite wonky, but the stitches are more even and I wasn’t shouting at the sewing machine quite so much this time. My binding was also much neater which is the biggest cause of stress for me.

I’ve ended up liking this much more than I expected. It started off as a bunch of scraps but has become something so pretty. I hope the new baby enjoys snuggling in or on it.

Quilt Stats

Pattern:  Made up!

Size:  38″ x 42.5″

 Fabrics:

• Les Amis
• Indian Summer
• Out to Sea
• Wee Wander
• Sketch
• Briar Rose

Sashing and Backing Fabric: Sylvia- Lotta Jansdotter

Binding: Kona Solids – Cypress

Quilting: Machine quilted by me!

Linking up with ALYoF

It’s A Cinch Tote Bag!

So I finished this a while ago and put a pic on instagram, but am just catching up on the blog!

Way back when I won a quilty voucher for Pink Chalk Fabrics, it was a happy day!

I had been wanting to make myself a new bag for a while so I invested in some beautiful Lisa Congdon fabric. Then set about searching for something suitable.

The bag had to be:

• Big but not too big
• An over the shoulder style
• Zip up-able
• Able to frame the fabric
• And…a little bit of a challenge

I found this in the It’s A Cinch Tote from Uhandbag.

I must say that I definitely found it a challenge, mainly because I kept making stupid mistakes or didn’t have the right stuff.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – City Sampler!

100 blocks,

almost 365 days,

at least 20 posts…..

And finally the City Sampler is here!

Actually it was finished ages ago, but I got waylaid by the photography side of things.

Really though it seems to have been perfectly timed for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival, yay!! Last time I didn’t have the confidence to put anything on show, but I did have fun visiting everyone else’s beautiful quilts so I decided this time why not enter.

And that’s what I’m doing with my biggest quilt so far and possibly, most probably, my last……unless I sort out my sewing space!!

May Goals – I Spy Baby Quilt

I’m getting on with my goals again. Or rather blogging about them, I have actually completed what I said I would I’ve just not written about it.

This month my goal is very simple:

• Make a floor mat/quilt for my sister’s baby which is due in 2 weeks – eek!

When deciding what to make I knew it had to by fairly simple (my sister likes simple), cute and colourful. No white!

She has been told it’s definitely, definitely a girl so I think I’m pretty safe picking these colours.

One thing I really love is a good novelty fabric. I can while away many an hour sat on my Bloom Bloom Pow spotting all the goings on in the little scenes.

Because of this an I-Spy stylee instantly came to mind as it’s perfect for showing off some cute pics.

I’m not sure whether to include the two fabrics above as, although super cute, I don’t know if I should limit the colour scheme a little.

What do you think?

Supposed to be on fabric fast, buuut I might have to buy some more novelties, just maybe!

Any suggestions for a background colour are also welcomed. I’ll probably just go for the usual fallback grey again, but we’ll see!!

 

Linking up with ALYoF

 and WIP Wednesday with Quokka Quilts