Skill Builder Sampler Quilt Along

A pictorial update.

36 blocks. Deciding on layout. No floor space big enough.

Backing and sashing and binding! Oh my!

The back. 2 blocks that didn't make it into the front started off this giant free form log cabin.

Joined. Sashed. Bordered. Ready to be basted.

Basting...

..basting. I am getting quite efficient at basting. This is a great big quilt; 90" x 90" and it took me just over an hour from start to finish!

Ready to be quilted. Yay! I am THRILLED with it so far!

Butterfly = Vanessa

My sewing machine broke. E1 error. Won't do anything. Broken. I will have to take her to the Janome doctor. There are definitely pluses that come with all the bells and whistles of modern computery technology. One of the minuses is that when the computer says 'broken', it's broken. It broke down 2 seams into the 36th and final block of the Skill Builder Sampler quilt along that I've been participating in for the last year. Not to be defeated by a trifle such as a broken machine I decided to piece the block by hand.
I present block #36 - Butterfly. My name is the Greek for butterfly apparently, I have known this forever. I don't know if it  translates literally or what but I run with it.

I initially used the brownish strip (from one of the soul blossoms fabrics) for the butterfly body but after setting it out above it just felt bleh. Not enough contrast perhaps? Just bleh!

So I speedily whipped out some navy from the new Lark line and felt much happier.

After my machine went clunk and stopped I hand stitched all the seams. After marking the pieces with 1/4" lines to sew along. It took a long time. This block has it all; curves, inset seams and lots of pieces.

Ta da! My butterfly. Now to get the blocks sorted out and stitched together...

Below are some snaps of the baby quilt I've been working on. It's all finished and ready to be gifted. Bright!

Personalise label.

I do love me a stripey binding.

I did inside-outy seams to give the quilt a bit of texture. I'm not sure how it'll hold up over time but it was a good experiment as I will see the Mama and Dada and they can let me know how it's going.

The shirtings quilt is all quilted and awaiting binding. I like it but don't love it. I do like the softness of it and I especially like...

...this panel on the back. I picked up ages ago just cos I liked it. It makes this quilt kinda reversible. It's a snuggly couchy size quilt. It really needs to be washed to close up all the holes from the original terrible machine quilting and the blood I somehow got on it while I was quilting away.

One more thing before I contemplate my SBS quilt blocks. Anna Maria Horner has a new line coming out Field Study, it looks amazing. I haven't really got on the AMH wagon per se but I can see myself becoming a huge fan.

Catching up on...

...sleep and craft. We are just back from a one month family holiday in the UK. We visited the mister's family in south-west England and took some time out to visit a remote island off the west coast of Scotland - South Uist. It was a marvellous, action packed and emotional time. It may be obvious but England is very, very, very far from Australia. I did the flight on my own a few years ago. Completely different with a super active almost 2 year old. Sheesh, that 30 hours traveling time seemed a lifetime!We all coped quite well with the jetlag on arrival, adjusting within a few days.

Not so on the return. My little monkey's body clock was completely out of whack. Day time at night time.He really wasn't in any time zone that we could work out. We had a week of nocturnal play time. As hubby returned to work this week I was flying solo. Finally, after a week of minuscule sleep and a sick toddler we seem to be getting on top of things once more.

One upside to being awake all hours is I got the chance to catch up on my QAL blocks albeit in a piecemeal fashion. Despite not really gaining any momentum I managed to get all 4 of the blocks done AND design and execute a baby quilt for the newest addition to our island community. Without further ado, here is my weeks work.

SBS QAL block #33 - mini lone star, This was an exercise in itty bitty diamonds and inset seams. I really love it and it wasn't all that hard. I started this at about 4am one morning I was up with my monkey. Note - it DOES matter which way you cut the strips once they're sewn together. It took me AGES to work out what I had done wrong. Being sleepy turned what should have been a relatively simple block into a headache that I had to keep coming back to. A lone star quilt just might go on my LIST.

SBS QAL block #34 - Feathered star. I made this block BEFORE Leila posted the paper piecing option. Doh!! It took me days and days. I just couldn't get going with this block and ended up unpicking many, many tiny seams. The even ittier bittier diamonds in this block were my greatest challenge. I was amazed (happily) that this block turned out as well as it did. Phew! If i was to consider (crazy lady!!!) making more of these blocks I would be sorely tempted to english paper piece them to achieve the precision this block requires.

Oh, curves, how I've missed thee. Perhaps I'm just weird but I enjoy piecing curves, something hugely satisfying in the pinning and the 3Dness of it all, then et volia! It all lays flat and looks...curvy. This is the makings of my NY beauty block.

SBS QAL block #35 - New York Beauty. We had a few options to choose from this week. I chose to do this mainly because I can't remember my PayPal password and the Surveyors Compass templates had to be purchased through PayPal. So, NY beauty it was. I used Jeni's tutorial from In Color Order - another favourite blog. I love this block! It looks impossible but was really quite simple - more reason to love this block. The only teensy tiny drawback is that it finishes at 8.5" soooooooo....do I make 3 more and have a mega-NY Beauty OR just add a border and bring it up to size OR leave as is and incorporate it into the quilt back? I think I'll decide after laying out all my blocks.

HST QAL - June block. I'm not going to say any more than that.

HST QAL - Januray - June blocks together. Looking good.

In all the jet lag fug of this last week I managed to get myself to my local quilt shop to stock up on some bright and cheerful fabrics to make a quilt for a new little boy in our community - Caleb. He is the son of one of the mister's closest mates and it was super fun to come up with this little quilt. I designed (hehehehe, designed a strip quilt), cut out, stitched, basted and quilted this puppy all in the dark hours while I kept my mischievous monkey company.

Here is a sneaky peek. It is now bound, washed and drying beneath our air con. I will take more pics today before gifting it tomorrow.

I have almost finished hand quilting the shirt quilt too. I unpicked - took 5 hours in the wee hours - all of the machine quilting as I was very unhappy with it. Pics to come.

Now to block #36 of the SBS QAL. The last one. My Mum is still quilting along too. I will try and get some photos of her quilt to post as well.

Have a super weekend. x x

Mothers Day sewing

I made my Mama a cushion for Mothers Day. She loves stars and bright colours so I dipped into my bag of tricks and went with a warm/cool theme. The soft, pretty look came about more or less by accident but I really like it. And she does too. I used this template . The block finished a bit small for my cushion so I just added a border. I really should think about these things before hitting print and cutting up all my fabric.
 

I thought this block might be a little more complex than any paper piecing I have done to date. I was right. It took me the best part of a day, coming and going, sewing and undoing. Below you can see the fallout from some frustrated and over zealous trimming. I didn't realise this until the whole thing was sewn up and I had started to hand quilt it...and it pulled apart. Nothing a bit of the old zig zag couldn't fix. As you can see in the above photo it doesn't detract too much from the overall effect.

It is backed with an old sheet and a piece of this cute DS quilts print. I use old sheets as I don't need to hem them and they tend to be quite sturdy.

This is block #32 of the Skill Builder Sampler QAL. I am up to date and still going strong. There are just 4 blocks to go and it should finish in 5 weeks. We (hubby, bubby and I) are headed for the UK on Wednesday for a whole month of holidaying and visiting with family (hubby's, not mine, I am a dinky di Aussie). I will have plenty to catch up when we get back as well as all the washing and cleaning. My Mum has been quilting along, I send her the tutorials each week and she's almost up to date too. I hope to be able to post her blocks and a finished quilt along with mine.

For Mother's Day my little boy shouted me the Wiksten Tova pattern and some fabric to make a couple up.

For my first attempt I used this gorgeous, hard to photograph, Kaffe Fassett shot cotton. It's a blue and brown and I love it. The overall effect is a grey but it just looks muddy in this picture doesn't it? It's the most amazing fabric in the sunlight. I made it on Thursday and have worn it twice already.
I must admit to being a little stumped about the pivot and sew method for getting the inset in. I really struggled and sewed the inset to all sorts of wrong bits, not to mention just plain old catching extra fabric in the seam. In the end I did three separate, careful, seams and it sits perfectly.

Tova #2, Amy Butler Lark. I made this on Friday and wore it to lunch with my husband (another Mother's Day pressie, aren't I lucky?). I love it! This fabric is TO.DIE.FOR. I want want want the whole collection just so I can have it folded and I can touch it occasionally.

Tova #3, the shirt version. This is a tiny black and white gingham I've had forever. I did all the top stitching in a hot pink thread for a bit of interest and contrast. I am going to wear it today. I finished the top stitching this morning as I was up at 330 with my restless toddler. He seems to be either already jetlagged OR already on UK time. Who knows?

Tova #3 detail. I had a bit more drama with the inset for this shirt. This fabric is a little stiffer than the previous two I'd made. I think it's wearable, I can't see any big problems in these photos. I think I'd like one of these in a voile, all floaty and pretty.
The dress/shirt takes me about three and half hours from start to finish. With a toddler that translates into pretty much all day, and some of the night too.

On quilting news, I have hit a snag. I made up a quilt using the shirtings from a previous post, just a plain old patchwork squares. I decided to machine quilt it and be done with it in a day or two.It was the first time I have attempted to machine quilt anything bigger than a cushion cover with my new-old Janome (which is a special quilting machine, by the way). It was going quite well until I got about a third of the way through then the tension went haywire, the thread kept breaking and the stitches were miniscule and ugly. I have given up and will hand quilt it AND unpick all the machine quilting I have done. I really need to practice my machine quilting and get to know my machine a bit better. I feel like I've been posting a lot of mistakes recently. Honest. And hopeless.

Keep on making things, keep on making things...

I have been a busy girl. Below is the stack of men's shirts I picked up to recycle.

I spent several hours cutting them into usable pieces, a very satisfying task!

A neater stack, nice and soft. A real departure from my recent bright forays. I have chopped them into smaller squares and have begun to stitch them together into rows to make a very simple patchwork throw. So far I have only used the front panels, leaving sleeves and the large back pieces for another day.

In Color Order HST QAL, this is Mays block. I pressed the seams OPEN on my HSTs for the first time. And what do you know? The block lies flatter. It takes a little more time but I think it's better overall. I just might be converted.

A little rainbow pouch to be posted to my little sister for her birthday this week. It will accompany a much larger gift which is to be hand delivered by my Mum ( is it crazy that I don't trust Australia Post with my quilts?)

And this is the finished product. It is the Fenced In pattern from The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartmann. The pattern came together really quickly. I added some extra borders to give it some real drop on a big queen sized bed.

Some detail - so many super vibrant, busy fabrics in this quilt. It was tough to part with it although I am a little tired of my brights and am looking forward to working with the more subdued palette of blues and shirtings above.

Border and binding detail. Nothing really 'matches' in this quilt but it works for me. I used that Heather Bailey Peony print primarily because I had enough of it, I like the splashes of red. The binding is an awesome herringbone strip in pink. I even took the time to match up the stripes when I made the binding.

Another cushion. Just scraps, this one is more about the quilting design than the piecing and fabrics. I marked diagonal lines after squaring it up, quilted 1/2'' either side of the line in each quadrant in the V shape, then at 1" intervals to create the overall design. Effective!

Last but certainly not least my block #31 for the SBS QAL - Cactus Flower. This block introduced me to inset seams. The instructions on first reading seemed intimidating but once I got down to it it was actually OK. I love how spiky it is.

Have a great week.

Imperfections

I love this blog (& this pillow especially) and read it regularly, Svetlana's style and use of colour really speaks to me. I was hitting a wall with the hand quilting on the "fenced in" quilt...too much of the same block and a bit of a sore wrist. I needed a break. I had been thinking about making a(nother) quilted cushion cover, they are such a quick fix. So I followed the links and picked up Tamiko's tutorial with printable template from here. I think I didn't resize it properly 'cos my inside square was the weirdest dimensions. Anyhoo, I stuck with it figuring I'd just fudge it if it wasn't big enough for my 16" cushion.

While paper piecing brings so much joy in the precise points, it creates a lot of chaos and waste. All that paper to be ripped off at the end and I still feel I am wasting fabric with the cut-larger-trim-after strategy.

I am an impatient paper ripper outer, so I thought my unpicker might speed things up a bit. It did. And it ripped through the fabric too. Arrrggggg! I had already put the whole shebang together.

Ooops!

So, I did a fix-it with a teeny tiny zig-zag and a little piece of material for reinforcement. It's a cushion, and it's for my house so no biggy. I think it worked out OK.

Here is the finished product posing nicely. Can't even see the boo boo. The centres are from a FQ of 'dandy kaleidoscope' for Alexander Henry that I got at the quilt show last year. Really had no idea what to do with it when I got it but I loved the big, fat and bright flowers. I thought it'd be perfect for this cushion project.I filled the rest in with scraps of this and that. It is sashed in a light denim/heavy chambray. Weird perhaps but I reckon it works. It's a nice weight. I machine quilted the chambray and then hand quilted the inside of the centre square.

The back is chambray and the envelope close is a smaller version of the fussy cut prints. I am so pleased with how it came out. Even with the little tear.

Oh, and a little off kilter. Imperfections...make me human. I am embracing it, overall this is a great little cushion.

Some more detail. I can't even see the repair job. Glad I didn't unpick the whole thing and do it again which I thought about doing for about......a microsecond.

Lastly, this is morning tea for today. we had some very dear friends come and visit us from the city this morning. Luckily my boy had me up at 445 (am!!!!!) so I was able to bake a batch of almond macaroons and a butter cake with vanilla icing. The kids loved the cake icing on the cake.