Easter Sunday Stash

Happy Easter everyone!

I'm feeling a lot better today so fingers crossed it was just a 24 hour bug, thank you for the get well wishes.

I found an unexpected package in my postbox today, which must have been delivered yesterday afternoon at second post - which I didn't think even existed anymore!

 

I love these measuring tape fabrics and grabbed the 3 colours I could find as a bargain on ebay.



No sewing today as there has been a lot of this

And this

And eating a very large roast dinner with family - I was starving as I hadn't eaten for 2 days!

I hope you're all having fun and enjoying the beginning of British Summertime - which seems like a bit of a joke seeing as we don't seem to have had spring yet!

xxx

Linking up with Sunday Stash @ Finding Fifth

Hand quilting - a first.

Happy Easter weekend everyone!

Unfortunately I've been struck down with a horrible sicky bug, so I'm curled up in the chair with my sampler Quillow. You can see the original quilt finish post here. The way in which the Quillow is constructed means that one of the cushion panels gets left unquilted when using a sewing machine as I did, which on my last quillow I just left, but today I grabbed the orange variegated Pearl cotton thread and started to sew.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, considering my hand sewing is really atrocious! I'm naturally a lefty but when it comes to some things, including ironing and sewing, my brain just can't decide which hand to use, so it was done with a bit of both!

The dog has obviously been laying on the quilt, it definitely needs a wash now and I didn't want to attempt the hand quilting after it had gone all crinkly.

So now this quilt is really finished and I'm off to have a chicken cuppa soup... Have fun and eat loads of chocolate! Xx


Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Richard & Tanya Quilts & Fresh Sewing Day.

Eggs in Progress Wednesday

Well the Easter holidays have arrived, the kids broke up from school today and my nan arrived for a long weekend stay.

The boys had been quite crafty at school today and wanted to continue making things at home so out came the scraps and we made some fabric eggs using this tutorial. Their little fingers are great for stuffing!

Don't those little chickens look cute!  We got a bit carried away and I forgot to put the dinner on so we ate a little late this evening but it happens right?

I have a large vase on my dining table which usually has pot pourri in it, at Christmas we filled it with baubles so in go the eggs!

Nan and I have made a few more this evening so it's pretty full now.

Is anyone else making something for Easter?

Linking up with these parties:
WIP Wednesday
Whatever Goes Wednesday
Really Random Thursday

Tester Block

After searching around for layer cake quilts yesterday and seeing these two quilts on the Moda Bake Shop site here and here, I decided to make a tester block.

My brain is fried at the moment and I just needed something physical and tangible to see and hang up before I made my decision.  I dug out some ugly brown fabric from the scrap box and came up with this 12.5" block.  The larger sqaures represent quarters of my 10" layer cake squares.

I don't think I want to chop my lovely fabric this small, maybe just into halves or quarters for the busier patterns and I'll leave the lovely animal prints whole.  Another issue I have is that my layer cake only has 16 squares, I won it in a giveaway, the layer cake quilts I've seen seem to have way more squares, so perhaps I have half a cake!  This means I'll have to think about stretching it out, make it go further...  Should I introduce some squares of solids in coordinating colours or dip into another fabric line and mix it up?

I have these bee & butterfly prints in my stash, the lighter ones coordinate well but i'm not sure about the darker ones (although they do look darker in the photo than in the flesh).

Now what should I do with this ugly tester block? Do you make tester blocks? What do you do with them afterwards?

Linking up with the Anything Goes party, Fabric Tuesday & Freemotion by the River.

Sunday Stash & Decisions

To be honest there is not much stashing going on, I have fabrics piled up waiting to be cut for several projects but whilst out getting more Minky so that I can make lots of these little baby blankies ...

... I picked up these 2 FQ's.

I've been waiting to get my hands on some bug jars for ages, I have 2 boys so fabrics like this are perfect for them, and the keyboard print was just too irresistible! It has lots of texting abbreviations on each key like;
T+ think positive and
Zup what's up?
So it is in fact educational!!! Lol!

The making of many Minky blankies means no quilting this week, I just can't decide which quilt to start next and I still am not in the mood for the Super Mario blocks...
The planned HST's and garden fence blocks both require me to order some Kona snow and although I'm dying to make a spring quilt with this gorgeous Laurie Wisbrun Modern Whimsy layer cake I just can't settle on a quilt design to make the most of it. Does anyone have any ideas?  Have you made a quilt from a layer cake? 

I  just love the lambs, swans and bunnies and really don't want to chop them too small...

Linking up with Sunday Stash at Finding Fifth and the Lets Get Acquainted linky party over at Simply Miss Leulla

Meet my Machines

Stacey over at The Tilted Quilt and Erin from Sew at Home Mummy have teamed up to bring us the Meet My Machine blog hop.  For a whole week some fabulous quilters are going to share all of the details about their sewing machines and Stacey is also hosting a linky party so that we can share a post about our machines too.



So here are mine.

For Christmas 2010 my hubby got me this beautiful old Singer machine from ebay.  It dates back to 1895!  Sadly separated from it's original table and put on this wooden plinth in the 1940-50's.



We researched the type of table it should have been on and this is the picture we found.


And then several months later look what I found at a car boot sale!  It's morbidly but aptly called a coffin top.



I have a treadle in my conservatory that dates back to around the same time, but it has a marble top not the original wooden table top, maybe one day I'll find a way of uniting the three pieces - you never know.  In the meantime the machine nestles in the dining room windowsill so that it is out of the way of prying little people, but it also gives me a focus in the window other than my neighbours fence which is the only view out of that particular window!

That same Christmas night in the evening when we were all sitting around discussing sewing, or rather learning to, hubby gave me his credit card and told me to get online and order a brand new machine so that I could have a machine with a manual and learn to sew properly! What a gem he is!  Not knowing I was heading for quilting I purchased this Toyota machine which has lots of stitch options that I'll probably never use, but it did come with a quarter inch piecing foot and I was also able to purchase a Toyota walking foot aswell.  She serves me well.


Back in May 2011 my friends mum was kind enough to let me give this little beauty a new home.


It works, came with spare belts and has a cute little extending leaf on the end.  The tabletop flips over leaving the machine kind of tucked underneath and a flat surface on the top.  The wood needs a little TLC, it has obviously been well used and could do with rubbing down and revarnishing.

 

Right now the machine part is folded away and the tabletop is covered in storage boxes full of fabric so we can't even see the poor thing at the moment...

And if I could buy any machine I wanted?  Well I saw this little cutie in one of the other ladies sewing rooms and had to google it. 



Designed by a Quilter, for Quilters the HQ Sweet Sixteen Sit-Down Quilting Machine is a high-functioning long-arm system designed to provide a professional machine for the home studio. It is a straight-stitch machine for free-motion quilting, but can also be used for free-motion embroidery.

It sounds fabulous right?!?

Thanks for letting me share my machines and their stories with you.

Happy Sewing :o)

Fluffgate

After two quilts, several minky ribbon blankies and 7 Super Mario quilt blocks I figured it was time to give the little lady some TLC.

It's a bit fluffy under there but not too bad. Who out there saw Susan's picture yesterday? Go on, have a look under your plate...

 

Happy Monday! xx

So happy with myself right now!

My Central Park Sampler Quilt is finished! *happy dance*

 

You know me, i'm a plodder, quilt finishes aren't a weekly or even monthly occurrence, and these blocks have been hanging around my dining room walls for what seems like forever, so it's great to see them where they were destined to be.

After making the first block back in June 2011 when I joined Leila's Skills Builder Sampler QAL and then picking out blocks from other sampler QAL's and from around the blogosphere I finally had the number I needed.

This quilt has been a bit of a journey, some of the earlier blocks were a little baggy and undersized which reflects my quilting ability at the time and rather than redo them I decided to work with it and size them up so that they are a reminder of how far I've come, see the thin white inserts on the blocks above and below. Cheesy I know but this quilt was about learning, practising, and honing the skills and I think it has achieved that!

After making Bella's Quillow I knew I wanted to make a couple to double up as cushions for our sofa, so that's exactly what I did, and why I needed those last 2 extra blocks!

I chose my favourite blocks for the outer visible cushion sides, the granny block which was a bit small got sized up with these trees - this print makes me so happy! Is there a fabric that makes you happy just to look at it?

I used my bargain £2.25 red oversized check duvet cover from Asda for the backing, and the great thing is that I still have half of it left to utilise again another day!

As previously encountered with making quillows as per this tutorial I found that less is more where the quilting is concerned, so I have very simply highlighted some of the square and triangle designs in the blocks.

This quilt also represented a first in spray basting for me, the contruction is such that you baste the quilt top to the batting and then place the quilt back right side down over the quilt top and sew nearly all the way around the edges and then turn it through (no binding! yay!) so pinning is a pain because they all end up on the inside!  I was nervous of ruining my lovely fabrics or gumming up my needle but it worked pretty well and I only used 1 can!

The quilt measures 43"x57" and folded into the Quillow it is 16" square.

And now while it's washing and crinkling I shall be offering some well earned TLC to my machine; clean, oil, new needle, replace that rotary blade and then onto another project from the WIP pile or something new? :-)

I'm showing off at the following linky parties:
Link a finish Friday
Can I get a whoop whoop
Lets Get Acquainted
Fabric Tuesday
Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Create & Share - The Trendy Treehouse
Made By Me at Jaqs Studio
We Did It! Wednesday at Sew Much Ado

P.S. If you'd like to follow me in more of a pictorial way with less of the rambling you can also find me on Facebook, my page is Quilty Creations and on Instagram as Kazwee
Thanks :-)

Sashing In Progress Wednesday

I'm making it my March Mission to finish my Central Park Sampler Quilt. I looked back through my old blog posts to see when I started this and it was way back in June 2011 when I joined up for Leila's Skill Builder Sampler QAL, so it way beyond the time it should be finished!

 

Today I've been squaring up blocks and sashing, and have 9 blocks joined together so far. The boys have after-school clubs tomorrow and Friday afternoons, so that's extra sewing time I'm allocating myself!

Super Mario Quilt:
I have taken delivery of the green solids I needed and have drawn out 3 green-ish coloured blocks but just can't face all the 1.5" pieces right now so it'll be on hold until I finish the sampler quilt I think.
So far I've made 7 of the required 14 blocks.

Stats:
No progress this week year on the;
Solids HST Diamond Quilt - needs re-basting as I've changed my mind about the backing fabric!
Black and White King Size Bed Quilt - completed quilt top, partial quilt back
Dresden Plate - partial quilt top
Kaleidoscope - one block made, lots of cut pieces in a drawer!
Kids T-shirt Memory Quilt - some t shirts cut....

Finishes this week: 0
New Projects this week: 0
In Progress: 7

I'm linking up with Lee over at Freshly Pieced for todays post and Quiltsy.

A couple more...

...Sampler blocks.

This is the Flying Geese pinwheel Block and the tutorial can be found over at Sew Happy Geek (here).

And this block, which I don't know the name of, has become one of my favourites overall.  The  tutorial can be found as part of the In Color Order HST Block of the Month QAL here.

Although it was bitterly cold today, the sun was at least shining so I popped outside for a photo for a change :)

I've been squaring up my blocks and have found that a couple are coming up short of the required 12.5" - humph!

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story

Monday Stash

Too late for the Sunday Stash Report, so here is a little Monday Stash instead.

I got a little parcel! And I haven't had one for soooo long - you know how it is, so much fabric just sitting there combined with no £ in the purse means Karen has to quilt with what she has rather than buy more! Don't get me wrong, I have loads of fabric here and projects in mind but I was used to getting little parcels twice a week! Naughty girl!

The green solids are for my Super Mario quilt and there were a couple of floral squares thrown in for good measure but what I really want to show you is the camera fabric - how fabulous is that! I wish I had more money so that I could buy enough to back a whole quilt in it, but this little FQ will do for now!

It's called Pepper Cameras and I got it from Quilt Me Happy.

Whilst we're talking about ordering fabric, what is the limit for ordering from the states these days before the import tax kicks in? I've seen this new line called Geekly Chic and I may just have to save my pennies and get some!

Also, whilst I'm being all good and frugal I got these fab duvet covers from Asda, the red and white was reduced to £2.25! And the two double sized blue stripey ones were reduced to £4.75! They are going to come in so handy for backing my sampler quilt and the Mario quilt.

Sorry I wasn't able to rotate the picture...

Nothing is ever easy

Oh dear, I cut, I pieced, I pressed, I hung it up to admire... Whoops

The aqua squares are supposed to fill in the opposite spaces to the pink ones so that the negative spaces aren't next to each other. What was I thinking?  Obviously I wasn't thinking at all, just sewing. Well I'm not unpicking it again!

So this block takes me to 12/12 but I have seen a couple more sampler blocks that I'd like to make so perhaps a pieced back with a couple more blocks is in order!

Here is a slightly brighter picture than yesterday's attempt, although it still seems a bit blurry.

Therapy

I've been feeling very stressed out the past few days, what with a 5 year old acting out and the bathroom overhaul experiencing a few delays (hopefully it will be finished on Wednesday) - the dust from plastering and tile cutting gets EVERYWHERE!!! Here's a preview of the shower area.

I made another block for my Central Park Sampler Quilt, this one is a QST Pinwheel and comes from the Sew Happy Geek Mixed Sampler QAL, the tutorial for the block can be found here. This block takes me to 11/12 blocks.
 

I have a 9 patch block that I made eons ago which I'm not happy with, I was going to just throw it in the scrap bin but then I thought that a bit of quiet time with the unpicker could be just the therapy I need... So here comes a redo and hopefully block No 12!

And here are all the blocks hung on my dining room wall, it's a grey old day and as usual my photography skills and lighting are terrible, but you get the gist...

Linking up with The Lets Get Acquainted Link Up over at Plum and June