Busy as a Bee (sorry)

It's a funny thought but I'm supposed to be moving house on Friday.  We still haven't exchanged contracts but the removal men are booked and what feels like 90% of the house (but is probably nearer 10%) is in boxes in the hall way.  I suppose it's a 50/50 chance at this point...

Anyway, before I could face the horror of packing up my workroom, I knew I had to catch up on a few bits and bats.  For the first time since I joined my two sewing bees, I had COMPLETELY NEGLECTED an entire month.

So, with no further ado, here is my "Squirrel at the Wheel" block for Quiltification (I hadn't realised but judging by that tutorial we appear to share a lot of orange stash):

And my chicken block for Just Jude Designs:

And the last two blocks for my village knitting group's quilt bee, Teresa's Pinwheel and Morning Star II.

Oooh, after the summer "holidays" I've had, I can't lie, it's been lovely to get a bit of a stitch on.  I'll have to start putting it all in boxes tomorrow though.  Wish me luck!

Hobbiton double wedding ring. I may be nuts.

One of the things I do when I'm a bit sad or overwhelmed is disappear into Peter Jackson's films of Tolkein, so recently I've been watching a LOT of the Hobbit.  It's not hard to explain why it's a comfort (provided you don't watch quite to the end).  It's got magic, and swordfights, and several outrageously hot sons of Durin, plus a Bowman, and beautiful scenery, and cosy hobbit smials.

I dunno about you, but I certainly would.

And while I was thinking about Bag End something struck me.  Hobbit architecture is mostly based on circles - rings, if you will.  I've never attempted a Double Wedding Ring quilt but it's been on my bucket list for a while, as I suspect it is for most Quilters.  It's one of those things You Should Do.

What better quilt for snuggling under in my own pseudo-smial than a nice hobbitish double wedding ring?  I dug out all my green and yellow scraps, those being the preferred colours of hobbits according to J.R.R, and got stuck in.  Paper piecing is a very soothing pastime so it's doubly perfect for me right now.



...I am vaguely thinking of piecing in one plain gold ring in the bottom right hand corner.  Is that too geeky?  Oh, who am I kidding.  As if there were any such thing.

Going with Flo

Ta dah!  A quilt top, finished, for Siblings Together.  I learned a fair bit from this one, I think - not least the differences between what "a 1/4" seam" means on various sewing machines.  In retrospect, a block that required precisely matched seams may not have been a sensible choice.

There are, certainly, a few places on the quilt where four blocks meet in perfect synchronicity:

And there are a few places where it looks more like this:

I will admit, my perfectionist heart sank when I started pinning blocks together, and for nearly a whole row I wrestled with trimming and easing and generally tweaking to try to make everything exactly as I had imagined it.  And then I remembered a very wise lady whom I worked with several years ago.  Her name was Tracey, and when things didn't quite turn out as planned, she was often known to say (in her wonderfully soft, soothing voice) "Go with Flo.  She's a good girl, is Flo, she'll see you right."

So I did, and I'm glad of it.  It's a beautiful quilt top, with all the quirks and individualities of the people who made it.  The pattern still shines out just as I hoped it would, and I think the effect is fresh and friendly.  I am hugely grateful to the very skilled and very generous members of the ST2 bee.  And it has the Moosh seal of approval too.

It's also HUGE - that's it spread out over our super-king sized bed - and I've never quilted anything this big before.  There is every chance that I won't finish it before the Siblings Together retreat...  but if I don't, I can comfort myself that I have at least contributed.  A while back I dug a few finished quilt tops out of the midden of my workroom that I'd completely forgotten about (I KNOW) and asked if anyone would be willing to quilt them up for ST2.  The very wonderful Sue stepped up and has finished all three!

This one was a sort of scrappy, inverted Irish Chain quilt that I put all my most cheerful scraps into and then forgot about.

This one has a ton of Denyse Schmidt Shelburne Falls in it.  I was finally making something for ME, and I painstakingly devised a block, then set it on point, and just as I was finishing up the top I realised that there would've been a vastly easier way of creating the same effect without having to deal with a million bias edges.  I promptly fell utterly out of love with it, despite the fabrics.  Whoops.

And this last one is entirely made of Madrona Road, intended as a showcase for the range back when I briefly dabbled in selling fabric.  I still really love this range.

But more to the point, isn't Sue a hero?!  I got to do the fun bit and then she's made them actually useful!  Three cheers for Sue!  Fingers crossed I can quilt up that beast at the top and we'll make it 4 finished quilts for the retreat.  Wish me luck...

Siblings Together II - my block for June!

Is is really June already?!  Apparently so, and now it's my turn to be "Bee Mama" for the Siblings Together II bee that I'm a member of.  I've been pondering my choice of block for a while, and then I saw a quilt on the Moda freebie quilt patterns which gave me an idea.  (Sadly I've since closed the tab in Chrome and for the life of me I can't find it again - oops)

So, for June's block you will need:

9:  5"x5" squares in shades blue, grey, black and white

2: 2"x 14" strips in red

2: 2"x 16" strips in red

I'd prefer to avoid florals, but plains are fine.  Tonal or blender fabrics are ideal!

First job is to sew the squares into a basic nine-patch, nothing fancy.

Now comes the exciting part - for me, anyway.  I don't get out much.  Measure a line across the top row that is 2.25" above the horizontal seam and... SLICE IT.

Do the same for the bottom row.  Remember, 2.25" from the middle row.  You may notice your detached strips will be about 2.5" wide, which is not a mistake!  It will all even up once sewn.

On your cutting table you will now have something like this:

Add in your first set of red strips and trim up the edges if necessary.  Now you have this:

Time for more slicing!  Place your cuts as before - one along the right-hand row at 2.25" from the vertical seam, and the same along the left-hand row.  Again, your detached strips will be 2.5" wide.

Add in the next set of red strips, which will definitely need a little trim.  My finished blocks ended up 15.75" square, which seems a very odd number but there you have it I suppose.  Feel free to press your seams however you like - entirely your choice.

  

They are quite fun to make.  If my bee-mates could manage one I would be very pleased to receive it, and if any of them could stretch to two, that would be even better.  A 3x4 block quilt would be about 45" x 60" which is plenty big enough for the bee requirements.  And don't they look smashing put together?

Have fun, and if you've any questions, please ask!

Bee block for May

This month for my knitting group's quilting bee we're making a Box Kite block.  Yet again I was not especially impressed with the cutting instructions I found on the site we're using to choose our blocks, so I thought I'd have a bash at a quicker method.

The block is basically 2 sets of 4 HSTs and one square.  The blocks we're making are 12.5" square, so I started by cutting one 4.5" square for the middle.  So far, so good.

Then for the HSTs, I used the following method.  I cut a square of white and a square of print at 5.25" and laid them right sides together.  I drew a diagonal line across them with vanishing marker, and sewed .25" on both sides of that line.  Like this:

Then you cut along that line, and fold out your new HSTs.  They'll be a bit too big so you can trim them down to a perfect 4.5" - line up the seam against the 45° line on your quilting ruler to make sure everything's as straightened up as possible.

Two lots of those makes 4 HSTs.  Another two with a different print and you have 8 HSTs as required, so now all you need do is arrange them into rows and sew together to look like this:

Boom!  Looks nice, doesn't it?  We're 5 blocks in so far and some of them have been right buggers; it was about time we got an easy one!

Two finishes in one!

A wee while since, my lovely friend in Amurrika, Lauren, told me that she was going to be an aunty soon and she wanted to commission me to make a baby quilt.  Two baby quilts actually, since her brother and his wife were expecting twins.  

We discussed designs and such - the parents are librarians, so she wanted something that suggested books, and the babies were apparently Very Wriggly, and were referred to as Joey and Roo, so she fancied some kangaroo references too.  Thoughtfully, Lauren also considered that babies are not known for their natural cleanliness, so she asked if it could not have a white backing.  She even posted me a few fabrics to include, so I could get a better idea of a suitable colour palette.  I footled around in photoshop with some pictures from Google images and mocked up the following: 

It was deemed a go-er and so I set to.  Unfortunately, no-one had informed the Babies that I am not the fastest worker and they arrived about a month before I posted these off... they stayed in the NICU for a little while but are home now, and hopefully these quilts will arrive with them shortly.  

Here they are on my bed!

And here are some closeups: Right

...and Left.

The fabrics include some with Dr. Seuss characters and some Hungry Caterpillar fabrics, which I feel are books no baby should be without.  But not all books are storybooks!  My second-favourite part of making this quilt was finding this fabric, featuring cute animals doing SCIENCE.  And even better, several of them are in ladies' clothing:

Science Cat!

Science Dog!

Since the twins are both girls, I don't see any harm in getting the positive role-models in early.  No gender stereotyping here, thank you.

I found the loveliest backing fabric at the wonderful Simply Solids shop, one of my new favourite places in the world.  It is dribbly rainbows that rather nicely complimented the loopy free-hand quilting I wrestled with... not all my stitches are regular, I will admit, but damn it I tried and they definitely improved over the course of both quilts!

Finally, my very favourite part of making these was the applique kangaroos.  Because they mirror each other, like twins!  Two little kangaroo sisters sleeping quietly in their rainbow libraries.  HOW CUTE IS THAT.*

As ever, I am annoyed with myself for not finishing these before the babies arrived, but Lauren has been very understanding.  I hope she'll like them.  :)


 *VERY CUTE.  Do not argue with me on this.

Scrappy hearts!

These are turning out relatively quickly and are a rather fun last-ditch attempt to use up some stash before my Year of Scraps ends.  I like them especially because
a) they use up whites as well, and
b) they use up HSTs.  Ohhh how nice to use up HSTs!  I have stacks, due to my dreadful inability to sew them without also sewing up the little corners before I cut them off and saving them.

I'm being utterly undiscriminating with the scraps I put in, so there's bits of absolutely everything in 'em, and hopefully the white background will maintain some order.  It's really very refreshing, and they don't look too awful so far, do they?  Once I get enough for a quilt top I think I may sash them and turn them into something for Siblings Together or Soy Amado.  

OH LAWKS

Of course, the ridiculous thing is that while I haven't blogged for months, I have been sewing like a mad thing the entire time.

In the spirit of my "use stuff up" project, I've been doing 12.5" quilt-as-you-go blocks for the wonderful Soy Amado project:

And I made some pot-holders for a wonderful friend of mine who got married last week in the US.  I wish I could've been there but from what I've seen it was a fab day and she made a gorgeous bride.

And I've joined a real actual sewing bee!  The Siblings Together Bee (mk 2), where we make 2 x 12.5" blocks per month for a year.  These are November's rainbow coloured slab blocks, although I got a bit carried away and made 3...

I also made a commissioned toddler quilt which I didn't even take a photo of, and half a dozen baby quilts for Project Linus which will go to the Calderdale babies ICU.  I didn't take photos of those either.  I am USELESS!

Worst of all, I've realised I never posted the finished Bear Quilts.  So here they are, two disappearing nine-patch quilts in "Indie Chic" by Riley Blake fabrics and a few stash bits and Kona solids, for a pair of twin boys:

Here's a close-up of the Bear Block at the top of each quilt (based on this block at Quilter's Cache, but tweaked a bit for my purposes):

Each quilt had a little teddybear to go with it, made from a Love Patchwork & Quilting pattern.   Unfortunately the bears had to be posted off before the quilts were finished, so I didn't get a proper photo, but I managed this one while the quilt tops were still on the design wall:

There, that'll do for this post.  Now let's see how long before I post again...

Happiness is a perfectly-nested seam...

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I am the worst blogger!

To be honest I shall probably continue to be the worst blogger, so let's just keep moving forward, eh.

Things have been MADE, and blog posts written (in my head, where it doesn't really count of course...) and the odd photo has been taken.  So today I should like to show you a cushion, which was begun last week and given to its recipient today.  It is a very special cushion nonetheless.


I have teacher friends and relatives and I know there is a wild proliferation of chocolates and mugs at the end of each school year, so I wanted to make something, but really I wanted to make something with Trainboy.  Trainboy, who got a perfect score of "A" for effort in every subject this year... except Design & Technology.  Trainboy had no ideas.  Nor did I.

But then I scored some super-cheap fabric marker pens in TK Maxx and brought them home with a sudden brilliant idea.  I ironed a bit of white cotton, handed the pens to my son, and asked him to draw a train.  Then I suggested we went and chose some fabrics to use for the cushion.  My idea was to put the drawing on one side and a bit of pretty patchwork on the other, so his teacher could use it either way, depending which she preferred.  I mean a teacher probably collects an awful lot of other people's children's artwork...

What co-ordinates with a blue, red and green train?  Why, delicate shades of lime and sage green, and perhaps a bit of neon orange, of course!  And yes, that is some of my precious, precious Denyse Schmidt there.  He's got some taste, at least.  The block is basically "Scots Plaid" from the marvellous 500 Quilt Blocks by Kerry and Lynne.

It was a bit of a challenge but it worked, I think?  I ironed some lightweight stabiliser over the back of each panel, overlocked the inside edges, and put a reasonable zip in the side.  We gave it to Mrs K this morning and she seemed to like it.  She is a really marvellous teacher - I think Wilf and I will both miss her next year!