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!

Friday night block party. We know good times, around here.

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Two quilts, quilted. Binding tomorrow. And now, a spot of tea.

It's the summer holidays, and if sewing time is hard to come by, blogging time has entirely disappeared - by the time Trainboy is in bed I can barely string a sentence together.  But I am here, I am here at last, and after a full day of sewing, too:



These two are quilt tops that have languished in a to-be-finished pile for many months.  When the Husband decided to go off for a weekend (riding bikes, naturally), he very decently arranged for Grandma & Grandad to take Trainboy off my hands for a night while he was away, and I set to with the sewing machine pretty much as soon as I'd waved them goodbye.  After roughly 7 hours of sewing, these two now only need binding and they're done!

The one on the left is quite small, but the pink one is single-bed sized.  I've backed it with a thrifted wool blanket, too, so we'll see how that looks after washing - I'm quite intrigued to find out.

I also managed to finish off the quilt that was giving me such headaches in the previous post, and the recipient loved it, which is deeply satisfying.  I was pleased with it in the end, I admit, although it was only finished in the very nick of time, and I forgot to take a photo before it left...

...yes, I am definitely the worst blogger.  Ah well!  

Happiness is a perfectly-nested seam...

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Ohh I just don't know anymore...

This one's a commission that needs to be finished by 2nd August and I am  JUST.  SO.  NOT.  FEELING.  IT.

Firstly, the person who requested it saw a nautical sort of one I'd done and said "one like that, please!" which is awkward, since I don't really like repeating myself, but I agreed, and she said she wanted me to incorporate some of the little boy's old clothes into the pattern, so I said of course, but please make sure they are cotton and not jersey.  Naturally she brought me a pile of polo shirts.  Ah well, you can always iron on a bit of interfacing, so I did, and then I had to work out how to work the green and yellow shirts into a red, white and blue colour scheme.

I decided to get into some of my best remnants to try to gee myself up a bit about it, so there's some lovely white stars on blue, and some from the quilt I made my son when he was two, and even the very last bits of my Cath Kidston cowboys.  I'm not sure about the colour balance of the layout yet, but I can have a fiddle with it tomorrow and with any luck I can get it sewn up by the end of the week.

But then, I've said that before...  yipes.  Wish me luck.