mathea

Hometown quilt top

2012-01-22T18:45:00.000Z

Wonders never cease to happen - I have spent most of the day at the sewing machine! Apart from stitching umpteen little pieces together for a new quilt, I finally got round to joining the strips of my Hometown quilt with vertical sashing strips.You only get to see a portion of it here, draped over a chair - I need more space and light to take a proper picture. I had originally thought I might piece a backing of some of my precious Hometown yardage, but I just measured a length of IKEA door fabric I have on hand, and it's just big enough for the back, so I think the decision might be made.

Doors might be a fitting theme for a Hometown quilt, don't you think? I'm playing with the idea of quilting it from the back, following the lines of the doors, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll mull it over and get back to piecing the other quilt for now. More about that one next time.

Quiet time

2012-01-15T16:40:00.003Z

I haven't really got round to quilting again since the holidays. It is just too cold and dark in my sewing corner. I might call it something grand like "my studio" or my "sewing room", but it is really just a corner of my bedroom, and by the time I get home from work it is dark and cold and all I want to do is to snuggle up under a quilt in my living room and watch TV. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though - a bit of winter hibernation might be just the thing I need now. And there's always handstitching. I'm working on this pillow right now, and I can't believe how far I've got since I picked it up again on Christmas Day.

I've finished with all the counting bits, so it is just a bit of mindless filling in of the background and then the border - I can't wait to see how it all comes together once the empty space is filled with that soft, buttery yellow. I'll just keep at it until the temperature rises and my quilting mojo returns. I will just take the pillow text to heart: "Life is full of ups and downs, sometimes it feels like a rodeo, the secret is to enjoy the ride"!

---

Edited to add: The design is by the faboulous Emily Peacock - go have a look at her Hug and Kiss pillows as well!

Ah, let the sewing begin!

2012-01-07T14:49:00.001Z

Christmas decorating creates a lot of mess elsewhere when there is little storage space. I place my christmas tree in a corner of the living room where I usually keep a small table with this lamp on. The table serves as a stand for some of my santas in the hallway and the lamp usually ends up on my sewing table along with a lot of other stuff that needs to be put out of the way during the holidays. Today the tree went back to the basement and everything else got put back where it belongs.

I much prefer the view of the sewing machine today. There's still a lot that needs sorting, but right next to the machine: a tempting pile of new fabric which arrived yesterday! I have other projects on the go, and these need a go in the washing machine before I start using them, but the image is a great inspiration to start sewing again after a couple of weeks' rest.

I couldn't resist the typewriter fabric and just had to make sure that I got me some ;-) And why waste the time, effort and postage of ordering just one fabric, so I added a few more... I'm gradually building up my stash of solids, and also found some other inspiration along the way. That pie fabric might look good on an apron perhaps. The film strips are for a special project, but the rest - who knows what they will become? Let the sewing begin!

That was 2011

2011-12-31T16:01:00.000Z

There it is, most of the things I have sewn this year - I have been quite productive, I think!

Thank you for reading in 2011 and

I wish you all a Happy, Creative New Year!

Pencilcase and more

2011-12-31T14:34:00.000Z

I was fascinated by this pencilcase when I spotted it in Stitch Magazine a while ago (last spring I think?), but I never got around to making it. But then my youngest nephew announced that he wanted a cool pencilcase for Christmas, and I dug the pattern out of hiding and had a go. It wasn't too difficult, but a bit fiddly, getting the bottom stitched on in particular.

It has three zippers on the outside, but only one opens all the way down, which is good, I suppose, otherwise all your pencils would keep tumbling out. I struggled a bit with the three tips before I realized that I had to schrunch the zipperends together a bit to make the tips narrow enough to close the case completely, but I got there in the end and the gift was well received. It was not a disadvantage that it was filled with colouring pencils I suppose...

The last of the homemade presents this year was a simple shopping bag made from some lovely Ruby Star Rising fabric and lined with a turquoise paisley. I used box corners to make a flatter bottom and some woven ribbon for the handles. Nice and simple.

I might make more of these in 2012 - they are quite good for presents actually.

Summing up

2011-12-29T11:37:00.001Z

Here I was thinking that I had bought hundreds of yards of fabric during 2011, but when I started looking through my photos, there isn't a terrifying amount of new fabric in my stash. There might be a few more purchases, but the truth is that since my local quilt shop moved away and my shopping went online, I don't buy as much fabric as I used to. Another change I see, is that instead of buying random fabric in colours that match, I now tend to buy groups of fabric from designer lines . That might influence how I plan new quilts as well: there has certainly been more quilts from single lines lately. I need to dip into my older stash and come up with new combinations to keep things exciting. Some of them might not be willing to play with others, though, but then there are always neutral solids. We'll see what 2012 brings...

Runner up

2011-12-26T14:01:00.000Z

Those silly captions - sorry, I just can't resist it... Oh, well, here is the last item to be finished before Christmas, a table runner I made for my cousin. The photo is a bit blurry, but as I have already given it away (of course, it being a xmas pressie and all...) I can't reshoot. Learning how to take better photos might probably be a good new year's resolution...

Anyway, it's made with the disappearing nine-patch technique, but with rectangles instead of squares. I used a group of fabrics I bought to use together in a project, but had forgotten all about until I started going through my "plans" box - my fabric is basically sorted by colour, but there is this one box where I have put groups that go well together and that might be used in a special, unspecified, project one day. It turns out that it is high time I went through it and made some more spesific plans so they get to fulfill their potential - there were lots of lovelies there, and there are more coming in all the time, so I must really make sure I don't forget about those. Well, it's the end of year and time for inventories and new plans, I guess...

Another finish

2011-12-23T23:20:00.000Z

I suppose it is safe to show the pressies here by now - everybody being absorbed in last minute holiday preparations and all. These are placemats for my mother, and are based on that sew-along from sew-mama-sew, though I must admit that I didn't really pay attention to the details. I just looked at the pictures and winged it, I'm afraid. But they turned out quite well, I think.

I'm as ready for the holidays as I will ever be, the brownies and raisin foccacia have been baked, the tree is trimmed and all the decorations are in place. I was thinking this afternoon that I would never manage to finish it all today, but I did as much as need to make things Christmassy. So what of not every corner is tidy and dust free? The main areas are, and it is warm and cosy, and I have enough food to come up with something nice to serve for unespected guests. Like when one of my friends popped in unexpectedly earlier this evening. I was able to drop everything and enjoy a nice long chat. I'm sure it never occured to her to check for dust on the skirting boards and a great time was had by all. And that's the main point about Christmas, really, isn't it?

Oh, and did I mention that the placemats have a fun surprise on the back? IKEA's international Santas.

Curio runner

2011-12-22T21:13:00.000Z

It always happens, doesn't it? You think that christmas is ages away and there is plenty of time for making stuff and preparing for the holidays. Not so. All of a sudden it is upon us and there is a mad rush to get everything done. Almost there now, though, the fridge is groaning with the weight of all the food we have bought. After all the shops will be closed for two whole days, so we need to stock up, right?

The presents are all wrapped and ready, some have been sent off to their recipients or are ready to be distributed. This runner is in one of those parcels, and I can only hope that my friend likes it. I have used some fabrics from the lovely Curio line, some black and white and one that I just have to get more of next year: Kaffe Fassett's Aboriginal Dots in teal. You know that you must, when it almost hurts to cut into it...
There is still some preparations to do, but that can wait until tomorrow, now the candles are lit, the sofa is beckoning and it's time for a nice cuppa...

Boxy but good*

2011-12-08T21:31:00.000Z

-like Volvos?*

Before starting on the Christmas presents I took time out to make something for myself. I always seem to have several knitting and stitching projects on the go. Now I might have spent some time finishing them, but instead I decided it was more fun to sew some box bags to put them in ;-)

I used this tutorial as my starting point, but couldn't resist doing my own thing. First of all I quilted them instead of adding interfacing. My handle is shorter and narrower than in the original and I added binding strips to the seams on the inside, handstitching them closed to make a nice finish and make sure yarn or needles don't get tangled up in fraying raw edges.

Once I had finished the first two, and deciding that they were a bit smaller than I wanted, I had a bit of a rethink, and came up with the solution of adding square end pieces. It was a bit fiddly to sew, but I manged, and I ended up with bags that are just the right size for a couple of balls af yarn and a half finished shawl.

Once all my bags were finished and the UFOs tucked out of the way, I set to work on the Christmas pressies. I'm not overdoing it this year: some placemats and table runners, that's all. More about them during the weekend.

*Quote from the 1990-film Crazy People, starring Dudley Moore - somehow this phrase has just stuck in my mind since way back, kind of like the British "Naughty but nice"-commercial for cream back in the 80s... Now if only I could remember some important stuff ...

Good buys

2011-12-02T22:00:00.002Z

One of the dangers of not having time to sew, is that I get more time to search the net and end up shopping instead. I have been waiting for Lotta Jansdotter's fabric collection since I saw the first glimpse on a blog ages ago, and I couldn't resist buying the full fat quarter selection.

I don't know what it is about this, the retro patterns or the slightly "off " colours - I'm not sure they go with anything in my stash - but I just love them. Now I just need to find a pattern to show them off.

Some lovely Kate Spain and Sandi Henderson fabrics also found ther way into my shopping basket, and I have been sneaking in some solids with every fabric order lately, Raisin and Nightfall from Kona this time.

These three are my favourites from the latest Amy Butler collection. I don't think they will be used together, but I can't wait to play with them - the scale is quite large, and I have great ideas about how to enhance the motives with quilting - such fun!

Henna Garden and retro pillows

2011-11-29T19:29:00.000Z

I have finally pulled myself together and started making stuff again. The work week is still very busy, but I set last weekend aside for sewing, and my, was that great! I let cleaning and baking plans remain just that, plans, and turned the heater on in my bedroom/sewing room and devoted myself to cutting and stitching fabric while the storm raged outside.

I have more to show for my efforts, but I begin with these two pillows. The first one is made from my lovely stash of Sandi Henderson fabric - twelve different colourways of Henna Garden. I just love this fabric, and combining them all in one pillow means that I have a sample of each colourway even if I use the rest for gifts and all. My original plan was to fussy cut the fabric so that the pattern continued from one patch to another, and I carefully worked out the size of the patches accordingly. After making several mistakes, involving not taking into account the seam allowances (duh!) and turning fabric the wrong way, I confess that my patience got the better of me, and I ended up just cutting patches and stitching them together without taking the pattern into account. Had I stopped to think, I might have adjusted the size of the patches to make the centre square, but never mind, I like the pillow just the way it is!

The back is made from strips of Henna, and the light strip of cotton/linen fabric hides a zipper. I love this way of adding hidden zippers, making the back as interesting as the front, and it is so easy to do, see the tutorial here.

The other pillow was much more straightforward, using the Viewmaster fabric from Ruby Star Rising for the front, and retro radios and fashion ladies for the back.

The Viewmaster strip hides the zipper on this one, maknig it blend in with the rest of the pattern.

The Henna Garden Pillow is quilted with a thin layer of batting and an old, plain fabric remnant for backing - it gets hidden inside the pillow anyway, so it doesn't matter. The retro pillow is made from sturdier fabric and didn't need any extra support.
I used down pillow inserts for both these pillows and I just love the soft squishy feel of them!

I've only just begun

2011-11-16T21:14:00.000Z

Yes, admittedly I've only just begun, but I have been sewing today. And about time too, before I forget how it is done! I'm making box bags following this tutorial. Mine will be quilted, though. I spent some time wondering how to go about it, adding zippers and all. Eventually I decided to quilt the outer layer with batting and a cheater fabric that will be hidden inside the lining, and just follow the tutorial from there on. And why make one, if you can make four?

More holiday sewing

2011-10-31T18:49:00.000Z

These Laurie Wisbrun fabrics were already teamed up with some brights and a grey/black polka dot, but I'm not entirely sure what I had in mind for them. A table runner, perhaps?

I've been thinking about making some craft bags, and I have at least four options here that will work very well. The dark navy/white Aunty Cookie fabric in the lower left hand corner is one I'll selfishly keep for my own knitting. Love it!

My kitchen wil definitely welcome some place mats made from this lovely Hometown range by Sweetwater and there will definitely be enough left over for a table runner as well.

I've had this honeysuckle print for ages, and found a couple of fabrics to go with it. It might need some oomph, an orange or yellow, perhaps? Another set of placemats there, I think.

This London map print is destined for a drawstring bag, and I just decided that the house print might be a good choice for the lining. I think I have a photo of London buses transferred to fabric which might become a pocket or applique.

The yellow polka dot will become a giraffe, and the Viewmaster print from Ruby Star Rising is meant for a pillow.

Some more Ruby Star Rising fabrics for another pillow or maybe for some shopping bags, I think.
Well I seem to have my work cut out for me here - or rather, it needs cutting so I can get down to some serious sewing. Family and friends beware - there will be a lot of placemats and bags under the tree for Christmas if I get round to it!

Back in the saddle...

2011-10-30T17:25:00.001Z

In spite of all good intentions, I fell straight off the blogging habit yet again. I blame lack of time to sew, and hence very little to blog about. I've still not found my way back to the sewing machine, but at least I've started sorting through the ever growing piles of fabric on my cutting table (no sewing doesn't equal no shopping...) and tried to remember what they were intended for. A visual record might be helpful, so here goes.
I managed to snag a pile of Sandy Henderson's Henna Garden in all colourways - just love that pattern! I will use some of it for a pillow. I have some fussy cutting in mind, so the pattern will continue from piece to piece. Borders will be made from a natural colored cotton/linen blend, I think.

I couldn't resist this line, "Ca 1934" by Cosmo Cricket - placemats, I think. Possibly for my sister for Christmas?

The christmas range from Sweetwater plays well with these black and brown fabrics with "fa la la la" all over. A table runner or placemats for Christmas, I think.

There will be quite a few placemats this Christmas, it seems. Here's another group I have in mind. Some Kaffe Fassett, some Curio and a white with black lettering.

These will become a larger quilt, I think. Somehow they all remind me of Italy: terracotta walls and roof tiles, latin letters, doors, peaches, bees, vines, mosaic, flowers... all put me in mind of summer days. I added a blue Amy Butler fabric here, but maybe a more turquoise water or sky fabric will be better? And I need to come up with a pattern...

Well that's some of my ideas so far. I have more pictures to share, but I need to do more tidying up before I actually start making stuff. A bit of open space around the sewing machine often helps, I'm told...

Bags of inspiration

2011-10-05T19:47:00.000Z

I have been sorting through old issues of Marie Claire Idees lately, trying to throw some of them out. Let me tell you: it's not easy! Each issue is so full of inspiration, but reason tells me that I will never get round to making all this stuff, so I've resorted to taking photos of the most exciting ideas to store them digitally and I just thought I'd share some of them.
I'm always tempted to buy all sorts of pretty beads, but I have resisted because I haven't had anything to use them for. This bag might just tempt me for real, though - I love the sampler-like fields of beads on this linen bag. Since they are all kept in one colour, the design doesn't become too busy, and it reminds me a bit of a Klimt-painting. Hm, maybe I need some beads after all..

This bag is from an old issue and I've had it in the back of my mind for quite some time as a technique to try, maybe not for a bag, but for a small quilt? The bag is made from two strips of solid fabric, in navy and white, and I love the combination of rows of stem stitches (I think) and negative space that make up the pattern.

I think it would be interesting to make a small quilt with solid strips of several colours and an all over pattern of stitches in one or two colours.

I have been eying those sweet crochet bags that seem to crop up all over the place lately, but as crochet doesn't seem to be quite my thing, I tend to give up after a square or two. Just adding my samples to a linen background along with some embroidery might be just the ticket for me.

This school bag is a fairly simple design - I have a pattern for a messenger bag that would be just right. What I love about this, is the panel of photos on the flap. One could make some kind of collage of photos with special significance to the recipient and transfer them to fabric... - good idea!

The only question now that I have filled my mind with so much inspiration: do I really need more bags???

Doing stuff...

2011-10-04T19:28:00.000Z

Summer is definitely over, and life is getting back on track after lots of hard work in the wings here. Nothing serious, just lots of stuff that has needed my attention and left little energy for making stuff and that means not a lot to blog about either. The storm outside tells me that there will be more indoor time now, and I have spent more time with my sewing machine during the last couple of days than I did during the whole month of September. I didn't realize how much I had missed it, so I'll definitely be making more time for sewing in future. And I really need to make some stuff too: the postman has been kept really busy bringing parcels to my door lately, and more is on it's way. When a quilt shop on the other side of the world informs you that you are currently one of their best customers, you know it's time to slow down with that retail therapy...

I've delved into my yarn basket as well, and came across this half finished scarf. With more storms coming, it might be a good idea to finish it soon! I'm knitting stripes in two different colourways of Noro Taiyo (found in London last summer) and just love the colourplay developing here. Hopefully it will keep my interest for long enough to actually finish it. I'm not a natural born knitter, I think - my knitting tends to alternate between energetic needle movements followed by long periods of stretching and patting and admiring what I have done so far. Not the most efficient method, I know!

Carrying on

2011-09-04T13:25:00.001Z

Remember that wooden basket from the previous post? Well, it's been completely transformed, and here it is. I used an old school atlas I rescued from the bin at work, and tore out strips and attached them with gel medium, also adding it on top as a protective coating. I have used decoupage glue for this sort of thing earlier. I didn't have any left, but the gel medium worked just as well - use what you've got, I say!

I have been looking for some kind of caddy to carry supplies for tea and coffee from kitchen to living room, and this works perfectly. There's just enough room for my milk and sugar set, some teabags, sweet-and-low and a bunch of paper napkins - saves me a lot of extra trips to the kitchen because I've forgotten something, and it looks nice too.

There's precious little sewing going on here lately, because of other comittments that need sorting out. All I manage to do is a little bit of embroidery during those evenings when I don't fall straight into bed, but I'll be back to normal in a few weeks, I'm sure!

Planning and doing

2011-08-20T15:36:00.000Z

A lot of work going on in the background here, but very little blogging. I have been doing some painting, cutting, tearing, glueing and sewing in spare moments while trying to get this place in shape after the summer. It's amazing the amount of piles of stuff that can accumulate here and there while you're busy doing fun stuff, isn't it? I wonder who's building them...
Heavy skies don't make for a lot of good photos, but tomorrow's weather forecast looks promising so I might be able to document more of the goings-on.

Hometown strips

2011-08-08T17:40:00.001Z

hometown strips, a photo by crafty mathea on Flickr.

OK, holiday over, time to get my a** into gear... I just couldn't wait for yardage of the gorgeous Hometown line by Sweetwater to be available, and bought a jellyroll. I've sorted the strips in groups of three and stitched them together and found a great companion fabric, so now it's time to start cutting. Oh Hometown, what fun we are going to have together!

Flat 36

2011-07-30T18:57:00.000Z

This quilt is inspired by a doorbell panel on a block of flats. I saw a photo somewhere and the image just stuck in my mind. The doorbells had obviously all been identical, but over time some buttons had become stained with nicotin, scribbled on with felt tips or replaced with buttons of other colours. The diversity in the nametags also told its own story about the change the place had seen over the years.

I made a quick sketch of one doorbell in my notebook at the time, and added the information that there were 4 x 9 doorbells and I promptly forgot about it. Ages later I came across my sketch and sat down to work out the proportions of the block in EQ before leaving it to stew for a while. Earlier this summer, I decided it was time to do something about it and I started pulling fabrics from my stash. Initially I thought about writing or embroidering names, but I decided to go more abstract and just use fabrics with random text on them instead (somehow my stash seems to have oodles of chatty fabric...) after all, this quilt is only a doorbell quilt because I say so, it could just as easily be an abstract arrangement of squares, rectangles and strips.

Anyhow... Once I started, the top went together quite quickly, but the quilting took a while. I decided on an allover pattern, and quilted a wavy line across the quilt and a big dart in from the top and from the bottom before filling in the space with echoing lines. By the time I had filled in the empty spaces I had realized that the lines were too far apart, so there was nothing for it - I just had to double the amiunt if quilting by adding new quilting lines in between the ones already there. I think it was worth the effort though, and for a wall quilt, that amount of quilting works quite well.

I used a remnant of a great IKEA house fabric for the backing. Finished size of the quilt: 39x32"

Polka dots and more

2011-07-17T13:12:00.000Z

I must confess to a little retail therapy ;-) I seem to be really drawn to polka dots recently, and although I have made two red and aqua quilts already, I just couldn't resist these. Now, what do I make from them? Any suggestions? There is a length of solid Kona in Sand there as well - I'm slowly but surely adding to my stash of solids and I just got myself the colour card from Kona. There are almost too many lovely colours to choose from!

I thought I might as well start getting ready for Christmas as well. Not really, but who could resist these beauties from Sweetwater? Placemats from these, I think.

And Tula Pink's Prince Charming line in Indigo was way too tempting. An unusual colourway for me, but with the right solid to set them off they will be great, I think. I really love the one with the silhouettes on top of the pile there - I might get that in an other colourway as well...

These birdy, collage like fabrics are just so lovely, but hard to cut into - maybe pillows or totebags? And I also found some lovely yellow polkadot fabric from Sweetwater at reduced price.

I added these great buildings as well. I'm thinking that the windows on the fabric on the left also could be appliqued onto a house block of some sort - I might have fun playing with that! The black and white with sewing notions on the right is one I won at a guild meeting.
Wow, I didn't think I had bought that much fabric lately, but seen all together here, there is quite a lot of it. It's a good thing my holidays have just started - it's time to sew!

All decided - more work ahead

2011-07-10T16:25:00.000Z

When in doubt, make a mug rug. That's what I did to come to a decision about my quilting lines. I stitched some of the leftover bits and pieces from the quilt top together and started making a mug rug. First I quilted it all in parallell(ish) lines using the same distance as on my quilt. Then I started stitching in between the lines. You can see the tighter quilting here, on the right hand side. Much better, I think. That means that I still have lots of work ahead of me, but I will be far happier with the outcome, I believe. And what's the rush anyway?

Anybody in?

2011-07-09T15:49:00.000Z

I'm contemplating titles for my new quilt, and "Anybody in?" is one of the options. You might have to see the whole thing to get why? Can you see what inspired it from this glimpse?

I'm halfway through quilting it - or am I? I'm beginning to wonder if the quilting lines are too far apart - maybe I should add new ones in between? It will be very compact if I do, but it is meant to be a wall quilt, so that doesn't really matter. I've gathered some of the off-cuts to make a mug rug where I can try out the tighter quilting before I decide.

Working

2011-07-02T12:51:00.000Z

I've been incredibly slack when it comes to blogging lately, but in case somebody's still out there - I'm alive and well. A blurry picture attests to the fact that I'm actually working on something as well, but more about that in my next post.
This morning has been given entirely over to housework - days and weeks of rain could have been spent doing all those chores instead of moping around wondering if this summer will ever start, but wouldn't you know it: today the sun is shining and here I am busy hoovering and washing... Well, doing the laundry makes sense on a day free of rain and with a gentle breeze to help the drying process, I suppose, and my energy levels are much higher on a bright day, which helps in getting the work done quickly.
I've still got two weeks left at work before my summer really starts, so now's the time to get everything in order so I can really enjoy it. I need to sort out some craft projects, some fabric is making it's way here through the mail and I have a pile of books to enjoy, so although I'm staying at home the entire three weeks, they will fly by in a blur once I get there, I believe. I can hardly wait! Now if I could only talk the sun into staying put for a while...

Pinned

2011-06-19T18:48:00.000Z

I joined Pinterest a while ago to gather inspiration for Project Spectrum, but before I knew it I had also gathered followers, started following others and created several new boards. I have found it a good way of keeping track of quilty inspiration as well. My pinboard for quilts is eclectic, I suppose, as I have gathered some old favourites along with new ones that catch my eye on my journeys through the blogosphere (doesn't that sound like a Sci-Fi adventure? "Journeys Through the Blogosphere"? LOL). Anyway, weave your way through the different quilty boards there and there is plenty of inspiration. Just remember to save some time for the actual sewing too ;-)

And for sewing one needs fabric - did I mention that you can pin favourite fabric as well? You are hereby warned...

More pillow talk

2011-06-05T17:09:00.000Z

My old sofa pillows were looking a bit tired, so it was time for a change. I had a piece of gorgeous turquoise brocade which looked quite good next to a turquoise linen. I really like the different textures here. I also had some felt in the same colour, but decided that it was too much, so I kept it simple and used only these two. I used my largest yoyo-maker to make a brocade yoyo and found a gold button in my stash for the perfect finish.

For the back I used this great method again - it just comes together so easily that it has soon become my perfect go-to method of adding a zipper to the back of a pillow.

The other pillow is quite different. It uses the same linen as the other one for the background, but here I added double sided strips of fabric stitched on to the backing along the middle of each strip. After finishing the pillow I tacked the strips together here and there with contrasting stitches of cotton floss. I used fabric from a pillow I made earlier and some of my precious Authentic strips, so that everything will tie in together eventually.

I used a newsprint fabric for the back of this one - nice to have something to read before taking a nap ;-)

Red and green

2011-06-04T13:52:00.000Z

No, it's not Christmas. I'm just a little late with my Project Spectrum project for May. Not a huge thing, just another mug rug. I just grabbed some scraps and stitched them together, cutting some gentle curves and slanted stitching lines. I included a green strip for interest and quilted it with green thread. The binding is from my jar of leftover binding scraps. The red one was too short, so I included a multi-coloured piece as well.

While I was in full swing, I might as well continue with June and a green mug rug as well. For this one I cut four rectangles of the light green and added strips randomly at both sides, leaving a strip of the green foundation in the middle. The rectangles were trimmed and stitched together and I quilted a spirally diamond from the middle.
I will keep looking for green inspiration throughout the month, before I start concentrating on blues for July.

Green inspiration

2011-06-02T19:28:00.000Z

Some green inspiration to share today. I have been pinning green images to keep in the Project Spectrum spirit, where June is the green month. I had lots of ideas for May, but didn't actually get round to starting a red project until the very last day. I still have a bit of binding to stitch, before I disclose the result - a whole mug rug! Not much, I know, but still... And today I actually made a green one as well, so with a bit of hand stitching tonight I might just have something to show you tomorrow!

Flower picture

2011-05-24T18:29:00.003Z

Grow, a photo by crafty mathea on Flickr.

I was inspired by a technique in Quilting Arts Magazine and had to give it a go. I used some Sweetwater fabric with appropriate words like 'sunshine', 'plant' and 'grow' for the background and quilted it with parallel lines before adding the flowers. They are just stacks of free cut fabric circles in different sizes with flower sketches stitched by machine on top in black thread. This was just a small experiment (8 x 12") so I finished it off quickly with a zigzag stitch round the edge.
I quite like the effect of the black stitching doing it's own thing with splotches of colour in the background, so this is definitely a technique to add to my toolbox for future use. Fun!

Laptop bag

2011-05-19T18:30:00.000Z

I've been so busy visiting other bloggers lately, due to the Festival, that I have neglected to show you my new bag. Ever since I got my laptop last autumn I have been meaning to make a bag to carry it around in, but it took a while to find the right pattern. I found the right fabrics soon enough - bikes and buses seemed the right images for something that will be on the move a lot, so my Echino fabrics were my first choice, making this a very colourful bag. I had half yards of both bike and bus prints and of two polka dot prints in brown/aqua and aqua/brown. It turned out that it wasn't quite enough though, so I had to dip into my Ruby Star Rising stash as well, using the retro radio print for the inside of the flap and inner pockets. The fabric weight is the same, making it a good match.
I used the Cambridge Cargo Bag pattern by Lila Tueller for this bag, but made it even sturdier by using two layers of thin batting and quilting all the outside pieces before assembling, making a protective outer layer.

The bag has two inner pocket panels, each divided into three, making six pockets inside in addition to the two cargo pockets on the outside, so I will get room for a lot of bits and pieces. While cutting the panels for the pockets I decided not to trim off the selvedges, but rather to keep them as a decorative element inside the bag. They might collect a bit of lint in the long run, but I'll learn to live with that, as I quite like the effect :-)

I took advantage of the differently patterned areas of the fabrics to cut separate pieces for the bag - for instance, I used one aqua/turquoise stripe to make the closure-strap,matching the stripe along the back of the flap. I also used a green polka dotted area of the bus fabric for the side panels, matching the greens squares on the bike fabric. All in all, cutting the different pieces and deciding what was to go where, and how best to utilize the fabric, took some thinking and planning, but that was half the fun of planning this bag. Now, the bag has magnetic closures, something I didn't give a second thought until it was nearly finished, but according to some intensive googling, bag magnets are considered too weak to do any harm to computers. Let's hope they are right!

Quilt Festival time

2011-05-14T10:44:00.000Z

Some of us can only dream about going to Market, and live vicariously through those who do, catching tantalizing glimpses of new fabric lines and patterns as they appear in various blogs and albums online. What a joy it is to be able to take part in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival for those of us who stay at home. Thank you Amy for taking the time to organize this again!

My entry this time is a quilt I named 'Authentic 2 by 4'. I managed to snag a Jelly Roll of Authentic by Sweetwater before it was too late, knowing the letters and numbers would be great in collages and as accents in quilts here and there. When I saw all the fabrics together, I felt that it would be a shame to separate them, and I kept wanting to sort them by pattern and colour. Rearranging precuts with their zigzaggy edges is very messy though, leaving you with lots of lint everywhere.

My idea for a sampler, using the entire line came from Jane Brocket's book "The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making". You wouldn't know it by looking at it, because her quilt is entirely different - all triangles, I seem to remember (too lazy to get up and check it...). It wasn't so much the quilt itself though, as her description of her inspiration for the quilt - samples from a haberdashery - which triggered the idea. When I was a kid we had a large department store in town with what I remember as a huge fabric and haberdashery department on the ground floor. You could browse through their selection of buttons mounted in squares on large boards. I used to love going there with my mum and my auntie, who was a seamstress, and browse furtively through the boards while the grown-ups were busy with their purchases. Funny how such memories can pop up from a hidden drawer in your mind when you get a little trigger such as Jane's description of her inspiration. Once I thought about that, I knew that I too wanted to make a sampler board. Knowing that my fabric strips were 2 1/2", I knew that triangles would be too small to show off the fabrics properly. I decided on rectangles, 2 x 4" finished size (hence the title) and used a natural cotton linen blend for the sashing.

I found a piece of rather loosely woven curtain fabric with a handwriting print for the backing and used parallell lines for the quilting. It is a fairly small and simple quilt, quite easy to make, but it has become one of my favourites. The neutral tones makes it fit in anywhere, and knowing that I have a sample of each and every one of the prints in the collection makes it much easier to cut into those strips in the remainder of the jelly roll and use them elsewhere.

That's my entry for the Festival, now make sure to visit Bloggers' Quilt Festival and see all the lovely quilts there!

Red inspiration

2011-05-10T20:47:00.000Z

ecause I just can't resist trying new things, I had to try starting a blog post with a fancy letter. You can try too, just go to Jessica Hische's Daily Drop Cap blog where she is generously sharing her creations.

And because joining Project Spectrum gave me an excuse to try another new thing (any excuse would do...) I have joined Pinterest where I can "pin" linked photos of interesting finds online. I have started one board especially for red things in the hope that it will help me find inspiration for something red to make. I might just make a mug rug, or maybe a placemat. Hm, maybe one placemat each month in the assigned PS colours with some shape, pattern or theme in common... ? We'll see what I end up with - it's play time in the sewing room now I think!

It's that time again

2011-05-04T19:02:00.000Z

Project Spectrum is starting up again after a long break. I love that we are back to focusing on single colours this time,so we can scoot off in any direction we like.
I have no idea of what I want to make yet, but I guess it will be something quilt-related. I'm going to use some time to focus on the first colour - red - and gather inspiration first, and no doubt, an idea will pop into my head after a while. I love how such prompts as sticking to a certain colour or theme can take you off on paths you otherwise wouldn't have followed. What a perfect way to discover new things and learn something about your own likes and dislikes!

In order to keep track of the colours, I have made a simple little colour calendar - feel free to use it if you like. And the Project Spectrum logo in the sidebar will take you straight to the Flickr pool to see what everybody else is doing.

Little boxes

2011-05-01T17:51:00.000Z

I needed to make some small sewing related party favours for my guild. Because I haven't got a quilt shop nearby and time was at a premium, the only thing I could get my hands on in time was spools of thread. That's fine, something every quilter needs, but maybe slightly boring, so I decided to spend some extra effort on presentation. I made origami boxes from 6 x 6" squares of scrapbook paper and came up with these little flowers to decorate them: circles in three different sizes with slits cut in them. I rolled the edges slightly over a pencil to shape the petals and used flower shaped brads and sequins in the center to attach them to the boxes. The boxes look sweet because they are so tiny, I think - they are only just large enough to fit a spool of thread from corner to corner.

Pastel mug rugs

2011-04-25T09:12:00.003Z

Pastel mugrugs front, a photo by crafty mathea on Flickr.

Taking part in the Mug Rug Madness I got so many ideas I wanted to try out. The starburst was one of them, and I had a go, using some of my scraps. I used strips and stitched them together at an angle, trimming as I went. When I had finished making the top, I had a lot of leftover wedges of fabric and started stitching them together randomly. A few strips here and there, and before you knew it I had both front and back ready for another mug rug. So there you go, two for the price of one. Of course, when I look back at the mug rug that was the inspiration for mine, it looks nothing like this - I should have made the narrow ends more pointed to get the starburst effect. Maybe next time...
Never mind, they are bright and cheerful, and quickly found a new home. Friends who appreciate the work we do should be rewarded after all ;-)

Disappearing nine-patch

2011-04-24T11:27:00.000Z

Ta da! I finally finished this quilt. I was given a pile of blocks from my friends in the guild when I stepped down from office some years ago, and eventually got round to piecing them together some time last year. After the top was finished, it needed to marinate for a while (as these things do), but eventually I got round to finishing it.
I backed it with fleece, and despite careful measuring, I realized while I was basting it that the fleece was a tad too narrow. I didn't really want to cut off any part of the blocks, so I decided to turn the edges over to the back and stitch them in place instead of adding binding. Once that was done, I machine stitched two parallell seams along the edge to finish it off.

The blocks were made using the disappearing nine-patch method. An easy method to make a lot of interest and variety in a quilt. My friends had agreed among themselves on using bright colours combined with black, making all the blocks play well together. A nice and scrappy quilt with fuzzy backing and blocks stitched full of warm wishes - what could be better to snuggle under?

Something new

2011-04-22T18:55:00.000Z

I have spent so much time finishing old projects lately, that the fun was going all out of it, so it was time to start something new. I got my lovely Echino fabrics out of hiding - they should be out and about being showed off to the rest of the world, so a why not use them for a new bag. Now anyone who has visited this blog before might argue that I have more than enough bags! But the thing is, I haven't got a bag for my computer, so there's my perfect excuse for a new project...
Now, constructing a new bag is hard work, and there has to be some play as well:

Signs of life

2011-04-18T20:00:00.000Z

Finally there are little shoots peeping up...

Honeysuckle leaves are unfurling...

A few tentative violets are showing up...

But still, it's quite chilly outside, so I'm enjoying a bunch of shop bought tulips indoors while stitching some miles of binding...

More mug rug madness

2011-04-04T20:13:00.002Z

Inspired by the last weeks of Mug Rug Madness, I couldn't resist whipping up a few more. I picked some of my favourite fabrics from the scrap bag: polka dots, text, numbers and houses. I used a paper piecing pattern of an umbrella for the first one - can you 'spot' it? ;-)

For the other one I used some lovely house scraps from the pillow I made recently. I just stitched pieces together randomly and added a bit of machine quilting and hand stitching.

All that randomness was quite fun, but now I'm ready to try some of those great tutorials from the Mug Rug Madness. Have you seen all the lovely inspiration in the Flickr group?

Not too crazy

2011-04-03T14:27:00.000Z

It turned out that I wasn't too crazy after all - I actually finished the hand quilting with time to spare, even though the birthday celebration was moved from Sunday too Saturday!

It was fun to work on a quilt with such big pieces and blocks for a change. Each block is 20" square with 1 1/2" sashing, making the quilt 55 x 76 1/2". The pattern is from Fat Quarterly way back in May 2010. I was intrigued by the simple Windowpane blocks and have been playing around with them in EQ ever since. I used fleece on the back to make it a fast and snuggly quilt, which meant that I couldn't quilt it as heavily as I normally would have. An allover quilting pattern would have made the blocks blend in more, but the raspberry machine stitched lines between the blocks go well with the fabrics and so does the grey cotton floss I have used for the big quilting stitches inside the squares, so I quite like the effect anyway.

I used a sage floral print for the binding. I would really have liked to use the Flora and Fauna pink with the bees, but sadly I didn't have enough. Still, a more subtle finish works as well, I think.
The main thing is that my sister was thrilled with it. I had some concerns, because her home is on the "minimalist" end of the scale while mine is more "maximalist"... but this combination of modern florals and neutral gray proved to be just right for her, and she really loved it. She almost pushed us out the door at the end of the evening, because she couldn't wait to snuggle under it ;-) You gotta love that reaction!

My starting point when pulling fabric for this quilt was that lovely "Spotted Owl" print from Alexander Henry. My sister loves owls, so this was just right for her. I must admit I have a soft spot for it myself, and luckily I ordered several yards of it, so I still have something left to make something for myself. Now, what will I make...

Please tell me I'm not crazy!

2011-03-26T21:41:00.000Z

I finally got round to start quilting the owl quilt today. This was supposed to be a quick one, with big pieces and big blocks (20") and I'm backing it with fleece, so the quilting would have to be simple. I decided to do a grid around the six blocks first. After discarding all the spools of grey thread in my stash for being not grey enough, too blue, too brown or, well, just too grey, I decided to use a raspberry cotton and was quite happy with the result. Then I found myself sitting there staring at it for ages later, trying to decide what to do next. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't shake my initial idea of handquilting around each of the squares and rectangles in the blocks. So having wasted quite a bit of time lost in space, I eventually settled down with a stack of Gilmore Girls DVDs and some grey cotton floss. Several hours later, having stitched around six of ten pieces in one block, I really like the effect, but I'm not all that fast when it comes to hand stitching. The thing is, that this quilt is for my sister's birthday next Sunday. Seven days is an ocean of time...
- So I can make it, right?

EQ sketch of the quilt.

Leftovers

2011-03-24T20:45:00.000Z

I used the scraps from my Figgy Pudding Honey Buns to make two placemats and these two mug rugs. Well, I should say that I made the tops for two placemats, because they are not quilted yet, but at least the mug rugs are finished. Very simple, with some wavy quilting, they were really quick to make. And ready just in time for the Mug Rug Madness too!

Go check it out - there are oodles of ideas, tutorials and giveaways too!

Baroque

2011-03-20T20:51:00.001Z

After what seemed like miles of hand stitched binding I finally finished this quilt last night while watching endless news bulletins about Japan and Libya. When it all became too much, I escaped into the fairytale world of Indiana Jones. I got a gift certificate for Christmas from a record shop I don't normally visit, because it is so far away from where I live. But when I read in the paper that they were closing down, it was time to get shopping. The closing down sale had been going on for a while, so most of the good stuff was gone, but I came away with a boxed set of Indiana Jones dvds and the new Rumer CD. Quite a catch, really. The only downside is that now we're down to one single record shop in my town. Well, with everybody downloading music it is to be espected, I suppose.

Oh well, back to the quilt. I have mentioned it earlier, of course, but seeing it all quilted makes a difference I think. It is made from a designer roll from Westminster Fabrics. The fabrics are designed by Philip Jacobs who is part of the Kaffe Fassett Collective. I cut all the strips in half and mixed them up and just stitched two and two together randomly before cutting them in 3 1/2" pieces and stitched them together two and two before adding strips of black on two sides, ending with 6" square blocks. Alternating the direction of the blocks makes a nice woven effect, I think. I pieced the backing from a variety of green fabrics from my stash.

When in doubt about quilting patterns I tend to end up with this swirly floral pattern. It just seems to flow so easily and fills large areas quickly. All the luscious flowers and the black background reminded me of baroque flower paintings, so I thought Baroque would be a fitting name for this quilt.

March mood

2011-03-13T21:23:00.000Z

1. 026, 2. 031, 3. Purity, 4. march flowers, 5. Snowdrops, 6. Schneeglöckerln in der Sonne, 7. Snowdrops (Galanthus sp), 8. Snowdrops, 9. White and Green, 10. Carpet of Snowdrops, 11. Don't pick the Snowdrops. Where are your parents?, 12. Don't Walk on the Snowdrops, 13. Oh, they're behind you..., 14. Snowdrops, 15. Blue Tit Flight With Peanut. 2, 16. Day 294 8th March 2011 Twin Snowdrops
I am so ready for this, but instead, there is more of this:

1. Snow Drift, 2. Icestorm (15), 3. Icestorm (29), 4. Icestorm (6), 5. Icestorm (19), 6. Icestorm (24), 7. Icestorm (39), 8. Icestorm (31), 9. Taiga, 10. Weekend Snow, 11. Snow Abstract, 12. Drift Breakers, 13. Headlights, 14. Snowdrift, 15. Icestorm (10), 16. Winter Tree 5x7_horizontal

Rising temperature, the sound of melting icicles, green sprouts, flowers, sunshine - I'm ready, where are you?

Oh well, I'd better think of something else. Making Mug Rugs, for instance - I have just joined the Mug Rug Madness over at Two More Seconds and I'm looking forward to sharing some inspiration.

Lunch bag turned craft bag

2011-03-12T20:55:00.000Z

I've been in a flurry of finishing old UFOs lately, but the arrival of a new book prompted a new project. The book, Lunch Bags!, is of course first and foremost a book of bags to carry your lunch in. Now I carry my lunch to work in a plastic box inside my regular bag, so I didn't see an immediate use for a stitched lunch bag. But lately I have been going through all my bags to find one to carry my sewing and my water bottle when I go to guild meetings and quilting bees, and in this book I found just the thing. This one, designed by Debbie Hogan, was fun to sew and everything went together just the way it should. I made myself cut into my stash of Tufted Tweets for this, and I'm glad I did. The colour combination is an unusual one for me, but I really like the result and it gives me a great chance to show off some of my favourite fabrics.

On the back is a pouch for a drink bottle. I made mine in a contrasting fabric -. a Jan Mullen print, I think.

The lining is made from a great AuntyCookie print littered with quotes that are just perfect for a craft bag - "Craft is the new black", "Make quilts, not war", "Knitters ain't quitters" are some of the gems.

So now I just need to scramble my sewing things together and prepare a new hand stitching project, and I'll be ready for my next guild meeting...

Back to the book. There are lots of nice little bags in there, and although they are introduced as lunch bags, there is no reason why you can't use them for other things, like I have done. There are several I might try my hand at later, so all in all this was a good buy.

Pillow talk

2011-03-05T16:01:00.000Z

I've coveted those bus destination blinds forever, it seems, but never managed to find one online to buy at a price I could afford. So eventually I decided to create my own. I showed the fabric I ordered from Spoonflower earlier, using an edited list of destinations from the #72 bus in London that I used to take on my way to college way back when. The full list would have been too long for my purposes, but this was just right for a pillow - who says pillows can't have a vertical orientation? ;-)
The fabric wasn't as black as I initially would have wanted (I knew it wouldn't be from the information on the Spoonflower website), and when washed it got a bit of a crinkly worn look, but I have decided that I really like it, an old destination blind would have been a bit weathered and worn too, after all. I used the first of eight panels for this pillow.

I used another Spoonflower purchase for the back - rows and rows of red brick houses went very well with that London theme. And thanks to February being pillow month on Sew Mama, Sew, I came across this great tutorial on how to add a zipper hidden under a flap and it worked like a treat.
So there it is, a brand new pillow for my sofa. It makes me smile every time I look at it, and that can't be a bad thing, now, can it?
Now what to do about those remaining 7 panels? Hmm, I think I might have some ideas...

Sometimes...

2011-02-27T19:21:00.000Z

.... when you are close to the finish line it pays to stop and take a deep breath and make sure you know where you are going...

Heart rug

2011-02-20T13:01:00.001Z

Now I'm not crouching in a corner wallowing in self pity, if the last post made that impression - I'm just yearning for spring or a warmer climate, LOL!
A few cheerful projects might come in handy along the way, though, and this idea from Jodi at Pleasant Home was just the ticket for Valentine's. I had an overly optimistic idea of making two of these by hand in time for the 14th, and decided to forego the patchwork and make mine "wholecloth quilts", but even though they are small, I didn't make it in time. While watching "Must love dogs" on DVD yesterday (OK, but NOT the best romcom since "When Harry met Sally" as the cover claimed, IMHO) I put the final stitches in. I'm off to my mum's for dinner today and these will be a little hostess gift for her.

February is the shortest month, or is it?

2011-02-18T21:05:00.000Z

I don't know what it is about February that hits me like a ton of bricks almost every year. I think it has something to do with the euphoria from Christmas having faded, everyday life picking up speed again and then suddenly realizing that we still have months of winter left. And I'm sooo not a winter person!
Well, I'm fighting my way through it and trying to beat the winter blues by surrounding myself with bright and cheerful fabrics and a bit of hand stitching, while watching so many Gilmore Girls-DVDs that I feel high on caffeine and sugar just from watching. Also reading my way through stacks of books and magazines and only getting some machine quilting in during weekends when my bedroom is warm enough to work in during the daylight hours.
Now, this sounds a lot like I'm moaning and feeling sorry for myself, but it isn't all bad. I quite enjoy this hibernation period, really, and maybe this is something I need at this time of year, gathering my strength for spring when it is "all systems go" again. I know that come March I will begin feeling energized again and start planning, working and playing. I have never understood the concept of New Year's resolutions - to me that's absolutely the wrong time of year to start being strict with yourself. In March, however, I know I will get the urge to spend more time outdoors, becoming more energized by the increasing daylight and craving lighter food. So why fight those natural urges, I'll just lean back and enjoy the quiet life for a couple of weeks more. And maybe I'll do a bit of stitching...

Figgy Pudding log cabin

2011-02-10T21:44:00.000Z

Finished! I spent most of my weekend quilting this baby, and miles of binding later, it's finally finished. Well, miles is probably an exaggeration, but sometimes it just feels that way - I haven't been in a hand stitching mood lately, but a little bit every day goes a long way.

To emphasize the difference between the light and dark areas, I used white thread in the light areas and a dark red in the dark areas, and I tried out several different quilting patterns radiating out from the off-centre dark diamond shape. The fabrics are so busy, that this was a nice practise quilt.

Not all the quilting was sucsessful from a perfectionist's point of view, but it was a good learning excercise anyway, and at a distance it all looks rather good, if I may say so myself ;-)

I've come to enjoy making pieced backings lately - this is a great way of making inroads in my ever growing stash instead of buying yards and yards of designated backing fabric. Two leftover blocks also found their way into this one. So there you go. One finished Christmas quilt to be tucked in among the Christmas linen, making a nice surprise for myself when I pull it all out again in December :-D

Fruit salad

2011-01-29T19:39:00.000Z

I have finished my first piece of work in 2011! I started this back in October, but once I had the blocks finished, something else must have grabbed my attention, because there they were, when I tidied my sewing table on Boxing day. I stitched them together, but somehow adding the border must have seemed too much at the time (note to self: must persevere). Anyway, I did get around to it eventually, and now even the quilting is done!

I don't know the name of the block, but it is one I spotted in an interior magazine years ago and made a quick sketch of. I put my EQ to good use, redrafting it several times before I was happy with the proportions and the right block size to get a tablecloth to the size I wanted it.

I didn't really use that much of the fruit fabrics I had gathered for the top, and I had no idea what to use for the backing, so I ended up stitching together strips of all the fruit fabrics alternating with some lettuce and veg fabric, making a colourful fruit salad backing. I used a thin soft batting (Thermore, I think) which gives a soft drape for a tablecloth and quilted in an open swirly pattern in green thread.

The mouthwatering fabric is Kyle's Marketplace - gorgeous prints that make you want to pick the fruit straight out of the fabric and eat it.

Making sandwiches

2011-01-27T22:01:00.001Z

Making sandwiches
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I was quite industrious the other day and got three quilts layered and ready for quilting. Somehow the tops tend to pile up as I seem to be better at starting new projects than finishing, but I'm getting my act together and trying to finish all my UFOs before I start any new quilts, what with all this new inspiration from new fabrics and books, thast might be a good idea ;-). I think layering must be my least favourite part of the quilting process, but I must admit that it is quite satisfying once it's done.
Once I had everything cleared out of the way and got started on the first one, it was actually not too much hassle to move on to the next two, and now it's time to start quilting - yay!

Did I mention books?

2011-01-24T21:52:00.000Z

So I mentioned my recent shopping spree. These three books also landed in my mail box. I've only had time for a quick browse, so far, but they look promising. Ihave been on the lookout for simple, modern patterns to help me make some inroads in my stash, and I think I might have found some good ones here.
The first one is Malka Dubrawski's "Fresh quilting" which really seams to live up to it's name. I have loved Malka's quilting style since the first time I came across her blog A Stitch in Dye, years ago. She has a fresh colourful style which seems to bring energy and makes me smile, so I'm really looking forward to exploring this book. From what I have seen so far, I'm really going to enjoy this one.
During the weekend I have concentrated my energy on finishing quilt backings, and preparing quilts for quilting, so I'll come back to the other two books later.

The postman always rings...

2011-01-20T21:01:00.000Z

There have been a few incoming items lately due to a few slow days during Christmas when a quick online shopping spree took place. Ahem.
What I meant to say: I have been spending a bit of money again. On fabric. And books. I have been meaning to cut down, but sometimes I just can't resist. Coming across Ruby Star Rising I had one of those moments. The nostalgia on seeing that ViewMaster Disc fabric is to blame this time. I remember really coveting one of those gadgets when I was a kid, and since I never got one, that fabric is going to make it SO much better. How's that for an excuse? ;-) I'm not quite sure about what to make yet, but the fabric is quite sturdy and would be great for a bag. So I got a bag pattern as well.

I love the big slouchy bag with cargo pockets - plenty of room for a laptop with all the trimmings. Now it turns out that I'll need a lot of different rings, swivels and hooks as well, but fortunately there is a hardware kit available, so I have an excuse for more shopping. Now if I can find a shop which sells these and also have this pattern, we're talking business. I love letters, so I just might have to make this quilt... More shopping anyone?

Things to do on a rainy day

2011-01-16T14:39:00.000Z

Rain doesn't usually make me happy, but when the temperature rises and relentless rain is doing a very good job of removing the sheet of ice our roads have been covered with for weeks, I'm happy! Since I don't really have to go outside, I can just enjoy the sound of ice melting and spend my time doing something fun indoors. Like quilting, for instance. I finished my log cabin top yesterday, and here it is in all its glory. My two Honey Buns yielded 51 blocks. I might have managed to scrape together a few more from the scraps, but not as many as three, which would have been the next usable number, for a 6 x 9 layout. I was quite happy to stick to the 7 x 7 block layout I had in mind originally though, and chose an off centre barn raising layout. The light/dark divisions might be a bit blurry here and there, but it doesn't really mater, does it? I just split the rolls in two with the lightest strips in one pile and the darkest in the other, and one of the reds for centre pieces, but since some of the fabrics have large patterns, some of the darker ones might look light in some areas and vice versa. I think I might do the quilting with white thread in the light areas and brown or green in the dark areas to emphasize the contrast, though.

My task this morning was constructing the backing. I used the two leftover blocks here. The larger areas are from a lovely, red, christmassy paisley. It looks a bit pink here, but the background is really a dark red which goes well with the red in the blocks. Some polka dots in white/red, green/white and brown/teal and some more greens complete the picture. So that's the backing done. I need to prep my batting (I always prewash) before layering, so that won't happen today. I have another top to piece, however, so stay tuned, there's more rain tomorrow...

Auditions

2011-01-15T20:18:00.002Z

Auditions
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I finished my quilt top today. Sorry about the blurry photo and the partial view - I'll show it properly tomorrow. I have lots of Christmas fabric in my stash, but the colours are all too bright for the muted palette of Figgy Pudding, so I had to go to the regular stash. The quilt is 49 x 49" so there will be piecing involved. These are some of the contenders for the backing. I really wanted to use some of that light blue from the logs, but I haven't got a single strip of anything resembling it. To make some inroads in my stash, I have decided to piece all my backings more creatively this year, rather than buy new fabric (my one and only resolution...) so I need to do a bit of measuring and drawing...

So that was it for now...

2011-01-08T20:01:00.000Z

Luckily, this isn't the state of my living room floor, as I have been cheating for years now opting for an artificial tree, but as of today it is all basted and bound ans snug in it's box in the basement. The ornaments are packed and ready to go back to the attic, and all the stuff I had stored in my sewing area has been put back in it's right place, so there's room to sew again! A new year and new opportunities. Yay!

Figgy logs

2011-01-03T20:19:00.000Z

I fully intended to make a new Christmas quilt for myself this season, but once I decided to make some presents, that plan went out the window.
I managed to snag a couple of Honey Buns of Figgy Pudding just as they seemed to be vanishing from the face of the earth, and they have been sitting prettily on a shelf being admired for quite some time. I have been reluctant to untie those bows, because they were so pretty, but on boxing day I just couldn't help myself. The 1 1/2" strips in those Honey Buns are perfect for log cabin, aren't they? I started on one "bun" and I got 20 finished blocks and 8 half finished ones out of it. The light/dark contrast isn't all that strong on all of them, but I think it will work out all right in the end. I love the fabric and if I finish the quilt now, put it in the top cupboard and forget about it, come next Christmas I 'll have the lovely surprise of finding a new quilt among my Christmas linen. Good idea, no? :-D

Happy new year!

2011-01-02T20:06:00.000Z

Best wishes for the new year from my happy little village, which has grown this Christmas - the two towers were among the lovely gifts under the tree. Some good books, and other stuff (more about that later) were also among the thing I was blessed with.

We had a white Christmas, but the weather at the beginning of the year has not excactly been delightful - wind and sleet makes it more tempting to stay indoors and contemplate what I'm going to make in 2011.

I have a few plans lined up, so there's no reason to be idle in the coming weeks. The idea is to keep busy through January, finishing projects and hope the momentum carries me into February, avoiding the usual February Funk. Above are the eight projects I'm currently working on. I'm hoping to make some progress here, and finish some of them, if not all, but of course I have hundreds of ideas of new things I want to start, so we'll see if I get distracted along the way... (very likely!).

2010 - a year in stitches...

2010-12-30T14:49:00.000Z

1. Another X-block quilt, 2. getalife, 3. Authentic 2x4, 4. Happy Days quilt, 5. The blue quilt, 6. Edges, 7. harvest2, 8. harvestback2, 9. Placemats - set, 10. Shoulderbag, 11. gothic bag, 12. granny square bag, 13. Woman with Dog Kite, 14. Woo hoo, 15. coasters, 16. Austen angel

Holiday update

2010-12-29T20:58:00.002Z

I left you with an image of burnt cookies and a rather minimalist Christmas vignette, but rest assured that the holiday has been a warm and happy one. Everything went by the same procedure as every year, what with family get-togethers, Christmas dinner, presents and all. It just went all too fast, and I have had two days back at work already, but now there's no more work until next year... Yay!
This is the bag I made for my middle sister. She had made more granny squares than she needed for an afghan, and handed me the remaining six a while back, hinting that they would look great on a white linen bag. I feigned indifference and promptly forgot about it. It resurfaced a while before Christmas and I set to work. I stitched the panel to a piece of linen and added a heavy interfacing to the back. I didn't use a pattern, just gave the bag pieces a bit of shape with my rotary cutter, tapering the sides and rounding the corners before stitching it together.

I had this sweet cat print in my stash and it worked out great for the lining and an inner pocket. I was going to add a magnet button, but it mysteriously disappeared before I got to sew it on. It has not resurfaced yet, so what ever happened to it, I don't know - and no, it is not trapped between the bag and lining!
Anyway - there were tears on Christmas eve, and not because she hated it - my sweet sis claimed to be the luckiest girl in the world, so it seems she liked it!
And by the way, I got the same reaction to the Austen angel, so yes, Christmas was a success as far as I'm concerned!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T12:30:00.001Z

Merry Christmas!
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

Progress

2010-12-18T21:14:00.000Z

Well, it didn't seem so at first - I managed to burn my first batch of gingerbread cookies. I blame the timer. I have never before managed to fill two trays with dough shapes while the first one was still baking, and it suddenly occured to me that something was wrong. I had to go by the wall clock for the next two trays or they would have been burnt too. So what's a girl to do? I called my mum. And told her I want a new timer for Christmas ;-)

The rest were better though, and the taste is just right.

There was also time for a bit of sewing. If all goes according to plan I'll have all the presents finished by the end of tomorrow. Not too bad...

Angelic

2010-12-17T20:53:00.000Z

Meet Mary Bennet, one of the younger Bennet sisters... I have made an attempt to make a Jane Austen angel from the Tilda book Sew Sunny Homestyle. I have been wanting to make this for a while, and when my little sis said she wanted one, I thought it would make a nice Christmas present for her.
I didn't have time to order fabric for her skin and used some pale pink cotton I had in my stash instead of the tan fabric Tilda uses. Combined with white for the dress, she became rather pale and listless, and my choice of yarn for her hair makes her look a bit dishevelled. Well, she is very bright, and plays the piano beautifully, although she is a bit of a show-off. She might be joined by one of her prettier sisters at a later date, but not in time for Christmas, though.
I didn't mean to be too harsh with poor Mary - being breathtakingly beautiful isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she is a strong and handsome young woman with a lot going for her.
And she has very pretty purple wings.

Birthday cape

2010-12-06T21:37:00.000Z

The pre-holiday calm is still here, and I have spent most of my time this weekend doing chores, hanging out with friends and reading instead of getting ready for Christmas. So the panic might yet strike and send me into a frenzy of shopping and baking, but so far so good!
It probably helps that I haven't planned on making a lot of homemade presents this year, so there's no stressing by the sewing machine. In fact it has been so cold lately that spending time in my sewing area (which is in a corner of my bedroom and hence not too warm) is not very tempting. I might have to set up a work station in the kitchen to get anything done.
I have managed to sew this cape though. When my sweet little sis asks, I find I cave in every time and make whatever she wants. She works in a kindergarten, and this time the request was for a cape for the kids to wear when it's their birthday. I didn't have a pattern, so I just winged it, adding darts at the shoulders and back to avoid a lot of fabric bunching up at the neck. I wanted something that would work for both boys and girls, so I made it reversible. The blue fabric with silver stars adds enough magic for it to double as a magician's cape for playtime as well, and the red and white hippo fabric (Ikea)adds a bit of fun. I just hope they can use it! (They'd better...LOL).

First candle

2010-11-28T17:12:00.000Z

I'm feeling sooo together right now. For the first time for years I have actually managed to get my advent decoration sorted and the first candle lit on the day without being all stressed out about it. I'm enjoying some quiet time indoors on my own with that first candle flickering gently next to me, a cup of cappuchino and my laptop, getting ready to do some blog reading and then I'll start sorting out my Christmas lists. But I have such a feeling of calm about it all this year. Christmas will come one way or another, and I don't really have to make a lot of fuss. I have a little bit of baking to do, and I have one party to arrange, but that's all really. The presents won't take care of themselves, but I know that with careful planning the actual shopping will be done in a few hours, so there is really nothing to fuss about. Now if this calm only continues into December I'll be fine...
I love my advent decoration this year - a little moss covered landscape with candles. I added a strip of paper with (slightly wonky) numbers around the edge. The idea was to have a Santa or snowman magnet to move along from day to day, but all the holiday stuff is still up in the attic, so I just grabbed a magnet from my fridge door for now. I like the effect, though - it could be a door into a secret garden, perhaps? Maybe I need some little gnomes and red mushrooms peeking out from under the moss hills...

Holiday prep

2010-11-27T22:34:00.002Z

buttonstar
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

Less than a month until Christmas - where did this autumn go? To get myself in the right mood for holiday crafting I started off with this little star. I have a stash of old buttons inherited from my seamstress aunt, and this was a fun project where I got to use a lot of them. I made a star shape frame from heavy gauge wire and used thin wire to "sew" the buttons onto the frame. A nice and easy project that I finished in an evening while watching a movie.
Now, if all my craft projects were as quick to do, I would be ready for Christmas with time to spare...
Right, duh!

Harvest quilt

2010-11-24T20:31:00.001Z

It's about time I showed my Harvest quilt, isn't it? Tada! I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, but the weather has been awful, so I have been waiting for a clear day to be able to take some pictures, and today, being at home in the middle of the day I finally got the chance to hang it up and start snapping. In order to take the photos I have to move the sofas and the table out of the way, which led to quite a bit of dusting and hoovering as well, so what was meant to be a relaxed day by the sewing machine ended up quite busy, but tomorrow is another day...

Now, this is not a different quilt. It is the back of the Harvest quilt actually. I couldn't decide on what to use for the backing, and I had an idea in my head while I was working on the front that I would include some turquoise - like glimpses of water through autumn foliage, but I just couldn't make it work. So I made the background all "watery" instead. To create a bit of interest I made a few star blocks to blend into the background.

I have spent quite a lot of time quilting this thing. Inspired by Boo Dilly's lovely quilting I went with alternating lines of machine and hand quilting, dividing the quilt into quarters - two with horizontal lines and two with vertical lines. After washing the quilt got a lot of texture, and up close it looks like furrows in a field. Combined with the lovely fabrics with prints of onions, mushrooms, corn, cauliflower, leaves and chrysanthemums the name was obvious - this just has to be the Harvest Quilt! I just love the texture that the heavy quilting has added, and it is so soft and snuggly. Just right for cold autumn evenings. This one will definitely not leave the building ;-)

More mug rugs

2010-11-13T13:22:00.000Z

I don't seem to have much to talk about lately, and I'm way behind in visiting blogs and taking part in whatever's going on. I joined the Bloggers Quilt Festival, but must admit that I have yet to make the rounds and see all the fabulous quilts. A combination of cold weather (I'm so not a winter person...) and stress at work has left me with little energy for any extras. Computer problems have added to it all. I have treated myself to a laptop now, though, so once I get everything transferred and set up the way I want, I should be back on track.
Huddling under a pile of quilts in a quiet corner has helped me get some work done, however. A quick dash into a chilly sewing room to quilt a few wavy lines here and there, followed by some cosy hand stitching means that I have finished a few things. My Lonnie Rossie/Autumn/Harvest quilt (name pending) for one. I'll try to fit a photo session in tomorrow during those precious few hours of natural daylight, so I can show it off. Meanwhile, here's a picture of some more mug rugs I made from bits and pieces in my scrap bag. Have a closer look in my Flickr album if you like!

Sunflowerquilt

2010-11-01T20:45:00.016Z

Sunflowerquilt
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I've decided to show my Sunflower quilt for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival this time around. This is one of the quilts I have made that I have actually managed to keep for myself. I found the pattern in the first Material Obsessions book and thought it would be a good pattern to show off the lovely Sole Sunflower fabric by Valori Wells. I had been hoarding this fabric for a while and been reluctant to cut into it, but with 18" blocks I got to show off the lovely sunflowers. Once I had managed to pick the rest of the fabrics, the blocks went together easily enough, but I had a hard time choosing fabric for the border, and auditioned several choices on Flickr and got lots of help before finally ending up with the red fabric.
I think one of the reasons this quilt feels special to me is that I got so much input from my internet friends and that really made all the difference. I really got the sense of being part of a community who helped and cheered me on.
The quilting took ages. I used quite a lot of free motion quilting on the sunflower blocks, and straightish lines on the strips of the courthouse step blocks. I regretted my choice of quilting more than once, because it seemed to take ages, but I got there eventually. After washing the quilt became very soft and crinkly and remains my favourite nap quilt.
More photos of the quilt here.

Look what just arrived!

2010-10-22T21:16:00.002Z

spoonflower order
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

My order from Spoonflower just arrived and I'm just so excited! When Heather Ross announced on her blog that she had some new fabrics available on Spoonflower for a short while, I knew the time had come to take action. I had been playing with my own design for a while, but decided to just test go for it and order a yard along with some favourites from other designers. I'm using the word "designer" with tongue firmly placed in cheek as it applies to myself. All I have done, after all, is list some of the bus stops along my local line from my time in London way back.
I have mentioned earlier my fascination for those bus destination blinds that have become so popular. They have proved to be very hard to come by, and I also realized that a full length bus blind would be difficult to hang in a small flat.

Then I came up with the idea of making my own in miniature. I googled the #72 bus to get the names of all the bus stops, and edited the list firmly to get a workable format. I got a bit impatient, otherwise I would have tweaked my picture file a bit to get a full repeat, but there you have it. On my 1 yard sample I get four full lists and four with the first three stops missing, but never mind, that will do for now. I want to make a wall hanging with one, maybe a pillow and a shopping bag, and the rest might just be cut into pieces and used here and there. But I guess I will be ordering more. I might work with the design, maybe go for less of the black background and get two full repeats to the yard. A friend of mine wants curtains from this design, so I might just make it available for sale if there is any interest after my tweaking, we'll see.
And I also got some beautiful designs from others - go to my Flickr photos to get details and links to the other designs.

Big block

2010-10-17T18:24:00.000Z

My first block for the new quilt is finished and it is huge! 22" in fact. I am really not used to working on such a grand scale, but at least I get results rather quickly. In fact, once I had finished this one, it didn't take me long to piece the first seams of the rest of the blocks. There are only six blocks, after all. I'm chain piecing, and stitching as many seams as I can on each block before pressing, so it shouldn't take me long to finish the rest. I quite like the effect of these big pieces - you really get to see the beautiful patterns on all the fabrics this way. After a while where I just didn't feel like sewing at all, it seems like my sewing mojo has returned and my head is bursting with ideas. I have so many new plans that I really need more hours in the day to make them all happen.
I'm also working on that fruit tablecloth and there is that pile of batting for mug rugs to begin to tackle. A bag for my laptop and two finished quilt tops ready to be quilted, well, I certainly have enough to do in my spare time! And I haven't even begun to think about Christmas...

Colour and shape

2010-10-16T20:59:00.000Z

I went into a bookstore to get a birthdaycard yesterday and as so often happens, I came away with more than I had planned on buying. No books this time, but somehow I just "needed" these bookmarks. Marketeers really know what they are doing, don't they? If these bookmarks had been grey, it would never have occured to me that I needed them, or even if they all were just one colour. A set of eight purple bookmarks? I might have glanced in their direction, but that's it. But the fact that you get a veritable little rainbow of colours? Draws me in every time! I have bought document folders, binders, paperclips, envelopes and of course crayons and pens more times than I care to remember just because they were available in "every colour", and of course you always need the full set...

Not that it is a big deal or anything, just an observation. And look, these are really sweet - I just noticed that they look like little houses! Maybe I can use them as inspiration for something quilty ;-)

This little guy came home with me as well. Luckily they only had him in one colour or I would have come home with a whole family of them. But he is such a clever little chap, that it might even have been a good idea.

Look what he does. He is a book-holder. I always find it a bit difficult to use instruction manuals and the like while working on the computer, but this guy helps. Not only does he hold the book open, but the book can actually stand open on the table next to the computer as well so I can work through the lessons using both hands on the computer and not have to keep propping the book open. Not such a bad day of shopping after all!
I resisted the sweet little clip on lamp to place on the top of your book, but come to think of it, my computer corner can get a bit dark...

More new plans

2010-10-10T17:43:00.001Z

I found it! The power switch on my sewing machine, that is ;-) My fruit blocks are coming together and I have started planning a new project. This is my EQ sketch of the new quilt I just started cutting pieces for. The blocks are from the Fat Quarterly blog and they will be huge. 20 x 20 ". I never work that large, but I wanted the different fabrics to be allowed to shine, and big blocks seem to be the way to do it. We'll see how it looks once I get started piecing them together. This will be a lap quilt for my youngest sister who is a bit of a minimalist. Her living room is all neutral: black, white, gray with just some little hints of colour, so I had to run my colour choices by her. I sent her a photo of the pile of fabrics via my mobile asking if these were colours she could live with. The answer was positive, so now she knows I'm up to something. Well, it doesn't hurt to have her wait a while to see excatly what is going on :-)

Maybe some sewing?

2010-10-06T19:06:00.001Z

I've been a bit stuck lately. Mountains of fabric surround me, my rotary blade has been sharpened, but I haven't felt up to cutting into fabric. Until today, that is. The plan was to go to a guild meeting, but horrendous weather made it very tempting to stay in, and since I was in a quilty mood anyway, I got some fabric out and started cutting. These fabrics have been lying in wait since early spring. I had meant to make a summery tablecloth, but it never happened. Well, there will be other summers... At least I'm feeling inspired to sew.
Now, how did I turn that sewing machine on...?

Climbing quilts

2010-09-30T17:57:00.002Z

Not much sewing going on here recently, I just can't seem to get my act together and get started.
But I haven't been totally idle - I have painted my quilt ladder to match my book shelves. Ah, much better! Now perhaps the teddies' bench next... Or should I go quilt something...?
Paint or quilt, that's the question...

Or maybe just sit here until the urge to do something goes away...

Mug rug bug

2010-09-26T12:37:00.000Z

There's a new bug in blogland - and it's called the Mug Rug, When I caught on, there was already a swap going on, but being late for that didn't stop me - I thought this was such a great idea that I couldn't wait to make my own. So what is a Mug Rug? Well, from what I gather it is a tiny quilt, smaller than a placemat but larger than a coaster. Just the right size to place your tea or coffee mug and a couple of biscuits on . I thought that was just brilliant! I tend to see it as a bit of a waste (meanie that I am...) to set the table with plates when all I have to offer is a biscuit or cookie, and with impromptu visits that's often the case. There doesn't seem to be cake or pie loitering around in my larder for those unexpected visits, most of the time. And if there was, I would be visiting that (nonexistent) larder so frequently that there wouldn't be any left when visitors did arrive...

Mug Rugs can be any smallish size you see fit, but I've settled on 6 x 8" for mine, and that seems about right. I have some small paper piecing patterns collected from Quilters' Newsletter Magazine over the years that were perfect for this, and finally I found a way to use this sweet little trick-or-treating ghost for something as well. Isn't he cute? I think I'll keep this one for myself. Or maybe I'll make more of them. They are quick to make after all, and that's part of their charm, I think. That and the opportunity to play with design ideas on a small scale.

In fact, these mug rugs were so fun to make that I just knew I had to make more, so I gathered all my batting odds and ends, zigzagged them together and cut them to size (7 x 9, to allow for trimming). So now I have a pile of twenty something pieces lying next to my sewing machine, ready for action. Hm, I know what some of my friends will be getting for Christmas... and if there's a new swap, I'm ready! I've truly caught the bug. The fact that it's so fun to say also helps when you're silly like me: "mug rug" - just try it! :-D

Workbook revisited

2010-09-24T18:45:00.001Z

A while ago I wrote (almost) weekly about the Workbook Wednesday project I participated in. As these things tend to I went into the project full of enthusiasm, but things petered out after a while, and I didn't do all the assignments in the workbook. Still, I had fun along the way and I have managed to finish all the seven little quilts I started, and have learned a lot along the way.

I chose 'Windows' as my theme, and most of the small quilts have something window-related going on. With this one, where I worked with diagonals, I made a frame to give the impression of looking out of a window. To emphasize the diagonal line, I added some flower shaped beads and a butterfly. This one has traditional single fold binding.

Here we were to play with the placement of different abstract shapes. I connected them with quilting lines and if you think it looks like some red bikini briefs hung out to dry, that was not my intention, LOL.
I added a pretty polka dot ribbon along the zigzagged edge and some aqua beads in the upper left hand corner.

The appliqué pear and shadow was the only assignment where I used a pattern from the book. I also added an orange strip along two sides to try to give the impression of a shadow from a deep frame. This one is just zig zagged around the edge. I can see that it works as a quick and easy way of finishing a small piece, but it doesn't really suit my neatnik ways. It's hard to tear oneself away from the traditional use of a neat and proper binding, I suppose.

This one just started out as a sample of strips inserted into a square of fabric and comparing the effects of ironing the seam allowances towards the strip or away from the strip to get different effects, on that makes the strips lie on top of the quilt and the second giving recessed strips. To avoid having this sample just lying around and not making itself useful, I added an extra piece of blue to make it the same size as the rest and to try out some stripy quilting. With a bit of imagination this too can be seen as a window quilt - a tall office building seen from a ground floor window, mirroring the sunset, perhaps... Oh well, it gave me the chance to try out the blind hem finishing effect which I'd never tried before, and that's one I might actually add to my repertoire.

I also made a sample using curved seams, and decided to use it as a background for another technique: thread painting. I put the background into an embroidery hoop, drew the outline of the bird (recognise it from the border of my blog?) with a water soluble pen and added heavy stitching to create the sulky looking bird. The next technique was bobbin drawing. I used green perle cotton in my bobbin and stitched the cage from the back of the quilt. After adding a frame and quilting, I came up with the idea of adding the cat to emphasize the impression of a window, this time looking in through one. The edge got a narrow machine stitched line and was sealed with glue before I added gold ink along the edge. This was a bit messy, but worked well for this small quilt. It's not a technique I would have used for a larger quilt, though.

This one started out as a wonky log cabin block. With a few extra strips it ended up the same size as the rest and became a background for my couching exercise, using both hand and machine. I added an uneven blanket stitch along the edge. I still struggle with making my stitches uneven, just as I struggle with making my log cabin blocks wonky, but I'm getting better all the time ;-) After quilting a big flower and some curly swirly lines, I added some beads for that extra sparkle.

The last piece was a collage using a fabric with a motif. Heather Ross' goldfish were perfect here, and I also tried out the porthole technique, or faced opening, on the green fabric, placing a fish behind the opening. Some beads on this one as well and for the edge I zigzagged down some lengths of novelty yarn.
So there you have it. A lot of new techniques resulting in seven little quilts. Not perfect, I know, but that's hardly the point. They are finished, and that makes me happy :-)

Birmingham fabric

2010-09-19T16:48:00.002Z

Birmingham fabric
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I've been sorting through the mess which is my sewing room, and had a bit of fun going through all the stuff I bought at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last month. I've been saying that I didn't really do a lot of shopping, but that's not entirely true, is it?
I bought some 10" squares of Amy Butler's latest fabric line and of Kaffe Fassett's polka dots and shot cottons. Some V&A reproduction fabric and some batik also went home with me plus lots of gorgeous thread.
Takings were rather good after all...
More pictures at Flickr (just click on the picture).

How to make a purse from a tie

2010-09-16T19:30:00.001Z

I promised to show how you can make a small purse from a tie. It's amazing how much fabric there really is in a tie when you unpick all the seams. This is not a very thorough tutorial, just a brief outline, so feel free to ask if anything is unclear. With no man in the house I haven't got a stash of beautiful silk ties just crying out to be used, so I just got one, rather dull one in shades of grey, from a thrift store (that was the most exciting one they had at the time - maybe men here aren't very adventurous, or they hang on to their prettiest ties, who knows...) Anyway, here goes:

There aren’t any exact measurements in this tutorial as ties vary in width, but what you need to do is to cut off the first 6” of the tie from the widest end. This can either be a pocket for your cell phone or a closure flap. Also, you need to cut off the pointy bit at the narrow end of the tie.

Measure the remaining length of tie and divide by six. This is your measurement for cutting the remaining pieces. To make sure you don’t get your pieces mixed up, label them from 1 to 6 in the order shown.

Now it’s time to get your seam ripper out. Open the seams on the back of each piece and remove any interfacing and lining fabric. Press each piece to get he creases out (careful with the heat if it’s a silk tie – a pressing cloth is a good idea here!)

Now lay the pieces out as shown (the wide end down), pieces 5-1-6 makes one side of the purse and 3-2-4 makes the other. Sew the pieces together and press seams open. You might have to trim the pieces a bit so they end up the same size. Cut two pieces of thin batting and two pieces of lining fabric using one of the sides as a template. Layer each side with batting and quilt to stabilize. I just stitched some lines on either side of the seams and a few more in between. Lay the outer right sides together and stitch down one side, across the bottom and up on the other side. Do the same with the lining, leaving an opening to turn the bag inside out when finished. Turn bag with the right side out and put it into the lining and stitch along the upper edge. Turn bag right side out through the opening in the lining.

If you want to use the piece you cut off from the end of the tie as a pocket, you can stitch it to one side of the purse, like I have done (see the first picture), before you stitch the pieces together. If you prefer to use it as a strap to close the purse, you will need to attach it as you stitch the seam around the opening. You can use your purse as a clutch purse, or if you prefer a strap, you can make it from matching fabric or use a cheep pearl necklace, like I have done. Embellish to your heart’s content and enjoy!

Festival of Quilts

2010-09-05T15:05:00.000Z

OK, so I promised to share more about my visit to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham (UK). Now where to begin? I realize that my photos can't really do the quilts enough justice, and there were so many, that I only managed to photograph a small percentage of them. There were beautiful traditional quilts and wonderful art quilts and everything in between, so what I share here are just a few glimpses of things that caught my eye. The information about the quilts is from the show catalogue.

First out is this one by Annette Morgan, called "Pay the Ferryman" including image transfers, screen printing, foils and paint. I was not surprised that it won the Art Quilt category.

Here's a closer look.

This 3 D quilt which includes felt and batting which has been shrunk to distort is the winner of the Contemporary Quilts category. It is called "Squaring Up" and is made by C. June Barnes.

Here's a closer look. I had to clasp my hands behind my back to avoid reaching out to touch and try to discover how it had been made ;-)

"A Future and a Hope" by Lynne Quinn was just amazing. It is her City & Guilds final quilt and includes a "storm at sea" pathway and "light" to shine the way.

"Rainbow Colours" by Kathy Unwin.

Nina Lise Moen made this winning entry for the Quilters' Guild Challenge "Summer in the City".

This quilt by Rosalind Gregory and Joan Herrington is called "Where have all my shirts gone?" and is made from recycled shirts. Inspired by Taunton's lost shirt factories, red braces and citiscapes.

I find myself drawn to quilts with buildings on them, whether they are homes, cityscapes or industrial plants, modern or historical, I'm always drawn in. Here's another one, "A New Leaf" made by a group of four called Fusion.

Alicia Merrett's "Mapping Earth" falls right into the same category. She had a similar, larger version, in the Art Quilts group as well.

I was amazed to learn that this one was made by a young quilter, Harry Lyons, age group 9-11! I wouldn't mind having this on my wall :-)

Among the stunning work displayed was also this one made of Kaleidoscope blocks. The maker, Solvi L. Krokeide, calls this "Life in a Kaleidoscopic World". It was originally made for a Norwegian contest themed Lonesome, Twosome, Threesome"

Ferret has made another magnificent quilt. It is called "Phoenix Rising" and includes stunning feather quilting. I have noticed her work at previous festivals and you her blog is really worth checking out.

The miniature section had quite a few stunners as well. This tiny gem "Bluer than Blue" by Betty Ball can't have been more than 7 x7 " - makes you wonder what she has done with the seam allowances!

Some fun and colourful pieces to round off this little tour of the festival. This is "A Rose Garden" by Hiroko Fukawa. It consist of square in square blocks of different sizes, quilted circles attached to the edges and lots of tiny yo-yos scattered around. Really fun and whimsical!

I finish with a detail of Ylva Ugerup's quilt "Fly out Swedish Ladies!" from her series of quilts where she portrays women who have made an impact on the world. I don't know enough about Swedish history to tell you who these two are, unfortunately, but I love all the details and handstitching in her work.

Out and about

2010-08-28T16:49:00.000Z

Thud! That's the sound of me falling back into real life. I've had a little holiday, and my head and my credit card are still reeling from the experience - which is just the way it should be, isn't it? My trip to London included the much talked about and still relatively new, Antrophologie store. I loved this piece of furniture (I don't know what to call it, "storage unit" is perhaps the best description?) Love those drawers of different sizes and colours. That's just one of many things to see, and the visit was well worth the effort. I don't think the storage unit was for sale, but I found plenty to spend my money on anyway. More about that later.

No visit to London is complete without a walk through Covent Garden. I must have passed these shops hundreds of times before, but this time the colour combinations grabbed my attention enough for me to snap a picture. Teal, purple, black and that brown/greyish colour (taupe?) of the brick wall - I must try to use that in a quilt one day...

My trip also included a trip to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. Sorry for just including this teaser for now. My computer has been giving me a lot of trouble since I returned - some kind of issue with the screen driver, apparently - and I haven't been able to upload all my pictures yet, but there will be more. I promise! There were so many wonderful things to see and hear and buy that I have lots to tell you. I just might have to get myself a laptop first if I can't get this d**n thing to cooperate...

Holiday Mode

2010-08-13T16:18:00.000Z

A complete lack of routine lately as I settle into some blessed leisure time. I've been sleeping late, pottering about, visiting with friends, drinking wine, reading, watching a lot of movies and working some stitches now and again. It always seems to take some time to settle down and "learn" to relax, but I think I'm there now... Lest you think I'm a complete sloth, I'd better show some glimpses of the goings on in the wings. I'm working on my Workbook Wednesday quilts, experimenting with different edgings and adding embellishments.

I mentioned reading - here are a coule of the books I have lined up: I've also been going through a lot of old quilt magazines up on that shelf, sorting through and discovering that there is actually very little worth keeping. Patterns I loved ten years ago seem hopelessly dated now, and most of the mags are on their way to new homes.

And surprise, surprise, there's also a bit of knitting going on! This is the Bitterroot shawl, pattern from Knitty. I'm using the loveliest, soft, smooth Malabrigo Lace for this, a new acquaintance, but one I'll definitely use again - I love it! I actually started this around Christmas time, but it has been languishing in the bottom of my craft basket for a while - about time it resurfaced!

Then there's also this old friend, my Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl from A Gathering of Lace, knitted in Alpaca from Drops. I have been knitting on and off on this for quite a while now, but it is slowly, slowly getting there. The colour is a soft bluish grey, which is quite appropriate for frosty leaves, I think.

So there's a lot to do - when I feel like it - but I'm getting quite good at relaxing too ;-)

Gothic Tote

2010-08-08T13:47:00.000Z

As this seems to be more of a Look-what-I-made-blog, then one about my everyday life, here's something I've made! I needed a big tote for my holiday and have had this pattern, Anna Maria Horner's Multi Tasker Tote, in wait for quite some time. I first spotted the bag on Anna Maria's blog before the pattern was published, and was lying in wait for it to becom available, and ordered it as soon as it was, so why has it taken me so long to actually make it? Well, I quickly realized that I didn't have any fabric I could use as I usually buy only half-yards, except for backing fabric for quilts. This pattern called for one yard of the outer fabric and two yards of lining fabric. I have always loved Jane Sassaman's fabrics, and I knew that their large scale would be perfect for this bag. When I discovered that her Prairie Gothic line was available in home dec weight, even better for a sturdy bag.

Having tried to get to grips with the construction of the bag by just reading the pattern, I was a bit confused as to how it would all come together, and as I didn't refer to the pattern while ordering my fabric, I got it wrong and ordered two yards of the outside fabric and one yard of the lining fabric instead of the other way around, so when I finally got round to cutting it, I had to do some quick thinking. I ended up with cutting the pocket panels from the same fabric as the outer panels, and just using the lining fabric on the inside. You can only see some of it where it is folded over at the top on the sides of the bag. This doesn't make the pockets stand out as much as they were supposed to, but the bag is still nice enough I think. I'll just have to remember this the next time!

The lining fabric is the same as on the outside but in a different colourway - much easier to find things inside, that way! Since I only had one yard of the lining fabric, I had to stich an extention to one of the pieces, so the pattern of the fabric doesn't quite add up inside, but who's to know? Only you ;-)

To add a bit of extra colour, I used some purple Flora and Fauna with bees on the underside of the straps, keeping to the theme of bugs from the other fabrics.

Having mentioned that I was a bit confused by the pattern initially, I must add that once I started cutting and sewing, the instructions were very clear, everything went together very well, and I had no problems in actually making it. Some things you just have to see and do in order to understand. So I will definitely make this one again. It's a big and roomy bag with wide comfortable straps, four outside pockets and one inside (which I divided in two - making a separate compartment for my cell phone) - perfect for my holiday shopping jaunts I should think!

The blue quilt

2010-08-07T12:26:00.000Z

Another finish. Actually this quilt has been finished for a while, but it is such a long quilt that I have been struggling to find a way to photograph it indoors and yet show the whole thing.

The idea for this quilt began while I was sorting through my stash last winter and realized that I had an awful lot of blue fabric that never seems to go with anything. I had amassed a lot of fabric with planets, stars and clouds while planning the Space Quilt and the Kite Quilt for two of my nephews, but as they never were used there, they just stayed on in my stash. When visiting my sister on a cold winter's day and seing my 13 3/4 nephew trying to cuddle up under a tiny knitted afghan, I realized that he has outgrown the quilt I gave him some years ago. I totally get that cats, bats and toads might be a bit uncool when you're almost 14 and your friends come around! So, the idea of a new quilt was planted. The colours of his favourite sports team are blue and orange, so my blues could be put to good use. I purchased a length of orange polar fleece (I asked for two meters, but it turned out to be 2,2 meters) and used that as a size guide. I pieced the smaller scraps randomly together into blocks of different sizes, cut some of them up and kept some, adding strips of different widths, and whole lengths of fabric in some instances I also dipped into my favourite blue fabrics to bring it all together. It was all very haphazard, but I enjoyed the process. Eventually I ended up with ten full-length strips and stitched them together.

The quilting is very simple - just some horisontal lines of variegated red/orange thread to hold it all together. And there you go: I've got room for more blue fabric in my stash and my nephew will have something to keep him warm through next winter. A win, win situation, wouldn't you say?

Hang ups

2010-08-02T19:21:00.001Z

I was trying out my new hanging system to photograph this quilt. It's needs a bit of improvement, but at least I know where I'm going with this. I got a friend of mine to buy a curtain wire from IKEA. It is similar to a photo wire, which is what I really wanted. The curtain wire is meant to be stretched between opposing walls, and should be completely taut. Since I needed a shorter piece of wire to stretch above a sliding door, however, I couldn't get the wire taut enough, because the wall fastening bits had to be bent at a 90 degree angle. A photo wire has different wall fastenings which allows for tautening even if it is stretched accross a shorter stretch of wall, so I'll have to look for one of those.

The wire is placed at the top of the wall and therefore rather discreet so it can hang there permanently. There are little clips to use for attatching the quilt and let it hang straight down. If I push the sofa away, I get enough space to take a picture of the whole quilt. As you can see, it sags a bit, but with the right wall fastenings I think I can make this work and make it easier to photograph quilts in winter (or when it's raining during the summer, which seems tobe most of the time...), when I have to do it indoors.

Phinished and photographed

2010-07-31T20:13:00.000Z

Here it is, the quilt I've been working on lately. I started out with a "Designer Roll" of Erin McMorris fabric (like a Jelly Roll, but not from Moda, so they're not allowed to call it that, I suppose...). I also had some yardage of that lovely tree fabric, but not enough, so I added a couple of other cream fabrics. One of them is showing up as very white in the photos, but the contrast isn't quite that bad in real life. The pattern is from Quilt Sampler Magazine, only I made it a bit smaller.

I used a cheap, textured fleece blanket for the backing. The stripy effect shows through to the front, and I'm not quite sure I like it. I also had a lot of problems when quilting it, with the thread breaking, especially in the border, and I'm told that this often is the case with cheap fleece, so it pays to go for better quality, I suppose. It was a question of using what I could get locally this time, and I loved the colour, so I went with it, in order to get it finished. I made this for my sister who had to have surgery recently (Thankfully everything went well and she's on the mend). It served as a way of keeping my self occupied while worrying about her, and now, finished, it will be a reminder to her that it is OK to slow down and take a nap now and again.

I used the offcut corners from the snowball blocks to make some flying geese and with some borders made from the scraps I had a cushion to go with it as well. These are really fast to make and so easy, I wonder why I don't do it more often. I used a turquoise binding as I was all out of purple, but I think it works OK. It probably helps that it is my favourite colour...

So there it is, a little surprise gift for my sis, with love in every stitch, and I'm ready for my next project: a new bag for myself - because we all know that I need another one, right?

Something's going on...

2010-07-26T19:06:00.001Z

Something's going on...
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I've been a lazy blogger lately, while spending time with family and keeping my sewing machine company.. Now for miles of purple binding and I'll have something new to talk about!

Meet my thread stash

2010-07-12T18:34:00.001Z

Sew, Mama Sew are inviting us to show off our thread stash, so here goes!

I have been quilting for years, and have amassed a lot of this thread over the years. I mainly use neutrals for piecing (ecru, white, black, grey and tan) and stock up on these whenever I come across a good deal. I still have a lot of hand quilting thread from when I first started out, but rarely use it these days.

For machine quilting I use a lot of rayon, but I buy interesting thread whenever I see something I want to try, so I have sliver thread, metallics, cotton, linen - you name it... I also have a lot of cotton floss ( I used to do a lot of cross-stitch) and sometimes use that or perle cotton for hand quilting and embroidery.

I don't always match the colour perfectly to my projects. For backgrounds and large areas I generally go for matching thread, but if I sew a motif that I want to stand out, I might use a contrasting thread, or if there are lots of colours and I'm doing an allover pattern, I usually go for something that goes with all the colours, maybe some varigated thread. I prefer to use the same colour in the bobbin, but I often choose cotton thread if I'm using rayon for quilting.

I store my thread in these little drawer units from IKEA. They keep it dust free, and if I'm doing some kind of machine embroidery or something which involves a lot of colour changes, I can just pull out a drawer or two and bring them over to my sewing table for a little rummage. I have them sorted by colour and type of thread, so it is relatively easy to remember which drawer to look in.

My floss is stored in precut lengths threaded onto cardboard strips sorted by numbers. I keep them in a storage container (also IKEA) and have room left over for a plastic bag with bits and pieces left over from other projects.

I have some single skeins of silk and linen thread in there as well. These are precut and braided so they don't tangle. It's easy to pull a single thread from the braid when I need it.

For embroidery I also have some of these sweet little tins with magnetic lids. The each hold one ball of perle cotton, and the end can be threaded out through the hole in the lid and onto a needle. The magnet holds the needle in place for whenever I need it.

So there you go - I seem to have lots of thread, but I'm always on the lookout for more - how can you quilt without thread, after all ;-)

New quilt on the go

2010-07-10T18:24:00.001Z

I have so many ongoing projects that I thought I might just as well start another one... I've had this Design Roll waiting patiently for me to come up with the right pattern for quite a while. It's from the Wildwood Fabric collection by Erin Mc Morris. Luckily I also bought some yardage of her sweet tree fabric from the same line, so I had a bit more to play with.

I bought the latest issue of Quilt Sampler recently, although I had told myself last time that I wouldn't bother with this publication anymore. I've enjoyed this magazine and the "visits" to different quilt shops for years, but I'm not all that happy about the changes in recent issues. There used to be lots more photos from each shop, and I'd spend hours taking in all the details, often getting ideas from colour combinations and quilts on walls just as much as from the featured patterns, but now they point you to their website for more photos. That's all very well, but to me, buying magazines is all about curling up on the sofa or in bed to browse at leisure, and I for one don't bring my computer to bed, so being able to see extra material online just isn't the same. Oh well, enough ranting there. I did find a pattern I liked anyway, so I shouldn't moan so much ;-)

I've managed to stitch all the blocks today in between bursts of housework. So in fact my home is pretty clean and tidy as well, leaving more room for sewing tomorrow - yay!
I wanted a lilac fleece backing for this one, to go with the purple triangles (Kaffe Fassett's Aboriginal Dots), but couldn't find one in town. A quick online search and I found one shop that just might have what I needed, so I jumped on a bus after work yesterday and went to the mall on the outskirts of our town, rushed across a vast parking lot, took the lift to the right floor, burst into the shop and spotted the blanket I wanted right inside the door, grabbed one, paid hurriedly for it (and it was half price, yay!) and rushed back and caught the same bus back to town. Efficient shopping! :-D

Plans

2010-07-09T20:24:00.000Z

Remember this? Inspired by this I have actually convinced myself to remove that ribbon and have started cutting those strips into pieces. More tomorrow...

Not completely by the book

2010-06-23T19:21:00.000Z

It's Workbook Wednesday again, and I must admit I have been slacking off a bit here. There has just been so much going on, and then the next chapter in the book was all about fabric painting, stamping and so on. And I just didn't feel like it, you know. Sometimes that's just the way it is. Messing about with paints is not where I'm at right now. And there was this bit of playing with metal foil, but no matter how much I tidied up, I just couldn't find that packet of foil I know I have somewhere. - Actually I just realized: it's probably in the box with the fabric paint, that I haven't looked at for ages, duh!
So, what's a girl to do? I've been dragging my feet a bit, but today I just skipped a few chapters, and got on with it - thread painting seemed so much more interesting at the moment. So that's what I did.
My twitter-friend in the margin here was happy to model for me, I hooped my fabric and started playing. And you know what? It was fun! Not the most perfect of little birds, I know, but I bet you could see that it was meant to be a bird, anyway...
I have done a bit of thread painting before, and the funny thing is that this time, when I was following instructions, I did what I normally wouldn't have done: I hooped the fabric without using tear-away or water soluble foundation. And you know what happens, right? There was a little voice telling me in the back of my head - "the fabric will pucker, the fabric will pucker..." and it did. But not too much, though - I will probably be able to straighten it out a bit when I quilt it. Never mind, this is supposed to be a learning experience, right?
Next I'll be trying bobbin drawing, something I've been wanting to try out for a while - I've even bought that extra bobbin case so I can fiddle with the bobbin tension to my heart's content, so it's about time I got round to it.
But not tonight - I have the two final episodes of Lost to watch, so I'm taking the phone off the hook and settling down in front of the TV. Completely Lost ;-)

Random

2010-06-21T19:28:00.001Z

My sister's lilac tree tells me that it really is summer, though the temperature doesn't seem to agree...

Lot's of things to do indoors, though:

-Like hand quilting between these lines...

... binding to stitch, books to study...

...and interesting yarn (or ribbon?) to play with.

Authentic 2x4 finished

2010-06-13T11:32:00.002Z

I've been away for a few days, and managed to finish my Authentic 2x4 sampler just before I left, but had to wait until today to get a decent photo of it. I see now that I should have taken the time to prep it a bit more because the edges look all wobbly, but they are perfectly straight, actually (she says smugly ...). Never mind, here it is anyway.

I used linen for the binding to keep it simple, because it's the 2x4 patches from the Authentic fabric collection that are the stars here. I cut a 4 1/2" piece of each strip from the Jelly Roll, 40 pieces in all, and used 1" sashing and borders, resulting in a 25 x 26" wall quilt. The quilting is done in straight(ish) horizontal lines. I just let the presser foot follow the seams, and added a parallel line the same width away from that. I chose not to stitch in the ditch, because I never seem to be able to make that look very good, and so to create some sort of rhythm, I decided against stitching a line through the middle of the patches. So I ended up with a pattern of two close lines, a wider space, two close lines and so on. (Very interesting I'm sure...).

I've had this piece of curtain fabric in my stash for ages. When it arrived I realized that the writing was too big for it to work in a quilt and the weave was too loose for a bag. It proved to be just the right thing for the back of this quilt, though, which just goes to show that I've been right to build a large stash, and that no purchases are mistakes, they are just waiting for the right opportunity to make themselves useful ;-) Will that explanation hold up in court, I wonder? Can I go shop for more fabric now? :-D
I will try to find some more of that fine linen, at least, because that had just the right weight to complement the cotton fabrics. Linen I have come across locally has just been too coarse and slippery, I think. Now, if only I could remember where I bought it...

Wednesday again

2010-06-02T16:20:00.003Z

collage
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

Just enough time before I rush off to blog about this: it's Workbook Wednesday again, and I managed to get round to creating a collage using a focus fabric. I chose the goldfish one (Heather Ross, I believe), and started playing with pieces of it on a suitably watery background and was thinking of adding more marine life when I remembered that my theme for this series is supposed to be "windows". Now I might stray from this from time to time (I tend not to follow rules for very long, even if they are my own...), but I chose to add one here, a round one, so I suppose it is a porthole really. I used some suitably seaweedy yarn around the edges, and there you have it - a fishy collage :-)

Authentic 2x4

2010-05-31T19:25:00.003Z

I finished quilting my Authentic 2x4 quilt today. The name is just a silly little play on the fact that my patches are 2 x 4" and all the fabrics are from the Authentic fabric line - I just cut one piece from each strip in my Jelly Roll. Now I had thought I'd stick with the linen for the binding as well, but is that too boring? Should I use a black and white, for instance?

I'll enjoy some freshly baked cookies and a bit of Miss Marple, and decide tomorrow...

Coming along nicely

2010-05-29T17:52:00.002Z

Coming along nicely
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

My Authentic sampler is coming among nicely. I'm glad I went with the linen - it goes well with all the fabrics, I think.

Wonky Wednesday

2010-05-26T20:06:00.004Z

It's Workbook Wednesday again and I took the opportunity to do a bit of wonky piecing - yes, I have cheated a bit and skipped a few exercises and dived into chapter 5. That seemed just right for today, but I will go back and do the collage and the photo inspired piece, I just need to mull it over a while longer.
So today I did some curved piecing - I have tried that before, but it is always good to get some excercise in, right? I also did a piece with inset strips, and last, but not least, this wonky log cabin. Well, that's what I started making, but I don't know: there's something about me and log cabin - I have trouble sticking to it for long... It's all that pressing and trimming along the way, I think. And because I insist on keeping my ironing board in another room in order to get up from the sewing machine ever so often, working on just the one log cabin block means that there is more walking than sewing. So I called it a day when the block was just over 9 " and added a few wonky strips at the bottom so I ended up with a 9 x 12" piece. Maybe I can use it as a background for one of the quilts in this series? It's been a while since I did any wonky piecing, though, so that was fun. And as usual I'm ending up with lots of new ideas for things to make, and that's part of the fun, isn't it?

Now have a look in the Workbook Wednesday pool and see what Lisa and the others are up to.

Sampler

2010-05-24T13:11:00.003Z

Sampler
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I bought a Jelly Roll of Authentic by Sweetwater a while back, and thought I'd use bits and pieces of it in collages and whatever. I just love fabric with words printed on them, and this line has several of those. As it often is with these things, I found myself reluctant to start cutting into it, but I wanted to "get to know" all the different fabrics, and while reading Jane Brocket's new quilt book and what had inspired her to make her sampler quilt, it dawned on me that I could make a sampler of my own. I worked it out in EQ, and decided that if I cut the pieces 4 1/2" for a finished size of 2 x 4" and used 1" sashing, I would end up with an almost square quilt when I chose a layout of 5 by 8 blocks. Once I finished stitching the blue top together this morning, (more about that later) I got to work, cutting my pieces and getting them up on my design wall (which is just a fancy term for a flannel sheet with grommets in two corners hung from two hooks at the top of my wall!).
I've been moving them about for a while, and I quite like the layout, but now the big question is: what colour sashing should I choose? Initially I thought some sort of neutral like bone, cream or grey would be good, but some of the fabrics might get lost by blending into the background too much, I think. I have a solid bright blue which goes well with all of the colours, but it might be too dark. Any suggestions?