Back in the saddle...

 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

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...

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

 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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

 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

 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

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

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

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

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! 

It's that time again

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



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.