Reunion Jack

My paper piecing project is finished. It didn't take as much time as I feared to remove all that paper, just a couple of TV-programmes...
I have seen several simplified versions of British flag cushions online, but I'm such a nitpicker that I had to try to make flags with the correct dimensions, which I found here. I drafted my flag in EQ and printed out the pattern for paper piecing . Some of the strips are so narrow, that I couldn't have made the blocks any other way. I used fabric from the Reunion line by Sweetwater, and a linen/cotton-mix for the frame on the front.

There are more Reunion fabrics on the back, and the zipper is hidden under the green stripe, using this brilliant method. So there you have it: Union Flag (or Union Jack as it is often called) + Reunion fabric = Reunion Jack.

WIP Friday

These last couple of days have seen me running straight to the sewing machine when I come home from work. I have had an idea I wanted to try out, and the only way I could get the precision I wanted was to go for paper-stitching. However, once I started I remembered why I hadn't used this technique for so long - aaargh, this was too much! Placing the fabric in the right place so that it covered the area it was supposed to when it was flipped over... Let's just say that the seam ripper got a good workout!

But finally, these last couple of days the gears clicked into the right slots in my head and the fun began. I find myself staring into space and thinking about stitching and flipping during meetings at work, and about which colours to use next, as I'm walking home. So I really have no choice - it's straight to the sewing machine, and dinner just has to wait, and once it's in the oven I can stitch some more until the timer goes off...  All that extra sewing time has paid off though, so I'm almost done now. Just don't mention all that paper I'll have to remove in a while...

Elements

I'm almost embarrassed to post this after all this time. But a bit proud that I actually saw it through, though. I seem to be rather good at starting things with great enthusiasm when inspiration strikes, but then everyday life kicks inn and I get distracted by chores or new inspiration and another UFO has been born. That's what happened here as well: I eagerly joined Project Spectrum - Elements in 2009 all fired up with inspiration. Emily Dickinson's poem Wild Nights seemed to have it all - fire, air, earth and  water, and I decided to use the poem as inspiration for my quiltlets. They are only 8 x 12 " so I didn't think I'd be too owerwhelmed.

Fire was easy, the bed with flames and the beginning of the poem, hot colours and flame quilting, yes this was fun!

 

Air was next - light colours, a sea chart printed on organza, quilted air currents and fluffy organza clouds with pearl raindrops around the edge - yes I was on a roll!

Next in line was Earth and I was a bit baffled about how to illustrate "might I but moor tonight - in thee", but a boat in a safe harbour with brown and green hills seemed just right. I used brown and copper paintsticks and placed the fabrics on a basket to rub some pattern onto it in. The boat was coloured in with watercolour pencils and brushed with water to make the colours richer. A bit of brown wool around the edge finished it all off. So far, so good.
But then the doubts set in. Was the whole concept too cheesy? Using the poem like that? Disrespectful? So there it all stopped...

Until a couple of weeks ago when some friends and I started talking about those dreaded UFOs we all seem to have hidden away. I pulled the three little quilts out of hiding and decided to just go for it and make that dreaded fourth one. Water is my element after all, so how hard could it be? I didn't really stop to think, just did it - I used some water/sea-prints added a piece of folded and scrunched up Bali fabric to represent a boat, some beads and finished it all with a floral binding to represent Eden.

A few hours later it was all done. Not perfect, but finished. I stitched them all together adding some pearls in between and some ribbons and pearls for hanging and Elements was ready to go on the wall. Not perfect, but finished. And I got to try out some new techniques and ideas that I might use in other projects. Not too bad, after all.

Hometown ribbons

Wouldn't you believe it! It has been bright and sunny for days, but on the day I finished my Hometown Ribbons quilt, and started taking pictures, the sky turned grey and rain started pouring down, so the colours aren't quite as bright as I would have liked in these pictures. But, the main thing is that my quilt is finished and I'm loving it!

Sorry if I sound too smug, but actually, it is the combination of fabrics I love most of all, and that pattern was so fun to sew! I started out with a jelly roll of Hometown from Sweetwater. I don't know what it is about that line of fabrics that makes me so happy - the text fabric, the polka dots, the colours? Everything, really. I combined it with some blue chambray from a local shop. It has the look of denim, but is soft and thin like the quilting fabrics, so they play well together.

I used an IKEA door fabric for the back and quilted echoing lines and spirals in the blue areas and a paisley/shell design on the ribbons. The pattern is "Fast Forward" by Jaybird Quilts.

Thread play

I've been adding pieces of folded, torn and woven fabric and stitching to this piece of felt for a while, and I think it is time to call it quits for now. I think it might need something to pull it all together, and tried adding lines of light grey embroidery across the whole thing, but I'm not sure it is enough.

The top photo doesn't really do it justice though - you need to come in close to get a close look at the texture all that folding and stitching creates.

I'll let it marinate for a while before I decide if it is finished or not. Sometimes it's just a matter of agreeing with myself that it is done...

Covent Garden thread collection

This is my entry for the Aurifil Make-A Designer-Collection competition over at Lily's. I used the same inspiration as in the fabric bundle competition the other day - if I were to make something from that it would be nice to have matching thread, right? Or you could just blame it on too little imagination...  Well, actually these colours are not ones that I would normally put together, but after taking that photo in Covent Garden I'm beginning to think I might actually make that quilt...

The thread is Aurifil 50 wt and the colours are: 2540, 4225, 2155, 1318, 2134, 2810,4093, 4182, 2845, 2630, 1246, 2605.

Button girl

Ah, it's all done! After finding this redwork again and going off in an entirely different direction from what I had intended, things got together rather quickly. I machine quilted some lines around the frames and hand quilted lines in between. I also covered the background of the stitched picture with crooked little cross-stitches, as if they had been done by a little girl. It's amazing how difficult that was when you have been taught to make your stitches nice and even, but eventually I was quite happy with the result.

The binding seemed to take forever, though - there just wasn't enough time to sit down and get on with it, it seemed, but eventually I got there. I had no real plans for this one it would be nice in a little girl's room, I think, but there are no little girls in my life at the moment. However, my mum fell in love with it when I showed her a picture on my phone, so it might just go to live at her place...

Colour Inspiration

 On a visit to London a few years back I sat down on a bench in Covemt Garden to rest my weary feet, and this rather quirky colour combination grabbed my attention. Coal, purple, stone, teal... now this was not something I would have thought of combining in a quilt, but I was amazed by how well it worked, and luckily I thought to snap a photo right away. Of course there has been plenty of new inspiration coming my way since then, but when reading about The Blogger Bundle Mosaic over at I'm a Ginger Monkey this image came to mind. Thanks to the palette generator in Big Huge Labs I was able to translate the photo to a set of colours and used that to create my Covent Garden Mosaic of fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics :

I might need to add a few more fabrics to make this work in real life, but on the whole this could make a very pleasing starting point for a new quilt, I think.
The fabrics are: 1. Outfoxed Confetti in Purple, 2. Outfoxed Jewels in Purple, 3. Ruby Star Shining Retro Typewriters in Mustard, 4. Kona Cotton in Stone, 5. In The Kitchen Heath in Chartreuse, 6. Loulouthi Coreopsis in Icicle, 7. Hello Pilgrim Jewels in Turquoise, 8. Truck Stop Dot in Blue, 9. Kona Cotton in Pond, 10. Kona Cotton in Coal, 11. Walk in the Woods Simple Dots in Cloud, 12. Walk in the Woods Circle Stripes in Cloud.

Happy accident

I came across this redwork embroidery in my stash the other day. I stitched it years ago, can't really remember when, but I remember that my intention was to collect some red and white fabrics for a patchwork frame. No time like the present, so I pulled out the red and white fabrics I had so far. Not that many, and the whites were too bright and the general feeling: "OK, but a bit boring".

As I was pulling out fabrics from the red area of my stash, I happened to knock over a pile of fabric that needed to be put back in place, and a green polka dot fabric landed on my redwork. Wow!

A bit happy sorting through fabrics later, and all the red and white pieces were brushed away and I ended up with a solution which said "Yes!" rather than "OK". Now three borders are in place, and I have a new quilt ready for quilting. This combination excites me enough to make sure that I'll finish it this time around. Yes, I like it!

Loopy quilting

It felt good to be quilting again yesterday. I know all the good advice of starting with a practise cloth first if you have been away from it for a while, but I ignored that and jumped right in, and it was OK. I've still got the hang of it. My loops and swirls may be less than perfect at places, but overall the look is quite pleasing, and that's what counts. I'm trying out a soft grey Aurifil cotton for the patterned sections and a darker grey on the blue sections. They both seem to blend in well (except in the red bits), which is just what I'm looking for. I have used a lot of shiny rayon for quilts in the past, but I really like the subtle shine of cotton in this thread. The blue fabric looks like denim, but is a chambray from a local shop. It is almost as thin and soft as the quilting fabrics so it works really well with them.

It's raining sideways today, so all plans of getting washing on the line, going for a long walk or any other outdoorsy stuff have been abandoned, the hoovering was done yesterday, so to sum it up: it is a perfect quilting day!



Behind the Scenes

Yes, there is work going on here, but somehow I haven't been able to get my head together and place words on the screen lately. As I have written about every year since I started blogging, I think, I tend to go into hibernation in February. Somehow the winter just seems too long and cold and bleak at this point, so I have a hard time getting my creative juices going. It is a time for using quilts, rather than making them for me. But now, slowly, slowly I'm getting started again. Some finishes approaching, a new project started and heaps of ironing - who's buying all this fabric? :-D

Yes, Spring is approaching, I can feel it in my bones, and at last there is evidence of it outside as well. Welcome back!

Stash building

Look at these beauties! I just couldn't resist Reunion from Sweetwater and bought a whole stack of fat quarters + yardage of the black and white check and that lovely red - great for binding and borders respectively, I think. I have a pillow in mind for some of them, but I will need to come up with some ideas for the rest, and maybe some other fabrics to play with them.
It's funny, I never used to keep fabric from one single line together, but would sort them by colour and include them in among the rest of my stash to be used randomly. But recently I have found it hard to separate such groups and have come to use them together. Maybe I need to get back to being more adventurous, but I need to do some serious sorting and organizing of my entire stash to make that happen, and February isn't the right time for that. Too cold in my bedroom where I do my sewing, I guess.
And that's also why there hasn't been too much sewing either. I was beginning to hope for spring, and actually saw some daffodils sprouting their first green leaves out on the balcony yesterday, but wouldn't you know it: today everything was covered by King Winter's white blanket. Sigh. I'm so ready for spring and warmer weather.
Ah well, I have a comfy sofa a pile of quilts to huddle under, Poirot on TV and some hand stitching to keep me occupied. Not a bad way to pass a Sunday evening, really.

A little bit better

I made a new coin purse. It is more symmetric than the first one - one needs to be careful at stitching across those bottom corners when working this small it seams (the purse frame is about 3" wide) to make sure of this. I placed the seam slightly closer to the corners this time, which gives a wider purse. The drawback is that the bottom is narrow so the purse can't stand up on its own like the polka dot one can. I think I will place those box corner seams further in on the next one, making the bottom more square. I need to experiment a bit to come up with a shape I really like.
I'm also having some problems with the area where the side seams end and the "flaps" that are to be glued into the frame start. I have had to do a bit of frogging here to get it right, but I think I have learned enough to be able to do better on the next one. Practice makes perfect, right?

Started and finished

Yes, I finally managed to start something and actually finish it the same day - it has been a while...
Winter isn't my most productive season, I guess. But a new phone needed some protection, and I winged it by cutting a piece of batting slightly wider than the phone and twice the length. Two pieces of fabric, right sides together, a seam around three sides, turn inside out, stitch opening closed adding a loop for the button, a bit of quilting, fold in half and a narrow line of stitching down each side, adding a strap for the hook, and voila - a new pouch!
I needed something for the charger, headphone and all, and decided to tackle something I have dreaded -  a snap closed purse. I bought five of these purse frames before christmas, but somehow, doubted that I could make one and make it look good. Well there's nothing like having a go. I used this tutorial, and wouldn't you know it - it wasn't too difficult! Well, it was a bit fiddly, and there's definitely room for improvement, but all in all I'm quite happy with it. I used the polka dot fabric inside the phone pouch and the text fabric for lining the purse, so they make good companions.

Hometown quilt top

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

 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"!

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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!

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

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

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

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...