It's All About the Scraps

It has been such a finishing kind of week. You get those sometimes, where knuckling down and getting things to the very end seems woeful in your mind but then it doesn't really take very long.

I think I have falsely shown you this as a finish in the past but really I knew after 'finishing' it that the large grey border swallowed up the patchwork centre and needed more work. I started to machine stitch it but it just made a huge pucker at the end of each row. This is when I might have shoved it in a bin bag for a day when I felt more motivated/less sweary.

I got it out again earlier this year and began hand quilting it. I really made some progress and then, as any hand quilter will know, I got a touch of RSI in my hands. Away it went, for a second time, back in the black bin bag.

Things started to get a bit more crucial of late because this quilt is for my friend's son on his 18th birthday which is a week away! Out is came for the third time however, to my surprise, it took me one more evening of stitching to finish it. The back features some of his old shirts which he doesn't know his mum gave me for the quilt. It will either feel like a big surprise or that I have been stalking him by stealing shirts off the washing line! All wrapped up and ready to go now.

Finishing something arduous always makes me believe I can do anything. On Saturday afternoon the girls had a friend to play so I had couple of hours thinking about how to join these scrappy strips together which the girls and I made in January 2021 school lockdown. 

I hope some of the followers here can spot some of their gifted fabrics. These are the long strips which I collect from sewing;anything rectangular gets sorted into the 'strips' box. At the end of the afternoon I had sewn the ready-made long strips together and assessed that I need about four more to make a single quilt. A long way off yet but a very satisfying afternoon of enjoying the quilting process rather than the eventual outcome.

Another scrappy Ski hat (Free pattern) flew off the needles this week. One more for the present box. Making the pom pom even used up the last of some balls completely without a scrap of waste.

Finally, for myself, I have completed a crocheted sock yarn shawl. The pattern is on my sidebar if you have scraps of sock yarn or 4 ply to use up but it would work for any yarn. It has been a year long project (from last Christmas I think) to use up all of the sock yarn ball ends. Between larger projects, I would add a row here and there to use the yarn up to the very end. Recently, I have added some of the 4ply wool from Heidi's fair isle jumper and leftovers of leftovers from the socks. It is finished with some bought pom pom trim. Well why not?

Honestly, I think I love creating with the leftovers more than the initial product choice! Are you making for Christmas?

Jo xxxx

Live Green, Love Green, Quilt

This project has been a long time coming. I dragged this post from drafts dated way back in January 2019. Here is this quilt's story as it was written piece by piece so the tenses are all over the place because I have added bits here and there:

 Starting a new quilt is always exciting. My girls get the same feeling when they choose a new reading book. For me, it starts with looking at what fabric I already have to use up. I had a lot of green but then it is my favourite colour.

There was fabric from my cameleon summer dress; sixteen fat quarters I bought at a NEC craft trade show for £1 each in 2016; donated fabric from my friend Michelle and various other tit bits I had gathered along the way. 

The design I chose was from a magazine which I have since lost during our house move but I started cutting this in January 2019 and luckily had the foresight to make card templates. I had previously supported my friend along in making this design for her first quilt so I knew it would look pleasing.

With a little more quiet cutting here and there I only needed another three fat quarters to make the required amount. The triangle feature pieces were cut from navy quilt sashing offcuts and a little more from the magic 'Michelle Lockdown bag'

 In my mind it was going to be a lighter weight quilt for our bed because the one we have is very heavy. It turns out our new house is so warm we don't really need a quilt in the summer at all so I kind of lost the impetuous to complete it.

The topper came together very quickly making a generous double bed size in November 2020. I remember sewing it altogether while the heating engineer commissioned our hot water system at the farmhouse. Next I had to decide how to back it and quilt it.

By January 2021 we were back in lockdown. I asked if I could use the old school rooms in the village to spread out my quilt. The old school is used as a village hall and is opposite our house. The girls were at home so I knew I would have some helpers, albeit very cold helpers. I remember this day as being so very very bitter that I could hardly use my fingers to put in the safety pins. The girls wore gloves and brought a flask of hot chocolate with them.

Fast forward to June 2021 and the quilt was still folded up, all sandwiched but not sewn. Then my nephew's wedding plans got back on track and I decided to make it for their wedding present. They have a little camper van which they are going on their honeymoon with because they can't go abroad. Unfortunately of late I have had a bout of tennis elbow meaning I could not hand quilt it together. For one determined day, I machine quilted the whole lot, made a date plate and added a binding.

The binding was attached right side to right side for the first machine pass on straight stitch then folded to the reverse of the quilt and sewed with a zigzag which gives a little room for error but makes a nice flat border.

In my mind it has several 'camping' uses: an extra layer on chilly nights, a beach blanket, a picnic rug, a lap blanket or for simply wrapping round a couple's shoulders for drinking beers in deckchairs. 

 

I put it on our bed to spread it out and remove the safety pins.

For sure it would have been better hand quilted but it just wasn't to be and I think they will really like it. The happy, but slightly stressed-covid-wedding-planning-couple are coming to eat with us tonight so the quilt is wrapped with a hessian tie all ready to go.

That is the story of the Live green, Love green quilt.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope this story shows that if you have a long lost half made quilt, there is a chance that it might make it to completion one day.

Jo xxxxx

It's Been a Long Time

It has been a long time coming this postage stamp quilt. In fact some decent weather to photograph it has been a long time coming too. It was my new years resolution to finish it in 2019 and it is now complete and completely gorgeous.

The topper was finished in October but I just didn't seem to get around to buying a sheet and batting to complete it. Anyway, I did in the end, and here it is.

Some burning questions you may need answering:-

The quilt is for a single bed size

It has 1400 little squares that are cut at 5cm and sewn with a 0.5cm seam allowance

It is hand quilted with embroidery threads and running stitches.

The backing is a new flat sheet from Dunelm.

Some squares are fussy cut to reveal a picture and others are cut to squeeze the last out of a tiny piece of fabric. There are houses, birds, dogs, fungi, butterflies and flowers.

It has a name plate called 'All the little bits of you' 2020

It is for my god daughter for her 18th Birthday (she is 14 in April!) Oh yes, ahead of schedule.

The fabric is from everywhere. Take a look, some might be from you: Christina, Linda, Shirley, Helen and many others. Thank you to you all. The key to this quilt is not quantity but variety. Each block has 64 squares so you need as many different fabrics as possible in each block. Some, not all, have 64 different ones in! 

You can only really achieve this by sharing fabrics or buying scrap packs. There are many  pieces from Christina at Colourful life. We did a fabric swap and sent each other some tiny scraps in the post. This meant that most of the orange/mustard/ocre tones which would have been missing from my quilt were represented and lifted the other colours significantly.

The other key to making this quilt is to be as free as you can allow yourself to be. There is no planning, no procrastinating you just sew tiny squares together with gay abandon. I had one rule and that was that two fabrics could not sit next to each other - and then I spotted one when it was finished!

I used an extra wide binding from frumble which was left over from another quilt so all in all I bought the wadding and a flat sheet. I also had a gift voucher given to me when I left a job in December and I bought this little stab thingy called a micro stitch. It fires out tiny plastic ties (like you get on new socks but much smaller) It is perfect for quilters to hold your layers together when you hand quilt. Then you snip them out and put them in the plastic recycling.

Hope you like it. If you want to check out Christina's version click here to see more riotous colour.

Jo xxxx

Bed Runner

I have been working on a quilt for our new house. Not for me but for my big girl. We have been very lucky parents; our girls have never asked to have their room decorated in all the years they have been alive! With this in mind we are trying to make sure they have full choice for their new rooms when we finish building our new house. 

I don't normally choose fabrics for a quilt, quilting for me is something that uses up left overs, but I had to choose something for my Minerva next month and I just don't want anymore clothes right now. The fabrics are a range of Micheal Millar cotton quilting patterns.

There is a palette of grey, navy and mustard in geometric prints.  She has chosen an Orla Keily Navy and white duvet cover so we were looking for something to inject a bit of colour but not clash with a retro print.

I didn't really have a pattern, I just wanted to make sure that there were no scraps left over so I cut bricks from all of the fabrics and used the last of my Minerva cotton from a seat pew cover to add some solid colour cohesion to the design. I did try laying them out as a brick wall but with the prints, it looked a bit too 'busy' so I returned to the idea of having them patched corner to corner.

I made strips which were sewn into a rectangular topper. It wasn't quite wide enough so I used some fabric which I had cut from shortening her ready to hang curtains to add solid borders. I saw the curtains in a sale bin for £40 and decided I just couldn't be bothered to make a pair to compete with that kind of price. All of the cut offs have been used now which feels like an extra bargain.

 My daughter and I worked together to stick a calico backing to the floor with parcel tape; layer on the batting then smooth out the topper. It is hard on the knees but we didn't have a large enough table.

We safety pinned all the layers together. I decided to hand quilt it because I always get puckers on my machine because my sewing machine has a very small aperture to shove a quilt through. 

Heidi made a template from a cereal packet using an Orla Keily storage jar as a guide. Together we marked out leaves and stems using a water soluble pen. 

A couple of nights of evening hand stitching and I knew we had made the right decision. Finally, I added a binding which was left over from another quilt to enclose all the edges. It has quite a loose top and bottom border which is not quilted and this gives it a relaxed blanket feel. I washed the whole quilt because I like the crumpled effect it gives. She was thrilled to try it out on our spare room bed and helped me put the duvet cover on.

Good morning!

Goodnight!

Another item to pack away for our house move. I am getting quite excited about opening all of the bin bags of home furnishings I have been making but we will have to wait another year yet, so much more house building work to do.

Thanks for dropping in. Stay cosy. Jo xxxx

Scrappin'

I have been plodding on with my postage stamp quilt. Not plodding because I don't like doing it, but because I have a long deadline on this one - a couple of years - so there is no rush. 

It is hard to work out how much fabric will be needed but you just have to be brave and keep sewing. Making it over a long period actually helps. Friends chip in with a sandwich bag of bits every now and again and there always seems to be another pattern to incorporate. The key is not great quantities of material but a humongous range of colours and patterns. Each block has 64 squares where there are only a few repeats in each block. I have five more  blocks to go (I think) and I needed to cut out more fabrics. I did hold some pieces back from my original cutting session at the beginning to ensure there was a spread of fabrics throughout.

I alss saw this little pack the other day on a craft stall which was ideal fodder.

The thing is, I only want small pieces, the crumbs if you will. I don't want to just cut out lots of teeny squares from a large piece. This led to one huge cutting out session to force out little bits from my stash. In my head, I now have five quilt designs!

The tin holds the postage squares. The next pile is fabric I would like to save for future variations all with a very floral traditional theme. The pile with the green roll on top are larger pieces which would be too wasteful to cut into yet until I have a plan for them.They are also big enough for pocket facings or make up bag linings. There is a pile of solid colours, more than I thought actually, for a half square triangle rainbow quilt.

This one is a little stack 9x9cm squares. Whatever was left over from each piece made more tiny squares until it was all gone.

Finally, I ended up with a pile of strips for a crazy quilt. This is a couple of years worth of quilting but now they are all in separate boxes I can keep adding to them as the off cuts keep coming.

Five more blocks to go, exciting stuff. Jo xxxx