Super Top Secret Sewing

This past weekend was a holiday weekend here in Ireland.  I was lucky enough to have Monday off, giving me LOTS of sewing time.  I sewed so much that by the second afternoon I felt like I needed a sewing break!  Now that's crazy talk.

What did I stitch?  Most of my time was spent sewing a super top secret project that needs to be finished in the next few weeks.  I had finished foundation pieing my scrappy strips a while ago (using a tutorial by Coriander Quilts) so this weekend I added on the side triangles.  Here I am using Essex Linen in Medium Aqua.  I'm delighted with my background color choice.  Adding on the side triangles gave me a bit of time to pay better attention and visit with each of my favorite fabrics.  I even found a few accidental fussy cuts!

I ripped out the foundation paper from all 72 diamond shapes.  Nearly lost my mind doing that, so I had to watch a movie or two while ripping....

Even though foundation paper piecing is usually very exact, my biased side triangles got a bit wonky with ironing.  I had to do a bit of trimming, which made the final blocks less wonky.  Thank goodness I took the time to do that or else you'd find me in the loony bin today.

Eight little subunits became four quarter squares and eventually half blocks.  I love how quickly block come together at the end of piecing a top.  All of the preparation finally becomes rewarding.

In this project the seams could (did!) get quite bulky, so I pressed open at nearly every opportunity.  It's not my favorite thing to do as I burn my fingers as much as I press seams, but you do what you have to do.

The top is finished now (woo hoo!) and the back pieced.  I am absolutely delighted to be this close to finished.  It's going to my friend Liz to be professionally quilted.  With all of those little seams weakened by ripping out the paper, I want to be sure it's securely quilted before it goes to its forever home.  Into the post today!  

This is number seven on my FAL 2016 list.  Getting closer to checking it off!  

String Stars Baby Quilt

There is a new small person joining my world in the next few months.  (Before you get excited, it's not me expecting!)  I want to make a baby quilt to be ready for their arrival.  Now, I do not know if we are expecting a small boy or girl, so this will have to be a unisex quilt.   In my head, you can never go wrong with scrappy stars - they're unisex, right?  This time around I am going to give string stars a go.

Using the tutorial by Corey on Coriander Quilts, I printed out 72 templates and started stitching.   I had cut a whole pile of 1 inch strings to stitch onto the paper templates, so these came together quite quickly.  It was very meditative and I loved seeing the fabrics I loved finding a space next to one another.  It is like being reunited with old friends.

After an IG poll, I have decided to use Essex Linen Medium Aqua as the background fabric.  The lavender cross hatch did indeed win the popular vote, but when I had a good look at it in real life I did not like it nearly as much as I did the linen.  You have to go with your gut, right? 

This will be the last I show you of this quilt until the baby arrives.  I need to keep a bit of surprise for when it is gifted.  Until then, know I am quietly stitching away, loving every bit of it.  

Color Theory Charm Star - Finished Top

Another top!  Not messing, now, are we?  This is my third finished baby quilt top from the Christmas holiday.  I started this months ago, but it sat on my design board waiting for rows to be sewn together.  I just lost my drive, but now that it's together I love it!

The photos do not give the colors in this top justice.  There's more contrast and depth when you see it in person.  Anyway, I used a Color Theory charm pack in combination with Kona Snow from the bolt (but there are charm packs in the shop which would make this top even easier!) to create HTS, arranged them so the prints look "random" and stitched them together in a pretty design.  For any normal, focused person it would only take a day to finish the top - for me it took months of dithering.  I got there in the end.

That's it!  My three finished tops from the Christmas holiday.  Come back tomorrow (7 Jan) for the opening of the Q1 2016 FAL linky.  There will be some amazing prizes available, so be sure you join in!

Hello Friend Panel Quilt - Finished Top!

A second finished quilt top to show you!  Now this one was easy peasy.  Did you see the Hello Friend panel and complimenting child-friendly fabrics in the shop?  They are so stinkin' cute I could not leave them untouched for long!  This quilt top was an impromptu creation, made to be fun, wild and colorful.  

I took one panel, trimmed the sides and bottom a bit and then added in my first Hello Friend vine border in orange and yellow.  Two more borders followed:  a stripe from Color Theory and then a novelty yellow Hello Friend print that coordinates with the characters in the panel.  

As it grew, I had to either stitch together borders or add corner stones to give extra length.  I went with a light blue and navy pinwheel block in each corner using Hello Friend and Gooseberry.  They are perfect together.

I am delighted with how quickly this came together, what impact the color has on my eye and the super adorable critters that will entertain some small person one day. 

I have one more quilt top to show you tomorrow, so pop back for a peek!  

Urban Zoology Charm Quilt Top

Happy Monday!  Did you return to your normal routines today?  I did.  I have to say it was worse thinking about it on Sunday night than it actually was this morning.  It was nice to be out of the house and trying to remember what I was doing before Christmas mania kicked in.

Over the Christmas holiday I finished three small child quilt tops that I'll show you today and tomorrow.  They were all partially started in October and November with the idea that I would try to include them in the shop stall at Christmas markets, but I just did not finish them in time.  So, they sat in my sewing room as a pile of blocks that needed to be sewn into rows and then together.  Low hanging fruit for my Christmas break.

First up, I used an Urban Zoology charm pack from the shop (which has now sold out) mixed with Kona solids to make a charm quilt.  I split the charms in half (to 2.5x5 inch rectangles), framed them in Kona white, lime, red or peacock and then squared the blocks to 6 inches on all sides.  

The entire quilt is surrounded in Kona navy.  I have to say I am not convinced that border should stay on.  I was pretty happy with the unisex brightness of the quilt before I added the border, but after it looks quite dark and male-ish.  We'll see.

As usual, my glamorous photographic assistant was with Sunday while I snapped a few photos.  It is rough taking pictures this time of year - it is always sideways raining, windy and dark.  Sunday it was just overcast and slightly breezy, so you'll see most tops are not straight on the line, but it is the best I could do given the time of year.

 

Poor Molly hasn't been dry in weeks with our crazy weather.  She has been swimming in the floods a good bit, which makes her happy.  The bad thing is the garden is totally saturated, so even when she just goes out for a trot around the yard she's soaked.  Can you see the puddle that formed under me while I took photos of this top?  Crazy!  I was actually sinking the longer I stood still!

Thank goodness for awesome, waterproof boots, huh?

Finished Pinwheel Quilt Top!

Woo hoo!  I have finished the pinwheel baby quilt from my Craftsy class.  This quilt is made of nine blocks, each made with four strip pieced sub-units.  It finishes at about 36 x 36 inches, which is perfect for the little girl I have in mind.  

I found making these blocks entirely meditative as they are chain pieced units of straight lines on a slight diagonal.  Still, when pulled together they have impact.  This was great fun to make, a fab way to play around with Peggy Martin's method of piecing.  I can already see how her strip piecing can be used in my New York Beauty blocks, so I am delighted with how that Craftsy class keeps on giving.

It was a beautifully sunny day when I took these photos.  With the sun, though, comes shadows which make it hard to see the top.  I had to take the very non-artistic option and just toss it on the drive to avoid tree branches.  It is not as pretty of a background, but you can indeed see the top better.  Gotta do what you can, right?  I am surely not going to be the only person in all of Ireland complaining about this spectacular weather!

Can you see how some of the points of the yellow squares are lost in some blocks?  I am not entirely sure why that happened as I was only following the line on the template - there is no place to go wrong really.  It must have been how I trimmed the units?  Or maybe how I joined them together?  I think it will be lost in the quilting and washing so I am surely not going to bother ripping the blocks apart.

So, does it need a border or will I finish it off as it is?  If you are voting border, which fabric do you think I should use?  I was imagining the pink floral as it has bits of the yellow in the center of the flowers, but that is quite a small print and usually I go for larger prints in the border.  Any suggestions from here are totally welcome!

As usual, I had my photographic assistant next to me while taking these photos.  She has been so very happy to spend time rolling grass now that the warm sun is out.  She'd spend all day sunning her belly if I let her, the little cutie.

Quick Strip Paper Piecing: A Craftsy Class

I love paper piecing.  I love the crisp points and the amazing designs you can create that would be a nightmare with traditional piecing.  I do not dig the ridiculous waste of fabric.  This waste has put me off making a larger project using paper piecing.  

I decided to take a Craftsy class on paper piecing to learn a few tricks.  Just before Christmas their classes were on sale, so I figured it's my best time to try out my first one.  I registered for Quick Strip Paper Piecing taught by Peggy Martin.  She's a good teacher with complete instruction, easy to follow printouts and clear videos.  At time it's a bit too basic, but that would make the class quite accessible for a very early stage quilter.

The idea is to strip piece your blocks to both save time and reduce waste.  The patterns are included in the class and are pre labelled with measurements and arrows to dictate the direction of your sewing to make your life SO EASY.  I'm loving it.  

The pattern I'm using here is the easiest one in the class where you sew only straight lines.  The mindlessness makes super sewing after a day at work.  The class does include more complex compass blocks and a New York Beauty that I will tackle in the near future.  Her instructions on the video make it look do-able.

For fabric, I'm using the Mimosa line and Kona Ash from the shop.  I would normally have used a white/cream, but I didn't want the points of the yellow blocks to be lost if a piece of white flower randomly was pieced next to the Kona white/cream.  Ash it is, then.

As for waste, there still is some.  It's in no way the amount of waste that I would expect from making six blocks the traditional way.  This is all of it....  not bad, right? 

I have decided to make a quilt top of 9 blocks so that you can see the secondary pinwheels appearing between the primary yellow blocks.  For now it lives on the design wall in little 1/4 block pieces.   With any luck I'll have a finished top to show you within the week!

Bespoke Baby Quilt

Hello (-ello -ello).  Echo (-echo -echo).  

It has been too long, my friends.  I fell off the blogging wagon for a while, but I would like to climb back on as of today.  Everything is fine here, it is just that life took priority over computer stuff.  You know how it is.

While the blog has been quiet, I have been stitching away.  About three weeks ago I received a call from my friends D&D.  They are expecting a new niece or nephew to join their family this week, so they wanted a small (1 yard squared) quilt that they could give as a baby gift.  As they didn't know the sex, I thought the Mixed Bag line would be perfect for their quilt.  I started playing with HSTs immediately and quickly fell into the pattern of making stars.  Shocker, I know.

With the Sizzix cutting the HSTs, it took very little time to put the 9 blocks together and pop on a border.  For me, the challenge was to quilt this little friend.  This was the perfect opportunity to put my new frame to work.  I have been practising using scrap fabric sandwiches, but have not used it to quilt an actual project.  With lots of deep breathing, I dove in...

...and started quilting a line of circles.  Some looked great, others could use a little help but all in all the effect was pretty super.

I won't lie; the quilting took FOREVER.  I had imagined that this frame would make the machine work some amazing magic and that is simply not true.  Each line had to be created slowly with care.  I learned a tremendous amount in this process and can't wait to try quilting on the frame with my next project.  

With a bit of red binding and a dip in the washing machine, this little quilt is on it's way to its new family.  I love the orange border, love the pop of red on the edge and am delighted with the bubbly texture the quilting has created.

The back is one full piece of Mixed Bag Which Way, pulling together all of the colors on the front.

I am already creating projects in my mind that will let me use the frame to quilt a bit more.  You can be sure you will see a few large Christmas presents appearing here in the near future!  Until then, I'll just keep petting this pretty bubbly friend, content with my first try being (mostly) a success.  Woo hoo!