A Bit Bright or What

Having bought "Love Patchwork and Quilting" on Thursday I had to have a go at Jo Avery's Feather patchwork cushion on Thursday afternoon. After going back and forth over the pages, because the cushion instructions came after the quilt ones in the magazine, I had one block made.  I then took the remainder of the strip pieces to make another feather block.  This is what they were like yesterday morning

Then one of them was made into a cushion.

And the back

This will be going on my settee

Before 

After

Just a bit colourful, isn't it.  Hope to get the second cushion cover done next week.

A Finish as Promised

In my last post I mentioned that there would be a finished quilt.  I made a lot of scrappy Trip Around the World and I've used 12 of them for a lap quilt 37" square.

Photo taken just this afternoon, a bit grim outside and a bit blowy too so had to wait for the breeze to calm down. The blue border is of the backing fabric brought over to the front and slip stitched.

I've got another set of 12 blocks to put together and one left over.  That block will be quilted and put towards Soy Amado blocks.

Bank Holiday Sewing

Weather has been a bit ho-hum today, so we decided to stay at home for the Bank Holiday Monday.  I haven't made any postcards for a while now and have signed up to a swap with the BQL Postcard group's one in June entitled "Sewing Bee".  I've used some of Makowers Sew Retro fabric with some of my hand dyed stamped with a mannequin.  I added some lace together with both halves of a press stud and a button sewn with utility stitching. So far I only need to make 3, but made a couple more in case needed.

The fronts

The backs.

I originally used some pink patterned bias binding to edge the postcards, then run out, so used some blue, which ran out too, so ended up edging with zigzag stitching. I couldn't resist using some selvedge on the back.

Looking forward to the Festival of Quilts the Tombola to raise funds for the Quilt Museum in York is themed "Love Hearts" with Heart themed items.  For this I've started making some pincushions with some heart fabrics that I had in my stash and whipped these two biscornu pincushions just this afternoon.

I've got the binding of a scrappy Trip Around the World lap quilt to hem, but will show that when I'm done.

New Fabric and a Finish

This last weekend I dug out a couple of fabric panels that I bought from a trader at Sandown quilt exhibition a few years back.  This is called Dolly Dress Up, by Holly Holderman.

These panels came with the briefest of instructions, which have since gone, but looking at her blog here from December 2009, there was a blog hop with several contributors with ideas of using the individual blocks.  They are dressed up with lace, buttons, ribbons or have added skirts and aprons. The panel above I've kept complete at present, but the other I've cut into 9.5" squares and preserved some of the pink and white diamond strips, which I might use later.

Today I went out with my friend Penny to find some fabrics that would go well with the dress up blocks as I had didn't have much in my stash

That's what a bought in new-to-me shop in Bournmouth called Sarah's Shabby Chic.

And from Mandy's shop, Cherry Tree Fabrics, in Boscombe. After lunch with Penny (nice to be a lady who lunches) and a drive along the coast road back to Poole and after dropping Penny off I went to Fabric Land to get some lace and pink bias binding for a postcard swap in June. 

I did manage some sewing this afternoon and made this cushion cover with an Oxford edge.

Front

Back.

This goes with the quilt in the guest room.  The quilt, Martha Washington Star had been made years ago and the cushion quilt top has been lurking in the UFO pile for a long time so am pleased to have finished quilting yesterday and joining the cushion back this afternoon.

A good feeling to have a finish.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Linking with Amy's Creative Side, Small section.

Debated whether this was mini or small, this little baby quilt that I donated earlier today to the local Project Linus group.

This is approximately 20" long and 16" wide so it is small. I used the strips that my Mum had left from another quilt that she made for Project Linus, which I could not resist using.  I also had a couple of fat quarters of a pale lemon for the front and a slightly darker shade on the back.  The stripe fabric worked well for the binding

Pop over to Amy's Creative Side to have a look at the Festival.

Wednesday Walk

David normally works from home as the company he works for is based in Yorkshire, but once a week he goes to a local office in Southampton.  He commutes by train so I give him a lift to Poole station, but before returning home I go for a long walk, usually around Poole Park.  Yesterday I varied my route and decided to walk along part of the harbour to reach the public boat slipway and back into part of the park before returning to my car.  It was a gorgeous day so took some pics with my phone

Looking towards the Purbecks in the distance, the dark green bit is Brownsea island, one of the islands in the harbour.

Looking towards Poole Quay, the big ship on the left is the Brittany Ferry which sails from Poole to Cherbourg, France. As you can see such a clear morning, this pic was taken at about 8 am.

I headed back towards Poole Park.

I like the quiet and calm first thing in the morning. This is looking from the model boating club over the the restaurant (the white building in the middle of the pic.

When I got back towards the car I saw the Barfleur set sail

Feeling blessed that I live in a lovely part of the country.

Three Inch Quilt

Yes, you read right.  My daughter and  now a friend of mine are just starting out on the quilting road. Sarah doesn't have a sewing machine yet and my friend has yet to dust off the one that she has, so hand sewing it has to be.  Having shown them how to do a Japanese Folded Patchwork block I've taking time to photograph a tutorial, so here goes.

Draw a square (in this case 3") on card and find the centre. Using a pair of compasses put the point in the centre of the square and take the pencil end out to just a smidgen beyond the corner of the square and draw a circle. Cut out

Next take the fabric for the circle and put the template and mark around the circumference.  Cut a quarter inch away from the marked circle, eyeballing it, or you can mark using ruler as here

Using tacking thread knotted at one end, sew a running stitch approx. one eighth inch in.  Replace the circle template to draw the tacking stitches in

Press the circle and remove the template.

Place the a square of wadding and contrasting fabric on top of the pressed circle

Fold the circle around the sides of the square and pin

Then tack.

Slip stitch through the top fabric, middle and wadding, but not right through to the back

Done in a very short time and as it's 3 layers it is a quilt. There you are - a 3" quilt!

I then made 3 more this afternoon. Working from scraps one block (the one above) is lighter than the other 3, but didn't have enough to make 4 in the darker green.

The middles are cut from some Japanese charm squares.

Green

The Quilters' Guild area day will be on Saturday and I have been making a piece for the Regional Challenge which, this year, is green. 

I've been trying to take a decent pic with the iPad but I think my phone takes better photos. I've done strip piecing with different widths of greens, recut and alternated with the dark green batik fabric.  After quilting in the ditch, I've then used the machines fancy stitches in some of the strips and free machining in the batik rows.  The back is pieced, too.

Just the label to put on and done.  I have to admit that I found this a diffcult one to deal with, but I went with using shades of green to reflect the different colours of leaves in a woodland setting.

Another bit of green I've been working on is my machine embroidered landscape.  Having missed the last session in April because of being in Portsmouth. I've a bit of catching up to do.  Here I'm using my little Janome machine to do some Granite stitch, some very dense machining, on some water soluble fabric. It's just dark green at present but I will add some other shades to merge in.  This is how it looks at the moment

So a lot of greenery around here.

Fabric Folding

Last week on our travels I bought a fat quarter bundle that was folded in such a way I daren't open them.

I took the bundle to Bourne Quilters last night together with another fat quarter which I'd also bought, but unfolded.  One of the ladies puzzled over and was determined to get it folded up and almost managed it.  Another said, look up on Google, which is what I did, lo and behold there was a tutorial here.  Easy peasy, I've now done it on this owl fabric

Googling, of course, leads to other things. Like this

A fabric samosa.  That was quite easy

Another triangle fold here, not quite so easy as you have to push one triangle into another

And this one here, which doesn't tuck into anything else, but looks pretty

Now, who else is going to go through their stash folding up fabric?  ;o))

Fresh Sewing Day

As it's 1st May, it's Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts

I've solved the problem of a ninth block for the Jolly Jungle Quilt I'm making and a quilt top done!

Here's where I left the quilt at the beginning of this week

And this was yesterday.

I'd taken 3 strips and created with the colourful striped fabric in the middle which provided a frame 

I have a backing fabric but will start on the quilting next week.  As much as I like this time off and doing  a lot of sewing, I must progress on some job hunting, which is going very slowly at present.  But I am pleased that I've done a lot ofsewing this last 

month.