Gail's Gifting Quilt

I know what it looks like... Yes, I know we are in Lockdown.
Gail happened to be in town doing her weekly food shop and saw my car on my shop front, which doesn't happen often as I almost always walk there. I must have had a premonition eh!!!  Anyway, Gail called me to ask whether she was able to show me this fabulous quilt as it was soon to be on it's way to be gifted.

Outside and wearing our masks we did a rapid photo shoot. 

It looks like 'normal behaviour' from the good old days before early on last March!! 

Isn't this just adore-a-bubble. All of these fabrics were purchased from my very own shop, woop woop.

Gail says she's never done a pieced backing before but now that she's had a dabble, she will do it again. Minnie will love this quilt, no doubt about it. Toot toot toot Gail, a Fabulous and finished fanfare is well deserved. 

On a side note... did we ever see Gail's large purple quilt finished, hmmmm I'll just leave that one resting!! ha ha ha

I Think I'll Stick To Quilts!

I've had this pattern for a while. I purchased several of the Jennifer Jangles patterns at the same time, remember the Turtles? That's how long I have been wanting to make this toy. I am not used to toy making! That's why it's taken me so long. As I STILL have plenty of the turquoise stash I decided to make a trial dog with it... before I move onto my 'good stuff'!

I got all the bits cut out easily enough. I followed the pattern very carefully. 2 thousand pins in each foot for the pad... that's tricky pinning!

Lots of body parts all ready for stuffing... 

not a job I enjoyed but had to be done!

I forgot to take 'meanwhile photos' after all the stuffing... I didn't have the correct ingredients for the eyes so I improvised.  That snout was a blooming nightmare to do. I sent the picture to Lilly, she asked whether it was a pig, ha ha ha

He/she doesn't sit up very well, no idea what's gong on in the neck department!

Legs and shoes are great though aren't they!

Lozzocking by a chair with the unruly ears, they are supposed to be stitched in place but I'd had enough by that point...

It didn't matter where I tried to take a picture, it's still turquoise, still lopsided, still doesn't sit up!!! But those legs and shoes are still fabulous! I'm not making another yet a while, I'm quite rubbish at toy making... all those hours, ha! I have a different plan for the turquoise uglies again now. there's a clue in the side bar of this blog... if you want one.

Stitching News

Once again, thank you for taking the time to send me your pictures ladies, and Lynda.

Let's start with a toot toot toot fanfare for an absolutely fabulous and finished turtle pond quilt. Made by Our very own Farmer Lynda. It's finished (not sure about a label?) in very good time for a birthday gifting present for a special little lady. Lot's of google-y eyes (the turtles' eyes)!! Lynda has really enjoyed making this quilt, she completely loves applique-ing actually. It's a Jennifer Jangles Pattern

Our Pam won't tell me what she is up to. She purchased several of the bolt ends I posted pictures of last week with the addition of a metre of her most favourite fabric, Moda Grunge. Next thing I knew, there was a ping on my phone with a photo of a block.  It was a practice block, not this one. This block is number 2, made after Pam's first practice block... which was ever so slightly 'different'! I believe there are now 6 perfect blocks.

Our Beano is playing with Flying Geese. They are all being made with left over fabrics from her Top Secret project that I haven't shown you pictures of yet, because it is "Top Secret"!!

The Flying Geese 'are what they are'... regularly uttered words from Beano! 

The geese were never meant to be perfect, as in the mathemistic quilty world way... (my blog, my words!!!) so long as the Geese fly nicely together they are perfectly perfect!

The mathemisms... I can't wait to see these Geese, all different dimensions, and quite teeny-tiny, doing their very important job of holding the countryside together! Yes, that is A Clue!!!!

The Ugly Duckling Quilted

It's all quilted. I used my darning foot and quilted Free Motion around all the birds, hearts, houses and flowers, everything really. The beauty of a quilt made with no importance is that the quilting can be done 'Stress Free'. Any wobbly bits or artsy-fartsy bits can be left as they land... Quite liberating... You should try it.
I used a variegated green thread, Rainbows from Superior Thread, it stitched a treat. They changed the name now, to Fantastico. I didn't tie of my threads, nor did I thread them through, shocking, ha! I just secured them and trimmed off the excess...What a rebel!

I quilted little bugs and flight lines in all the spaces, that sounds good eh? Just loop-de-loops really. All trimmed up and waiting for the binding, which is now stitched on and I'm getting on with the hand stitching to the back.

Free motion straight-ish lines... 

stitching around the hearts Liberated-ly!

Long Free Motion Straight lines are good practice for sewing speed and stitch length so I did those first, you know, to get me in the 'groove' and it worked!

My watering can needed a bit of extra quilting because it had started to poof a bit too much and I didn't really want a poooofy watering can! The Birdhouses did the same so I added more to them too.

I'll be posting for a fabulous and finished fanfare, very soon!!

Stitching News

 Thank you for the photos ladies. 

Pam finished the top of her forest! 

The pattern is easily available here (this is a link to a PDF to be purchased)

Last week Pam called me and made a telephone order for the border fabrics. She picked them up from my very own shop doorway on Tuesday. They are already sewn on and she's working on using up all her left over fabrics on the backing. I love a double sided quilt!

Christine enrolled her very own self onto an online quilt class, I've heard lots of you have tried one or two, isn't technology wonderful (even though I don't understand what I'm doing half the time, I love it!) I think she is learning about ruler work, though I have seen Chris's ruler work before... she is very good at it!

Just Edna made a baby quilt... I would hazard a guess that it's for a little girl, ha! It has taken Our Edna longer to make this little quilt than it takes her to do the huge projects. That happens though don't you think? The more time you have, the longer it takes! 

During Lockdown it can be easy to lose you sewing 'mojo' and that's what happened with Edna... BUT... she bought more fabric this week so she must have found that Mojo, dusted it off and put it back in action! fabulous and finished quilts need a toot toot toot fanfare!

Our Pam is a big Jack Russel fan, I'm not sure who he is, do you know him? 

Apparently, he likes quilts for his dogs, ha ha ha. Pam sent me this picture of the 3 doggie quilts she had just finished binding. I sent a message back asking for a more detailed photo, cheeky monkey aren't I!

Whoop whoop whoop and Toot toot toot.

 3 fabulous and finished doggie quilts 

(they wash and wash and wash and protect your sofa!)

Well done Our Pam, I hope Jack Russel loves them x

Anji Nuttie has been working on Crumb blocks since our retreat last year,  She was scrounging our scraps the whole week, ha!!! this very week in fact... we were away and luxuriating while all the shops were running out of foods and loo roll! 

Nuttie decided to use the Quilt-As-You-Go and apartment joining method.

Wow! This is the back. Isn't it fabulous!!!
There's a lot of work there and it's fabulous how both sides are so very different.

Nuttie has named this project "Resting With Friends" 

Toot toot toot it's definitely a fabulous finish.

An Ugly (Duckling) Project

For my very good self, the process from start to finish isn't always straight forward.
Some people look through books and magazines or, like many of us these days, click about on the internet for inspiration or to find the next project. I've mentioned my 'Rabbit Hole' hours before! I often feel quite satisfied to have looked at lots of projects and ideas with no desire to actually make any of them.
I came across this quilt... I'm adding this link LINK for you to click on if you want to see more info about it.

At this stage this is a quilt top. Alex has been working on it and she shows you various methods for applique, using all sorts of tools and gadgets that you don't need!! There are lots of video things to watch and they're quite entertaining really.

Here goes...
I told you that I am trying to use up some of the older fabrics in my stash, my tastes have changed and I have run out of space in Quilty Quarters. 
I pulled out several greens from said stash as the Bird House pattern instructions say to piece the background... and I like how the background looks...

I placed the fabrics over the design wall just to see how much I had... I could have mathemised the pieces but this was much faster, I only needed a rough idea... I wasn't surprised to see I had plenty! But, this gave me an idea, I could be a 'Smarty Pants' and piece these big bits of fabric together... it would be quicker, right?
It actually looked terrible!

  I decided to join all the bits with wavy seams... oh my goodness... what a blooming ugly mess!! So I stopped with that idea too. It's hard enough working with fabrics I don't really like any more without me making it more awful! Ugly fabric gets less ugly the smaller the pieces are... that is fact! 

I started to cut pieces more like the pattern instructions said, but I wasn't enjoying the look of that, not with my ugly fabrics. So I cut rectangles.... didn't like that plan either... Wooooha, I had a Brainstorm... make a wall!!! Add bit of batik style mortar... genius!!  Much happier with this idea so I continued. But I neglected to look at sizes. I just covered my design wall with ugly green wall. This was now going to be larger than the original Bird House project.

Also in my stash I had these. There was a Makower panel in my shop, ages ago now. I cut out all these birds and things to make a shop sample to give folk an idea of what they could do with the panel. 3 years or more later, they still waited. Steam-a-Seam on each piece. You know I don't like waste?

OK, so I decided to use them on my Bird House Quilt, which now looks nothing like the original! During one of her Facebook Videos, Alex suggested 'Google-ing' Line drawings of Bird houses to make up our own. So, I did and drew some of my own. tested them out in paper and liked. Also cut out paper branches for my birds... didn't like...

My birds are the kind that like to congregate on phone wires now!
Also I still have lots of turquoise fabric left, hence the blue bird houses...
By now, I'm starting to enjoy the project.

 I used Alex's petal templates for my flowers, a nod to the original pattern... and before you start wondering, Yes, I have loads of yellow fabrics to use up too!! I added the Bunting style hearts to use up the rest of the Makower panel! 

Everything was stuck in place so I cracked on with the applique stitching.

lots of thread colour changes... see the tiny bee?

Once it was all stitched, I stood back to admire my work. There was a big space at the bottom, which I could have cut off... But I googled, "How to draw a watering can?" Who knew there would be a tutorial! ha ha ha. My Lilly designed the wellies for me. Each bird was going to have a tiny pair of wellies because the idea of appliqueing all those feet was daunting. I got round the bird feet problem with improv applique (could be called 'winging it', ha!)  so I made just one pair of wellies but a bit larger, cute eh?

Do you remember me making the turquoise thing to use up fabrics? 

I said I was going to use it as the back for a green quilt... 

but, No, I didn't like the idea of it after all. 

I've grown to really like this Ugly Birdhouse quilt, so I wanted a nice,

 but possibly equally as ugly design for the backing.... here we go again!

Quarter Log Cabin blocks set On Point. 

That decision was made to stop the quilting on the back from looking wonky... 

and it would have looked wonky, don't ask me how I know.
Used up most of the ugly green bits.... almost ran out, hooray!!

Fill the spaces with Quarter Log Cabin blocks using many fabrics from yellow stash, 

I'm really starting to like this now! ha ha ha

I didn't have anything that would look good as the setting triangles so I had to make more Quarter Log Cabin blocks and cut them diagonally in half to fill the spaces. Lastly that bit of that ugly Brazilian, blotchy green was added... utilitarian, to make the back big enough to make the sandwich, it should be cut off after the quilting is done

One Ugly Bird House quilt sandwich. 

Made to use up some older stash fabrics. 

The seed of the idea came from that lovely quilt in the first picture 

but you probably would never have guessed that!

It still has to be quilted, it's on my agenda.... 

There's a long list on that agenda!

Scrap Basket, Potting!

It's been a while since I played with the coiled fabric baskets. I had 30 metres of cord already wrapped, it's actually been waiting for me to use it for over 3 years!! No idea why I didn't use it before. 

Once the centre is stable the zig-zagging can start. One thing to remember for the baskets is that the bobbin thread colour it going to be on the outside of the coiled pot.

I tried to make a more oval shape for my centre. I used a brown variegated thread because it needed using up, you know I don't waste anything! I don't really like the thread brand for quilting but it's fine for 'Potting'

The most exciting bit is when the flat base is big enough and you can start to go up for the sides, such excitement!!! 

2 days later...Though, Obviously, not a whole two days sewing, much as that would be very enjoy-a-bubble... It didn't happen. One Coiled Fabric Basket... with handles. Not as oval shaped as I wanted really, but still very useful.

I hadn't use up the whole of my ready-wrapped 30 metres of cord so I was able to make this very much Oval shaped basket with what was left... much better oval.

Then I had a request for shorter handles so I had to undo (rip off) the first basket ones... That is a satisfying job... just a good, strong yank but blimey it makes a lot of thread mess! Ill have to pick all those short bits off before I use it again. I wonder when I will finish re-sewing the basket now? Don't roll your eyes!