Origami Bird

The pattern for this origami bird came from an issue of Quilt Now. I decided to make this as I was doing a Secret Santa swap with some friends, and the lady I was to be Santa for lives in Japan and loves birds. This was my first time doing foundation piecing and I was surprised by how easy it was.

(I got a new macro lens some months ago, this is why I am posting so many super close up photos!)

Quilted charm pack bag

I made this lovely bag using one of Moda's charm packs and some scrap fabric. I used this tutorial from Girls in the Garden, making some small changes on the way to fit with what I had to hand. It was quite a simple make and the first time I tried using the walking foot on my sewing machine.

A little bunny

Here's a little bunny pincushion and thread catcher I made using a kit from Cross Patch. Sweet, isn't he?

Collaborative quilt

Here's a little quilt my mum and I made together for our boss. She made the top and I put the whole thing together and quilted it. It was a very quick project as we got it all done in about a week.

It was quilted very simple, going just inside the edges of each three strip "square". I used four different colours for the quilting. Pink, orange and green for around the squares and blue for the border.

Kirby quilt top

I haven't finished my jelly roll quilt yet, but that hasn't stopped me from starting another. This time it's Kirby from the Nintendo series of games.

I used my Sizzix Big Shot and the 4.5" square die to cut each square. It's 20x20 squares big, which means it will be 80"x80" once it's quilted and bound.

Guild raffle bag

I think I mentioned it before, but in case I didn't I joined the Embroiderer's Guild nearly a year ago now. Each month at the guild meetings the Birmingham branch has a raffle. Last year we had one tote bag that a member would design and every body else would bring something to put in it. This year we're having two raffle bags a month, a big one and a little one. Each month has a colour theme, and for the January meeting the colour was red, and I chose to decorate the little bag.

I used a rose grahpic I found online, printed it, cut out all the petals, and used these as templates to cut fabric. I used Bondaweb to attach each petal to a piece of calico, used a bit of batting and another piece of calico behind it, then went around each petal with a zig-zag stitch a couple of times. Finally, I zigzagged around the edge of the square and used Bondaweb and a bit of invisible thread to attach it to the bag.

I was quite pleased with the outcome!

Jelly Roll quilt top

I am in the process of making another quilt. This one is made from one Moda jelly roll, namely Pedal Pushers.

I am thinking about having a go at hand quilting this one, as I got some lovely cottons in just the right shades of brown, green and turquoise from the Embroiderers' Guild sales table the other day!

Girl's Apron

A friend asked me to make her little girl an apron for Christmas. This is my first apron, but I'm very happy with it! What do you think? 

Christmas Cushion

One of Michael's brothers asked me to make his girlfriend a cushion for Christmas. She picked out the fabrics and I sewed it up for them. 

Do you recognise the antler/leaf fabric? It's from the September Bolt End Club.

Colourful quilt finish

A little while ago I showed you my quilt top I'd been working on made with Moda charm packs. After vising the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC last weekend and a couple of hiccoughs I finally finished it.

The first problem I ran into was that I had thought I'd be able to get everything, including batting at the show. However, nobody was selling any full size cuts of batting. This was quickly resolved though, with a quick trip to the Cotton Patch.

The second problem I ran into was that after buying this sweet, yellow, umbrella fabric above, which was advertised as being 60", I came home to find it was only 54". The quilt top itself was 54.5" so I really needed the 60". Unfortunately, I don't know from which company I bought it from as I didn't think to check the stand name at the NEC and didn't get a receipt. Anyway, after a bit of a panic I found some plain yellow cotton, the same shade as the background, and I had just enough to make a strip down one side. You can see it in the top of the photo, but it looks like it was made to be.

The binding fabric is by Riley Blake Designs, and a lovely lady at the Pin it & Stitch stand at the NEC helped me pick it out. I quilted it just inside the squares and around the border fabric, I wanted to keep the quilting simple as the fabrics were already so busy. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, as this is my first proper quilt. I think I might be addicted now.

Colourful quilt top

You might remember that a month or two ago I went to the Festival of Quilts, and purchased a couple of layer cakes of beautiful Moda fabrics. I worked on making a quilt with them for a little while, then got scared of ruining it and put it away for a few weeks. Then I got Quilt Me! by Jane Brocket from the library and learned a few things that made me less scared (for example, you can stretch cotton a bit if your piecing isn't perfect and doesn't quite match up), and felt inspired to keep working on it.

Here is the top in all its (slighting over saturated) glory. I had a lot of help from the lovely lady in the local craft shop, Scissor Stitch, in picking out the border fabric. I chose a green because I wanted to keep it light an airy (a dark purple had been a close second choice) and because it was the least overpowering colour in the quilt, it also picks up all the other greens in the other coloured patches nicely. 

I already have some ideas for the backing and the binding, though nothing set in stone, and I am still at a loss as how to quilt it. I am really welcome to hear any thoughts you might have. 

Mini Mosaic Finish

A little while ago I showed you the beginning of a mini mosaic quilt I did while at the Festival of Quilts. I finished it a month or so ago, but I forgot to blog about it, so here it is!

I sewed it all together, backed it with some plain calico and added some very simple (and a bit wonky!) quilting, and bound it with red cotton for use as a mug rug.

It was a pretty simple process and I love how sharp it made all the points turn out.

Festival of Quilts: Mini Mosaic

The first workshop I did at the Festival of Quilts was Mini Mosaic quilt blocks. This workshop was taught by Paula Doyle and in it she showed us how to make tiny 1.5" half-square triangles and other such blocks which would be too difficult to make as you would normally.

We started with some plain 1.5" squares and some bigger rectangles which had been pieced from 1.5" strips. Then square pieces of freezer paper were attached to the bigger pieces by gently ironing them on. These were used as templates to cut the rectangles in to 1.5" squares.

We then placed a sheet of iron on interfacing over a grid and positioned all the squares on top of the interfacing and they were gently ironed down.This was as far as we got in the workshop. Now I have to press them properly to make sure they stick to the interfacing and machine sew each strip together.

I'll let you know what it looks like once it's all sewn together!

Previously:
Festival of Quilts: The Haul

Festival of Quilts: The Haul

Today I spent the entire day at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC. I did three workshops which I'll show you later, because I know what you really want to see is the stash.

That's six fat quarters, two packs of Moda charm squares, five new packs of needles (cross stitch, embroidery, sewing and quilting), some basic sewing threads, some embroidery threads, a new rotary cutter and cutting mat, a little square ruler, a bobbin box, a packet of batting (a freebie for joining the Warm Company's mailing list!) and a subscription to Love Patchwork & Quilting (£3 for three months plus the current issue for free and a totebag). I was very tempted by a die cutter, but thought I'd leave that for another time.

Here's some of the best bits.

These embroidery cottons were actually a freebie with one of the workshops!

All the colours in the charm squares! I love this photo!

Scrappy Blocks 4

Previously:
Scrappy Blocks 1
Scrappy Blocks 2
Scrappy Blocks 3

Scrappy Blocks 3

Previously:
Scrappy Blocks 1
Scrappy Blocks 2

Quilted cushion

I had a bit of a go at piecing and quilting a couple of weeks ago, so here's a belated post to show you the cushion cover I made.

Scrappy Blocks 2

Here's a couple more scrappy blocks!

Previously:
Scrappy Blocks 1 

Scrappy blocks 1

A little while ago I read some advice for getting rid of little scraps of fabric. Unfortunately I don't remember where I read it, but the writer said that she cut all pieces of fabric that were smaller than a fat quarter in to two, three or four inch squares and strips, and put them to the side until she'd collected enough to make a quilt out of.

I thought that was a very good idea, but I couldn't figure out how to economically decide how to cut each piece of fabric. I decided in the end that I would just start cutting all my scrap fabrics into 2"x5" rectangles to make Roman square blocks with, and any other left over pieces of a reasonable size could be used to make scrappy blocks.

After all that writing, here we have the first two scrappy blocks.

Flower Garden

The Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild are having their summer party next Monday, and a competition is being held with the theme 'happy days'. My initial idea was to stitch something related to Happy Days, that didn't quite work out as I couldn't find my heat transfer pen to transfer something onto denim. I then just started machine embroidering flowers onto the denim, and from there grew the above flower garden.

I embroidered the flowers first, and then quilted it with green on the front and pink on the back. I used an old skirt from the backing fabric and the denim came from a favourite, but worn out, pair of jeans. The binding fabric comes from the last Bolt End Club package I received.