Stash

It’s official.  I have just scored myself with the amount of fabric I have.  I counted up the fat quarters and half metres I had folded into this shelf of my storage system.  It amounts to 6.25 metres in just that tiny space.

Well I have 72 of those in the storage system

Which means that I must have about 450 metres of fabric.  And this is fabric that I do not use for my special appliqué quilts.  It gets used for my students and also for quilts for Project Linus and other charity quilts.  So I have worked out that if I do not buy another fat quarter I have enough fabric to make about 70 charity quilts.  I know I sew fast but this is slightly frightening!!!!!Especially as this year I am using my pre-cut strips for the quilt tops so that means it will be more like 120 quilts.

But I have made a start

This is made from my black and grey strips with the contrast orange to lift it a bit.  I can see this being given to a teenager hopefully.  It measures 60 x 65”. The back is made up of fabrics from my stash. 

So I think I had better get sewing!

Happy Quilting.

Prepping

This week has been one of prepping for appliqué projects.  I have been designing an open border for the vase appliqué quilt

The weird shape between the strawberries will be a bee with hand stitched legs.  This is very slow going but I am enjoying it hugely.  When life seems to get faster and faster, it is comforting to just sit and glue down the edges.  This quilt is being machine appliqué so once all the prep has been done should go together quite quickly.

I have signed up for some more block of the month appliqué projects again this year so am going to be really busy.  I will let you know which ones once they have started.

December’s instalment for the block of the month from Material Obsessions finally arrived yesterday and so I spent a happy time cutting out the shapes for the flowers

 Am going to be stitching them with Eleganza thread.  They are such fun to do in front of the TV so I am going to have a few cosy evenings just sewing.

Happy quilting!

New Year - new projects

Happy New Year to you all.  I have been plotting and planning all in order to support by word for this year which is DISCIPLINE.  I need to get more organised with my quilting and record what I am doing more accurately.

I bought the Quilter’s Planner for myself  and have already decided to do the two sampler quilts this year.  They will use up some stash and at the moment they are destined for Project Linus.  The colourways I have chosen are

And

OK I am ever going to use them all in the quilt tops but I reckon that they can also be used in the backings and bindings and will make a bit of a dent on the stash.

I have also finished the top for the 365 Block Challenge - 365 blocks in 365 days.  Gosh this was hard and I am certainly not going to be doing something like that again.  It really interrupted the work on other quilts but I am pleased with the result and now have to quilt it in order to gift it in May.

I don’t have the room to lay it all out but it is VERY busy so I reckon that some fairly overall quilting should be enough.

 I have some new fabrics on their way from the States and so will show them as soon as they arrive.

Happy Quilting!

Black Friday

Oh dear.  I never thought much about Black Friday before but this year I seem to be much more aware of it.  OK I am on Instagram and Facebook quite a lot and all these wonderful offers keep on appearing. So I am sitting here in my pjs and have a credit card in hand so what is a girl to do!!!!!  I am waiting for a few parcels to arrive!

I have been working on my BOM from Material Obsessions with lots of hand stitching

This is a tree for one of the borders.  Don’t you love the background fabric.  I would never have dared to use it but it works really well.  It has been whipstitched using Wonderfil’s Eleganza thread by Sue Spargo.  I really like this thread as it does not unravel when you are using quite long lengths.
I also have to make a mass of felt flowers which has been the greatest fun.  They should all be

Perfect Circles and although I am using them they are a little wonky - or as someone on Instagram said - they have character.  Why have I never discovered hand embroidery before. I always thought I was just a quilter and of course I still am but Oh the joy of just sitting and doing colonial knots and whip stitch in the evening.  I will show you some finished ones next time.

My machine is in the hospital as the top tension has been going bananas and I certainly do not need this as I am still doing the 365 day challenge and the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt started on Friday.  So I have a mass of things cut out and no way to sew them but the machine should be back by Friday.

Just in case you might want to  follow me on Instagram I am Louisa Lawson and have a picture of a striped hippo  and on Facebook I am Louiisa Lawson (yes I know the spelling is different - I typed it in wrong all those years ago!!)

Happy quilting

Progress of sorts

Waiting for the start of the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt means that I need to get a bit more organised. I am still doing the 365 Block Challenge but thankfully we have now finished the dark 3” blocks and I have put two of the borders on

How I managed to have one extra 3” block and a 6” block is a complete mystery to me but I am glad that they are sewn and the other two borders are ready.  I will have to go and measure my son’s bed and I have a ghastly feeling that the quilt is going to end up too large but hey he can always keep it until he  upgrades the bed. So all the dark fabrics are back in the stash and the pale one all pulled and sorted together.

Off to work on the flower blocks and will show some photographs soon.

Happy quilting.

Too much to do

I seem to be working on too many projects at the moment. I think the trouble started with blocks on the month.  Most of them do not take a month or even a week to complete, so while you are waiting for the next instalment you still want to do some sewing.

I am working on a wool appliqué project from Australia which is supplying all the fabrics.  There are some fundamental problems with this way of working - sometimes you do not get all the necessary fabrics or they are cut far too close for comfort and of course it does not reduce the stash at all.

On the other hand it is a really good way of deciding whether you want to continue to work with a new medium.  Yes I have now decided that I like working with wool and all the embroidery that it involves and have just watched the Sue Spargo class on Craftsy
She is such a talented lady and I am excited about using some of her techniques.  So I have ordered some wool and hopefully will be making something before too long.  I don’t think that wool appliqué is suitable for bed quilts and as I hate small quilts I think I am going to be making cushions - probably satisfying my Circle obsession and  doing a whole lot of those.  She has the most marvellous variegated threads which you can get from her website.  I will keep you posted!!

I am also coming to the end of the 365 block challenge which has involved in the insanity of making 3” and 6” pieced blocks with gazillions of pieces.  I must have been mad to start it but of course we are now nearing the end and I just want to finish it.  Please remind me that it is a really bad idea to have to create a block a day in future - all the changing of threads etc mean that it is a pain to have
to change everything to sew any other project.

Well I had better go and do some sewing.  Will talk again soon.

Happy quilting

Back again

Hi - if anyone is still out there.

I have not blogged for about four years but have now decided to give it another go.  If you followed me before, I hope you are still here and if you find me now - welcome.

I am not going to go over old ground but start from where I am today.  I have done the ultimate downsize and now live in a two bedroom flat - or at least it would be if I had not dedicated one of the bedrooms to my sewing cave.  It is small but beautifully formed.

My main passion has now become appliqué which if I am honest is rather a surprise.  Here is a picture of a quilt block that I have just completed

It is based on a watercolour I painted during the 100 Day Project Challenge

in the summer. as you can see I have had to alter the design slightly but I am really pleased with how it has turned out.  Not all the flowers and leaves I painted turned out too well but I have other ideas which I can interpret into fabric. this is all going to take some time but there is no deadline on this quilt thankfully

It is really good to be back and I hope you will enjoy my musings over the coming posts

Happy quilting

Random is more difficult than it looks

I have been trying to compose a quilt using a bunch of squares. I saw the marvellous lesson by Elizabeth Hartmann on Craftsy about modern quilting and decided to have a go. The theory is that you cut 40 squares background fabrics and 10 squares of four different prints (the squares are cut 3.5 inches).  You haphazardly put them up on a design wall until you have a pleasing combination.

Well....................  I am not at all sure that I do random!

Here are some of the trials so far:

It's all about making sure that the colours are dispersed evenly throughout the quilt top.  Honestly after an hour and a half and many more combinations than these I am still unsure and confused. I keep on finding pathways of background fabric that need to be blocked I think.

Think I need to leave it up on the design wall for a while and go and chill somewhere else.  Will let you know what I finally decide on later in the week.

Happy quilting.

New Year - New challenge

Well I am writing this feeling very guilty. It is ages since I last blogged and I really have absolutely no excuse for not doing so. I watched Julie and Julia on the TV last night and thought I would start writing again.  Does anyone else use their blog as a sort of diary - more working things through by writing them down?

But 2012 is gone and now I have to set myself new challenges for the new year. 

The first will be to sew for 15 minutes a day - OK some days I sew much more but there are days on end when I do nothing and that needs to change.  One of my groups have made a quilt of heartstring quilts for charity (well at least the flimsie is finished) and I have decided that I am going to try and make a block of these every day this year. It should produce about six quilts at the end which I will be giving away and my stash of  strips will be greatly reduced.

The second is to complete the flimsie for the Glorious Applique Roseville Album quilt. I have completed one of the side panels and have all the applique pieces really to sew down for the second.

I am returning to Committed to Cloth for one day a month to do the stitch course and hopefully get my inspiration going - I really need to start designing my own quilts more and hopefully this will be the launch pad - I will let you know how I got on. The first quilt I will be working on is the Cornflower one and I am quite excited at the prospect as I have got somewhat stuck on it.

So on this first day of the new Year I wish you all a happy and healthy one with as much quilting time as you want.

Happy quilting.

Interior decorating

What I do is make quilts - pure and simple. Normally they are lap quilt size and a lot of them get given away.

So why do I ask myself, I have been spending precious sewing time making cushions for the sofa in the kitchen.

I had bought a set of circle templates at Festival this year (well if I am honest, I bought two sets and now have circles in every size possible I think!) and decided I wanted to use them on these cushions.
They are machine appliqued and then I machine quilted with a loop design.

They do the job but I can't say I enjoyed making them.  But I think there is mileage in the circles efffect - so watch this space over the coming months.

Happy quilting.

Heartstrings

One of the groups that I quilt with decided it was time to produce another charity quilt.  This time we agreed to do a joint quilt.  None of us have ever done a heartstring quilt so thought we would give it a go.

Here are my four blocks. The only criteria was that they had to have a red of some sort going through the middle.  We meet up again in about two weeks so it will be interesting to see what the others have done and how the whole thing comes together. My guess is that we will have to make more blocks but they are a really good way to use up my collection of 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 inch strips (you would not believe how many I have already cut!!).

I actually find this rather a difficult exercise - random is not really for me - I kept on auditioning every fabric when I should have just done with those on the top of the pile.  The blocks are 8" finished and I made them by stitching and flipping over paper.

Happy Quilting.

Emergency hug

Sometimes you just have to stop everything and make someone a hug.  A friend is about to start on a grueling round of chemotherapy and I thought she needed a comfort blanket to take to the hospital with her for her sessions. 

I don't really think she is a "quilt" person, and although I do have a small pile of completed quilts, I am not sure she would have appreciated one. So on Saturday I went shopping for 1.5 metres of fleece and decided just to bind it with a wide binding. The 1 1/2 metres makes up to a square. You just need to trim the sides where the fleece has been on the huge rollers.

I cut the binding fabric into 6" strips and then sewed a 2 1/2" border and then had sewed the binding on the back.

You can also make these for children using the marvellous patterned fleeces that are now out there.


Spent an afternoon last week cutting up the fabrics for the raffle quilt for our local group who are holding a show in May next year.  All very modern fabrics which we got from Fabricworm. We will be sharing out the blocks at the first autumn meeting next week.  I will do my two this afternoon and post tomorrow so you can see some of the colours.

Right now I have to go do some work so Happy quilting to you all.

I'm back

I am sorry that I have been so silent for so long but have not had much to say. I know I should have told you all before I disappeared.  Excuses - do I have them?  Well I have spent a lot of time machine quilting my large applique project which was shown at the Festival of Quilts last week.

How scary was that!! Here is a photo

not a very good one but I could not get far enough back to photograph it well. The good news is that you can't see the wavy bottom edge.  It was hung by a white wholecloth quilt which made it stand out.  Actually I thought it looked OK which was a miracle really as I had not seen it all spread out since I finished it.  I got some judges' comments back which were surprisingly complimentary with only one "satisfactory" for the  wavy bottom edge.

So it will now be put away our local show next May and until the Summer Fair comes around next year when it will be the first prize in the raffle and hopefully raise a pleasing amount of money.

The Festival was marvellous as usual and it was good to have enough time to return to the quilts that I really enjoyed for a second look.  The traders were calling to me as usual and here is one bundle that I bought

I just love the modern look of this collection and want to use it in the near future.

I am still working on my other applique quilt - I had thought I would do a lot of glueing on holiday but managed to do nothing and then thought I would do it all whilst watching the Olympics but being such a sports nut I decided that I did not want to be distracted from the sport and so had a totally sewing free fortnight.

Promise I will be back again before too long

Happy Quilting

Curves challenge

We all met on Friday and showed our 12" blocks on the theme of "Curves".
Here is my contribution

I based it on a paisley design and decided to use wool felt as well as rick-rack and some cottons (I am a great fan of Sue Spargo's work and thought that I would have fun with all the embellishing techniques. I also used beads and embroidery stitches. Here is a close-up

The quilting was done by machine using a varigated YLI thread.

Happy quilting.

Tip of the day

I have been tidying my work room a bit and decided that I needed to do something with the UFOs I have - I am admitting to three - everything else is a sort of work in progress.  But with the UFOs, I decided I needed a storage system.  Far too much ironing is involved if they are stuffed into a bag so I decided to hang them up on trouser clips.

OK the top is folded in four but that is better than being screwed up into a ball.

This a quilt made from headers and footers so I guess it may be on the back of the door for some while!

This is another project that is so not going to get finished any time soon but the centre is pieced and I have pulled out the other two fabrics for the inner border and outer border - so they are all on the coathanger - just where I can find them when I get around to it. The centre was constructed with some hsts that I cut to the wrong size - ring a bell?!!!

They are all on the back of the door of my work room so I pass them all the time. Do I feel guilty about then - actually not at all at the moment. They will get done but just not now.

I am busy trying to machine quilt the large Christmas quilt - boy is it going slowly and I am the first to admit that I find outline quilting extremely difficult. All the applique has to be outlined before I can start on the infill quilting. The quilt is huge and I really should have sent it out to a LAr but did not have the money so I will have to put in the hours instead.  So if there are not too many posts in the coming weeks I hope you will bear with me.  I am hoping to have it finished by July so that I can show it at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August.

Have done some more dyeing but will show that to you next week.

Happy quilting.

Dyeing and overdyeing

I have been busy creating more fabric (as if I need it) but somehow this is more fun than just going to the shop.

We started with a drak brown dye which we used in different strengths

and then overdyed these in different strengths of scarlet dye to produce some wonderful colours

the reproduction colours are not so spot on but there is a nice selection. Also they seem to go with the collection of fabricworm fabrics I bought back in January - see the blog from 19th January. How cool is that.

Sadly I won't have time to do anything about them yet as I really have to sandwich my large applqiue quilt this week and start to quilt it. The deadline for the exhibition is  middle of July and I am away on holiday before that as well - so lots of long hours ahead I fear.

Happy quilting.

A finish

I have finally completed the quilt I have been making for a friend's 60th birthday (couldnot show it before as I only handed it over on Sunday).

I used some of Leah Day's exercises for the machine quilting - not brilliant I grant you but it is certainly getting better.

The blocks are Carpenter's Wheel with a star block inserted in the middle and they measure 18" square.

The Fabrics all came from stash and were chosen by her son (thanks Andrew!).

and here are some close ups of the actual quilting. The block was straight line free motion quilted and then I used three different sorts of quilting - a meander, a loop and a heart shaped leaf design.

Stupidly I forgot to take a photo of the back but will do so when I next see the recipient.

Off to do more dyeing tomorrow so will post results over the weekend hopefully.

Happy Quilting!

I'm back

A million apologies for not having blogged for ages but I did not have a lot to say so thought you did not need to hear my ramblings.

One of my quilt groups has posed a challenge for 2012 - make a 12" finished block every two months on a specific theme.

The deadline for the first one was the end of February and the theme for this one was "Layers".  I am not very good at conceptual themes but had a go. The layers I chose to use were layers of thermafax prints on fabric.  When I had produced the fabric I felt that it had a slight aesthic quality and this was certainly the case when I had put the pieces onto the green background.

The squares were bondawebbed down and then I had the question of quilting the piece. I decided that with this very clean look, I did not want to muddle the overall image and decided just to do straight quilting.

We are now onto the second challenge which is "Curves" - so far I am thinking and formulating an idea. I will get back to you once I have finalised what I am doing.

Have been doing lots of fabric dyeing but will show you the results in the next few days.

Happy quilting.

A new quilt

The good thing about The Beast being sick and in the hospital is that I have had to get my old Bernina out of the cupboard and start using it again. I was amazed how I had almost forgotten how to work it but slowly everything came back.

So what have I been doing. Well I have a quilt to make and thought I had better get started - it has a deadline not too far in the future and I will also have to quilt it. What pattern did I decide on - well I have always wanted to do a Carpenter's Wheel , no real reason except that I really like it.

A proper wheel has a large empty space in the middle but I did not like that and so decided to put a star in there. The block is 18" and there will be nine of them.  I have five completed and all the triangles sewn for the other four. The squaring up of each little square takes a long time - far longer than the actual sewing but it is well worth it - the  pieces go together like a dream. Or they would do if I did not keep getting the odd one round the wrong way - on all five so far I have had to do the odd bit of unpicking - so annoying.  Everything is from stash which is good.  I need to use some up this year.

Yesterday was a good day with the postman delivering the guilty purchase from Fabric Worm which I had ordered on New Year's Eve (so it does not count as a fabric purchase in 2012!!

I got a yard of this wonderful fabric

and then half yards of the following

I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with them yet but there should be enough for a decent size quilt in due course. Once they have all been washed, they will be put away in a box while I think.

I am off on holiday on Saturday so will bring you some lovely pictures of snowy vistas on my return.

Happy quilting.

Bereft

I have just had to take The Beast to the hospital and they are going to have to keep it for a week or two. Typically I went in with one problem and then discovered that my stitch length was all over the place - hopefully they will be able to sort it out soon.

So I will drag out the old Bernina this weekend as I have some straight stitching of blocks to do.

All my good intentions of doing the free motion quilting chanllenges are now on hold but hopefully I will be able to catch up when the machine comes back.
Keep your fingers crossed that all will be well.

Happy quilting.