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!