Saturday 25 April 2015

A Quilt For My Nephew


My 11 year old nephew was due to get a new quilt.  I have made a couple for him in the past, both of which he still has and are still used.  They were both made as  playmats for his cars and construction vehicles when he was much younger.  One stayed at home and the other was left at Gran and Papa's.




I thought it was time he had a change.  He is a big fan of Transformers and has a few of the characters which 'transform' into cars.  Although I am not an expert I believe there are films, games and all sorts of toys.  I was lucky enough to purchase some fabric recently.  When the lady from Linus visited our group to collect some quilts we had made for the charity, she brought along some fabrics and quilts which had been made especially for boys.  Transformers was one of the prints and as soon as I saw it I knew I just had to make a quilt using thus fabric for R.

I am really pleased with the outcome, I fussy cut Optimus Prime and Bumblebee I used bright solids sandwiched between black and grey to break things up.  R was delighted with the cosy quilt which has a nice red fleece on the back.  He immediately wanted to take it to show all his friends.  The only disappointment was I hadn't included 'Ratchet' who apparently is the mechanic who fixes the others when they are broken.  Oops!  I'll need to see if I can find a picture of him to print on the backing of the cushion cover I am in the midst of making with the leftovers. I even managed a photo outside this week.



The Zandra Rhodes Midnight Lace fabrics are coming together nicely using the T intersection pattern as shown on the Missouri Star Quilt Co Tutorial.  I added another solid teal fabric from my stash  to break things up - too many patterned fabrics were making me dizzy.  The blocks were put together totally randomly - not an easy thing to do if you are a quilter.  It's a well known fact quilters don't do random, we always try to match things up.



The top is almost complete so I might manage a photo of it for next week.

We have been lucky this week and have been able to enjoy nice bright days and glorious sunshine.  I even managed my morning coffee in the summerhouse, although I was sitting amidst the winter debris and cobwebs.  That is this week's project - to give it a good spring clean, dust down the cobwebs and return it from the winter storage dumping ground to what it should be - a nice place to sit in the garden for morning coffee, afternoon tea, or a quiet half hour stitching or reading.  

Enjoy your week ahead.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Using Up The Confetti

Where are the weeks disappearing to?  I've had a good week although busy, a little bit of spring cleaning, the usual lunch and shopping trip and an outpatients visit for Dad.  So my own activities have been a bit curtailed.  I seem to be getting my own house in order very slowly and hope to start very soon on an exciting and long over due, long term project. Maybe in the next couple of weeks.

I did manage a few more Farmers Wifey Blocks - but as I said last week I was running low on the layer cake fabrics, don't want to buy more but I have lots of left over scraps.  Hmmm what to do?  Light bulb moment!  15 minutes of play.  Do you remember this post and this one shows a finished quilt (4th photo down) using the blocks?  Perfect for all those little bits of confetti.  I am very pleased with the results and three more unique blocks to be added to the mix.  You know I'm not one for throwing things away.


Kim Higgins of Biggar Stitches came along to visit us at class as arranged on Tuesday.  What a fun night!  A lovely lady with a fantastic quilty vision for the future.  Kim has a newly developed business plan and an online shop.  She is based in the next town and it's good to have a local presence for quilting notions and fabrics.  Kim brought along some of her stock and a few samples, she spoke of her dreams and how they came to fruition and plans for the future and how they are gradually falling into place.  We were all focussed and enjoying her chat and the time passed too quickly.  We had the opportunity to buy some of the pre-cuts she had brought - mini charms, charms, jelly rolls, layercakes and fat quarters, all of which she is selling online here together with all kinds of quilting notions and supplies.

I thought you might like to see my purchases  - 6 little fat quarters. Yes I know, I know, you know my mantra -  I don't like buying fat quarters -  and there were a few comments by the ladies,  but I do have a plan in mind and it is fat quarter or layer cake friendly.  Kim had not (understandably) brought bolts and I needed a solid to compliment these little attractively folded and stacked fat quarters.  Aren't they cute!  




Kim agreed to send me the Bella solid I wanted, and this little package arrived yesterday


all neatly folded, wrapped and packaged with a little note.   I don't normally advertise here but I wish Kim at Biggar Stitches all the very best and I am sure she will have a few more customers from our group. 

I best get on now and get the never ending bundle of ironing done.  I hope you all have a lovely week whatever you are doing and have time to stop and enjoy the lovely spring flowers which are appearing in the gardens.

Sunday 12 April 2015

Sunshine After The Storm

............ is finished.  



Block 5 is finished too (with a little bit of artistic licence) apart from the embroidery so I am pleased with my efforts this week and it's done just in time for the allotted timescale at class.  



I have just realised though I have a reprieve.  Normally we show our Night Before Christmas progress on the second week of the month at class.  This week we are having a visitor though.  A lady has set up an online quilting shop in the next town and she is coming along to class to talk to us and show us some of her stock - how exciting I'm really looking forward to this.  As I have said before we don't have a fabric shop in our local area so this might be a bonus for us.

A couple of weeks ago at class we started chatting about threads.  Which thread do you use?  Have you considered changing?  Why does one manufacturer's thread seem thicker than another?  This got me thinking and I am about to embark on a trial using different threads by different manufacturers.  There are so many out there but which one is best for piecing and is it all that important.  Gutterman, YLI, Robison Anton, Superior, Aurifil and so the list goes on.  This may take me some time but I will give you an update when I have the results of my findings.



I have also managed to sort out the fabrics I brought home from Canada, that was fun!  Nothing here that I could make a complete quilt with but a lot of blenders and binding fabrics to add to my stash.   I also bought some novelty prints to add to the pieces I have been collecting for some time  to make an I spy quilt for my little grandson then I will use up the leftovers for linus quilts.



This week I hope to do a few of the Farmers Wifey Blocks - I think I mentioned before I am getting towards the end of the layer cake and I'm finding it more difficult to find enough for each block.  I might manage another two or maybe even three blocks if I'm lucky.  I am no where near finishing all the blocks in the book but I knew that before I started, I have a good selection to make up a lap quilt which will do me just fine.

Have a good week whatever you are doing.








Saturday 4 April 2015

Happy Easter

Happy Easter 

It's all in the preparation, or so we are always told.  Prepare well and you will do well, hmmm I'm not so sure.  I'm still struggling with this block No 5.  To be honest I will be glad when it's done and that's my problem - procrastination again.  I need to get this behind me, so I am forging ahead with it this week so that it will be finished for the 2nd Tuesday of this month when I can show it at class with everyone else's.


So as well as completing Block 5 I need to get this binding on and a label for Show and Tell this week at class..........two more sides to go!  Then Sunshine after the Storm will be finished.


Short and sweet this week, sorry I missed last weeks post - let's put it down to jet lag!  I hope you have a lovely long weekend and the Easter bunny leaves lots of lovely chocolate - but don't eat too much at once.