Log Cabin fun

As I continue to work through my list, one item that I'd begun maybe a year or so ago was some log cabin squares. Since the central square was 1 1/2", strips were 1", and the whole block 4 1/2" I knew it would take me a while. What I actually did was mostly forget about it! Until about May of this year when I decided to make my list.
A list seems to motivate me to keep on going through. So this one began as number 8 on the list of 12 and gradually worked its way up as I completed some.

With binding done its completed so that I can pass it on to the recipient at the weekend. It's going to a couple who have just had their first baby, a girl. While this is not a usual baby quilt, its size and bright colours I hope will mean that it may be used beyond babyhood. 

The reverse means that if they want a quieter feel, they can simply turn it over and its a soft white with a fleck of yellow flower and green leaf. 

Since I didn't quite have enough of the backing, two of the sides also have a white embossed type fabric. Now I know what others mean when they have commented about the challenge of quilting over such fabric. It felt as though I had another thickness of wadding there! Thankfully I only had the two sides where that featured. 

Here's a bit of a close up of the colours since they don't always show so clearly from a distance (which is how my husband prefers to see quilts so that he can recognize a pattern).  

 I did a stipple in the sections, other than the centre shown on the left of the photo above and then feathers down the sides. Its a great way to use up scraps and I'm pleased I kept at it, having a bit of a focus over a couple of weeks to get the blocks completed.

There are now only two quilts left on my list (for 2015 at least) to be sandwiched and quilted. I may not quite get there, but I'm pretty happy with having done 10 since May. I know I'll be making a list for 2016 to keep me honest.

Until next time,

Linking up with a few linky parties,

Lynn

Christmas Runner

I think that's all the Christmas sewing happening round here, having completed this runner I had fun with it.

I did a simple in the ditch around the stars but got more creative in the white spaces. In the border I did a few random things - Christmas trees, a gift, tried a snowflake - its at the top in this shot, not a great idea, but still fun to have a go. 

I also tried the piped binding which is remarkably easy, just make the binding up of the two colours, the 'feature' in my case red, cut to 1 3/4" and the main (black with white dots) 1 1/2", join together down the long sides of the pieces to make up the binding strip, then press in half as you would usually do. This creates the piping with it just peeping out.  Attach to the back of the runner/quilt, with the 'feature' fabric being the most visible, of facing towards you, then turn/flip over to the front and machine the binding in the ditch of the feature to show your piping. Should have taken photos of the process, but got the tips from an Aunt Marti tutorial page. [http://www.52quilts.com/search/label/Tutorials] She called it Susie's magic binding so I guess she got the idea from somewhere else too - isn't that what the internet patchwork and quilting community is all about, sharing what we know?

Anyhow, here's another of my runner a little closer up and finally one showing the backing. 

And now to get back to my list for completion (maybe i'm dreaming?) this year. I have 2 to sandwich and quilt and two that are already for quilting - one more than half done the other to begin. So maybe I'll finish one, but you know what they say, if you don't have big goals, you don't achieve anything! This is the one that is partly quilted, done some of that feather work in the cream areas and some straight lines in the darker ones. Really just the edges to go. I'm happy with how its going so far, so I'd better get busy!

Until next time,

Lynn

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 

Runners and Rugs

Its definitely that time of year, the time of making new Christmas runners, small gifts for people and the like.

I've completed one table runner that was just a panel, but I had great fun free-motion quilting the 60 small blocks it had with various patterns - from simple outlining, to stippling and lines like Christmas lights. And it is one that is finished, so that's a good thing!

I've also nearly completed (just binding to add) on a couple of mug rugs for a couple of friends of mine. I also explored the flange or piping addition to the binding on the first one. I didn't realise how easy it was [thanks to instructions from Aunt Marti http://www.52quilts.com/search/label/Tutorials]

That will be a help when it comes to quilting and binding my other table runner. 

This one was a quilt along that I joined in - hoping to have it done by Dec 4 but that didn't happen! Maybe early next week I'll get it finished then. 

Hope your Christmas plans are coming together. I still haven't put up the tree, but also hope that will be achieved over the weekend.

Until next time, 

Linking up with Quilt Story; Freshly Pieced Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 

Lynn

Poinsettia Present

Its the time of year when we think about gift giving. Or if we're a bit organized we do! Our small craft group has been meeting in a community room that is part of a child-care and College and we've been fortunate that the manager asked her cook to leave some type of food out for our afternoon tea - how gracious. So she has made us savoury scones, chocolate slices, and all manner of yummies. As we approach our final day at the centre one of the other teachers asked if I could make her something to say thank you. I quickly and rashly said 'sure'. Then racked my brains to think, did I have time to make a small lap quilt - not really. What about a bag? Hmm, takes me at least 2 days to do that.

I had asked the cook what her favourite colour was and she'd said pink. So I checked to see what I had on hand and found a panel. Of course I forgot to take a photo of the panel before I began, but here's how it turned out after I'd done some framing, quilting and fiddling with some pieces that had been chewed by a huge mouse (that's how they looked before I began).

The panel had been that centre Poinsettia and the four other squares were one whole piece. Here are the edges such as they were: 

See what I mean by a big mouse! I guess that's why the piece was in a remnant bin when I bought it! I auditioned various shades of pink to red to see which would help to feature the pale pink flower that I rather liked and this one won out. 

The green stripe was also something I'd had around for a while - but when you want the right piece its such a good feeling to find it in your stash! I did a simple quilt around the flowers and the pink triangles, leaving the rest as its busy enough in its own right. Here's a shot of the backing which also seems to fit right in to me.

And a final one of the centre just because it looks good in the morning sunshine!

I do like it when a gift comes together. We'll give this to her this Friday so I hope she likes it. 

Until next time,

Lynn

What colour is Indigo?

My husband is a great encourager of my patchwork and quilting. He doesn't comment or complain when I seem to have bits of fabric in almost every room of the house, leave my sewing machine on the kitchen table, take up the floor space while adding borders etc. And he even offers me challenges from time to time. His latest one was to ask: 'What colour is Indigo?' prompting me to order some charm packs of Moda's Indigo and to add a couple of others. The challenge was then to find the pattern that would best show the fabric off. I found this one that he liked (it's geometric, one of his favourite things).

Its rather windy here this morning so I was pleased to grab this one quickly before the next gust came along. Its only a flimsy at this stage, but as its also one of the four on my WIPs before the end of 2015 list I'm pretty pleased. 

A much earlier challenge (2010 - thank goodness for labels and photos) is this one that he saw in a magazine (yes, he even browses through those too).  

But I digress. When I first saw the Indigo pattern I thought, hmm, that looks pretty straight forward. I like half square triangles and a few borders. But I didn't think to count how many borders and how many mitred corners that might be (pardon the pun). 

Here are just some of my mitres and I'm so pleased with how they all line up since there are 24 of them altogether, yes 24! So if you think of putting 6 borders on something just remember that. The other quirky thing I realised when making this quilt is that there is just one fabric that has a 'thread' on it. Not the thread that makes up the fabric, but a strand that wanders across: 

You can see it in that top navy type triangle with the flowers and also in the lighter blue one in the previous shot. I can't tell you how many times I tried to pick that thread off the quilt top!

Anyway now it is all pieced and together so the next challenge is to get the backing organised and sandwich yet another on my list - yay! This is number four on the list but I'm also continuing to piece numbers 2 and 3. One was an earlier post this week on my 'diminishing list'!

Until next time,

Lynn

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Diminishing List

I don't think I could actually envisage the day when I managed to sandwich this quilt, but it came today. I put this top together a loooong time ago, at least a couple of years, perhaps more. And it languished while other quilts came and went. I think it's mostly because this was one I thought I might keep for me - so it kept going to the bottom of the WIPs.

It made up of 2 1/2" squares and is based on one by Debbie Guihot in a copy of 'Australian Patchwork and Quilting' magazine, but I can't find a date on the copy I have. I am looking forward to quilting it with feathers in the cream areas and probably just straight lines in the darker square areas. As I sandwiched and pinned it on my floor this morning, see how the darker areas are really about the same ratio as the cream? Well, what are the odds of me stabbing myself with a pin and bleeding on the darker bits? You guessed it, no, the blood dripped on the cream area down towards the bottom. Fortunately I was able to wet and wipe it out with my magic bar of soap - thank goodness for that. It is now all sandwiched with close to 100 safety pins in it and ready for quilting. 

This is quilt number 2 on my list of what is a diminishing list of 4 now, with my Indigo quilt almost ready to be sandwiched, my log cabin pieces cut and ready for putting together, and then just that 'bug' quilt that I'm not sure what to do with in terms of borders. Might need to post a photo and see if there are any suggestions to help me along.  

Until next time,

Lynn

Linking with Quilt Story

Two Finishes

It feels rather wonderful to be finished one project in particular this week as it's number one on my 'five WIPs to be completed before end of 2015' list.
I completed the top back in April for my son's 30th birthday. But didn't manage to quilt it until now. I have been quilting it since before August but there's a lot of quilting in this one.

It began with a fat quarter of feature fabric with deer on it - that's the snowball blocks in the centre. It grew from there and the first dark border is a piece of leftover fabric from a quilt I made for him when he was around 17 I think. I keep my scraps for a LOOOONG time.

The geese came together well but there was some creative maths in getting the spacing between the outer blocks I can tell you! Then I spent some time drawing (with a blue wash out type pen) lines to make the cross hatching in that outer border. The wadding is bamboo, which, if you didn't know (like me until I tried it) is quite heavy. So moving the quilt through my machine was quite an effort. But I'm pleased with it now, just to hand sew that binding down and add a label, then it's truly finished.
It's a 62inch square, so nice to snuggle up with if you're in a different Hemisphere to us at the moment where today's temperature is 33degrees Celsius.

My second finish (which I realised didn't even make the list of 5 to go!) is a sampler I made earlier in the year to teach a group of women who had never done sewing before. They have had a great time and I hope to show a photo of their efforts a little later. They are trying 'quilt as you go', rather than quilting the whole thing together. This was much lighter, being cotton and also 20 inches smaller, a 42inch square.
I had great fun with the quilting too.

This centre row of blocks with the house, friendship star and applique is my favourite. I was trying for the effect of curtains in the window, but we all laughed as I pointed out they look more like cobwebs - which is what happens when you get addicted to patchwork, housework comes much further down the priority list.

Well, now it's a list down to four, wow, four. Not necessarily in this order:

• A 2 1/2" scrappy square top that I've had done for longer than I remember (at least a couple of years I think) but it's for me so ends up on the bottom of the list. 
•  A log cabin where the strips are 1" wide, so it takes patience. I'm about half done with the blocks. 
•  What I call 'Bugs' quilt, not the bunny sort, but the insect sort, due to the feature fabric in it. It needs some more borders to complete the top. 
•  'What colour is Indigo?' this was a question posed by my husband. In reply I put together two Moda charm packs and added a little more. That needs its final borders and the top is done. 

So it sounds manageable, as long as I don't sneak in any more placemats (did 6 recently but the panel was on special and they look good) or table runners (the Christmas one I have begun to quilt will be really quick too).

Until next time,
Lynn
Linking up with: Freshly Pieced; My Quilt Infatuation and Confessions of a Fabric Addict