19th June 2012... The challenge!

So I started another new project... I know i probably have wayy too many on at the same time, but I did finish my jelly roll quilt - which has been very useful since the heating hasn't been on in this house very much!

This project is the first (big thing, im not counting the baby shower gifts) that has a time limit for completing.. Not sure how that will go down. I usually  like to do things at my own pace and time - which means they take forever! lol. Her 21st birthday present was a scrapbook of photos of us and our family in the recent years... Her birthday is the 19th of June... She actually got it on christmas day! (the one after, not before) so this shows how bad i am at actually completing things on time! So Im really setting myself a big challenge here!

 But so far I cut it all out, and im on row 8 out of 14. It's cath kidston fabric that came in a fat 1/4 pack. She says she likes it - but im not entirely convinced by the bright reds with everything else. 

Im going to do it like my other cath kidston creation and do a block in the middle with the squares and then 2 borders. This one is going to have a block of the fat quater fabric in each corner. So a small 1" border, then a bigger, 3 1/2" border with the blocks as the corners. I think this one will all depend on which fabrics i get for the borders/binding. So im hoping to take my aunt with  me as she has really good colour sense - something which i seem to have very little of!

Here it is all layed out:

 Below is a close up of the fabrics. I still think that the red stands out too  much. But i tired to keep it out of the center so there are 2 stripes nad it is not so prominent. I guess if she doesnt like it i can keep it... No biggie... If anyone stumbles across this.. please let me know what you think! I need help! 

 

 Thanks for reading,

starrie  :]

 

A day of crafty :]

Today I was off work, being my weekend off, and I promised myself that I was going to have a relaxing day to myself - and I managed to achieve that :]

I made a matching pillowcase for my jelly roll quilt :

 Sorry for the mess on the bed - I dont have a lot of space in my flat so it's used as extra space to work at xD

 This is a close up of the back side, I only had 2 smaller widths of fabric left, so I had to sew them together, then I had the idea of over stitching a bit of left over binding down the middle. I think it looks okay. Better than a join down the middle.

 These two are pictures of it all on my bed :] I really like it, it seems really summery, even though its freezing here today! I can't wait till it's hot and I can just use it on its own. (again sorry for messy room)

I also decided to make my easter pressies today. Sounds weird, but my mum is on a cholesterol lowering diet so she can't have chocolate eggs, my sister is on a diet and I am trying to be healthy! So I was in the haberdashery shop in the village and I found not only do they sell fabric and wool, but also felt xD I was very excited by this prospect and promptly bought 6 sheets along with some of her new range of buttons and some broach backs. 

Armed with these supplies and my flower book I made these this afternoon:

 I have to say that the pictures dont do them justice! I'm going to see if I can take some better ones. The top one is turquoise and purple. Dark purple. It just doesn't look like it...

 These two seem okay :] they are the cutest to me, and the blue one will be going to my little sister and the red/pink one to my Mum :] I hope they will enjoy them. As for me, I'm going to keep the purple one as it didn't quite turn out as I wanted!

And now, as for me, I am off to rest, before I start my sister's birthday present tomorrow xD

thanks for reading

starrie x

Jelly Roll part 2

Today I planned to just post about my Jelly Roll quilt, but in my blog feed was this:

http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/copyright-terrorism.html

I think it's really interesting and I then spent the next hour leafing through various other peoples blogs and comments about stuff - to me it's kind of sad in various ways and now I'm really scared to sell anything that I might make. Though I doubt anyone would buy it!

So I guess I need to say (or don't need to say? I have no idea now) that this quilt was designed with Terrain by Kate Spain for Moda Jelly Roll!

It's finished :D

I spent all of my day off on tuesday quilting it - it was a fab day off :] away from everyone just quilting. 

My actual stitches aren't amazing, but considering it's the first big(ish) quilt I have quilted on my machine - it was hard to manoeuve, just because my table isn't big enough! When I had it rolled up long ways it draped onto the floor and pulled it. So i ended up with chairs all around me in this weird kinda half circle catching the quilt so it didn't pull too much! Looked insane, but did work :]

So here is my "in progress" photo for the free motion quilting

 I think it looks pretty funky :] and I really found it very relaxing

 There are are couple of close up photos of my stitching, in the pretty thread that i got :]

Some of it was quite uneven, but overall I'm really proud of it and the effect that it makes on the texture of the quilt. I'm addicted to the feel of things, if they don't feel nice, I can't have them anywhere near me. But this feels so nice, because it's all 100% cotton, and the stippling makes certain areas raised and some not  xD it's great.

 This is the finished article :]

 

And below, my attempt at arty-farty photo taking to show the binding and backing more clearly

 

I had great fun making this quilt - and tomorrow I am making a matching pillow case with the pink fabric. And also some little gifts that are an experiment, so we will see how they turn out :]

thanks for reading

starrie x

 

1600 Jelly Roll :]

A couple of weeks ago on my last weekend off (maybe like 3 weeks now >.<, I'm so slow at getting around to posting things) my aunt (the good quilter) ran a private workshop for me and my friend Bekah at her house. She did a quilt top in a day the jelly roll 1600! For those who don't know this is a link to how it is done ->http://blog.heirloomcreations.net/?p=1897

We started the day with the first step and it took us till lunch to just sew all the strips together! We had cut off the selvedges and ironed before we came. I was very dubious at this point that we would even finish by the end of the day - let alone have a whole quilt top with only 5 seams sewing!

All I can say is that it was amazing! I still don't understand the process and why it works - the person who came up with it must have been a genius lol. 

But by 4.30pm (we started at 9am with 1/2 hour for lunch) all 3 of us had a quilt top! I don't have any pictures of my aunt or friends quilt tops, but I had a terrain by moda jelly roll. I'm still not sold on jelly rolls as you can't fully see all the patterns. I bought it because I fell in love with the bright flower prints in it - but when I opened it, some of them I just was *not* sold on! The crosses design I loathe with a passion, but I am trying to ignore it! But most of the are growing on me, some of them are very 70's which isn't me, but the bright colours and patterns definitely are me :]

So this is the finished product, all laid out on the only space in my flat where I can get a whole quilt on the floor:

So this is it all laid out, before I basted it - it's about 45" by 55" - not quite long enough for single beds, but I think it will do me fine, I'm planning to use it on my bed in the summer. I  can't sleep without something covering me, but when it is really really hot my summer duvet is too much, and a thin sheet is too little. So I'm hoping that this will be a better compromise :]

 

Above is the backing I chose for it, you can't really see the design, but it's all pink and swirly and pretty :] I'm not usually a pink fan, but this just caught my eye in the fabric shop and I think it will go really well. I'm hoping I can get binding and a pillow case out of it too - I bought 4 1/2 yards.

 I am planning to FMQ it with a large stipple. I had a couple of practises, on how big they should be and if I can sucessfully scale it up. The first attempt was horrendous - I'm not even posting it up! This was my second attempt. I played about a bit with the machine speed and the stitch size. I'm going for stitches that are a couple of mm long and I have my machine set to the right speed for how fast I move my hands :-s Now I've got to go ahead and FMQ my first ever big project! Its only for me so it's not too bad if I mess it up. But I'd really like to at least make a half decent job of it! I think the pin removing as I'm going could be problematic, but I'm really excited to start it! :D 

So right now I'm off to have breakfast and spend a couple of hours quilting it - I've got a really pretty thread from madera called petunia :] very excited now I can't hold it in! Yayy :]

thanks again for reading :]

starrie x

Cuteness :]

So, following my experimenting in free motion quilting I was trying to think of what to do for my friend. She is pregnant with a little boy :] It's very excting but my other friend had already made her a quilt/blankie for him.

So I was really puzzled, because I had already bought the *cutest* little boy fleecy fabric that I was dying to use lol. 

So I did what i usually do when I'm stuck for ideas. I trawled the internet xD I looked at Malini's blog -> http://malinisquilts.blogspot.com/ and saw her great baby changing mat :] and got some inspiration for what I did for her. It's a changing mat that I added a little strip at the top so it can be rolled up and put in a bag or something, so it's portable :]

I used the free motion stippling and I really enjoyed quilting this, it was really relaxing not to have to worry about the lines, and just go with the flow! The only bad thing was that I only bought one reel of quilting thread  in the brown and I nearly ran out - it was so tight at the end, especially since I had a couple of issues with the needle and tension at the start, and I threw a lot of it away! Next time I have learnt my lesson and I will be buying *two* even if I don't need them! Hehe.

My friend hasn't seen it yet (I'm waiting for her baby shower), but everyone who has keeps telling me it's too cute to change a baby on.. Which kinda defeats the object!!

Here's some pics:

 Oh and I forgot, I made her a little building block too, I'm hoping to make a few more of varying sizes for him, but not sure if they are good enough to give to her!

This is a shot of the finished product, the front side, where I did blocks, and below is the back where it was one fabric :]

 Below are two close ups of my quilting and the edges :] On reflection I should have done a bigger stipple with more space inbetween it,  but it worked out okay because if it is a changing mat it needs to be quite stiff and it should hold up in the wash xD hehe

Thanks for reading

starrie x

Free motion quilting

So, latley I came across this bloggy : http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

And I was totally inspired to do some of this free motion stuff myself, it looked so pretty and Leah makes it look so easy in her instructional videos xD

I have now learnt that it is not as easy as she makes it look!

I promptly got some scraps of fabric together and had a go! My first attempts were so bad I am ashamed to show them. But here are a few that look not totally horrendous:

The stippling above was the most fun, though I think I did it a bit small, and it was quite intense trying to see where I was going

This one is a clover design, this is about my 5th attempt at it - but once I'd mastered the basic shapes it was nice to do :]

This one is my favorite just for the way it looks - it looks really pretty and wasn't hard either, this is actually my first attempt :D

I think I am definatly going to try and find a place on a quilt for this design, maybe one for my sister, I think she'd like it.

Below is a close-up:

Then i got carried away and made a coaster :] though I made one crucial mistake! I used the blue thread for stitching the binding >.<

So then I got all excited and bought some great fabric (bramble patch sale... I only bought one thing at sale price! oops!) hometown by moda - i bought some with writing on with different words for home, and some swirly antique looking writing. Really pretty.

And I set to work making some more coasters, this time as a present for my friends who are getting married on the 29th :]

It took me about 5 days to make them all but I'm pretty pleased with most of them, some of my corners leave a bit to be desired, but I'm hoping they wont notice or care! I did so many that i ran out of material (I bought 2 fat quaters), I chose the best 4 (most of them were horrible, it took a while to work out how wide the borders should be - as the one on the blue was just too thin) and wrapped them all up nicely and ready to go to them :]

Here they are:

 I had some pretty ribbon to wrap them all in :] (ignore my horrible table)

 Then i sewed a small button in the middle :] I think it looks really cute, I used metallic thread to do the stippling with

Thanks for reading :]

starrie x

Productive shopping trip :]

So the fabric shop was great! I got quite a few bargains :] and I picked up a book, for £3! brilliant! it had a design for a big dipper pinwheel quilt, I loved it so much at first sight that I had to buy the fabric for it there and then! I got some really, really great purple dotty material: 

It has a kind of velour-ey look and i love it :D

Then i got some plain white with Little tiny flowers on -  i tried to take a picture but it didn't really work, so I'll leave that one lol

For the back, I got a lighter purple material with smaller white dots :] 

Not sure the picture does it justice - it's really cute tho xD

So I started the pinwheels, and while simple in concept they were hard to line up and make sure that it will all line up. My first is the worst one, but I'm hoping I'm getting better as I go along xD

This is my first block and a sashing strip sewn onto it ->

I know it doesn't entirely match up in the centre but they got better, I swear, look:

:] it looks okay from far away, if i do say so myself xD

So that's that. More to come soon :]

Oh and before I go - this is my cath kidson quilt, made with 7 fat quaters and simply stitched in the ditch, hope you can see it :]

Thanks for reading!

starrie