Blogger's Quilt Festival entry

Here is my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival:

You can click on the image to make it bigger.

The pattern was from the Karen K Stone quilt book. I made it a couple of years ago and it was my first attempt at curved paper-piecing. Not convinced I could machine quilt it without masses of puckers, I reverted to hand quilting it.
It was a brilliant excuse to go wild with Kaffe Fasset fabrics and although some of the curves are not perfect, I still love it.

I got so hacked off picking all the paper out that I had a 'bright idea.' I completely soaked the quilt top and then hung it on the washing line because for some non-logical reason I decided it would be easier to pick soggy paper off it. 

It wasn't.

And so I left it on the washing line for a day or two and the wind helped spread all the paper bits all over my garden and next door's garden too just for good measure.

I still love it though.

A 'designer' quilt

Question for you. When is a jelly roll not a jelly roll? When it's a 'designer' roll of course.

And what's the difference between a jelly roll and a designer roll?

 Up to 18 less strips in a designer roll. That's right. Up to 18 strips less than a jelly roll. Of course I didn't realise that when I bought it. I thought all rolls were equal.

But they are not.

So, for the roll-uninitiated of you out there. A jelly roll normally has around 40 strips of width of fabric and a designer roll seems to waver wildly from anything from 22 to 28 to 32 but never seemingly 40.
What does that mean if you are making a designer roll quilt?

 It means you're going to have to dip into your stash to supplement your designer roll if you want a half decent sized quilt...which is exactly what I did.

In this case I added random pieces of Kona Celery and Kona Parsley.

The back is a bit random as well. Used up all the last 'designer' scraps, built a panel of Kona Parsley around it and then added on a different fabric either side which I have now decided looks a bit curtainish. Looks like the curtains have been pulled back to reveal the block in the middle.

Tah Dah

So the moral of this story is. As in life, with anything that has the word 'designer' in it, you are going to pay more for less ;-)

A winner...and another finished quilt

I was totally overwhelmed by the two people who decided to play along and enter my giveaway. Two is even better than the nine I thought it might be - definitely a case of quality over quantity. So Daughter No.1 had such a big decision to make, finally deciding that both are winners.
So, Renee G gets the fabulous Fancy Nancy At The Museum plus the fabric as described for being the first to play along and Alysowl I will also be sending some fabric to - please email me with your address: robins@cwgsy.net. Renee I have your email address so will be asking you for your snail mail address. Well done ladies!

Meanwhile, I took two charm packs of the Amy Butler 'Love' and made this:

First charm pack I cut the squares up to make half square triangles:

And then I took the second packet and made quarter squares and used it to make a border:

And the plain fabric I used on both the front and the back centre panel was Kona Pond.

A Giveaway...with a difference of course.

Right, who's up for a giveaway? Bear with me if you will by reading the following letter which appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this month.

A tarnished visit
I write as the mum of a family of four from The Little Island who have just spent a lovely two-week holiday in San Diego. On one of the days I took my two daughters to The New Children's Museum. While there they coloured in the "draw in a weird masterpiece" prize draw and popped their entrants into the box.
When we got back to The Little Island, one of the emails waiting for us was entitled "Congratulations Daughter No.1 (names changed to protect the innocent) so we let her open it. It was from the museum to say that Daughter No. 1's entry had been selected as the winner for March and not only was it now on display on their blog but that they also had a 'Kids Prize pack' waiting for her to pick up.
I emailed back to explain that we didn't live in San Diego but gave our address and said we would be happy to receive it in the post.
Within the hour came a reply of "Unfortunately, we will not be able to send the prize." No explanation why.
Bearing in mind it costs $10 a person to enter the museum and they got $30 out of me, the experience has somewhat sullied our view of our holiday in San Diego. Surely, they could have handled it better?

Well, my new BFF the Union-Tribune very kindly rang The New Children's Museum: After the newspaper contacted the museum, officials acted immediately to correct the situation. "We want all of our visitors to have a great experience said spokeswoman @&%$$+* $£@*&^"(I'm not that mean ;-)), "especially if they traveled such a great distance to get here."

You'll be pleased to know that the optimistically entitled 'museum' did indeed act 'immediately' and Daughter No.1, who is 10 almost 11 (of which the museum already knew), is now the proud owner of that all-time literary classic Fancy Nancy at the Museum. It's classed as a "Beginning Reading book - simple sentences for eager new readers."

So, if you are as perceptive as Daughter No. 1  was when she opened the envelope, you may have guessed that the book was/is about six years too late. Never mind, our loss will be someone else's gain. (You can see where this is leading can't you?)
So, up in today's fantastic giveaway is Fancy Nancy at the Museum:
(We'll keep the yo-yo and the other book that will be suitable for Daughter No.2 if you don't mind)

 AND...some fabric to go with it because this is after all supposed to be a blog about quilting.


Some fabric with clouds on because  it was cloudy the day we went to the museum and we thought it would be a good way to do an indoor activity:

And then some more clouds with birdies on because they were in the sky (weak link I know but I've had this fabric for ages and don't know what to do with it if truth be told):

 And finally...some fabric with fairies on because whoever sent the prize pack was possibly away with them...

I'm sure you'll agree it all makes for a very attractive giveaway.
No idea what the exact measurements are but that doesn't matter does it?

 

 You're probably chomping at the bit by now wondering how you can be in with a chance of winning these lovelies.
Well...the rules are that you:

DO NOT:

• have to subscribe to my blog. I'm a big believer of quality over quantity and I have nine ten (good grief its just shot up by one more since starting this post) very nice people following my blog. Oh OK I admit it's actually only nine as I know one of them already.
• have to tell anyone else about this giveaway. Let's be frank, with ten people, (well nine because I'm going to have to discount you because you already knew me and that wouldn't be fair on the others) your odds of winning have never been so great. If I was in your shoes I wouldn't tell anyone else.
• have to write anything toe-curlingly gushing about me or my quilts because quite honestly I already know I'm a nice decent person and my quilts (although not award-winning) are just fine and dandy.

So now we've got the DO NOTS out the way, here is the DO:

DO:

• Write just one word that sums up how you feel now you have read this blog post.

That's it.
That's all.
I'm making the closing date sometime on Thursday 29th April just because I can. And no Random Generator to pick the winner...not that I'll need one with nine. Nope, Daughter No. 1 will read through all nine responses and pick a winner.

Good luck ;-)

Applique is nice but...

...it seems to take forever...

 ...and ever...

...to get somewhere...

...but when you do finally get there...

...you realise it wasn't half as bad...

.

...as you thought it was in the beginning.

Bit like giving birth really but without the pain bit ;-)

Pattern was from here and they got it from here.

I altered it slightly - chain stitched with three strands of embroidery thread the feet and beaks of the birds. Originally, I blind stitched by hand each individual leaf but I didn't think they had enough stick-out-ness to them so then I went round each leaf with the sewing machine to get the added definition I was after. Background is a white linen.
As much as it is always nice to dip a toe into the world of applique, suddenly square quilts are looking very attractive once again!

Not quite the quilt I was expecting...

Having seen this quilt I knew I wanted to make my own version and here it is:

What do you mean, it looks nothing like it?

Of course I was going to be different. Not use a grey as the shadow but a nice subtle, muted green (Kona Celery) to contrast with the Kona Cactus.

And therein lies the problem - there is no contrast. But that's fine. I've come to terms with it. Clearly there is a time when less is more is not going to work and this may well be that time.

I do like it. It's just not what I intended and this blog has also just highlighted my one trick ponyness of quilts with squares.
On the plus side I do like Kona Cactus - best likeness is in the first photo and I managed to quilt it without any puckers on the back. Pucker free backs of quilts definitely seem easier to achieve with a walking foot and straight line quilting rather than feed dogs down and free motion meandering.
On the minus side my last blog post was exactly a month ago when I draped the wonky log cabin quilt over half finished kitchen units.
I've still got a half-finished kitchen.
H'mmmmmm.

Wonky pink log-cabin quilt

A single bed quilt made with one jelly roll and another fabric I had to hand for the centre squares plus a Kona solid for the sashing that I can't remember the name of.

It's one of those wonky log cabin thingamejigs (not pronounced thin-game-jigs though;-)) which really are a very good excuse to not sew straight. All you need is to sew a little wonky each time and the wonkyness all adds up to a big wonky square which you just square down to the actual size of the straight square you are heading for...if that makes sense at all. Just cut some strips in different widths and off you go. Stop when you feel it's about the right size and then square up with rotary cutter and ruler.

I am sure there are other ways of wonking, so that the original centre square stays in the same position in each and every block - if you take a look at the next image you'll see my centre squares are in a slightly different position/angle on each block.
But that requires too much thought and pre-planning which is the opposite of why I quilt so I am happy to randomly wonk my blocks.

I quilted it with monofilament thread in the top and a regular white cotton in the bobbin.  I always think it's a bit like quilting with fishing tackle (not that I fish) but I do like the effect of seeing the quilting but not the stitching.

I don't know what I am more pleased about - the fact that there are no bubbles/bobbles/puckering AT ALL on the back of the quilt (photographic evidence below - you are welcome to click on the image to make it larger so you can verify my smug, self-satisfied claim)...

...or that I took a photograph indoors without a flash at 5pm today Saturday the 13th of March on the Little Island and it was still light. Woo hoo, spring is almost here.