Saturday 19 March 2011

I like it...

...but I don't love it.


The trouble with stashing fabric is that when I finally get around to using it, my tastes have changed and I'm not even sure if I like it any more.

I also think my short love affair with jelly rolls is coming to an end. While I think they are a good 'grab and go' way of quickly putting a quilt together; for me at least, I think half the fun is choosing the combination of colours and styles of fabric that make up a quilt. By using a jelly roll I feel I have reverted back to painting by numbers.


This quilt came about because I acquired a ruler and there seemed to be so many pattern possibilities that I was itching to have a go. And there was a jelly roll gathering dust that needed to be used up. I strip pieced three jelly roll pieces together for each block, added in some Essex linen in Natural and then tested out the ruler.

I like the pattern it makes -  I just feel I have made a very safe and possibly boring (for me) quilt.


However, I shall reserve final judgement for when it is quilted!

Wednesday 16 March 2011

When I die

A work colleague's mother died recently.

I never knew her.

He came into work last week and said he knew I liked 'sewing' and please would I take his mother's sewing things. He thought his mother would like to know that her things had been put to good use.
Apart from two small bags of wool, there was just this:


Her sewing life all neatly packed up into one small plastic container.


It did get me thinking.

Unless I seriously reduce my hours of sleep and up my productivity, when I die they'll have to close the roads around our house, as an articulated lorry under police escort arrives for my 'stuff'.

In the meantime, I am definitely heartened that others are also unable to put their quilting life in to just the one box ;-)

Sunday 13 March 2011

And the winner is....

(Sorry, couldn't think of a more original title than that!)



Which is Jen who said:


However, it was her comment before that really depressed me...she used the words 'warm', 'sunny' and '70's.'

To be fair there were a lot of comments from Canada to balance it out with the 'S' word used quite a bit- you know... snow;-)

And for some reason Chicago seemed to have a lot of depressed quilters mentioning rain and wind.

When I originally posted the giveaway I thought it would be fun to see what weather we were all having. Events of the past few days though put it all in perspective and really there isn't much to moan about in comparison to others right now.

Thank you everyone (including SewFreshFabrics) for joining in the fun.

Jen, I have emailed you for your snail mail address.

And because I can't do a post without a picture, here is the block I finished up this morning for bee mamma Leila, who's month it is in the A Twist On Tradition Bee

I paper-pieced it from this pattern




Wednesday 9 March 2011

Who fancies an unintentional giveaway?

I placed an order with Sew Fresh Fabrics but part of my order got a little mixed up. So instead of thinking I was getting the black, white and grey bundle, I got the blue and green stash builder bundle

When I contacted Sew Fresh Fabrics they were mortified and said they would send out the correct bundle straight away. But that left what to do with the half yard blue green and stash builder bundle



Sew Fresh Fabrics


Well we've had a little chat about it and decided that I'll keep two of the half yards but the other FOUR half yards are up for grabs!

Do you fancy a half yard each of:
  • Tufted Tweets Birds on a Wire in Grass
  • Lime Ta Dot
  • Anthology Candy Shop
  • Wild Thyme Pods in Blue?
If you do, you have up to three chances:
  1. Leave a comment - what's the weather like where you are today?!
  2. If you already follow me that's very kind of you so you get an extra go - just let me know
  3. If you want to blog about this you'll get another go. Again, just let me know.
I'm willing to ship this happy accident anywhere and I'll leave this open until Sunday 12 March  12 midday my time (GMT).


Wednesday 2 March 2011

Spring has sprung...

...well it has in this part of the world anyway...
Hellebores

And so with spring colours in mind, I dug out a selection of fresh greens to make a quilt.

Up until this point I'd never made a half-square triangle quilt. And I keep seeing these really good tutorials popping up on how to make them. I'm not going to repeat them here because there are so many good examples out there already. This is what I came up with:



Just to make it a bit different, in three random places I put larger half-square triangles, using some Amy Butler Soul Blossoms fabric. I think randomness is not my forte though as looking at this image, I've just spotted the same two pieces of the same fabric, one underneath the other. Was not what I intended!


The contrast plain fabric is Kona White.

And then I discovered there was an easy way to make quarter square triangles and so I tested that method out with a small strip on the back.
I used Kona Artichoke as the backing fabric.

Quilting was done in straight lines, either side of the seams, forming the grid pattern you can see. I used a lime green thread in the top and a variegated green in the bobbin

I see more half-square triangles in the future!

Spring has sprung.

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