Change is inevitable.

I've finished two quilts since we last spoke. They are quilt twins, made for a lady I know who wanted one for her grandchild and one for the first grandchild of her next door neighbour. I've talked a little about them before, using Ann Kelle Urban Zoologie teamed with various Sketch colours and white.

Max's Quilt - lovely and crinkly all over from the wash!

The tops went together relatively easily, the quilting on Max's made me tear out my hair and almost swear off machine sewing. Thankfully, Kyle's quilting went like a dream and I was slightly mollified.

Pucks and Tuckers - the worst I've ever had on a quilt, including ones
I quilted before I learned about the magic walking foot, which didn't save
me here. I've put it down to bad piecing on my part and also to vengeful
quilt gods. Thank god for crinkling up in the wash!

The binding is a diagonal red and white stripe - I love it. I should have bought more, I want to use it on everything!

I embroidered labels for each little boy, and even put my very first printed labels on too.

These quilts were delivered the day before I left Ireland - nothing like last minute stress! I'm back in DC, but not for long - just for Christmas. In the time I've been away Paul has gotten a new job in Houston. It starts on the 7th of January and so once Christmas Day is over us (our first), we'll be putting everything into boxes, heading to Houston to find a new apartment, our first car, the new grocery stores, new library, new everything.

Rare Winter sun in Ireland made this a bit washed out...

I'm daunted. The last few months have been constant go, though thankfully all the associated worry is over and my family are all well again. But the idea of going into another state of flux, a new place to settle into, new routines to find, new people to meet - it's a little overwhelming. So I'm taking it one day and week at a time.

I'm grateful to have my sewing machine right now, I'm pottering, doing what takes my fancy. Once we start moving, hand-sewing will be my outlet. I have no idea how often I'll manage to pop in here, or when we'll have internet. I'll do my best. It's more likely that Instagram will provide the quick connections over the next while!

Kyle's Quilt

Having just written it all out, I feel lighter. I am looking forward to the adventure of it, and getting to choose a place to live together (another first)!

I think I'll try popping in and out with picture updates when possible, love to all and

Happy Winter Holidays!

WIP: Max's Quilt

I've been making two quilts from the same materials since the middle-ish of October. They're going to end up at just over 50" square and are fairly simple patterns that I decided on myself. However, I totally got into a rut with Max's quilt a couple of weeks ago. I tried to force myself to work on it for a week and ended up browsing the internet, eating, going for walks, tidying around, basically anything that wasn't working on the quilt.

I had gotten this far.

It took me that whole week of self-annoyance and beration before I just decided to do something else. And it worked. I spent a week quilting and binding a quilt top that I finished in July (more this Friday). And this week I've been speeding along and now have Max's quilt top finished and am about to start the second quilt top this afternoon!! Woohoo!!

I'm using a fat quarter bundle of Urban Zoologie by Ann Kelle, a variety of colours in Sketch and some white solids in both quilts. Max's quilt features fussy-ish cut prints of the Urban Zoologie surrounded by the bright colours of Sketch and then sashed in white.

Slightly odd angle, but I couldn't resist the pretty morning light on the final seam!

I designed the patterns, worked out yardage, and ordered it all. Which worked great, thank god. Because since then I have made multiple mistakes in piecing and cutting maths. I have had to cut extra strips of both the Sketch and the white fabrics because I calculated wrong first time round. And annoyingly it wasn't just one mistake that I kept repeating, but I managed to make whole different mistakes each and every time.

And the last night, when I was ironing my finished blocks I notice these two:

Yep, I sewed the sashing on backwards with a lovely big seam on the front of two blocks... Either this quilt is haunted or I'm losing my marbles this month.

And the final piece of annoyance. Sketch, in my experience which is just with these two quilts, frays like a mad thing. It has been driving me crazy. Even when I go along and clip the threads away they just return to get caught in seams and snag and generally make me growl in frustration. This experience has turned me off buying Sketch again.

I'm going to do a final clip of threads right before basting, but I am a little worried about how the quilt will hold up in the long term. I've been thinking about it the last couple of days, and have decided that instead of quilting on either side of the seams, I'm going to zig-zag stitch over the seams in the hopes that it will reinforce them. But really, I shouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing with modern quilting fabrics. In my opinion.

Admiring the look of the sashing before bed last night.

Enough ranting, it looks pretty and there are solutions to the problems so all in all this is a happy work in progress!!

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced!

Conor's Quilt

I think I need to start actually naming my quilts and not just calling them after the person I gift them to, but I'm not starting today :) I made this quilt back in March/April time, for a little boy who just turned 3 last week! Conor loves all things farm, including tractors and has his own little one to 'drive' around just like his grandad.

When I saw Oink-A-Doodle-Moo by Jenn Ski, I knew it was the one for him. I bought my first ever layer cake, and set about sorting the fabrics and pairing them off.

I decided to sew them into giant HSTs, using the no-loss method.  One blender and one print to make up each one. Then layout deciding took a few days, and the whole of my bed.

Realising I want the blenders as diamonds, but feeling a bit messy.

Till I found the perfect one!

Paired blenders in each diamond, much more cohesive and still crazy colourful!

From this point the quilt was easy to sew together. And I had a lot of fun making the back. I used the end of the green Ikea sheet that has been in almost all of my first ten quilts, some leftover blocks (that ended up too small because the rotary cutter got carried away by itself - totally the rotary cutter's fault) and a lovely soft deep orange fabric.

Please excuse my jumper in the top right of these, running up and down
stairs was hot work!

Then came the marathon basting day, when we moved all the furniture in our dining room.

I've slowly been adding more and more quilting to my projects as I've along. I quilted all the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on this one - with a line of stitching a ¼" on either side of the seams. It turned out so soft and beautiful to touch.

I bound it in a sort of denim blue solid, and then put it through the wash!

I don't think that if left to my own devices I would ever have put this amount of colours and prints and patterns into one quilt, but I love how this turned out. It feels to me like it's right on the edge of crazy, and exactly suited to an exuberant 3 year old.

This one's been really hard to keep under my hat for so long, so I'm really glad to send it out today. It was very cheerful to work on during the sometimes grey and dreary spring.

Hoping to be back again in a few more days, with yet another finished hidden quilt. Have a great weekend!!