The New Addition Quilt

It's been a long summer, filled with mostly non-sewing bs. But there has been one quilt that has gone from beginning to end and found its home with a little girl I haven't gotten to cuddle yet but will find in just a few more weeks.

Sometimes the wind wins.

As the newest addition to a family, I thought it fitting I use plus blocks for this quilt. The colours are inspired by a photo of a mountain at sunset I have pinned, on a background of cream. I had a lot of fun looking for just the right fabrics, and then fussy cutting little details here and there - kids in trees, butterflies, baby toys.

We found a still spot ahead of the rain.

A navy binding with a thin zigzag gives lots of directional changes and a nice firm frame. But the backing was so perfect - Ann Kelle's superkids;girls in pink! I just LOVE this fabric. I bought extra.

The Supergirls are Flying!

I free motion quilted this one. The very first time I've done anything larger than a 10" square. I just chose a loopy variation on a straight line, some baby pink thread, and went for it. It went surprisingly quickly and well. I tend to lose concentration as I get further down the line and speed up as I go around the loops and so my stitch length can get a little funny in those areas. But I definitely improved as I went on. And I enjoyed it, in an 'enter the zen' kind of way. If I was trying to do a lot of different designs I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy that right now, but my skills aren't there yet so no need to fret about that for a while!

Girl in a Tree and loopy FMQ-ness.

I finished sewing down the binding when we arrived in Ireland at the start of July and tried to find a good day to take some photos. However, the nice days were incredibly windy and the non-windy days were wet and overcast (and freezing). But it was fun trying to find the still spots, or the calm between the gusts, and eventually for close ups I reverted to the clothesline in the back garden.

Just realised this picture is taken on the seam line of the back, but here
are the supergirls!!

At the moment I find myself overwhelmingly just wanting to make things. But by the time I've figured out what and how and gotten the sewing machine out I don't want to anymore. It's like I'm overthinking the quilts right out of me. One part of me wants spontaneous creation to feel better and another part of me feels I can't start until I know exactly where I'm going, and the two parts don't seem to be able to co-exist. One saps the joy from the other. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Or have I finally started to unhinge?

Lovely post-wash texture.

Overall though, I made something this year and it has a snuggly home! There's definitely some joy right there.

Kate's Quilt: A Colourful Journey

One of my oldest friends had her very first baby this summer. I've know her well for 14 years, and of her for longer. I've known her partner for close to 12 years. I didn't stop smiling for at least a week after I heard about the baby, and knew instantly I wanted to make a quilt. I emailed and asked if there was anything they would like or definitely wouldn't like (I definitely went overboard, I made a Pinterest board especially for their baby!), and I was told something colourful and maybe an applique animal. It took me from DC to Houston via Ireland, and Christmas to Easter, to finally come up with a design and fabrics I really loved. In the end simple lines and the rainbow won out! I was majorly inspired by two quilts: Dare to be Different by grapes and hearts; and Don't Worry Be Happy by Carina E-H.

My biggest challenge was deciding on what sort of applique animal to do, I considered owls for a long time, but was won back over to elephants because of the Eames elephant that I know has lived with these two for some years now. My drawing skills are all kinds of atrocious unless it involves a ruler, or a full on doodle, so I totally cheated when it came to drawing up the elephant applique. I bought a giant kid's sketchpad and drew a grid on it, then I found an outline of an elephant on the internet that I kind of liked and placed it over a grid in Adobe Illustrator (though I could have printed it and manually drawn a grid onto it either). Then I just copied from square to square in order to scale up the drawing to the size I needed for the quilt, about 20" x 20".

I made some changes as I went, my elephant has no tail because I wanted to hem it for longevity and I'm really terrible/new at applique and sharp turns and points for a tail were right out. I also made sure his trunk was upwards cos that looked happier to me! I think I got him attached to the backing with no puckers on the first try purely through luck, the sheet I used had a little bit of stretch to it and when I was halfway through I suddenly realised that this could all be about to go to pot. But it didn't, thankfully.

I also tried pin basting for the second time ever, and it went horrifically. Mostly because of the aforementioned stretch in the backing fabric, and a little bit because I need to buy a few more basting pins. So the first few lines of quilting had to be unpicked, then everything unbasted, re-basted with trusty spray and I was on my merry way again. I quilted diagonal lines, the spacing set by the square patchwork section, in a yellow thread. And really, it was very hard to send off by the end.

Don't freak out, some pins had been removed during quilting!

But we took it on a walk early one morning beforehand and had a lot of fun taking photos with it in the Houston sun! If I could change on thing, I would make the binding satin. I searched all the local fabric shops here but I couldn't find a navy satin that was the right colour. They were all too blue, and not dark enough, and the ones that matched had glitter in. So that was just a no. Someday I'll make a baby quilt with a sating binding, and that one will be next to impossible to give away!

Quilt Stats

Size: 42" x 45"

Pattern: My own

Top: Free Spirit Designer Solids

Binding: Kona Solid

Backing: Super soft old white sheet

Batting: Warm & Natural

Linking up, for the first time in a long time, to TGIFF over at Quilt Matters today!

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!

Apple of My Eye Improv (Emilia's Quilt)

So I have two more quilts that I finished in the first half of the year, but that weren't gifted until September that I haven't shown you. Emilia's Quilt is first up.

I knew there was going to be a plethora of babies arriving over the summer to friends and family, so I started making quilts. I had the end of some yardage and a jelly roll of Apple of My Eye, which I think is just so perfect for little girls - not too girly or babyish, possible to be useful for picnics and tea-parties and forts until you're heading off to school! I had bought the fabric originally to make this quilt:

Freya's Quilt

And after doing Stitched in Color's Curves Class at the start of this year, I wanted to try out some improv (no added curves though, as I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew on my first solo improv-ing). All I did was take out the scraps and sort them by relative size and then start laying them out on the couch willy-nilly. There were two larger scraps and I decided they could be the central pieces on either end of the quilt and then I just had to figure out how to use the other pieces to join them together...

It took me just one day to go from scraps to quilt top. I'm not saying it's the most interesting or beautiful quilt top out there, but I had so much fun making it. Once I started I couldn't stop and it came together so quickly! Admittedly, the jelly roll strips helped in keeping the improv quite simple. I just strip pieced in various orientations to break up the quilt top. I also added in three QST blocks, which I just adored. Though they blend in very well with the top and can be hard to pick out (centre bottom in the above picture, staggered placement).

Quilted!

To try and make the QST blocks stand out a bit more I decided to do the quilting along all the seam lines. Which meant that in some areas of the quilt there is a grid and in other areas you get some diagonal lines cutting through - the picture above illustrates it best.

In fact, I'm quite cross with myself. The fact that I knew this would be a gift meant I took minimal photos while making this, and then I ran out of time before giving the gift to Emilia's parents! I wish I had a picture of the back with the quilting showing, it would show up so much better. I think this is a lesson learned.

Finally I backed the quilt in just one piece of fabric, which I can't remember the name of, so here's a weird photo of the quilt hanging off a door that shows it:

And finally, a picture of the finished quilt. Bound in a solid green, from the leftover backing of Freya's Quilt - this quilt really is sort of the full stop to that quilt... I can't tell if that makes sense but I'm going with it!

A small part of me wishes I could go back and put a felt applique 'E' on one of the large squares with blanket stitch all around and have it slightly puffy and stuffed... But I didn't have time for that this summer, nor did the idea really occur to me until after it was gifted! Something to keep in mind for the future.

All in all, I really love this quilt. It feels very happy to me, and girly without being in your face pink. I had a blast making it, and really need to find regular time in the New Year to play with my scraps - so much fun!!

Linking to Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday which is hosted at Quokka Quilts this week :)

Up the Dubs!

In some ways this post is perfectly timed, in most other ways it's long overdue!

A college friend of mine had her second boy this summer, a total dote. Not having been into quilting when her first boy arrived, I decided that I needed to celebrate Ciarán's arrival with quilts for both boys!

Ciarán, the newbie, actually surprised me by being a boy. I was convinced he'd be a girl and so after his arrival I set about making a quilt using Tsuru ...and old lace in both cerulean and indigo. Originally I was gung-ho about a whole cloth quilt in just the cerulean, but sitting on the couch one night I sketched out a quilt plan and knew it was the one!

I set about finding all the navy I had in my stash and used the white with pale blue polka dot cotton as my 'white' and backing!

I really love this quilt, which I think I might say about all my quilts. This one is the twin of the St Louis 16 Patch I shared in my last post.

They're both 36" square, and have the same polka dot blue backing, which is then doubled over and brought around as the binding.

I added an embroidered label to the back. Happily this whole quilt is made in the Dublin colours, and having a Dub for a Mammy I'm hoping this colour scheme is going to suit Ciarán down to the ground. He certainly picked an excellent summer to come along!

Which I've just realised is upside down in this picture :-o, but reads,
Made for Ciarán 2013 By AOH'

I plan to show you all Conor's quilt in the next couple of days!

I'd like to say sorry to anyone who wrote me a comment on the last post, this trip to Ireland has been more manic than I was expecting and the only decent computer here is refusing to recognise my USB stick. Right now, I'm bashing this out on an ancient desktop that has been here more than a decade and runs about as slow as a dead snail. I do plan to answer/send a couple of emails a day this week so hopefully I won't be so badly behind next Monday!

However, I am going to have a bit of a routine for the rest of this week so I should be able to start getting you all caught up on the finished projects I've been hoarding since Easter (there's not that many, just 3 more)! I'm even hoping to get the sewing machine out here so I can be making some things.

I'd been really looking forward to partaking in Selfish Sewing Week co-hosted over at Made with Moxie and Imagine Gnats. However, all my planned projects are in DC and I'm now staying in Ireland for a few more weeks where I can be a useful taxi service for a bit. I am still looking forward to browsing the linky, however, and gaining some selfish sewing inspiration for the future!!

Late Summer Round-up

Hello, again! The summer has been slipping away from me and I'm about to spend the next, almost, month without my laptop. I will, however, have my camera and the ability to steal time on the laptops of others! Projects I've been working on since earlier this year are all going to be delivered in this next month so I can finally share them!! Yay!

In the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with the other little bits and bobs I've done recently.

Earlier in the summer I was tidying my fabric cubbyholes and tossed down these fabrics beside each other...

I've never been a big fan of pastels in my wardrobe, but I just loved these together. The patterns are all by Amy Butler, I've no idea which collection and I bought them in the first ever online fabric shopping trip I went on. The solids have just amassed slowly over time. That yellow in the back is not as crazy yellow in real life, but it just loves to shine like crazy in photos. It is definitely the stronger yellow in real life though, but I kept it.

I'd seen the hundreds of St Louis 16 patch quilts popping up all over the blogs, and been attracted by their simplicity and ability to show off patterns. And there was just enough of these cuts to make a small baby quilt, so I did!

I embroidered a little matching label for the back, and used the backing as binding courtesy of Rae's tutorial. Very useful!

The label's upside down , I tried inverting the picture but because I took it on a slope it just gave me vertigo, so upside down won out! I quilted it with horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines in a yellow thread, that blended surprisingly well, and used my walking foot for the first time. I am a total convert, it's such an ingenious invention!

I really ended up loving this quilt a lot. Even with the mess up in that central square! I drew out my colour placements beforehand, laid it out, looked at that block multiple times thinking surely there's a way to distribute the colour more evenly in this block... It wasn't until I was basting it that my brain came up with the 'duh, green, yellow, green, yellow' answer... Sigh, it's still pretty with 'green, yellow, yellow, green' in there. What a lapse in logic and reasoning!

This quilt is destined to be donated as part of Swim, Bike, Quilt's 100 Quilts for Kids.

I have also made a few small things as gifts here and there over the summer. First up, there are these burp cloths:

They are double-sided flannel burp cloths, with the handy little shaping to help them sit beside your neck on your shoulder. There are loads of tutorials on these, I read a lot of them, and then just went for it. Each cloth turned out slightly differently, for instance I now know that rounded corners all around the burp cloth will give you a much easier time when turning them and topstitching!

I also made my very first zippy pouch! Someone who started at Paul's work soon after he did landed her dream job this last month and headed off last weekend on the six hour drive to relocate for it. So I thought a pouch filled with sweets for the journey, but useable for make-up/nail polish/emergency food upon arrival would be useful.

The genius tutorial is by Pretty Modern and the pouch is completely lined, with all the seams fully encased. It was surprisingly easy to follow (I'm always a little daunted by zips) and I even managed to get the zig-zags lined up on the top!!

Finally, I made two hot pads from Patchwork, Please by Ayumi Mills. Some of the ladies in the DC Modern had made these back in June as part of the Zakka-Along 2.0 and increased the size so instead of bell pepper coasters they got hot pads! I got the book for my birthday so I figured why not go for it!

I'm not 100% happy with them. I used two layers of Insul-Bright batting because I wanted to make sure that no matter which side you used to pick up hot things that your fingers would be protected. That seems to have made them a bit bulkier and puffier than I would have liked. Again, with these, I read the instructions a few times, found them slightly confusing in places, got the general gist of the thing, and then did it in a way that made sense to me.

That worked and didn't work. One of those has a white tag for hanging them up trapped inside and no-one will ever see it again! I'm just lucky that I didn't trap a pin in there too. I think I'll probably use Patchwork, Please to try and make the fabric covered box later in the year. I need something to put hair bobbins and clips in on my dresser, but to be honest, I'm not in a hurry to start deciphering the instructions again.

And that's it. I have no idea as to what sort of schedule I'll be able to update things on when I'm home. But I'll try and make a couple of Finished Friday link-ups.

I'm hoping to start truly making and blogging in a considered way. I think I got caught up in buying fabric just because I felt I had to have it, and over the summer I realised some of the projects that have made me happiest are ones that came from my stash, from things I didn't love love in the first place. I'm also learning that I have more fun designing and making things from scratch, I'm not such a big fan of quilt patterns...

That being said, I've now found a sort of zen in doing the curved piecing for Retro Flowers (right in time to have to put it down for a month!). Still though, now I know the zen is there, I'll definitely be back!

A Quilt for Moore

I've wanted to make a quilt to give to people in need for a while, but was overwhelmed by the sheer number of worthy causes out there. When I saw the aftermath of the tornado that hit Moore, OK in May I knew exactly where I wanted to send a quilt. The Oklahoma City MQG organised Moore Love, and they are collecting quilts until June 30th. AND, they are also raffling off two beautiful quilts made by their guild in order to help support longer term disaster relief in Moore. You can read more about these quilts here!

I didn't know what sort of quilt to make at first, but then I realised that I had this partial quilt top which I made out of leftover charms! You all suggested I make it into a large floor pillow, which is an idea I loved. But I thought that with a couple of borders it might make a cute baby quilt!

So I headed back to my stash. There were two of the original charms leftover and I thought they could become cornerstones. I had a lot of a buttery yellow hanging around, and then I pulled all of the fabrics that best matched the original quilt top in colour. I cut 3" strips from each, sewed them together and then cut them up to make strips of squares.

I find it hard to believe that the border squares don't have any of the same
fabric as the centre! Apart from the cornerstones.

I love how this turned out. I couldn't have envisioned this finished quilt when I started. I love that it all came from my stash. For some reason I think the quilt looks really polite and Spring-like. Like afternoon tea on a verandah somewhere sort of posh... Maybe, it's just me!

It's not quite perfect, and that reflects the slightly improv nature of making it. I just went for colours and planned only the immediate step I was on. I think the cornerstones could be set in more accurately, but then that might detract from the overall charm. The binding is from the same fabric I used on my very first quilt and I love how it looks. The musical note fabric on the back is one I found in my parent's house just before I left Ireland. It looks great here.

I used a soft orange thread to quilt, and did straight lines a quarter inch on either side of every seam that included some small squares in the central pieced section. That probably doesn't make much sense, but I'm having trouble finding the right words this morning! The quilting gave the it a beautiful feel, so soft and crinkly. And it only got better after a wash.

The quilt label has my name, the date, and then it has the year the city of Moore was incorporated (1893) and a smiley face. It turns out that there is a smiley face in the city seal of Moore. In the 1970s the city launched the Smile America campaign and put smiley faces on all their water towers.

Quilt Stats:
Size: 41" x 41"
Fabric: Bella Buttercup (I think), the charms (incl. the cornerstones) are mostly from Valori Wells' Nest collection
Pieced and Quilted by me!

I'll be popping this in the post tomorrow. I hope it brings some brightness to someone. I certainly really enjoyed making this quilt!

Linking up to finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

Rainy Day Finish - Spectrum!

Tropical storm Andrea has made it impossible to take pictures outside today. But last night I finished sewing the binding onto what I'm now calling my Spectrum quilt.

I started Spectrum back in March when I was in DC for ten days. I took the leftovers of Paul's Rainbow Skittles quilt and just played around, ending up with a courthouse step layout.

Here it is, half way through quilting.

For some reason I decided it reminded me a bit of refracted light through a prism (from above I guess!). So I decided that it would be nice to quilt lines emanating from opposite corners, spreading out like rays.

You can see it better on the reverse!

You can also see that I have some dragging and puckers. The quilt isn't washed yet and I think they're all small enough so you won't see it once it has shrunk a little. But because I got a little bit of money for my birthday last month I treated myself to a walking foot and a quilting foot for my machine this week!! Yay! Hopefully, once I get the hang of using them my quilting will look much better.

Here's a fancy angle close-up of the quilting and the binding (it's slightly out of focus, it's not your eyes!). I used the Pac-Man fabric I bought for Paul to bind this quilt. In fact he won't let me talk about giving this one away. He's a lot more keen on it than I am. I mostly enjoyed making it from nothing and for nothing. No pressure and total freedom to do what I want. But I find the colours kind of overwhelming on the front on such a small quilt!

It's the picture and not your eyes that are fuzzy!!
(oh and yes, that's a giant transformer on the shelf.)

Though I do think that if you made one out of just one colour and white, and varied the shading of the colour then you could end up with a cool 3D pyramid effect... potentially!

Finally here's one of the fully finished front.

Quilt stats
Size: 40½" by 36½"
Quilt Top Fabric: Jelly Rolls of Moda Marbles in citrus and Bella White
Quilt Back Fabric: Ikea sheet and leftover squares from top
Binding: Pac-Man ghosts

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday!!

Have a fun weekend :)