50 Farmer's Wife Blocks

It only took me a year and 4 months!

50!!

Still though, I'm actually glad that I can pick it up and put it down as I please. Some months there's too much else going on, or once you sit down in the evening you're struggling to stay awake.

Y-seams, ftw!

I have been averse to picking it up since the start of this year, and having had almost 5 months to ponder it, I think I know why. I've not been feeling the colours and fabrics in the last few blocks. I chose them in the middle of last summer, when I cut out pieces for a behemoth 20 blocks in one go. It turns out I'm a fickle fabric chooser!

Honeycomb

So this time, I'll only be prepping the next five blocks. I'm also going to throw a withering glance over the fabrics that have managed to not get used 8 or 9 charm packs in.

Friendship Star

I also bought three new charm packs this Spring - Botanics, Daydream, and Mixed Bag - to reinvigorate the fabric choosing and colour palette.

I'm also quite sick of basket blocks - I haven't checked but I'm hoping there are no more!

Blergh...

Double blergh.

I noticed while laying out the blocks yesterday that I'm ending up with a lot of different sizes. This has to do with my inexperience in English paper piecing when starting out, and the laws of physics (4 sewn together pieces are going to be larger than a single piece cut to size - all that extra thread and fabric makes a difference!).

I need to add some darker blocks, dominated by pale ones right now.

However, I've come up with a cunning plan. I'll pop them into some generous sashing, alternating square and on-point, to make a humongous or a normal sized quilt depending on how long more I can keep the EPP going!

The obstinate mental part of me kind of wants to go all the way humongous - that's the same part that sees me almost halfway into what could be a 3 year quilt top, because I decided to do it by hand...

Obstinate and mental, that's me - why change now!? (that's totally logical thinking, right there!)

PS The sewing room/nook is an even bigger mess now, I opened the desk bits, realised I couldn't do it by myself, and won't have reinforcements until tomorrow night at the earliest! However, having run out of procrastination material, the organising will begin this evening - pinky swear!

Cuzco Charm Crossing flimsy

I probably need to find a better name for this quilt, but I like the alliteration! So I already talked a bit about the start of making this quilt a couple of weeks ago. It's taken me longer than I expected to get the top finished. Tammie was not lying when she said that she carried the blocks around so she could square up on the go. But once you have the hourglasses made the rest of the quilt is quite fun. I loved laying out the squares into the Yankee Puzzle blocks, as you may have seen on instagram.

My triangles aren't perfect. Though I was surprised at how many turned out really well. I was a bit stupid, and I pressed all my seams flat as usual, but I think if I had followed Tammie's instructions to the letter (press to one side) then they would have 'locked' in place when I was doing the second sewing to get the hourglass blocks and the perfect points turn-out would have been almost 100%!

I found that the seams got bulky in places but it was all manageable. I have to say that I will be avoiding quilting too near the seams though. It did remind me of why I stopped paper piecing after one go. Does anyone have any tips for dealing with bulky seams that just don't want to travel through the presser foot? Would a walking foot help? I don't think the height of my foot is adjustable though I will get the instruction book out to check... I really want to make a go of some paper piecing but the thought of fighting with those seams just turns me back every time!

It even matches our fancy lights (gifted from the lovely Jan at Paul's work!)

Anyway, I really love this top. It's very cheery. Though the next two larger quilts that I have planned also have an all cream/white background. I think I'm going to have to make some all colour baby quilts to keep my brain 100% happy! Cuzco is so beautiful. I wish I had another charm pack of it to make a really simple patchwork top as well, I never get sick of the colours and patterns!

I've already planned out how I'll quilt this, with my new walking foot!!! Yay! I just have to make the backing now, which I'm going to strip piece and pop in the five leftover hourglasses. That's just the Cuzco hourglasses. I have enough solid hourglasses leftover to make a baby quilt - woop! Second quilt for free :)

Here's one final pic of the flimsy out in the wild:

Also knows as the patch of grass behind our apt block!

I'm a few days late for the Kate Spain party over at Blossom Heart Quilts, but you should totally go and check out the Kate Spain projects made during the blog hop in June! The linky is full of awesome.

I shall be linking this up to WIP Wednesday, hosted this week by Stacey from The Tilted Quilt, tomorrow when it opens! I reckon it will be at least a month before this baby gets quilted and bound. I'll pop up a picture of the back if I get it made today! (The back totally didn't happen yesterday, I got waylaid by another migraine.)

Yay for something finished!

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!

WIP - Cuzco Charm Crossing Quilt

Hi! I got distracted over the weekend looking at the winners of the Blogger's Quilt Festival and the finalists of Stitched In Color's Festival of Strings and never did put up a Sew Fresh Day round up. But it was worth it for all the pretties I got to ogle instead!

Another exciting quilting happening began this week too! Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts has organised a Kate Spain Blog Hop. There are loads of great bloggers scheduled to show off the lovely things they've made with any and all of Kate Spain's collections! Alyce kicked it off on Monday with a two-part interview with Kate herself. But it also involves two linky parties for things we've all been making with our Kate Spain fabric this month. Go check out the announcement page to read all the details!

This has been just the kick I needed to get started on a quilt I've had planned for at least six months now. I bought a charm pack of Cuzco last summer. I absolutely loved the fabric but couldn't afford yardage back then and had no idea what I would make if I did have the money. So I did my default-can't-live-without reaction and bought a charm pack.

Teamed with the bella solids recommended in the pattern! They
match so well :)

I need to work on my default reaction, because it's really hard to make a quilt with one charm pack. After a few months of searching on and off, I found the perfect quilt pattern. Tammie's (of craftytammie) Charm Crossing quilt at the Moda Bake Shop!

I have gotten started this week. I have not gone far, mostly because my brain was disengaged yesterday when I got all the fabric out.

Can you spot what I did wrong here?

As I sorted the charms out so as each coloured one had a white partner, I paired them with wrong sides facing... Cos it was prettier! God love my brain. Still though, they do look lovely!

Anyway, it meant that by the end of yesterday this was all that had happened.

Today I began my chain-stitching, and methodically fixing my mistake (though I get to ogle Cuzco again as I go - silver lining!!).

I can't wait to see the other Kate Spain projects that get linked up to this Blog Hop! And I'm really enjoying reading a little bit of Kate Spain every day too. This is a good start to the summer!

Oh, and there's a button to be grabbed too, if you decide to take part in all the awesome!!

And not to forget, but I'm linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced :)

Does anyone know how to make the WIP button be a link inside the blog? Like that one right there, just above this. I can make the ones in the sidebar be links, but am utterly lost if it's within a post!!

WIP Wednesday: Leftover Charms

Things are on a real stop and start around here. Last week in about a day I made a patchwork quilt top (the pictures are coming in just a few paragraphs!). The weekend was jam packed with exploring markets, grocery shopping, cooking, and planning.

Monday started well, with me beginning to cut out the pieces for the Velocity Girl Bag by SewSweetness, and then we went to our first pilates class. I'm still sore. It was good, but too intense for my still-recovering back. So back to google to find a new class to try.

Then yesterday came, and all the go that had been happening over the weekend died. Just died. I was tired and cranky, and there were arguments. I didn't do anything on my to-do list. I did start watching Craftsy classes I bought last Autumn... And got an idea for a new quilt, which I then mocked up in Illustrator instead of making chilli for dinner. Thankfully it was only me for dinner here last night, so I just microwaved some frozen lasagne and kept right on playing with quilt ideas.

Anyway, I don't really have a point. But I feel guilty for not getting more done, for not replying to emails sooner, and for finding settling in here harder on some days than others. I am not blogging or sewing as much as I'd like, but I'm guessing you can't force it and instead I'm trying to go with the flow.

Here is the quilt top in progress. I started with a bundle of mixed charms that have been languishing in a cupboard for over a year. I needed something simple to get my sewing courage up after 3 weeks of no sewing! So it started off super basic:

But then I thought that was kind of boring. So I cut it up,

rearranged the strips, and sewed it back together.

Then, I thought, why not cut it up in the other direction!? So I did!

And I sewed it back together again, and said, done for now.

It is just less than 30" square. I woke up at 5am last Friday with the idea that I could surround it in a mosaic of 2" squares in various shades of white and bind it in a mauve colour. Then my mother suggested that I quilt it as is and use it to make an enormous cushion (I got an enormous cushion as a teenager and it moved all over with me until I came to the States).

I honestly don't know what to do with it, so it's folded up and living in the corner right now. My quilt idea would keep it on the long finger for a while because I don't have a variety of whites on hand, and would need to wait for off-cuts from some upcoming quilts. The cushion would mean looking for an insert the right size or buying foam or something... Do any of you have an idea??

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced today! And heading off to do some more work on my new handbag - I'll leave you with a picture.

The Last 'My First' Post - My First QUILT!

Morning!

I am using the calm while everyone else sleeps in after the clock change to post this! I have collected fabric for a long time (over a decade), and in my teenage years made various forays into cutting up old clothes to start quilts that never ever got beyond the cutting phase. But it wasn't until I moved to the States last year and my boyfriend's brother and his girlfriend announced they were pregnant that I seriously thought about actually starting AND finishing a quilt.

I wasn't getting paid much so I knew I had to be sure I'd really follow through if I went ahead and bought, not just the fabric, but a sewing machine for our flat! I thought about it for a few weeks, drooled over all the pretty fabric colours I was seeing online and then took the plunge. Thankfully the boyfriend was on board as he loves all things colour, being an absolute graphics nerd! And we set about laying out the fabrics (I bought random charm packs and mixed 5" square bundles) and moving them around till we (I) was happy. We spent at least 4 hours doing it and I commandeered the sofa with the layout for a few days....

Sorry for the darkness, but it was 1130pm before a 6am start when we finished!

Then, work took over and once I'd labelled all the squares on the back, and drawn a map of the quilt top, I put them away and let it sit at the back of my mind, giving me the guilts, till Christmas! At Christmas I was back at home in Ireland for 6 weeks while I sorted out a new work contract and a new visa to get back to DC. This was the perfect time for me to quilt - distract me from missing our flat and stop me from going flat-out mad while I moved back in with my parents. AND, blessing upon blessing, my proto-niece still hadn't been born!!

It was a slow start, but the quilt quickly grew.

a) and b) are my very first quilt blocks (so proud!) - if you look closely at the layout picture you'll notice I turned all my squares upside-down or back-to-front or something, first lesson I learned in quilting (took me the half the quilt to figure out what I was doing wrong). c shows the panels beginning to build up, and d is the finished quilt top - woohoo!

Then it was on to the pinning and basting. I had never done this, and at this point was still fairly confused by the differences in quilting lingo from the States to Ireland. So it was with great relief that I discovered Flossie Teacakes and her tutorial on how to make a quilt!! Florence remotely, and with no idea herself, walked me through and held my hand as I undertook the basting. First laying out the quilt sandwich:

And then onto the pinning!

It looked so pretty at this point, that I almost wanted to stop!

I decided to do a very simple and sparse quilting due to sheer inexperience. I used a zig-zag stitch because we were having tension issues with our home machine which I didn't know enough to fix at the time!

And even though you can't tell here, I used bright pink thread! Yum!

Then the challenge was to make binding and bind the quilt. I found a lovely navy and white polka dot in our local craft shop (The Crafty Fox) which was just absolutely perfect. It actually turned out to be quite a therapeutic process, and I love seeing binding come together now! There were many curses when it came to pinning the binding on (pinning has never been my favourite, though My First Dress has cured me of it and now I go at it safe in the knowledge that it never lasts that long if I don't procrastinate). But it was totally worth it in the end!

So pretty!

I was bold at the very very end. Baby Grace had arrived safely and I was desperate to get the quilt sent off, so I machined the binding onto the back with a zig-zag stitch again... It would have been prettier if I'd whipstitched it, but on the plus side - I used bright pink thread!! I also attached what I decided would be my signature symbol - a strawberry!!

Finally, I was so proud of it that I emailed some of the people online who had no idea how much they'd helped me out on my first time. There were some lovely replies, the online sewing community are really lovely, and Imagine Fabric (where I bought a lot of my 5" squares) were really lovely and asked for my permission to have a little post on their blog showcasing my quilt... :) I was totally thrilled!! And it still makes me smile to look at this quilt, it was a wrench to send it off, but the little girl who got my first quilt is far prettier!!

Happy Sunday :)