Merry Christmas xxxxx

The dark sky is gone.

Is it obvious that I scattered some chicken treats just so?

Not their best side.

It measures 56 by 44 or there abouts.

The flower design of the quilting creates circle shapes which you can see on the back of the quilt.

I am really pleased with this pattern and will definitely use it again.

So now the quilt is in the washing machine on a delicate 30 degree cycle.

It just needs a label and then it can be wrapped up.

Now for some housework unfortunately. You have no idea how messy the sewing room is.

Merry Christmas xxxxx Angela.

Nearly done on a dark day.

It's so dark this week.

I have finally pieced the pinwheels cot quilt. The week before Christmas is not a good time for this sort of thing. What should be a fairly relaxed process becomes a bit frantic and not particularly enjoyable. 

However the end is in sight.

I have quilted the blocks with a large 4 petal flower motif that i discovered on Pinterest. If you go to my Pinterest you will see it in the quilt board.

You can see the design in the image above. 

This is a great motif if you don't want to free machine as it can be done with a normal foot and the feed dogs up.

The binding is all sewn down ready to be hand stitched on the sofa tonight. I will post an image of the finished quilt tomorrow which i think might be the shortest day of the year, and also the darkest. 

The sun did shine on a couple of occasions last week and here is the proof.

This is Honey loitering/sun bathing in a small patch of winter sun in the garden.

Perfectly Pinwheels

I have been sick for the past week and a bit. I got the flu for the first time ever. Not recommended. Still feel rotten and haven't been up to sewing. But have been doing plenty of thinking about sewing. Nothing new there. OSD. Obsessive Sewing Disorder. (nicer than flu).

My brother in law and his wife had a baby girl on Wednesday, so she shares a birthday with my daughter Beth. She turned 17!

Happy Birthday Beth.

So I have been thinking about a cot quilt as a baby gift/ Christmas pressie.

I have all these gorgeous fabrics that I bought over the summer, and they are perfect for a baby quilt, especially for a girl. 

So I have been thinking about what kind of pattern to do.

This is a lap size quilt I hand pieced about 5 years ago, before I knew how to machine piece. It was made by english paper piecing! And it took ages, but it was enjoyable to make as it was mobile, and I could sit and hand stitch wherever I wanted. I actually finished it when I was on holiday in Brittany.

So I was looking at it this morning and it occurred to me that the pin wheels would make a great cot quilt.

But machine pieced this time around.

I cut 6 inch squares from each fabric.

Placed two contrasting squares right sides together.

Sewed a quarter inch seam around the four sides.

Then cut diagonally like so.

This makes 4 half triangles.

Which make a pinwheel.

I added a one and three quarter inch strip around two sides of the pinwheel block, so that the sashing is made as you go along rather than sewing long strips of it later when all the blocks are made.

Each pinwheel block finishes at 7 inch square and 8.5 inch square with the sashing.

And thats as far as I've got today. Plan: A little bit every day.

Perfect.

Below is a You tube link from Missouri Star Quilt Company demonstrating this technique.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYpJzHoW6E

Messy sewer

So I came up to the sewing room this morning to do a bit more on my quilt, and look what greeted me. Five minutes transformed it into a semi respectable space. I am a very messy sewer. I wonder can you be a tidy sewer?

I have begun work on the main body of the quilt. I need a background that will sweep around the circle onto which I am going to applique scrolls, petals, tendrils, ?leaves ?flowers ?butterflies.

So I was looking on line for some ideas and came across the North Wind pieced block. I think it should work really well as I want to move tonally from dark to light across and up the quilt. And also add more colours into it.. beiges and pinks.

It is such a lovely block. I think I will use it for my daughters bed quilt. The one I have been intending to start for about 2 months.

I paper pieced each section. The pattern was drafted onto graph paper.

Then traced onto greaseproof paper. I used tracing paper for the first few then ran out and greaseproof paper seemed to work just as good, if not better.

There is quite a lot of wastage with paper piecing but it is very accurate. I wouldn't use this method for a bed quilt but instead make 7 half square triangles and two squares in each corner.

If you google North Wind Block you will see what I mean, or go to

www.woodenthimble.com/freepatt.html

I went for a swim this morning and while I was swimming up and down thinking about stuff it came into my head that I don't really like the girl in the quilt. I don't like her stance, or her expression. I dislike her dickie bow.  So I will have to rethink that one. Start looking for inspiration.

Any excuse to while away the hours on Pinterest.

www.pinterest.com/

I have 13 boards, 213 pins and 67 likes to date, many of them quilt or craft related.

If you were a cook person you could have a board for recipies. Or a doggie person have a board just for dogs, or birds or cats or chickens,cars,embroidery. absolutely anything in the world. You can follow other people who you may or may not know, and it's not like facebook, you don't communicate with them, you can just get inspired or whatever by what they pin on their boards. 

I think it would work well if you had a board of ideas for your current quilt or textile piece, eg with colours, design ideas, imagery etc

ok, have gone on a bit too long

Need stuffing

yesterday I finished my little postcard.

Very simple machine embroidery/quilting over the evalon. And I backed it with some gorgeous handmade (not by me) paper.

I spent this afternoon making a teddybear of sorts.

..inspired by a bunny that I have had since I was a baby. So not a very old bunny.

hmmmm

Anyway, it wasn't as straight forward as I thought. I  took some photos as I went along with the thought of doing a tutorial. Won't be posting that one!

I have to buy some stuffing.

That will definitely improve the poor fellow.

He's about 30 cm tall.

Absolutely a one off.

Progress with Lucy

I think I have made some progress with Lucy. Over the past few days I have painted her clothes and aged the background.

I used transfer paints to give the muted tones over the cream fabric. Transfer paints work perfectly on synthetic fibres but not so good on natural fabrics like cotton. So before using the transfer paints I painted the cotton with a product called Transfix....

You can see in the image above that I painted transfer paints onto paper doilies, then ironed onto the cotton.  Great effect.

I still have an epic amount of work to do. The foreground will be in brighter tones, scrolls, flowers, tendrils, that kind of thing, maybe a butterfly or three. 

 And there will be a few circles of various sizes in some areas. Once the foreground colours and design is established then I will probably need to paint the figure some more to tie the whole thing together.

Owls Everywhere!

There are owls everywhere at the moment. On fabric, cups, notebooks, napkins. everywhere!

This is our newest and quietest member.

Made by Rosie.

Also made by Rosie....

Martha,s gorgeous quilt.

...and bag

Brenda's (mum's) lovely cushion top.

And I am working on a small postcard, using Evalon and transfer paints. a great combination.

just need to do some machine embroidery to finish it off.

Love Evalon.

Goosey Lucy

My car has been in the garage getting a few things sorted for the last 3 days.  On Monday I had to walk to the shops! Imagine! Walk! I actually really enjoyed it and I met this lovely goose along the way. Sounds like a childrens rhyme about the sky falling down. I think he or she is a Canadian Goose. (sounded more American to me).

I have spent a bit of time, in fact a lot of time getting the background fabric for my girl quilt under way.

It's a very slow process. Took most of a day to cut out the design, then hours today colouring it, But very enjoyable whilst sitting listening to the radio.

And neglecting the house.

So my aim tomorrow is to paint the girl more, tackle her clothes and finish hair, maybe do a bit to her face. I will probably paint about an inch behind her too then cut her out.

I want the Markal paintstiks to dry for a few days then I need to do more work on this bit to age and fade it.

Thats the plan.

I think girl quilt 2 is called Lucy after my favourite hen and my goose encounter.