I want a sewing room fit for Homes And Gardens.

I have been working full time for the past few weeks and so haven't been on here in a while.

But I'm off for a few days now so no excuses. Except my sewing room isn't my favourite place at the moment because it looks like this....

Ok, it looks like this 99% of the time. But I want it to be different. I want a sewing room to be proud of.

I have too much stuff. Everything is kept. Magazines for reference, patchwork books, painting books, postcards, textured packaging (to take rubbings onto paper or fabric), foam packaging (to print with), plastic packaging (to make patchwork templates) jam jars, even old ornaments that no other room will have. 

I will photograph the art room as it is called in our house on Friday and it will be transformed. Today is Monday. I think I could manage a transformation in 4 days.

Then I will be a happier sewer and not feel that everything is falling on top of me.

This is the design wall at the mo. I have progressed a bit with my 'flora' project. These 4 strips are the border of the piece. I don't know why I started with the border, but why not I suppose. 

Each strip is 3.5 inches wide.

The technique is called Contemporary Crazy I think, but don't quote me on that.

I will do a tutorial on this some time this week, in between the tidying and decluttering.

I love the result.

And I also love this if I do say so myself......

This is a cot quilt I made for possibly the cutest most gorgeous 6 month old girl in the world. This is for Hannah.

I used up material that I already had in my scrap pile along with a few strips from a jelly roll. I love the soft colours. And I also love the way the stipple quilting gives a lovely texture after it has been through the washing machine. Like an old, loved, antique quilt.

A few other things on the design wall at the moment, related to the flora project and remnants of past projects...

Our speaker at the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild meeting on Saturday, Jane Winters had a photo of herself taken in a mirror.  So I thought I would do the same.

playing with doilies mostly.

I have been playing about all morning trying to leap off the diving board with the Flora Fibre Fabric (not Fauna as previously mentioned)project. 

The design wall with brown paper to the size of the finished piece. (36 by 26-28). Brown paper is better than white paper in that it's cheap, less precious looking and thus less intimidating. In my opinion anyway. Its also more tonally neutral.

So playing.......

..playing with doilies and discharge paste and markal on some old linens.( Upcycling is what this is. Not ruining)

The fabric above is pale yellow and the image directly above has had discharge paint applied through the doilie. It's still upstairs drying so I don't know what the result will be yet.

This shows discharge paste applied to the actual embroidery (bottom half). How could I do this!!!! But look at the effect. I think it's much more beautiful.

Just think how many hand embroidered bits and bobs have gone to landfill. I am giving them a new lease of life and bringing them out for some fresh air. (actually discharge paste smells bad)

Below is a piece of an ancient curtain that I bought in a charity shop. The left side has been discharged, but instead of getting lighter it has actually got darker

My design is going to be a LOOSE image of a vase of flowers, in paler tones than I normally go for. The background and table will be in shades of cream, yellow and grey, with some white. Then the vase and flowers will be in shades of pink, orange yellow, grey, teal, lime green. Only a few shouts of strong colour.

I am looking forward to trying something a bit different and also working on a small scale.

flora fauna fabric

Lying in bed last night I had a mini panic attack.

It hit me suddenly that I need to produce a small quilt for the Hands Across The Border exhibition.The deadline is end of April sometime.

This is a joint exhibition with The Irish Patchwork Society.

The title of the exhibition is Flora Fauna Fabric.

So my thoughts in bed were that I should do a mini quilt....the dimensions for the exhibition are limited to 36 inches by 36 inches.

So this mini quilt would be a practice run so to speak for my girl quilt and would kind of lead on to the girl quilt.

This morning I noticed the Mahonia in the garden.

The colours are amazing.

I did a loose watercolour in my sketchbook.

Then copied and cut out the same image on freezer paper. Stencilled with Markal and fabric paint.

I removed the freezer paper and coloured the background with diluted fabric paints and silk paints. The whole thing was done on Evalon fabric.

This would benefit from some machine embroidery/ quilting.

However this is not the direction I am going to go in for the quilt. I am thinking more on the lines of piecing, applique and stitching (hand and machine) Flowers, Petals, leaves, tendrils, spirals, seed heads.

But I do love the Mahonia.

...the beer in Andorra

Happy New Year ... I haven't blogged in ages. Christmas was great but it stops life as you know it and on top of wrapping pressies you get wrapped up in all things Christmassy and the sewing gets set aside.

Then before the New Year we went off to Andorra on a skiing holiday which was so brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Am still buzzing.

And I didn't think about sewing once.

Yeahhhhh, this is me in Andorra. Not very flattering but who cares. We seemed to need a coffee break every hour or so, or a hot chocolate break.. hmmm lovely.

But we did do quite a lot of skiing as well.

I really am still buzzing about it. It was such a great family holiday.

I got some lovely quilty gifts this year. My mum bought me 4 half meters of SongBird designed by Carina Gardner which I am thinking will look good with some navy fabric, haven't a clue what design, although I think it would also make a lovely bag. Mum also bought me the pear pincushion. My sister Jennifer bought me the heart buttons.

I will have to get my head screwed on and my a** in gear and start some sewing. 

Before Christmas I bought 12 quarter meters of Amy Butler Soul Blossoms fabric to add to a jelly roll from the same Amy Butler range.

I want to make my daughter a large double quilt. 

She wants a modern look with some cream or off white mixed in. I also like the mushroom grey colour with it and may try and add a bit of that in somewhere. I have a feeling that in December I had some sort of idea in my head about a design. Unfortunately it's gone. Lost in the wrapping paper of Christmas and the beer in Andorra. 

My design wall with my girl quilt is looking pretty bad too. a muddle. Need to take everything down and start afresh. 

No time like the present. 

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