The attention span of a gnat

That title would perfectly describe me!

I've been working on my sunflower farm quilt.  I stuck as many appliqué pieces onto my background squares as I could.  Where you can see gaps is where other animals/flowers are going to go on the joins.  I didn't add the smaller details such as the eyes and noses in case they fall off before I get a chance to stitch them.

I started blanket stitching around the shapes.  I've been trying to do each colour at a time to save having to change the thread in my machine too often.  I did a fair bit and then took the squares to my social sewing group and I dealt with all the loose threads.  I usually sort the threads out straight away but I needed something to do at sewing! Plus the ladies are interested to see what I'm working on.

Also, I quilted a quilt for Barb.  Barb has been working on this hexy English paper pieced quilt for longer than she wanted.  She's been working on it at home and has taken it to sewing groups.  The first thing I did was press the excess hexies away from the white borders so that they wouldn't show through.

I used my new wrist pincushion woo!  Much better than pinning the pins to my jacket!

Here's Barb's quilt attached to the frame ready to go.

I chose a blossoms design which was fairly dense but not so that the quilt would end up stiff.

Ta da!  All quilted and my favourite part when the finished quilt is rolled off the frame.

I don't usually trim the excess fabric off the quilts but I did it this time.  The quilt was nice a straight which is the beauty of English paper piecing and properly measured borders!

I keep a close eye on the quilting machine as it's doing its thing but I had decided that I was going to tidy up a bit around the frame.  But did I do that?  Of course not!

The first bag I picked up to tidy was my Easter project bag from last year and I kind of got a bit distracted.  So I started making an Easter bunting!  I traced the letters HAPPY EASTER onto appliqué paper.

Then I got a bit carried away and started working on making egg shaped bunting without a plan in mind.

I made one too many eggs.  I'll have to find a project for the spare.

                                                     

                                                        

I was really happy that I didn't throw away my mess when it was time to adhere the letters to my eggs because I used the cut off piece of my template to position the letters.  I have three more letters to add.  I had a phone call and it distracted me from finishing ha ha!

Whilst Easter is just around the corner, it does come every year so there's no rush to finish it off so I'll start working on the sunflower farm quilt again.  That one has to be finished before June.

Things are moo-ving along nicely

The teflon baking sheet worked well and I managed to get all of my animals and people stuck together.

I don't usually do it like this as often if you stick too many pieces together at once they start falling off as you sew.  I decided to do it this way so that I could blanket stitch around as much as I could before I sew my background squares together for ease.  I do like how you can just pick up a whole piece in one go though!

I've positioned two rows.  There are other animals/pieces where the squares join and I'll do those at a later time.  I'm pleased with how it's coming together. 

I've been standing a lot doing this and I'm looking forward to sitting at my machine for hours now ha ha!

Sunflower Farm

I traced all the shapes for my latest baby quilt.  It took forever and I started wondering if I should have made a smaller version with fewer animals!  But no, I'm stubborn!

I always do my appliqué in the same way, I trace the whole lot out, cut them up and then start fusing them to the different fabrics.  Once I saw them all cut up in this box I thought that perhaps I should have done the animals one at a time so that I don't get so confused!

I laid a lot of fabrics out on my lovely big ironing table and started fusing the pieces onto the fabrics.  This worked well because I could just pick a random piece and use it straight away without having to think too much about it.

I fused about half of the shapes and I took them to my social sewing group on a Tuesday.  I cut out the shapes steadily for the three hours that I was there.  I did the other half the following Tuesday.  So, it took me six hours just to cut the fabric shapes out!  Yikes!  This quilt really will take me some time to make!

Here are all the pieces for the girl farmer.  I chose the colours of her outfit etc based up on the background square I was going to use behind her and the other colours in the quilt.  I intend on sticking most, if not all, of the pieces together so I just have one unit to position and then sew.  I was cracking on with this job and then I couldn't find the mat I have that stops the glue side of the fabric sticking to everything.  That's not really much of a surprise considering the state of my sewing room, mind you.  Later I realised I could use a teflon mat which I have in my baking tin cupboard but I haven't tried it out yet.

The pattern has a mixture of large rectangle and square background pieces but I'm using fat quarters and can only cut squares out of them.  It was quite difficult trying to arrange them on my wall because I'd get them so that they looked nice then realise I was using an orange background where I'm putting my orange cat so a fair amount of thought had to go into it.  The pattern suggests that you sew each row together and then add the appliqué but it seems like too large a piece of fabric to manoeuvre whilst blanket stitching them on the machine so I plan on doing as much as I can on individual squares and then sewing the blocks together before adding the pieces that sit on the join.  I do intend to do a lot of this quilt at retreat in March but as there's a lot of work involved I should try to get as much done as I can beforehand. 

I finished crocheting one side of my summer poncho. I showed my Mother in law and she thought it was hanky sized. 

So I had to have a picture of it up against me for scale.  I possibly could have made it longer but it measures (approximately ha ha) what the pattern suggests.

The annoying part though?  I have to make another!  I am so over this ha ha!  I took it to my crochet group and the lady who made the one that inspired me to make my own told me hers went much faster because she's a loose crocheter.  There's another lady doing one as well and she's using a bigger hook.  Her version is growing quickly.  Why didn't I think of that?!  Both ladies oohed and ahhed over my "tiny neat holes" but I think they were just humouring me while thanking their lucky stars they didn't have to work so hard!  

I think I'm a third of the way done.  I'll get my summer poncho finished just in time for winter!

Bunny Lovey

I started this crochet bunny lovey in August last year.  It's a pattern featured on the Bella Coco Crochet blog and is designed by Alanna O'Dea from theodoreandrose

It was fairly easy to crochet even though I started the head about seven times because I couldn't get the hang of it!  It's made up of small, tight stitches and that was the part that I didn't enjoy because my hands don't work as well as they should.

It's so cute!

I didn't make this for anyone.  I just made it to see if I could and I can.  But will I ever make another?  Probably not!

A finish...and a start!

After squaring up Gail's quilt, I then pieced some backing and put it all up on the quilting frame.  I thought a neutral thread would work but when I put the thread across the quilt top I thought it was a bit stark and what I really wanted was a pink or something which I didn't have.  Then I found the variegated red that came as a gift with my machine and it was perfect.

 

After that I had to set up the automation.  Judy chose the design because I asked her what would be quick and simple because the quilting wouldn't show much on that busy top so I didn't want anything intricate.

Then I started quilting!

While the machine was doing it's thing I started tracing some shapes onto appliqué paper but more on that later...

I had a tall table set up right next to the frame so I could keep an eye on what was happening.

The quilt top was trimmed so that it looked straight and not measured straight so there was a fair bit of easing in and I did lots of basting.  Whilst easing I managed to sew my finger.  Ouch!  The needle went right through the nail!  I was too busy to cry!

After all the easing and basting I was happy with how "straight" the top ended up.  There's about a half inch difference from one side of the bottom to the other side but I'd had a horrible feeling it was going to be a lot worse so I was happy with it.

Here it is on my design floor with all the basting stitches removed and threads buried.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

So, how about this close up?  Lovely isn't it?!  I think Gail will be pleased.

So, what have I started?  In the last post I made I mentioned making a new baby quilt for my niece and I couldn't resist this one from The red boot quilt company  This is the third pattern I've bought from here so I have a good idea of the amount of work that'll be involved in the making of it.

My family is going to the UK in June and will be taking it with them so I'd better get cracking!

 

A bit of this and a bit of that

I sewed all of Gail's quilt together and it was still difficult to trim so I stuck it up onto my design wall and used masking tape to mark where I thought the quilt should be trimmed.  I then stay stitched around the markings and cut off 1/8 of an inch past that stitching.

It's as straight as even as I can get it.  I think once it's quilted you won't notice the wobbly edges.

I go to a social crochet class once a fortnight and one of the ladies made this summer poncho in red.  It's a free pattern on the Bendigo woollen mills website. I needed a new project to take along to the classes and I stupidly thought it would be quick because of how holey it is.  

It is not quick!  It would be far quicker if I stopped making so many mistakes!  I'm over making it already and I've only done about 3/4 of the front.  The soul destroying this is that I have to make it all over again for the back!  I did laugh when I was highlighting my size on the pattern because I noticed that the hole for your head changed depending on how big you are.  Because we all know that people living in larger packaging have huuuggge heads!

I'm also busy getting my bedroom ready to be decorated.  I still haven't finished my curtains but that's a minor detail ha ha!  I bought new to me bedside cabinets from Facebook marketplace and they are the inspiration for my new room.  I've decided that the walls will be the same colour as the curtains.  It's pretty dark!  I'm hoping it'll be cosy not depressing.

So I needed fabrics to make new quilts to match my room!  I had some vouchers so I bought these fabrics.

And these!  I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them yet!

You may remember this sheep quilt I made for my niece's baby.  Well, it's time to make another!  I need ideas for a second quilt.  Do I do a sheep theme?  Do a similar quilt with a different animal?  Go in a different direction altogether?  I think I'll be sewing it when I go to retreat in March so I have a bit of time to think about it.

 

I haven't touched my Christmas quilt unless you count shifting it off the cutting table.  My studio is so messy I don't want to even go in there, let alone sew.  Perhaps my next task should be to sort that out?  But that's no fun!

Progress and regress

I've made quite a few half square triangles now.

There's lots of mess!  My mother in law will be pleased to see I didn't just swipe these trimmings onto the floor!

Gail asked me to trim and then quilt her Kaffe diamond quilt top.  For some reason my camera doesn't take a great picture of it because the design is fabulous!

I struggled to work out where to trim the edges and when I looked closely I discovered the culprit.  It's quite difficult matching points in seams when you're sewing diamonds and Gail's points are not working which is probably the reason why the edges aren't in line for me to trim correctly.

I spoke to Gail and she gave me permission to fix the quilt.  I could quilt it and trim it as is but it would be hard work for me and the result wouldn't be great which would be a terrible shame.  So I unpicked the rows!

Wellington rather likes the quilt like this.  Ssh! Don't tell Gail!

I've pressed all the rows with some iron aid so they're all nice and flat and ready to sew back together.  I did notice that a few of the end blocks need to be unpicked and repositioned but I'll do those as I start sewing it all together.  Hopefully it'll be a quick fix and the top will be up on the frame in no time.