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!