Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2014

Hello there!  Welcome to my humble abode, maybe for the thousandth time, maybe the first, it's lovely to see you all.

This evening I am linking up with awesome Amy and her Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I love taking part, love seeing so many inspiring and wonderful creations all in one place; so many quilts, so little time, it's great to not have to do the leg work.  We may not be at market, but it's not the end of the world!

I scanned through my photos for the last six months; there are a few quilts in there, not as many as I would have hoped, I think 5 or 6, and this time I have plumped for my last quilt finish.

My #IGminiswap quilt.

I finished this up at the Brit Bee Weekender a few weeks back, but I was so damn productive that weekend, the finish didn't get an all bells and whistles post to itself, so now is its time shine.

My partner in this swap has a liking for improv, and her likes mosaic was pleasingly scrappy.  Improv does not come easily to me.  I like a straight line and a perfect point (not to obsession, but near enough, oh the irony!), so I had to keep us both happy.

Wonky Drunkard's Path blocks.  Cut with a Sizzix, pieced and then squared off to 3.5" with no particular alignment.

I hope this ticks my partner's box, so to speak.  I love how it turned out, sometimes those sketches on the back of an office memo really do make it all worthwhile.

I pondered the ROYGBIV category, but have decided to pop this in with the Scrappy Quilts.

A few more details for those who like them:

Finished size 24" square;
60 different coloured scraps; duplicates in the LV background;
Pieced & quilted with Aurifil 2021 50wt;
Bound with black & white Flurry and a few coloured scraps for luck;
Off-centre spiral quilting.

Thank you for taking the time to have a look, I am certainly looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to x

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Scrappy

Well I said I'd be back, and I am entering my second quilt into this year's fun and games.

If you missed it, I blogged my first, the Oakshott Carpenter's Star, here.

Today I am going to show my Stitch Tease Bee quilt that I finished up in the New Year.  And this is the complete opposite in every way.

I really should have taken some new, sunny shots, but I didn't think of that until I sat down this evening, sorry...

So this is my much loved, and currently living on the foot of our bed, Low Volume Scrap Vomit...

From the first versions of Katy Jones' modern classic quilt, I knew I wanted one, although I didn't want so much of the vomit, and wasn't too keen on the traditional black blocks, so this was my solution!

I love this quilt, and especially cherish that it was made by one of the fabulous Bees which I am fortunate enough to belong to, and it turned out way more amazing than I could have hoped for.  Thanks lovely ladies x

Low Volume Scrap Vomit Details:
70" x 70"
Top - 1225 x 2.5" scraps from the bins of the Stitch Tease Bee
Backing - IKEA Nummer print and Sew Stitchy scraps
Quilting - Diagonal straight lines in Aurifil 50wt 2021
Binding - Joel Dewberry Aqua Herringbone
Entering into the Scrappy category.

Thank you for (re)visiting me and my quilts: I'm hoping I will have some of the things currently residing on my To Do list t'done soon to show you - I'm sure I'll rustle something up for tomorrow ;)

Almost* Perfect Quilted Tote...

Between the hailstones and torrential rain, I managed to get a few photos worthy of a grand reveal - hurrah!

So Oh Fransson's Perfect Quilted Totes pattern - it's a good one.  I realise that Elizabeth is re-writing all her old patterns, so you are not able to purchase this at present, but if she makes a few tweaks, which she no doubt will, I would recommend it to anyone who can stitch a straight line and likes someone else to work out all the fabric sizes so you don't have to - that'll be me then!

My only observations, which are nothing original I am sure, are that when you cut your QAYG pieces, all that stitching will shrink up the panels a bit, so you will never be able to cut (or stretch) the panels to the stated size.  I just trimmed everything down by 1/4" and it worked out fine.

And as far as the written pattern goes, all instructions and photos are clear and straightforward however, this is a pattern for both tall and wide versions.  The instructions for the wide version continually refer back to the instructions for the tall one, which got a bit frustrating scrolling up and down; but if I had been making the tall version, it would have been perfect.  In an age of cut and paste I cannot see why the instructions couldn't have been duplicated on the pdf version.

When I first topstitched around the top of the tote at the end, I just went for a bog-standard 1/4" all round, but this actually looked a bit ropey because of the quilting already there.  So I unpicked, then re-stitched over the top row of quilting, and as this happened to go right through the magnetic snap, I stopped and started an inch either side and it now looks a tonne neater.  I also opted to hand stitch the facing down on the inside, almost as satisfying as quilt binding, especially as I was watching the Olympics at the time.

So all in all I would recommend the pattern, and love the finished tote.

I used a bundle of scraps, some precious gifted Heather Ross, Melody Miller and Joel Dewberry; so I will be linking this with Sarah at the end of the month.  Yarn Dyed Essex Linen in black for the outside, Pearl bracelets for the lining, and touches of orange Architextures crosshatch for the pockets.  The pattern calls for utility fabric to back the QAYG panels, not entirely sure what that is, but I used up some home dec I received from Terry's Fabrics which had a pattern so huge I couldn't find a better use for it, and it was spot on.  I pieced and quilted the whole shebang in Aurifil 40wt 2021 for a change; the slightly heavier weight worked really well and gives all the quilting that little bit more definition.

Oh and the almost* , a 1/4" seam mis-match on one of the side panel bottom sections.  The top matched perfectly, and without a lot of ripping it wasn't going to be easily fixed by the time I noticed, so I will live with it, I may just stick a badge over it!

#psboxypouch Reveal...

Whilst the sun was out, I took a few snaps of this fab pouch, even if I do say so myself!

This was my first attempt at proper QAYG; slow, takes waaaaay more concentration, measuring, Aurifil and order than making a block and quilting it, but I do love the effect.

I used some of my old scraps, and some of my new ones c/o Reene and Jessie, and went a little out of my usual colour scheme, going into the red more than my safe, happy pink place, and again really pleased I did.

Bonnie-Pink Stitches Boxy Pouch tute is really lovely to follow, and the method of keeping all the raw edges hidden and no-hand finishing the lining is great.

My only niggle, and that is at myself, not the tute, as I know precisely where I went wrong, is that when empty, the lining is a bit baggy.  Next time I will make the lining seam allowances a little bigger, because there will be a next time, oh yes there will!

Linking this, as my final January finish, to Sarah's scrap party...

See, not all my Monday's are doom and gloom xxx

#economyblockalong Reveal...

Yesterday morning, nightie, dressing gown, wellies, mad hair, sunshine and photos, at last!

I love how this mini turned out, Dick 'n' all!  I pulled a couple of big scraps that I had fallen out of love with for the back; and although at first I was just happy to use them up where they wouldn't be seen, I now actually love the madness of the combo...

I used Rita's templates to make the 42 x 5" finished blocks, so it measures up just over 35" x 30".  I quilted each side of the block seams in Aurifil 2021 50wt.  The binding is some cripsy cotton poplin I have had hanging about since I really didn't know what I was doing, and the batting was even made with two pieces fused together.

So I am really pleased to be linking this up with Sarah...

Whilst I was out in the garden looking a bit disturbed, I got some pics of a few more finishes, so don't be fooled into thinking we are having lovely weather at last, it was good for about 3 hours so I made sure I got my money's worth xxx

Awesome Austerity...

Well how could I resist?

As I may have mentioned, I am making a concerted effort to use my stash, rather than mindlessly reverting to shopping for new this year, and my lovely friend Sarah just made that a little bit more acceptable, communal and fun!

My stash consists of 2 unused layer cakes, half a dozen charm packs, no beautifully stacked shelves like a fabric shop here; I rarely buy cuts bigger than FQs, unless it is specifically needed, and even less over a yard.

Most pieces have at least one corner missing or some awkward fussy cut hole, so for all intents and purposes 50% of my stash is scrap.  I know, it's sad isn't it!?

My #economyblockalong mini is 100% from scraps...

Harry Potter was a scrap-magnet..

... except for the backing, as I had a whole stashed 1/2m, and I have already pulled a bundle of scraps to supplement some partial charm packs for a teacher's baby quilt.

So the odds are looking good that I will be regularly linking up with other scrap-busters this year.  How about you?  Pop over to Sarah's, grab the button, and get those scraps working, you know you want to. xxx

Don't you, forget about me!

As is the mysterious way with flickr swaps, for all the time and energy spent commenting on pictures in the pool, and the stalking then second-doubting of what I mail off to my secret partners, I always forget about the flip-side, and it comes as a total surprise when a swap parcel arrives for me!

My neighbours kindly took in a delivery yesterday, and after school I had to wrangle the stamp-covered jiffy bag from the hands of my 3 eager beavers; I was so excited to recognise the name of the sender.

Everything was out of that envelope before coats were off!

Wonderful Marg sent me a fantastic selection of scraps, some chocs, a sweet Camper magnet and the most wonderful pin cushion, so brilliantly channelling my Scrappy Swap inspriration mosaic...

Didn't I do well!

I have already thanked Marg, who is now on her holidays, (Susan, you don't have to act as special envoy!), and I am planning on making a dent in those Koalas very soon!

Earlier in the week my parcel arrived in the US of A with my partner Karen.  Karen was co-host with Kat, and so I had to be on my best partner behaviour, and I am pleased to report that the typewriter frame purse went down rather well.

Big 'Thank Yous' to Kat, Karen and Marg for a fabulous swap.  I have a couple of Bee Secret Santa's in the pipeline then my 2012 swapping is complete.  It's been such a good year for swaps!

Scrappy Swap... Sorted...

When Kat announced a few weeks back that she was going to be running a low-stress scrappy swap, who was I to resist?

Now I love mama-ing the Mouthy Stitches swap, despite the swearing which may appear to the contrary, (stop sniggering Susan & Cindy), but it sure is lovely to let someone-else take the strain.

When I received my (lovely) partner's details, I was easily able to pull a bundle of scraps which I hope are to her liking, OK it may be a bit more than an FQs-worth, (but who's measuring?), and then decided I would make a pouch of some description.

Emily's timely tutorial over at the Village Haberdashery sprung to mind.  I drafted the pattern under her guidance, made a couple of panels from scraps to the required size and got this little beauty made up yesterday...

I would love to keep it, I really would, so I will generously let my partner have 30 minutes to make a gushing comment over in the flickr group, and if she doesn't, I'll swap it out for something I'll be glad to see the back of!  Fair enough?

Emily's tutorial is brilliant by the way - I love the shape and size of the pouch, and will definitely make more for my family at Christmas.  I am now even planning on using my lovely bigger-balled frame, which I took to Retreat but didn't use as the pattern there was for a slightly different size frame.  Thank you Emily, you're a star xxx

As one swap closes...

...another opens.

As proud Mamas, Susan, Cindy and I are busy checking, ticking and relying on the postal services of the planet, now the Mouthy Stitches totes have started travelling round the globe.

Over on the other side of the world, Kat is organising a cool Scrappy Swap.

Nice low pressure, FQ of scraps, small scrappy handmade gift and a local delicacy with a quick turnaround.  If you think you might be up for it, I believe there are still spaces, so check out the flickr group for information.

Here's my small inspiration/likes mosaic...

I feel I have reached the point where my likes, tastes and dislikes are pretty apparent here and on flickr; and to be honest, in the swaps I have been in, most of the items blatantly not destined for me, based on my specified colour choices etc, I would be more than happy to receive anyway.  So I am keeping it simple.

I know I was trying to get my To Do list in check sometime this side of Christmas, but, I suppose that was not meant to be!

Scrappy Stash Quilt-Along Blog Hop - My turn!!!

Hello and welcome to my stop on the Scrappy Stash Quilt-Along Blog Hop (I can type it, not say it) and thank you Jennifer for having me.  I am loving this series and seeing other people's scraps is always more interesting than your own I reckon!

Those of you who hang around here often will have seen my sophisticated storage system before, but if not, welcome.

My scraps used to just live in a big mess until the beginning of the summer, but now they reside in the complete luxury of colour-sorted plastic bags!

I have a few extra bags which hold specific things, like selvedges or precious scraps of Heather Ross, but anything bigger than a 5" charm tends to just live with the rest of my stash; scraps are scraps, I save anything from 3/4" upwards.  If you can fold it, that still counts as yardage!

I love scraps though, and am a sucker for online stores selling scrap packs, all those little pieces, and the fun of working out what they are, what fun!

I use my scraps to try out new things like fiddly paper-piecing, right up to quilts.

The Happy Scrappy says it all for me...

Seeing as I have had scraps on the brain, I just had to make another of these blocks for Bee Blessed; there's still time if you want to contribute too...

Just in case you need a reminder of why Jennifer has us sorting those scraps, here are the important bits again...

Monochromatic Improv Log Cabin QAL and prizes! 

Sponsors: 

The many prizes offered to those of you that join our quilt-along are graciously donated by the following sponsors. 

Timeline:

Scrappy Stash QAL starts October 9. 

Scrappy Stash QAL ends November 13. 

Link up finished quilt November 13-15. 

Prizes drawn November 16. 

Remaining stops on the Blog Hop: 

10/7: My Go Go Life

10/8: Petit Lyons

10:9: QAL kick-off day at Ellison Lane Quilts! 

10/10: Maureen Cracknell Handmade (QAYG tutorial!) 

There's even a button for your blog...

<a href="http://ellisonlane.blogspot.com/p/quilt-alongs.html" target="_blank"><img alt="Ellison Lane Quilts" src="http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/ellisonlanequilts/buttons/scrappystashQAL125_zps8d07ca3b.png"/></a>

So there you go - Happy Scrappy everyone xxx

Unexpected...

I had an unexpected day off work today as we awoke to a poorly twin, so I spent much of the day holding back hair, offering water and doing the mummy-thing.

I was therefore pretty pushed for anything pleasant to tell you about until an unexpected email arrived from Amy at Amy's Creative Side a couple of hours ago.  Guess what - the Rainbow Cherry Star got nominated into the final five in the ROYGBIV category - how exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only have I made it through to voting stage, so have many of my friends including Laura-Jane and her Brit Bee quilt, the 2 Charlottes, Newland and Dumesny, Leanne and Kelly!!  So please pop over, take a look and cast your votes in the 15 categories.  I am up against stiff competition, but I am totally thrilled to have reached this stage.  Thank you so so much if you nominated my quilt xxx

So as to not leave you without a pretty picture or two, how about these...

Yesterday Nova came to my 'hand-sewing, need for quick makes and last minute gifts' rescue!

Her lovely tute uses Liberty scraps to make x+ brooches, as part of her monthly challenge from Brit Bee Jo, but being completely devoid of Liberty, (bar a couple of V&A FQs which will remain untouched as they were the first quilting fabrics I ever bought!), I raided the scrap bags, and I have a few more to finish tonight.

So those were the ups and downs of my day; I hope you had more ups than downs to start your week xxx

Scraping the bottom of the barrel...

When I was thinking about what to write today, trying to clear my horrible work-enduced headache, I couldn't work out what was more disturbing, the subject that sprang to mind or that I had taken a photo without even thinking about it!?

Omitted from my scrap-sorting post last week, was a little bag I kept recently from cutting my Retro Flowers.  Now, as this is being made with my hoarded Denyse Schmidt fabrics, and even though I am linking with Kelly's My Precious QAL too, it's pretty obvious that I am maybe not as ready to relax into this as I could be.

So these teeny bits have been saved...

But they look sooooooooooo pretty!

Am I the only one who has such unusable scraps, that you cannot bare the thought of putting in the bin?  Or do I have a problem??

But cut they are, and here's the full box of Retro Flower pieces, just to prove to you that I really am making this quilt and not just making it all up...

... the curved piecing began last night, 3 out of 16 flower's worth completed. 

I am using Kerry's flippity method, which I previously used on Susan's Bee Blocks, and the Man Quilt, and they have all turned out beautifully so far.

Well trying to put on a front of 'interest' at work failed dismally today, but hopefully my immunity to tedium will be boosted back to regular term-time levels soon enough, and I will be able to think straight again!

I have real, new sewn things to show you tomorrow, so I'll be back with a proper post then, I promise x

Sorted...

I only have one scrap box, and it contains way too many small and probably rather unusable little offcuts, but it has been getting to the point where it was hazardous and pointless to dive into.

So being the end of the holidays, I had the bright idea of enlisting volunteers for the job...

OK, so they thought sorting into colour order was a brilliant idea, then buggered off pretty quickly after tipping everything all over the floor, but hey, it was a start.  I finished up with bags of separate colours and feeling rather tidy and pleased with myself, for about five minutes.

I can't actually find anything in there now!

I have also managed another finish on my FAL list, but that will have to wait until tomorrow for a photocall.

The house is clean, the chocolate has pretty much gone, and summer uniforms are ready in the wardrobe, so here's to a relaxing weekend before going back to the grind x

If in doubt...have a GIVEAWAY!

OK, only a little one, but my indecision got the better of me today!

I couldn't even write a list!

I chopped most of the Reunion layer cake into 5" charms, added a few extra fabrics to bring that up to the 144 I need for the twin boy quilts...

Not going to fib, I have kept most of the bunting, and all of the text slices for myself, but that's as far as I could get my head round today!

So I turned my thoughts to smaller things, the Fat Quarterly Retreat name tag swap.  Gathered a selection of bits, then faltered...

I think I need to do some stalking!  Partner, what are you going to wear!?

Then spotting that this would be my 600th post, and it's St. Patrick's Day, (I'm not Irish, but a lot of people are), I figured a giveaway would be just the thing; only this is as far as I got with the prize...

Sorry!

If you trust me enough to whip up another of Leila's scrappy leaf keyrings, well, it's only fair since I have been teasing you with them all week, then go on, just leave me a comment.

Just one comment each please; all you no-reply bloggers either sort it out or include your email address, if I can't contact you, you won't win; be a follower if you want to be, but that's just for my ego, and have faith that I will get it made.

I will leave this open for three days until 8pm GMT on Tuesday 20th March, then let Mr Random do the business.  Internationalists welcome!

Hope your Saturday has had a little more direction than mine; I'll put it down to sleep-deprivation, but little one is now on the mend, so hopefully things will pick up round here soon xxx

Goosey Goosey Gander...

I am not sure if I can class last night's FPPFTT as a success or not.

Now if you had told me a couple of months ago I would be able to make a circle of flying geese without going completely potty in the process, I would not have believed you.

I think I unpicked 2 seams in the whole 12.5" block, however there are holes!

I was a little miserly in the cutting of my white fabric.  Although Katy says to cut 1/2" seam allowances, I cut a few narrower to use up some scraps.  I paid the price.  I also needed to use a better light; I have just remembered that I used a small desk light previously, but last night in my eagerness I just used the lamp in the corner and it really didn't help.

So excuses out of the way, what do you think...

A closer look at the oops...

and perfection...?

I am definitely going to try and do this again very soon; that 4th, purple quarter was a cracker, and it is already niggling me that I didn't re-do the first red section. 

I think all in all it was a pretty good first attempt.  Thank you Katy for getting me playing with the birds x