WIP ... Thursday

Ugh, I had fully intended to get this post up yesterday but was totally thwarted by the tiny girl who didn't go to sleep till gone 11pm. It's been that kinda week. The free motion quilting book giveaway is still running here until Friday evening if you would like to go and check that out. And I will update on the very tiny bit of sewing I have managed over the last week.

I want to start with a very warm hello to all my new followers!! I know there are many of you out there and I am so excited to welcome every one of you. I am fully intending to read through and reply to all of the lovely comments on the giveaway post, a slightly bonkers task perhaps with 150+ comments but I am super grateful to see so many new names and want to take that time. If the baby will just give me an hour I will get to it!

Saturday was our Leeds MQG sit and sew day. If you are in the Yorkshire realm and would like to get involved please do, we have a Facebook page and a Flickr group too. I decided to take some hand piecing this time. It isn't my favourite but I was travelling alone and really couldn't face lugging my huge machine. Plus I didn't feel like I got the sewing vs social balance quite right last time and wondered if a hand project would improve that. 

So I took along a block from the never-ending UFO that is my Pile O Fabric 2013 Skill Builder BOM. This has been sat in a semi completed state for sometime and I knew I needed a bit of focussed energy to complete it. 

And so I did.

Diamond Carat block

Well, sort of. It isn't actually appliqued down yet. Next month, maybe? Anyway it was a thoroughly lovely day with lots of time to chat and look at other people's projects too.

Home sewing time has been at a real premium lately. I am trying to change my eating habits and break my sugar addiction and so am currently 11 days into a Whole 30 which seems to be occupying a lot of my sewing time with food prep!!

What little time I have grabbed has been spent slowly working on my Aviatrix Medallion. Having completed all the cutting I was faced with that rather intimidating centre block, my first time piecing diamonds. I found them a little challenging to my spatial awareness, and very delicate with all those bias edges, but they came together pretty well. Elizabeth is so incredibly talented and has the block come together in a way that avoids any Y seams but that again challenged my brain slightly (that's okay, I like to be challenged!). But I pushed on and ended up with this:

Boooo :-(

Can you see that blunt yellow centre point? Yuk. I was not happy with that AT ALL. I didn't expect perfection but that was just too obviously bad for me to live with. I slept on it, then warily got out the seam ripper and removed that quadrant. 

I really thought I might have to totally re-do it, and even went through my scrap bin for the relevant sized pieces. But then looked a little closer, and with a bit of shifting got this:

Hurrah! :-)

It is still far from perfect, but the eye is drawn to those centre points and they are much, much better, so I am happy now. The next border is just some straightforward HSTs which are all ready to be pressed and trimmed ... when I get a minute!

Off to read some more comments now :-) I do love to hear from you all, thank you!

Giveaway Day!

***Giveaway is now closed! Thank you so much for all your lovely comments. I am off to bed now but will draw the winner this weekend.***

I am very excited today about my first ever Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! So if you have clicked over from there, hello and welcome. I am Hannah, I live in Yorkshire in the UK with my husband and two lovely small girls. You can read more about me here and here, if you would like to. I do hope you will stay and have a little look around, or save me to read at a later date (when you are less busy). I've only been blogging since February so not too much to wade through!

Here's my favourite finish so far this year, just to give you an idea of what I like to do.

Marcelle Medallion finish

Giveaway time!

I have decided to give away my copy of Free Motion Quilting with (the incredible) Angela Walters. It is in as new condition, primarily because it is unused. I bought it with aspirations of becoming a FMQ goddess but have to face facts; that is never going to happen. So rather than it sitting here on my shelf I will send it on to someone who will actually use, love and learn from it. 

So, what to do? Just leave me a comment please. Any comment will do, but if you are feeling wordy you can tell me how you feel about free motion quilting! I LOVE the way it looks when done well but don't find it easy to do well at all. I would still love to learn, but I enjoy piecing much more and have found a pleasing groove with simple straight line quilting so I am settling with that for now.

As I am a new blog I have a rather select group of followers. I would love it if you chose to follow me, so whether you are an old or new follower please use an extra comment to tell me how you follow. Email, Bloglovin or whatever you like the best. So that's 2 chances to enter in total :-) 

I am willing to suck up the postage costs and send this book internationally so this giveaway is open Worldwide. It will stay open till Friday May 16th at 10pm BST and then I will use a random number generator to draw the winner. If I don't hear back within 48 hours I will draw again.

***I will be emailing the winner so if you are a no reply blogger or if you don't know if you are or not please consider either addressing that OR be sure and leave your email address in your comment. If I can't contact you, you can't win!! ***

Good Luck! I am really looking forward to connecting with new people this giveaway week.
Linking up with Sew Mama Sew, go enter more giveaways, I am!

Dottie quilt finish

Finally getting round to sorting this post! I was really pleased to get my Dottie quilt finished up a couple of weeks ago. I'd been trying to clear the decks a bit before getting too absorbed in my Aviatrix Medallion so I pushed on to get it completed.

I started this quilt earlier this month at our Leeds Modern Quilt Guild meeting and wasn't all that thrilled with it at first, but it has really grown on me. 

It's a pretty simple layer cake pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew. I wouldn't say it is the greatest beginner pattern as it is a little fiddly but it comes together fairly quickly and I really love the effect of those double snowball blocks. 

I'd had that border fabric stashed for a long time for this quilt. It is Front Row in green from Jenean Morrison's Silent Cinema line. I used a layer cake square of it in the quilt too, to replace a textured solid which read as white, and I'm really pleased with it. I do love the reliability of using whole fabric collections but have learnt that adding in even just one or two prints from other lines can really help lift and brighten the finished effect.

I pondered over the binding too. My husband suggested this pink Aneela Hoey print but I felt it needed something a bit stronger and less girly.

This Tula Pink Acacia diamonds print is just the perfect teal and the perfect scale. I've bought a half yard of this once before and used it almost immediately in the final border of my Marcelle Medallion. I was sad, so I replaced it, only to have used it up to bind this quilt. I'm not sorry, it's perfect, but isn't it funny how some fabrics sit in your stash forever while some just won't stay on the shelves? I should have bought yards of this.

I even had a backing for this quilt in my stash. I picked up this lovely Pam Kitty Love print from Fat Quarter Shop when it was 50% off. I love bargain quilt backings and this is so pretty.

I quilted it with my go to quilt pattern, the wavy stitch setting done with my walking foot. At 2.5" spacings on the diagonal. I feel I am getting a little predictable with this but it just works so well and I love the effect it gives. 

I'm not sure yet where this quilt will end up. I had started it thinking it might be a gift for eldest girl's reception teacher this Summer. But I'm not sure that's a precedent I wish to set!! I'm still pondering. But it's another one off the FAL list!

Details as follows:
Pattern: Dottie by Cluck Cluck Sew
Fabric: A layer cake of Hello Luscious by Basic Grey, plus Kona Snow and some Front Row in green by Jenean Morrison for the outer border
Backing: Pam Kitty Love
Binding: Acacia teal diamonds by Tula Pink
Size: 61" by 69"
Quilting: Wavy lines with my walking foot on my Janome Horizon 8200. In white Aurifil 50wt thread #2021


I'm planning a little giveaway tomorrow for my first ever Sew Mama Sew giveaway day so be sure to pop back then!

WIP Wednesday - slowly slowly

I've been working on my Aviatrix Medallion over the last week. Having finally settled on my fabric choices I have been slowly, slowly, cutting out all the pieces. There are a lot of pieces. I enjoy cutting (tragic, I know) when I have time and space to work through it all methodically. Elizabeth's instructions are super clear and I was able to work slowly through the list and organise everything into little ziplock bags. 

Last night I laid out my centre star. I've never worked with diamonds before and these ones are pretty tiny (just 1 3/8" ) so it all felt a bit confusing. I've not quite settled on my layout yet so I plan to piece the single coloured points together first then take another look.

I managed to do one quickly this morning while the baby played. I have to admit, I don't think I have it in me to mark dots on 100s of tiny pieces so I eyeballed it. The points aren't perfect, but it looks okay. We will see how it goes on ...

Linking up with Lee from Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

End of April, start of May

Time for another little monthly round up and to link up with the lovely Lynne.

This month looks quite impressive really, with three quilt finishes. Of course two of them were done all but for hand sewing the binding, but still, a win's a win, right?

So we have the Playground quilt and the Sparkling Cider quilt both finished and very much loved. I've also finished the Dottie quilt and promise a post on that over the weekend, just need my assistant (husband) around to help me get some half decent photos. 

Lots of blocks for Siblings Together this month. Some St Louis 16 patch blocks for Hadley. A little collection of wonky cross blocks for Susy and Mary. And I've snuck in early with May's block for the Siblings Together quilting bee because Nicky has been super organised and got her fabric out already. This is the last month of our lovely bee, 12 wonderful quilts made for this charity. In fact, if any of my bee mates are readying this, please go and have a look in the Flickr group, I've stickied a question for you all.

I feel so pleased to be involved with making quilts for Siblings Together. 

For those that don't know, it is a UK based charity which aims to reunite the many many siblings separated by the care system. Every Summer they hold Summer Camps and give each of the children that attend a quilt of their very own. It is so easy to get involved if you would like to give a little back with your sewing this year. You can make a quilt, a quilt block or even just offer some fabric for someone else to do so. Lots more details in the Flickr group here. Please do go and have a read.

I also made some more quick baby bibs for a friend's baby girl and finally finished the Chev 'n' Hex block for the 2013 Skill Builder BOM!

Oh and I made a super little pressing board using Katy's easy tutorial and my husband's slightly terrifying staple gun.

A few confessions about planned items left untouched. Still not made any more knickers. Haven't started the Parisian top. Nor the cargo duffle. And, most shamefully, I haven't made any progress on my second travel duffle.

I am a bit cross with myself about this. It's on my Q2 FAL list and it really would make sense to have it done in time for our holiday in July so I need to not forget about it altogether! I just got really distracted by the Aviatrix QAL ...

Anyway, time to look forwards to May.

• That Travel Duffle, as mentioned above.
• My Aviatrix Medallion. This makes me happy happy. I am slowly ploughing through all the cutting and enjoying it very much indeed. I think that will occupy most of my sewing time this month.

So we'll leave it at that! Expect a rather blank mosaic in 30 days time ... !

Linking up with Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day and also the Small blog meet. And now I'm off to see what everyone else has been up to this month.

Hexie success

At the start of last year I signed up to the Pile O Fabric Skill Builder BOM. Actually I signed up to a few BOM clubs but the others quickly dropped by the wayside. This is a really fun BOM. Alyssa is a real perfectionist and master of technique and I learnt so much in just the first few months. Starch, glue basting, careful piecing. Lots of video tutes and lots of detail. Now I have to admit that I am still way, way behind on this BOM with many blocks still to be done. I keep considering abandoning it but just can't quite do so. I feel there is much more still to be learnt. Not least FMQing the blocks which is the whole reason I joined in the first place! Not a single block quilted as we type ...

Where I really ground to a halt was on the April blocks, the Chev 'n' Hex and the Diamond Carat. Hand sewing. English paper piecing. 

Picture from pileofabric.com

Picture from pileofabric.com

I am definitely a machine sewer. I lack patience, and application and I am not particularly skilled or experienced at hand sewing. But the whole point is to learn new stuff of course, and having abandoned crochet I was keen on developing a hand sewing project for long car journeys and holidays.

Over the next few months (yep, months) I basted all the pieces, sorted my layout, and got to sewing those hexies together. I think I made things harder for myself by using the monofilament thread that Alyssa suggests, but I just wasn't happy with the visibility of my stitches using cotton. My hexies were all such different colours that nothing blended with them all.

It took forever. I wouldn't say I hated it, mostly, but I certainly didn't enjoy it either. Boring and repetitive, yet too tricky to be able to switch off and just sew like I can with hand binding. 

Anyway during a long drive last Friday I posted such thoughts on Instagram, and was met with lots of encouraging voices telling me to just give up, leave it, it wasn't worth it. Just the kick up the bum I needed. My completer-finisher tendencies kicked in. I WANTED to finish this block. I want to finish the whole sampler, one day!! And so over the weekend I cracked on. Actually picked this little hand sewing project up rather than just leaving it for car journeys. 

And the Chev 'n' Hex block is done.

The good news is, I never have to EPP another hexie ever again if I don't want to.

The bad news is I still have the Diamond Carat block to piece ...

Fabric wanties - or not!

So it's nearing the end of the month again and time for the monthly Fabriholics Anonymous link up and confession booth.

My word it seems a lot of you have leapt fallen off the wagon this month! Even our illustrious leaders Rebecca and Jess have caved, not even 4 months in ladies!! I guess it can be a diet, not a fast, eh?
So I know it's not nice but I am just a teensy bit smug that my fabric purchases for this month have yet again been zero. Sure, I've practically wiped out the haberdashery and notions section of Simply Solids and developed a serious (and expensive) addiction to Flatter, but not a single charm square of fabric has crossed the threshold of this house. And actually, it's been absolutely fine.
I've got over last month's dressmaking fabric wanties thanks to overindulgence of my other addiction in the run up to Easter  - Cadbury's creme eggs and, indeed, rubbish chocolate in general. I currently have no desire whatsoever to make any clothes for my not very attractive waistline, even the ready to go Parisian top has been stalled until I manage to sort myself out. 
So instead I'm just really enjoying sewing rather than shopping. I'm hoping to have a 3rd April quilt finish to show you before the end of the month, and I'm getting super excited about the Aviatrix Medallion QAL with this utterly gorgeous stack of fabrics all ready to start cutting this week.

It makes me so happy to have pulled all this from my stash. I do have occasional panics about "what if I use all my fabrics?!" but truly, it's not very likely. Barely a dent has been made. Even pulling my precious Botanics for the Aviatrix isn't too painful because due to my obsession I actually bought a full half yard bundle. 31 half yards, to be exact. This project will use 15 fqs from the range. I'm good for Botanics for a while yet, phew ;-)
Shall we look a bit closer? After all, you are here to see fabric, right?
Okay so my background will be Sketch in Mist and my block accent will be Kona Snow. Basically because that's what I have in my stash in sufficient yardage (I panic stashed such basics in December!!) and because they work. Phew.

Blues L-R: Botanics; Lizzy House jewels; Architextures; Botanics; Kona Prussian

Oranges L-R: Unknown coral solid; Waterfront Park; Botanics; Botanics; Botanics

Greens L-R: Botanics; Scrumptious by Bonnie & Camille; Botanics; Botanics, Unknown solid

Yes, yes I need to label my solids better. Moving on.

Yellows L-R: Botanics; Botanics; Comma by Zen Chic; Moda Bella Cheddar; Botanics

And last but not least my neutrals:

Greys top to bottom: Kona Steel; Botanics; Riley Blake Willow; Botanics, Botanics

I got lots of helpful feedback on Instagram about whether or not to add in the solids or extra prints. I started with all Botanics but really wanted to expand on that for a couple of reasons. It is one of my ongoing goals and challenges to myself to work outside of fabric collections. Such creative decisions don't come easily to me but I have been much happier with the finished quilt whenever I have done this, it seems to add more sparkle when you mix things up. And I really wanted to ensure I had a really good range of values in each colour stack, from light through to dark, which I couldn't quite achieve with the collection on its own. It was so much fun playing with different options from my stash.
Oh and I will be buying a quilt back for this once it is time to baste it. Because it is huge, and I have nothing suitable big enough, and I am hoping to love it far too much to piece a mish mash of unwanted FQs together to back it! Just a heads up on that. But quilt backs are allowed anyway, right?
Now I need to finish up binding a quilt and then I can fully immerse myself in cutting happiness. After pressing all my lovelies with Flatter, of course ;-)