Many hands ...

... make light work of turning a huge pile of scraps

The leftovers of my Moda Potluck bundle from the Siblings Together Quilting Bee 2013

All fo these, plus some extras from mine and Karen's stashes too

and a couple of yards of Kona Snow into 48 granny square quilt blocks.

Yep, 48. With the addition of sashing, that's enough for 2 quilts. Thank you all so much Leeds Modern Quilt Guild!

I have lots more yardage of Kona Snow from Simply Solids for sashing and kindly donated backings on the way from Lisa and Hannah and I'm going to whip these up into 2 quilts for Siblings Together.

Siblings Together is a UK based charity which promotes positive contact between siblings separated by the care system. They may be separated foster care, residential care or adoption. The charity hosts yearly summer camps to reunite the children and all who attend are given a quilt to take away, filled with precious love and memories. I have heard that the numbers of donated quilts have dropped off slightly this year, so it is super important to keep talking about this and urging everyone to get involved. You can donate a quilt, some blocks, a single block or even just some fabric. More information in the Flickr group or please feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions or want to offer any help. This is an ongoing concern for me. Our Siblings Together Quilting Bee is starting its second year and Leeds MQG will definitely be putting this back on their agenda for next year.

I am going to *try* to get these two done by the deadline of the Fat Quarterly Retreat in July. After all, as Justine said yesterday, I don't work and I only have 2 kids. Ummm, that's an oxymoron, right?! The baby seems to have taken against naps and sleep in general (still up and playing at 9.20pm here ...) so I may be putting out a call for help in a couple of weeks! But I've felt in a bit of a slump sewing wise lately and this is giving me some great focus. On with the sashing!

Checking in

Oof, look at that, we're over half way through June. Not quite sure what happened there, maybe the Elsa dress finished me off. Well I am still here, and I have been doing bits of sewing, but June is a super busy month for us with birthdays and parties and family stuff and, ugh, I just seem to have lost my chat somehow. 

Anyways. here's what I've been up to.

I've been doing a little pattern testing for the lovely Jess at The Elven Garden. A more exciting blog post to come on that in the not too distant future but in the meantime here's a sneak peek.

I've also made a little set of pressies for a dear friend who had her second baby a couple of weeks ago. 

These simple bandana bibs are my go-to baby gift these days, assisted by my handy dandy snap press. I decided to add in a little taggy blanket too this time and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I absolutely love this Fanfare flannel, just perfect for things like this. I have yardage of the pink foxes stashed to make pyjama bottoms for both my girlies when the weather turns cooler again. It seems to be pretty much sold out now but fret not, gorgeous new colours are coming in the next couple of months. 

I read on Instagram this week that the lovely Aneela Hoey has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently awaiting surgery. Aneela is one of my absolute favorite designers. A Sherbet Pips jelly roll was one of the first fabric lines I ever bought. My eldest daughter has a Posy quilt on her bed and my youngest has a F8 bundle of Hello Petal all waiting to be made up into the same. Her designs are just the right side of sweet and girly with adorable details and perfect colours. I don't know her, but as a human, a woman and a mother I am sad that she is going through this at the moment. 

So Chelsea has put out a call for blocks to make a #quiltforaneela.

Simple x and o blocks in a couple of size options using Aneela's own fabrics and any white you happen to have. All the details are on her blog. She's asking for a pretty quick turnaround, with blocks mailed by the end of June. Which means that a) I need to get my last 2 finished and b) if you would like to make some blocks you should get a wriggle on.

It's our Leeds MQG sewing day on Saturday (hurrah!!) and we're going to be giving a little back then too. Remember the quilt I made for Siblings Together as part of the Siblings Together Quilt Bee?

Well that was a sponsored bee and the bundle of Potluck fabrics used for the quilt was very generously provided by Moda. It was a big bundle and even after those giant churn dash blocks I had plenty left over, so I've been sorting and chopping scraps

and we're planning on making some granny square blocks all together on Saturday.

So, I'm going to quickly link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

and I'm off to cut 266 3" squares of Kona Snow for those little grannies .....

End of May, start of June

May has been a bit of a funny old month for me and rather slow in the sewing department. I've been doing a Whole 30 to try to clean up my diet and curb my sugar addiction (day 28 today :-)) and so I seem to have spent a significant part of my usual sewing time on meal planning, food prepping and cooking. So in truth, not much to show for this month. Not even worthy of a mosaic, sadly! But anyway.

I did manage to finish up this block from the everlasting WIP that is the Pile O Fabric Skill Builder BOM from 2013. This is an EPPd and hand appliqued block and as such had sat prepped but unsewn for some considerable months. A lovely sewing day with the Leeds MQG gave me a kick to get it all finished and it has now joined the pile of pieced but as yet unquilted blocks ...

I also continued my theme of racing ahead with my Bee blocks. Our lovely Siblings Together quilting bee had its final month last night, but several of us have decided to continue for another year! Un-sponsored this year after an incredibly generous year of sponsorship so we will be working from stash and we've had a little shuffle around with some new members too. Jo volunteered to be first up and asked us to make these sweet scrappy little Rocky Mountain puzzle blocks. So I did, even mastering the inset seam in the tutorial (easy once Jo had pointed out to me that's what it was!). Nice to have June's blocks out of the way before June even starts and an absolute pleasure to be involved in making quilts for this wonderful charity for another year.

Oh yes, and I made an Elsa from Frozen costume. I won't go on again, but you can read all about it here.


That's it for finishes for May, but the WIPs are starting to build up and I am no fan of having things hanging over me. June is always a busy month for us with birthdays and parties but I am hoping my new found energy will enable me to make a good go at this list:

• First up is some pattern testing for the incredibly lovely and talented Jess. I hope that this colourful stack will do justice to her fabulous design. This is my priority WIP this week.

• Travel duffle 2. Poor travel duffle is in the same untouched state as last month.

• And of course, my Aviatrix Medallion. I am looking forward to getting back to this one once I have a bit of headspace to do so.This is where I'm up to so far.

So that's me! Linking up with Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day. Rather excitingly, thanks to the success of my Sew Mama Sew giveaway and all my super new followers I no longer qualify for the Small Blog Meet! But I'm going to pop off and visit a few new little blogs anyway - every month I find someone new and lovely to follow and I hope you do too!

Do you wanna ...

... make me an Elsa dress, please mummy?

Asked my nearly 5 year old daughter some many weeks (months?) ago. Umm no, thanks, darling daughter.  I do not. I'll buy you one instead.

Except at the time of looking, said Elsa costume was out of stock. Everywhere. Except on eBay where I could pay £££ for one. Of course then I realised that even if once came back into stock in her size, it would still carry quite a hefty price tag. And then I thought - pull yourself together Hannah, YOU CAN SEW. Sew the child a costume, for goodness sake.

Now I really wish I was the kind of sewer who could take 3m of blue satin and whip it up into an Elsa from Frozen costume without a pattern. But I am not. I am a pattern sewer, not a winging it sewer. And I am not a confident dressmaker, and an entirely novice costume maker. So I turned to Craftsy, rejoiced that there are individuals out there who can not only perform this feat but who are willing to write it up into a pattern for numpties like me, and purchased this one. 

There are several such patterns on Craftsy at the moment and I could have chosen any one of them. I'm not sponsored/ affiliated/ bribed in any way. I went for this one primarily because it had no closures - zips, velcro or the like. I wanted her to be able to get it on and off on her own. And also because it avoided the use of stretch organza for the upper bodice. The thought of that was just too much, frankly.

I then braved the fabric stall at Leeds market and purchased* this little lot:

*Yes, that's right, I bought fabric. I don't think this counts though, right? And otherwise it would have been a patchwork quilting cotton costume. But don't worry, I will confess all when I link up with Fabriholics Anonymous at the end of the month. 

And then I decided that that blue organza for the cape just wasn't quite right, and if I was going to do this I was going to do it right, so I went and purchased a metre of this off eBay too. 

And set to the cutting. Great start. The fabric doesn't press well, doesn't hold a fold, is slippery. Ugh. I did my best, using my rotary cutter, mostly. There weren't many straight lines. I had another trip to the fabric shop as I hadn't bought enough white organza (chiffon, whatever) to accomodate the long sleeves and lining (yep folks, this is a proper lined bodice and everything). 

The pattern is really thorough, aimed at the confident beginner (that's me!) there are detailed explanations and photos of every single step. Jolly good. I won't take you through every sorry detail of my process, but let's just say there was fraying, stretching, slipping, fraying, iron incidents, skipped stitches, gummed up needles, fraying, a million thread changes, gathers, FRAYING. None of this is the pattern's fault of course, she warns that fancy fabrics will lead to headaches but as I said, quilting cotton just wasn't going to wash here. And I sure as anything wasn't making it twice.

So being a dedicated pattern follower, I followed the pattern. The only change I made was the cape. the pattern features a cute integrated cape which is just perfectly Elsa like, but it was rather short and not very full and I decided it just wouldn't do. 

I had seen this tutorial for making a separate Elsa cape so I decided to incorporate that and make a long cape with a train. I also wanted to maximise the fabric I had bought so I made it considerably wider than suggested. This meant I had to pleat it as I basted it to the bodice, but I survived.

My main saving grace was the overcasting stitch setting on my machine. Without that I think there would be no actual dress left by now. And also these awesome Clover forked pins. I had bought them after reading a recommendation by Kerry and stashed them away, forgotten. I remembered them when I was battling with the satin skirt and they worked great for holding the slippery stuff together. Oh and for the first time ever I remembered to use polyester thread for my gathering stitches! Amazing - doesn't snap. 

I fretted slightly over how to hem the skirt, the satin didn't hold a fold particularly well. After a bit of googling I decided to try out the blind hem foot on my machine. I had already overcast the raw edge so just one fold required. It is a long way off perfect, but it worked out well enough. Hurrah!

Anyway, pictures. Needless to say she utterly, totally, completely adores it. And while I won't be making another I do feel like a very proud and accomplished mama indeed.

WIP Wednesday

I didn't actually register that it was Wednesday today until I saw the WIP Wednesday posts popping up on my Bloglovin' feed. Another super busy week with only minimal sewing time, sadly.

I got a bit of breathing space at the start of the week though and managed to achieve this:

And then, the next evening, this:

I am really enjoying this Aviatrix Medallion. I had forgotten how much I love making a medallion quilt. The way it builds up is so satisfying.

Progress has slowed now, sadly, and not just because the next border is made up of 8" blocks!

More because I have a maternal obligation to turn this:

Into this:

Or something vaguely resembling it, at least.

So far I have cut some very wonky bits of organza and satin and generally felt very grumpy with the whole affair. What a lovely mummy I am. Wish me luck!! Costume making is really not my greatest strength. And I miss my medallion ...

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

The biannual Bloggers' Quilt Festival is one of those blogging institutions that I have enjoyed from the sidelines for the last couple of years. Hosted by Amy at Amy's Creative Side, it is timed to coincide with the (for most of us) online eye candy of Quilt Market.

Anyway, Spring Market has been and gone but the current Festival remains open for entries until May 23rd. I am pleased to be entering for the first time this year and have decided to submit my Marcelle Medallion into the small quilt category. I know I have mentioned this quilt more than once before on this blog, so I hope you'll indulge me, but it really is my proudest quilting achievement to date and I feel very excited to be able show it off.

The Marcelle Medallion is one of those quilts that I had seen and admired several versions of on Instagram and Flickr. It was impossible to resist, therefore, when the lovely Penny Poppleton started a QAL in September last year. The #mmqal on Instagram is well worth checking out for some amazing versions of this quilt. The pattern is from the beautiful book Liberty Love by Alexia Abegg (she now of Cotton + Steel fame, the reason so many of us have had our eyes on all the Quilt Market pics!).

This quilt was utterly addictive to make. I started by foundation paper piecing the centre block to avoid any tricky templates and Y seams. This isn't as directed in the pattern but I am so glad as I did it for those pretty perfect points. 

From then on I simply worked through the pattern, piecing tiny triangles, teeny geese, mini bricks and lots and lots of cornerstones! I absolutely loved the piecing but agonised over ever single fabric choice. The bundle for the centre block was pulled around that gorgeous Blythe floral, and I decided to build up from there. I can't do scrappy, I need order, so I broadly alternated between warm and cool colours for each border. This pattern would be an amazing scrap buster but actually I cut into a lot of precious yardage to make this quilt. No regrets, that is what fabric is for and it is wonderful to see so many fabrics and lines I love, it really sums up my 2013 fabric purchasing for me! 

 

It is pieced and quilted in white Aurifil 50wt thread #2021. All the low volume background fabrics have a white (rather than cream or grey) tone to them and I wanted to reflect that in the quilting. I love the clean look the white gives and how it makes those saturated jewel colours really shine. It is quilted simply with the wavy serpentine stitch setting on my Janome machine, with my walking foot. I started by marking and quilting these lines 2" apart but when I was done decided it needed a heavier texture, so I went back and did the lines at 1" spacing. I am pleased I did.

Unlike all my other quilts, this has never been washed. I rather like the "flat" look of it, which was hard won after some vigorous basting!! It is indeed a small quilt by my reckoning, at just 59" square. My intention is to hang this one on the wall. Really must get my husband on that task!

Details as follows:

Pattern: Marcelle Medallion by Alexia Abegg (from Liberty Love)

Size 59" square (so 236" round)

Fabrics: Numerous. Blythe by Rebecca Bischoff for Robert Kaufman, Watefront Park by Violet Craft, Tsuru by Rashida Coleman-Hale plus many, many other prints and solids.

Backing: Pam Kitty Love birdies

Binding: Kona Nautical

Quilting: Wavy serpentine lines 1" spaced with white Aurifil 50wt #2021

There are, as always, lots of amazing quilts being entered in the Quilt Festival so be sure to check them all out! 

Giveaway winner time!

I was so happy and excited that so many of you took part in my first ever giveaway, 204 comments in total!

I sat last night and spent an enjoyable hour reading through and replying to all the comments that I could; I did have really quite a lot of lovely comments from no-reply bloggers, which made me sad as I couldn't email you back a reply. So if you commented and haven't heard back from me in the last couple of days chances are you are indeed a no-reply blogger. It's worth taking a moment to fix that, as I do love to be able to reply directly to comments by email :-)

It was such fun to hear about all your thoughts and experiences on free motion quilting. Lots of complete beginners, lots of people just dabbling and lots of people who are much more experienced and absolutely love it. The real message that came through of course was that PRACTICE is the way forward to Angela Walters-esque FMQ goddess skills. 

Anyway, time to announce the winner.

Mr RNG went for comment 111 which is Tabitha.

I have emailed you Tabitha, so pop me back a reply with your shipping address and I will get the book in the post to you on Monday.

I have some precious sewing time tonight, my husband and big girl are away wild camping, the house is tidy, the dog is walked and the baby asleep for now so I am pressing on with my Aviatrix Medallion. I am wanting to get up a post with an entry into the Bloggers Quilt Festival but that can wait till tomorrow.