End of November, start of December

Ah, November. The month where I sewed more than I blogged. Which is an improvement on last month at least. In fact I have a whole backlog of posts to write up for the FAL, but hey, at least the items are getting finished!

Here's a sneaky peak of what I've been up to. As well as a lot of online Christmas shopping.

Top left is my Snowy Starry Night quilt, finished in September but finally revealed/ published this month in Fat Quarterly.

Top right - got my IGminiswap quilt all labelled and sent off. It should be with its recipient any day now so i will be able to share properly soon. Happily I remembered to take photos before I sent it!!

Middle left -  boring but necessary pouch commission all done.

Middle right -  the ever hilarious Hannah and I started and finished our Super Totes in two marathon sewing sessions. Post to come soon, I promise.

Bottom left - my faintly festive giant churn dash which still shamefully needs the binding sewing down.

Bottom right -  November's STQB block for Nicky which I managed to procrastinate on till the last minute, most unlike me, I blame the partial seam!


And looking ahead to Deecember ...

1) STQB. It's my month. My block isn't made and my post isn't up. Watch this space, I have a plan I promise!

2) Faintly festive churn dash. The tree is up,  the other Christmas quilt is on the sofa (and has already had a banana squashed on it today). That binding needs sewing down asap.

3) A whole ridiculously long list of pyjamas, dresses and tops that I would quite like to make for the girls, and possibly even for me. By Christmas. Ha.

4) My Christmas handwork project. We are away a lot over Christmas, which has its positives but I do feel very irked that I have lots of downtime but no ability to do my hobby when away from home. So I bought this at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show.

It's by Nicola Jarvis and is a crewel work kit. I think it's rather beautiful, as are all her designs. I haven't done embroidery for about 25 years and have never done crewel work ... I bought the smaller version mainly due to cost, but having inspected its teeny tiny-ness I am rather regretting that. Anyway, we will see!!

Linking up with Lynne at Lily's Quilts and Fresh Sewing Day AKA my monthly kick up the bum!

We have a finish!

Just a little one. Those commissioned open wide zip pouches that I have been procrastinating over for the last few weeks. The motivation this week of a little cash to spend at a Temple Spa evening gave me the nudge I needed to turn these:

into these:

I am really pleased with the finish on these, though they really aren't my favourite things to make. Getting that zipper to lie perfectly takes some fiddling and I have a quite unreasonable aversion to boxing corners. This is the small size, with a double layer of interfacing for structure, and with the corners boxed just 1.5". As always I used this awesome tutorial for perfect zipper tabs to get the neatest finish I could.  

So not the most enjoyable sew, but a satisfactory finish.

And a tick off the FAL Q4 list, hurrah!  

Snowy Starry Night

I am so pleased to finally be able to share with you my Summer's secret sewing.

This is Snowy Starry Night. My first ever quilt pattern, published in the current issue of Fat Quarterly.

Back in June sometime the lovely Lynne posted on Instagram a gorgeous bundle of the Solstice collection by Kate Spain, asking for ideas for a Christmassy project. I don't consider myself to be a natural designer but I put forward an idea for a fun, simple, festive lap quilt. Happily my idea was chosen and very soon 16 FQs of the Solstice arrived on my doorstep.

This is just half of this gorgeous line

I love these prints. It is festive without being OTT. Perfect colours and a good variety of scale in the prints. I decided it needed a darker background to set off the lighter cream and pale blue prints and Kona Steel was the perfect choice. 

The pattern itself is about everything I love in a quilt. Big blocks (16" finished!). Traditional blocks with a contemporary twist. And starightforward piecing with lots of opportunity to chain piece!

This quilt comes together fast, If you start now, you can have one finished in time for Christmas snuggling, I promise. Use those festive FQs you've been hoarding since you bought them in the sale last year (everyone does that, right?). Go super scrappy. Go wild with Christmassy novelty prints - there are plenty of big cuts here to show them off. Or just pick a colour scheme that makes you think of the Holidays - or not. This would work in Spring-like colours too if you are even more of a humbug than me ;-)

I backed the quilt in the bright red spotty flannel that I bought at Festival of Quilts. It's the Remix flannel in cherry dots by Ann Kelle, I bought it from the Eternal Maker but they don't seem to have any left.  I absolutely LOVE a flannel quilt backing but it is essential to prewash as it really does shrink. My (other) local quilt store has a great new selection of Moda flannel in at £12.99 a metre which is pretty reasonable for flannel in the UK I think. 

Anyway. I am super proud of this quilt and I do hope you all like it too. The pattern is available now at www.fatquarterly.com. It's an online quilting e-zine and you can purchase your copy right away here. And you should, because as well as my pattern there are loads of patterns by other lovely designers including Emily, Sue, Fiona and so many more. Lots of smaller projects too, and this frankly awesome collaborative Christmas jumper quilt.

umm, wow?!

Truly, go check it out.

More pics of Snowy Starry Night. Come December this will be on our sofa for daily snuggles.

And the stats:

Pattern: Snowy Starry Night by ME!

Fabric: Solstice by Kate Spain

Backing: Remix Flannel by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman

Binding: Scrappy Solstice

Quilting: Diagonal wavy lines by me (for a change) in Aurifil 50wt #5007 which is a great blue-grey

Size: 60" square

When crafts come home

This is a bit of an indulgent and sentimental post ... but hey, it's my blog, right? And it's been whizzing in my head for some weeks now so I thought it best just to get it out.

I don't really make gifts, as a general rule. There have been exceptions, but a handmade item is most definitely not my go to gift option. The most notable exception was my late Grandma. Because, you know, old people are kinda tricky to buy for, and she was an appreciative sort which is an absolute must when gifting handmade. She wasn't crafty herself, but her mother (my Great-Grandma, also called Hannah) was a prolific seamstress, knitter and crocheter. I think Grandma was flattering me somewhat when she said I had inherited her talent but hey, it made her happy. 

Easter 1980

And so I made her a quilt, which I knew she would love.

I think it was about the 7th quilt I made, gifted for Christmas 2012. I bought some (cheap) charm packs of Lovely by Sandy Gervais, before I knew anything whatsoever about fabric. When they arrived I realised they really weren't my thing at all but that they would be perfect for my Grandma. I paired them with some Kona buttermilk, whipped up (over the course of many, many months, you understand?) a patchwork picnic quilt and backed it in a gorgeous piece of Ruby flannel. 

Alas, this was before I knew to pattern match the backing seam ...

Sadly I didn't label it, as labelling quilts is a habit which has come late and still rather intermittently to me. But it was indeed appreciated and loved. She was very proud of it, and of me, and showed it to all her friends who came to visit. 

One of my Grandma's great flaws, however, was her reluctance to use things. Perhaps it's a generational thing, perhaps just a Grandma thing, but she was quite obsessed by things being "too good to use". Needless to say, the quilt I made for her fell into that category. And so the quilt has come back to me, having spent almost 2 years sat folded and unused at the foot of her bed. That makes me sad. 

So we are putting it to use. It has been washed. Jumped on. Slept under. And snuggled under. And just all the things that quilts need to happen to them in order to actually be quilts. Sorry Grandma, but I like it better this way.

The baby loves it too, honest.

Also come home is the cushion I crocheted for her for her 90th birthday earlier that same year. I had intended to make the quilt for then but it didn't quite happen. And this was back before I realised that I loathed crochet.

In fact, it may have actually been this cushion that made me loathe crochet.

But anyway, it looks nice enough, and has taken up happy residence on the bed of a thousand cushions.

You'll just have to use your imagination till I can get an up to date photo, but the bed owner is sleeping now

It's the Blooming Flower Cushion from Attic 24 if anyone wishes to put themselves through similar torture. 

And these? I didn't make these. I bought them for her sometime circa 1999 when I was sick of watching her take  burning hot dishes of roast potatoes out of the oven with a  tea towel. Immaculate and never used, you see? At the time I remember saying to her "I'm going to find these in a cupboard when you're dead, aren't I?". Ummm, yep. That's what happened.

I'm going to use these too. Although they are maybe a *bit* too nice to use.

Love you Grandma. Miss you xxxx

End of October, start of November

Oh look, there went October, the month where I didn't sew much and blogged even less. Ooops. I'm not even quite sure what I did do, to be honest, but here we are, let's look forwards as well as back!

Actually I did sew, I finished my #IGminiswap mini. Well I say finished, but actually it needs a label adding. I have hit an inspirational wall on that front, and I don't want to share too much about it till it has been sent and received anyway.

Some Siblings Together quilting bee blocks for Sonia.

Also I got more fabric. A rather lovely birthday present from my mum. I missed out on Leah Duncan's Meadow line during my fabric fast, and when I saw that Westwood Acres still had full line bundles in stock I decided to grab one before it was too late. I really toyed with the half yards (my preferred cut) but instead went for the more restrained FQs and added in the same of Leah's new line Gramercy.

I think these will play so nicely together. I have no firm plans for them, but might go for my long held plans to make a Swedish Bloom quilt from Patchwork Please. This has been on my quilty bucket list ever since I saw Kerry's version. 

Actually what I have mostly done this month is practice my FMQ. Shocking, yes, and it seems to have swallowed all my energy and mojo, but I've been making progress and will try to share my thoughts on it soon.

Okay so, November's to do list. Rather some deja vu here ....

1) #IG mini swap needs a label

2) Those commission pouches. Cut and interfaced, not sewn. Reminder to self -  do not take commissions.

3) Vaguely festive churn dash

I have been working on this and loving it. I love this pretty slightly Christmassy stack with lots of favourite fabrics and I love the easy giant churn dash block. Watch this space.

4) Super tote.

I thought I'd missed Purse Palooza, but actually link ups are open till November 14th. Seems unlikely, but this will be next weekend's Leeds MQG sew day project. If I get it all cut this week ...

Well that's me. Just to get November off to an amazing start I've been in bed the last 2 days with some horrible flu thing. The effort of writing this has quite worn me out, off for a lie down again. Need to be right for the start of the week and the new half term. 7 weeks till Chrismas holidays!!

Sneaking in a bit late, but not too late, for Fresh Sewing Day over at Lily's Quilts.

Finish Along quarter 4

The year seems to go by very quickly when you measure it in quarters, and so here we are at Q4 of the Finish Along, bravely hosted this year by Katy at The Littlest Thistle. Time to lay out goals for the very end of the year. I've said before that I am generally something of a completer finisher, I don't have *that* many WIPs laying about and I really, really hate a UFO. So let's have a look at them and see if I can end the year with no WIPs. Ha.

1) #IGminiswap

An easy win to start off with, not only is this a commitment with a deadline but it's also actually well on its way to being done, having made great progress with it this week. Just the binding to choose, make and add and then I need to store it carefully and not forget to post it at the start of December!! I am thoroughly enjoying the process of working outside of my usual comfort zone and thrilled to see how this is turning out.

2) Pouch commission

I don't do commissions, ugh, but these are for a great friend and ex Temple Spa colleague and will be worth their while in Temple Spa products. Five Noodlehead open wide zip pouches. Fabric all chosen and cut, should be easy enough, right? Once the mini quilt is done these are next, I want them done and out of the way asap. 

And now onto the longer standing WIPs ...

3) Vaguely festive giant churn dash

This one's a double rollover. And we are now actually heading towards Christmas, so I'd better get it done, hadn't I? The girls would be thrilled with a Chrismassy quilt to snuggle under.

4) Aviatrix medallion

I was so excited to start this, I can't even remember why it got set aside.

5) Skill builder BOM

This is a proper UFO, ugh. It's the 2013 Skill Builder BOM from Pile O Fabric. The blocks aren't finished and none of them are quilted. Why the appearance on the FAL list?? It is a QAYG quilt, and the quilting called for is FMQ. Not my thing at all, but tomorrow I am lucky enough to be going on a FMQ workshop with the highly impressive and respected quilter Trudi Wood. And if Trudi can't teach me to FMQ, no one can. So as well as my practice sandwiches for tomorrow I have my already basted BOM blocks. And if I don't crack FMQ tomorrow I'll be wonky straight line quilting the little buggers and calling it done. 

And because I can't resist the lure of something new ...

5) I can't stop thinking about making myself a Super Tote. Even though I should be focussing on the WIPs above, I'm torn. But it's Purse Palooza at the moment. Always a great reason to make a bag.

Well I have fabric, and pattern, so let's add it on for luck. 

I think that's enough to be going on with! Linking up with Katy of course. 

Finish Along Q3 round up

Time to reflect back on my sewing efforts over the Summer! Feels like Autumn is well upon us now with a day of howling wind and rain here in Yorkshire (joys!). Let's see how I got on with my Q3 FAL list. 

1) Siblings Together quilts.

All finished and blogged here.

2) Teacher gifts

Nothing like some end of term pressure to get some tedious gift crafting out of the way. Finished and blogged and here's an appalling photo as proof!

3) Secret quilt

This is done, but as predicted I can't share yet!! So that's a FAL entry fail, but a huge personal Summer sewing success!

4) Other secret EPP sewing. This is a fail on every count. I lost the will to live with it, sorry. 

5) Roundabout mini

Hurrah! Finished, blogged and happily on my wall.

6) Travel duffel 2

Finished and blogged! I am extra happy about this as it was a rollover. I hate UFOs!

7) Vaguely festive giant churn dash

Absolutely no progress whatsoever. Not even touched. 

So that's officially 4 out of 7 which isn't bad at all! 

Linking up with Katy at The Littlest Thistle and starting to put together plans for Q4. Can I end the year with no WIPs???