Friday 30 September 2011

Quilting or stitching? Or both?

Last week I a saw a BOM that I half-heartedly decided to try. It was stitching. See, the story is that I used to do a lot of embroidery. Not really the classical kind but some fabulous Swedish regional graphical patterns that I inherited from my great-grandmother. All these embroideries were made with only one color on white.

While looking for some suitable embroidery thread for the BOM I found some unfinished projects (Think I might have made them to go between serving plates but not sure). The size and not least the red color are perfect to match the BOM stitches. They were all made with linen thread – quite a stunning, deep red.



Once I had started the BOM I discovered that 1) I am not big on Christmas patterns and 2) I prefer quilting to stitching.  I thought I would just drop the BOM but then a few comments to my WIP post the other day - and especially Aeble's – had me thinking.

Yesterday I started to make a basic drawing to a new quilt. It could end up being a very special Christmas quilt. I'm notoriously bad at Christmas decorating – decorating in general in fact – but maybe and just maybe this could end up being a quilt we would love to bring out every Christmas..

Here it goes:

My recent stitch and some unfinished embroidery projects from way back. I have 4 frames and there will be 8 stitches from the BOM:


My plan below - yep, I'm bad at decorating end apparently even worse at drawing  ;)


The corners…  I will place the old embroidered frames in the corners and appliqué a heart in each. On the heart I will stitch a name (DH, DS#1, DS#2 and myself).

Each stitched block will have 2 bordes - one solid grey and a few modern white/red modern patterns. 

And then I need to find a stunning border to wrap up the whole ting.

You know.... this could actually work  :)

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Wednesday WIP

Since last WIP I finished the HSQ quilt



And I made my first (and so far only) basket using this great tutorial. Pretty happy about how it turned out. I made a mistake giganto though. Can you spot it? The fabric is Moda's 'Oh My' except for the lining, which is some beige dotted I found in my stash and the linnen I used for the bottom.

 

I also made a bird using this tutorial. Theirs actually looks like birds but mine looks more like a sea lion to be honest. I didn't realise before after finishing it that it is sewn by hand - it explains the edges and lack of details. I also stuffed the tail - don't ask me why. Maybe I secretly adore sea lions? I'll give it another try next week. Hand sewing one that is  ;)


On-going projects:

I started bordering the diamonds for the Kaffe Fasset Sashed Boxes quilt - theyre turning into hexagons now. And I'm unsure at this point if I really want to go the 3-D way or if I should place them as a traditional diamonds. I'll make them all and then decide.

I didn’t get as far with the Kaffe Fasset pattern as I had intended because of the fun BOM  thats all over blogland these days and because half Sunday was spent with the boys watching Bicycling World Championships, which were held only 3 kilometers from here.
The week also had a lot of this - I'm making a scarf

and a little of this... I'm not sure I’ll continue though as I have no idea what to use it for. Just felt like stitching all of a sudden.

 

So,  a little overall craft progress this week, where autumn is really has kicked in. It’s dark when I get up in the mornings now.  Not good… Luckily for me DH still serves me a warm cafe latte every morning and that brightens everything else up.

Check out more WIP updates at Lee’s blog Freshly Pieced
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sunday 25 September 2011

BOM Kick-off

Canton Village Quilt Works


It started  :) When I checked my reader this morning barely out of bed (yes, that how sad a person I am) I saw the first BOM block and immediately started playing with the fabric.

Here's my fabric for the first block. I'm using Paradise Collection 'Feel the Difference' that I picked up in my local quilt shop.


Update: This is how it ended up looking. I made two blocks. As the blocks are rather small (8x8 inches) I think I might want to add a bit more to the quilt... or else I can always use it for another quilt. Go to Sherrie's A Quilting life blog to see the instructions.



Saturday 24 September 2011

Sashed boxes quilt update

I finally found the border fabric to the diamonds this week and now Kaffe Fasset's Sashed boxes quilt is beginning to come together. I know what I'll be doing the rest of this weekend :)





Thursday 22 September 2011

Block of the month

Canton Village Quilt Works

I decided to join the first quilt a long (deep breath - I'm trying not to panick over here). Even if I am terrified to do it, so many of my favorite designers and bloggers are designing a block each so how can I not have a go at it? I'm sure I will feel like a useless amateur learn a lot in the process. I like that it's only a block a month. That should give me a chance of keeping up  ;)

Jackie from Canton Works is the host and sells the fabric, but because of taxes and shipping I found some FQ's at my local quilt shop instead. Since I have no idea what I am in for yet I will supplement with more prints as we go along. That's really just an excuse of more fabric shopping.


Pretty colors so far, right? First time I use purple ever. I never really liked purple (or yellow for that matter) but as I am making more and more quilts every single color steps out of that the 'like-don't like' category and gets a right of it's own. Okay, that came out more confusing than I intended, but hope you get the point: I never liked purple but here it looks fantastic so it wont be the last time. And sorry for making such absurd comments in the past about not liking a color. Gezz - don't know what I was thinking.

I got two FQ's of the blue fabric below. Isn't it just stunning?  I could easily use this in another quilt if I don't get to use it for this one.


HST is done

I seem to have found a good quilt-making-rythm. I usually have a project that challenges me and then have some little 'in between' projects that are faster, easier, and almost guarenteed to lift my spirits. Like the half square triangles quilt I just finished.

I made the quilt it in little over a week. Easy peasy and really fun.

This is what I intended :
I had 2 charm packs and nothing in my stash that really went with this line so I needed to 'stretch' the fabric. I also wanted it to be 'boyish' even there are a lot of red, yellow and oranges charms. Hence the very graphical, dynamic pattern.

This is what I got out of it:
Size: 58x44 inches
Fabric: Moda Snow (solid) and 2 Moda Punctuation charm packs. I used all the charms but 3 pieces so I couldn't make a pieced back
Backing: IKEA fabric (cheapest fabric I ever used. Not the best, but ok for this type of quilt). Think the writing goes perfectly with the Punctuation theme though.
Quilt: Stitch in the ditch around the squares to make them pop
Binding: Black and white stripes from the stash

Its a sofa quilt - perfect for the kids to snuggle in.

  



Well, someone (besides the kids) find this non-stop quilt making very useful

I like the striped binding - first time I tried with stripes and I think it looks ok


Sunday 18 September 2011

A brilliant, crafty weekend

This was the first weekend in a long time where we didn’t have any socail obligations or plans. On Saturday I got out of bed at 7.30 and took my tea to the sewing room and started playing. At 2.30 pm I was still in my pajamas and two bags and a lot of experience richer.







I made these two pouches using the quilt-as-you-go method. Not only was the method a first for me. Making bags with a zipper was as well.  I am not 100% satisfied but learning by doing is great. And of course I had to make some more matching key strings too.


 
 
Out of zippers and key rings I started to piece the HSQ quilt and basted it and now it’s ready for quilting.
And diamonds of course….  No weekend is complete without diamonds

I also got some practical items ticked off my list as well.
 

In between I squeezed in some hot cocoa with whipped vanilla cream for my son. He and DH went on the World Championship bicycle route today (WC is held next week in this area). It was 25 km in pouring rain and low temperatures.  He was so cold that he started crying from exhaution but only when he came up the driveway. He is such a tuff little thing – he eats his pain as we say in Danish. I made him a hot bath and then some coca. And the rest of the afternoon we enjoyed Mrs. Doubtfire on the TV. And yes... on the picture you see him surronded by all grown-ups. He is really that tough.
 



Brilliant weekend in my opinion – hope yours was just as good.

22.80 DKK = 4.19821 USD

A little while ago I was in IKEA and saw some great fabrics I could use for quilt backs. I got me some letters and some birds. The price for the letters (which is actually written numbers ) was a whopping $4.


And this is what I got out of it

A backing for the Moda Punctuation HST quilt

A new cover for the small ironing board I have next to my sewing machine

A little string bag


 And I still have enough left for more bags….


Post scriptum: I was unsure if the fabric quality would be too 'thin' but after a 40 degree wash and a good, warm tumble-dry it sort of 'thickened up' and worked perfectly as backing. It shrinks quite a bit...

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Wednesday WIP

It's time for a wednesday WIP update - jump over to Lee's blog to see lot more WIP's

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Completed:
This week was dominated by key straps – a lot of keystraps :) Stephanie from Loft Creations published a great tutorial and now I have a bunch of happy colleagues all well equipped with colourful key straps. I used  jelly roll stripes from Moda's 'Oh My' collection for all of them.


Ongoing:The Kaffe Fasset  diamond/hexagon quilt – the picture is a few days old. I am now up to 30 diamonds (aka 10 hexagons) but still have more than 50 diamonds waiting to be pieced. I finished all itsy bitsy cutting though – it took much longer than I thought it would.



This week I started a new quilt with Moda Punctuation. I'll make it for my youngest. It’s a basic HST quilt but  I like the off-centre dynamic it has. 


No progress:
• Scrappy flying geese quilt


This week's stats:
Completed projects -  5 keystraps
New projects - 1
Currently in progress - 3

Monday 12 September 2011

Moda Punctuation charm packs

I had two Punctuation charm pack and are playing a little with HST while sipping my caffe latte and half-way watching a movie... So many options and possibilities but I kind of like this one :)