Summer's Little Hen

**WARNING - PICTURE AVALANCHE AHEAD**

What a strange name for a quilt! It's a direct translation from one of the Welsh names for a butterfly - 'Iar Fach yr Haf' (another name being 'Pili Pala') and as I think it's a cute name for a quilt it's what Cadi's quilt shall be named from now on. Yes I actually got around to writing a proper 'finished!' post for this one.

Last time I wrote properly about Summer's Little Hen I'd gotten as far as starting the quilting but didn't like the way that it was going and decided that me and Mr Seam Ripper were going to spend some time together. It didn't take long, only around twenty minutes as I hadn't gone too far with the straight line quilting. I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and try my hand at some free motion quilting. Now I hadn't done any FMQ before. None.

I had originally planned to practice some FMQing on a quilt for myself made out of thrifted shirts but I didn't have the time, Cadi's been around for around a month now and if I wasn't careful she'd be getting this quilt on her first birthday!

I started on the large square of Madrona Road and tried outlining the flowers.

It went quite well and (for the most part) I managed to keep my stitch length pretty even. I then outlined the central yellow flower and then did a squiggly spiral radiating from that point.

Looking at the pictures now I'm not really happy with this and am very close to getting Mr Seam Ripper out again but this quilt has got it's binding on so I'm going to stop myself.

Then the fun started. I decided to try a loopy design, keeping the quilting quite 'loose' as I didn't want the quilt to get too stiff.

I decided to only quilt the negative space in an attempt to let the butterflies, 'petal squares' and Cadi's Name stand out a little.

It went quite well and I was enjoying myself but I was having trouble moving the quilt around - it felt as if the throat space on my machine was waaaay to small.

But before I knew it half the quilt was done! But then I hit a problem. Quite a big problem...

I ran out of thread so had to leave it there until I could get some more.

Whilst waiting for the opportunity to get some more thread something that had been niggling me really began to bug me. In a big way. Whilst hand sewing I've always had a problem with keeping my stitch length even. You'd think that they'd get steadily longer but no with me the stitches get smaller and smaller and smaller. It looks like this problem has spread to my free motion quilting. If you look at the picture above you can see that as I quilted from left to right my quilting gets denser and denser and denser. I really did want to keep the quilting quite loose but was there were less stitches on the 'loose' side than on the 'dense' side I decided to unpick the loose side. I did it in batches and, in all, I reckon it took me just over three hours! That's a long time. And there was a lot of swearing involved. But overall I'm glad that I did it, I'm a lot happier with the finished article now.

As soon as I'd managed to get some more thread (and I made sure that I got plenty - you can never have enough thread can you?) I set about finishing the quilting. It took me a few hours split into around four sessions over two days. And I took another picture in the middle of the night!

The following night was the last day in June and I had set this quilt as my June finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes' and even though it was already quite late I decided that I should (just about) be able to get the binding on before the linky party deadline. I kept the binding very simple, using the same cream fabric as the quilt top with a scrap of Madrona Road on the corner opposite the large square. And even though Marged (who always sleeps through) decided that it would be fun to join Mam on the sofa for an hour or two I managed to get it finished, take a quick photo on the patio in the beautiful dawn light and write the quickest of posts to add to the linky (with around two hours to spare).

Now in that post I promised a proper 'finished!' post and now, twelve days later. here it is.

I learn't quite a lot whilst making this quilt.

1. Before you fuse fabrics together with an iron, check, check again and check once more that your placing them in the right place! I'm still not happy with the placement of Cadi's name in relation to the large flower and the flower looks upside down. I will not be making this mistake again! (Famous last words)

2. Stand back and judge your quilting as often as possible. The more often you judge, the less stitches you have to unpick!

3. Consider how your binding is going to look on the back of the quilt as well as the front. I love the vintage sheet I used to back this one but it's blue on white and the binding is cream and it really just looks wrong. (If I were to choose the binding again I think I'd have gone for the same fabric that I used for Cadi's Name - but kept the scrap of Madrona road)

4. Buy thread in bulk - you can never have too much thread and running out is just a plain old pain in the arse.

I also learned lots of other little things but most importantly I enjoyed making this little quilt. So much so I took it down to the village park for a little photo shoot!

Peeking out the window

Hanging out in a tree

And another tree

You can't really make out the river in the background in this picture so..

I went back down last night and took another one - don't I live in a beautiful part of the world?

Lounging around

And having a bit of fun with another one of my finished quilts (still unblogged!)

A nod to Mr Murray

And lastly my favourite! On the was home from my mum's last night I passed something that I pass every time I go there and hadn't thought of it as a quilt prop before. Light bulb moment! I put the car in reverse and came up with this.

Isn't it cute? And just so British?

Now I've just got to tackle the rest of this list. I don't see much getting done during the next few days as we've got a wedding to attend tomorrow and a very special little girl is turning five on Monday! (how did that happen?)

I've come back as I've just realised that I forgot to show a picture of the back and I forgot to include the quilt stats!

So the full back -

I love this vintage sheet I just wish that I had more that a few meagre scraps left!

 And a close up of it's full crinkly glory -

Quilt Stats:

Name: Summer's Little Hen
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Me on my twelve year old domestic Brother
For: Little baby Cadi Mai
Design: Mine!
Fabric: Madrona Road by Violet Craft for Micheal Miller, Cocoon by Valori Wells for         Westminster/Freespirit and an unknown yellow polka dot from the scrap bin at my lqs
Thread: Coats 100% Cotton in 1212, an old spool of Dorma thread in a pale blue and Coats Moon 100% polyester in white in the bobbin.
Size: 36" x 37" (unwashed)

Linking up to:

This week with MR at Quilt Matters and

With Karen at Quilty Creations As Summer's Little Hen is backed with a vintage sheet (you really should head over there - it's a party for making something useful out of poor neglected fabric/objects - and there's a giveaway!)
and 
Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

Dawn chorus

So it's light outside and I can hear bird song yet I haven't been to bed.

That can only mean one thing - I've been up all night finishing my goal for June ALYoF. Madness I know and officially it's July here in the UK but the linky's still open (I hope) so I'm linking up.

So about five minutes ago I finished hand sewing the binding onto Cadi's quilt and it's finished!

I ran outside and took a super quick picture with my mobile (sorry). If I get up before Anwen comes home from school I'll try to write a proper post tomorrow (today) till then

z z z Z z Z Z 

Fluttering along

Thanks for all the first quilt love. I've never had so many comments and really did appreciate all your thoughts.

Thanks also to everyone that commented on my quilt back conundrum 

I decided to follow your advice and went for the blue on white vintage sheet

I also added some butterflies to stop the quilt from being 'too blue' and decided to add Cadi's name to the front instead of having it on the back.

Really, when will I learn to take photos outside?

Above you can see my butterfly placement audition. I was really pleased with this so carried it over to the ironing board and managed to do this -

Can you spot the mistake?

I mean really? And the letters are fused to the quilt top - there's no way they're coming off. It throws the whole quilt off balance but there's nothing I can do about it now. So I carried out sewing the butterflies on.

Ops, that's the bobbin thread showing through - note to self - adjust tension next time.

I sewed them onto the quilt sandwich not just the quilt top so that the shape of the butterfly could be seen on the back.

Managed to get outside for this pic

And this is where I stalled. I wasn't sure how to quilt it. I've only done straight line quilting so far and, due to the deadline for getting this quilt finished, don't have time to practice fmq. However I really didn't think that straight line quilting would work on this quilt. I really don't want to sew over the butterflies and don't fancy burying a thousand threads. Anyway, I gave it a shot

Already too many threads to bury.

And hated it. Just wasn't right at all. So now I've unpicked it and am contemplating where to go next......

Linking up to WIP Wednesday over with Lee at Freshly pieced

A finish!

Ok, so this isn't a new finish but actually my first ever finished quilt!

Isn't the clematis pretty?

I bought the fabric when I was pregnant with Anwen - five years ago! We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl so we decided on a neutral spotty theme for the nursery. I found this fabric at my lqs.

I still have some in my stash, complete with selvage

It has spots in four different colours so I decided to pair it with four corresponding solids and a white. I bought enough of the spot to make some curtains too.

Now, remember, this was before I discovered all these wonderful blogs and tutorials on the interwebby so I started cutting it up into squares and sticking it to cardboard squares with Sellotape!

I still cry when I see how much fabric I used to waste on seams!

Unfortunately this is as far as I got. I really can't remember why I didn't carry on.

So along came Anwen

My favorite pic from that time - I look awful (after 53 hours without sleep I was allowed to) but we both look SO happy!

and the quilt was forgotten about :-( And I never got around to making the curtains either.

So roll on around four years and I was pregnant with baby number two. I would get tired so easily and was in bed straight after Anwen (sometimes I even beat her to it) but I wasn't ready to sleep yet. I needed something that I could do in bed whilst watching telly......I know! I sent Endaf up to the attic to retrieve a shoebox and there was my ready to be pieced quilt. I laid out all the squares trying to come up with a pattern. I decided that it worked better without the white.

So every night I could be found in bed sewing away, piece by piece, row by row until I had a quilt top! (Sorry - no in progress shots - 'normal' people don't take pictures of quilt tops). I was advised by the lovely ladies in my lqs that as I was planning on hand quilting I should go for a 100% polyester batting and a cotton quilting thread (Gutermann hand sewing cotton). I decided that as I'd gone for plain and easy on the patchwork I'd do the same with the quilting.

And then there was the matter of the binding. Due to the baby being upside down I had one or two extra scans but insisted that I didn't want to know the sex so it had to neutral. I didn't want to go with one of the colours that I'd already used but still wanted it to be quite bold. I toyed with the idea of lilac but thought that it would be to girly. In the end I went for a dark purple.

Now I'd never heard of double quilt binding at this point so went through the painstaking task of making single quilt binding. So much more work to make and to attach to the quilt. I'm afraid that I didn't do a very good job of the stitching which wasn't helped by the fact that I thought that I needed to use quilting thread to attach the binding and couldn't find a better match! This was a slow, slow process and I didn't really enjoy it. And that's where I left it because....

Yes hubbie is wearing the same T-shirt! I had this idea that I would change my Facebook profile pictutre from Anwen's baby picture to this one. I even had the same yucky nightie in my bag ready! What I hadn't considered is that all the tubes and wires that come with a caesarean meant that I couldn't take the hospital gown off let alone change into my own clothes :(

Along came Marged! Doesn't Anwen look proud?

Now anyone out there that thinks that they are busy with one child try having two! (how some of these quilty mums with five plus kids manage to sew at all is beyond me). Just the normal work involved with having two children was bad enough but feeding issues meant that I had to wake Marged (and myself) every two hours so finishing that binding was the last thing on my mind. So back to the attic it went.

Then this happened

Poorly baba

When she was sixteen weeks Marged developed bronchiolitis. It wasn't as bad as it looks but they wanted to keep her in to monitor her in case she got any worse. Only problem was the children's ward was full so we were shipped off to another hospital 90mins away from home.

So with no clothes to iron, no food to cook and no floors to hoover I found myself twiddling my thumbs. I sent Endaf into the attic again and by the time we arrived home we had a bound quilt.

I'm trying to vary my photos from the usual 'on the line' suspects

Now I know that this quilt is far from perfect but it was my first (well, first completed quilt. I have two quilt tops under my bed that started life long before this one!) and will have a special place in my heart for a very long time.

But at heart I'm a lazy girl so here's a picture of the back 'on the line'. The wrinkles?
The quilt was fresh out the washer and since it was on the line I took a photo. Did I mention that I'm lazy?

and it's been used. A LOT

We had a mini photo shoot on a rare sunny day.
(Like the dress? I'm going to have to try and find a picture of a super cute baby wearing it around 32 years ago ;-))

I was a nasty mummy and took the egg from her as soon as I'd taken the picture.

in fact it's keeping my legs warm at this very moment.

And that was it. I was hooked. And I know another little girl that could do with a quilt for her big girl bed.......

I've been following the Lets Get Acquainted Blog Hop and realised how important pictures are. I've tried playing around with some of the photos in this post. I'd be grateful if you could leave me some feedback. Thanks.

Linking up to:

this week with Aunt Marti at Thirteen in 13 and  Finish it up Friday with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

On the road again!

Ok, so we're on the way to another vintage fair! This time the mother in law and father in law have come along for the ride and we're meeting my sister in law and niece there - a real family outing. And if that wasn't good enough the fair is in Swansea city centre. Unfortunately I don't think that the rather large fabric store in town will be open on a Sunday and the bus has to be parked up between 10.00am and 4.00pm so I won't be able to go to the nearby lqs or Hobbycraft but Primark had better watch out!

I had the house to myself for a few hours yesterday. DH took the kids to a birthday party and the plan was that I'd get on with some sewing whilst the 'design floor' was clear. (Marged's crawling now so nothing's safe) but ended up folding laundry (it was piled up so high I couldn't get to the sewing machine) and then I decided that the easiest way to find a fabric I wanted from my stash was to have a bit of a sort out. 

I started with good intentions - look, Cadi's quilt is on the design floor!

I actually have a bigger stash than I thought but still nowhere near as big as some people's (that's how I justify new purchases and I'm sticking to it!)

Cocoon, Chashmere - Rubywine by Valori Wells

I found it! I've not had it long but it's exactly what I needed for Cadi's quilt. I also found a yellow polka dot for her name so after the girls had gone to bed (and Dad had gone to work bussing drunk people around until 5.00am!!!!!) I finally got some sewing done! Cadi's quilt top is finished! I even got it basted and started quilting!

I have to stop taking pictures in the middle of the night!

Anywho, Sunday stash! This week-pre loved clothes.

The blue shirt is another of my mum's finds. It's 100% cotton and feels very similar to quilting cotton. I love the print so at 50p I wish there had been more than one!

These are all ladies clothes made of quite thin cotton; totally unsuitable for quilting but I only paid £2 for all four and I really like the prints so I'm sure I'll find some use for them. (I'm guessing something for the girls but we'll see)

Lastly there's this skirt. It's quite heavy cotton a little like ticking.  I've already decided that I'm going to try and make a pair of shorts for Anwen out of it. All I have to do now is find the time to do it!

I did say that I was going to wait until I'd finished posting about my up cycling before sharing this little beauty but I just can't wait! I'm lucky that I work in a small town that has quite a large lqs (compared to the others in the area) and a few doors down from it there's a quilt museum. I'd always meant to go in but between the kids and everything never quite managed it. Anyway a few weeks ago I had to pop into work to finalise the arrangements for my return and as Marged was with my mum and Anwen was in school I thought now would be a good time to pop in. I'm so glad that I did! I was expecting to just find a few antique Welsh quilts on the wall. How wrong was I! They had quilts from all over the world for sale (although most of them weren't to my taste) as well as quilt kits, books and the like.

But what really got my attention were some fabric bins on the floor. I soon got in there and had a good rummage. To tell the truth I was a little disappointed as most of the bundles were of synthetic fabrics or miss shapes of upholstery cloth - not my cup of tea at all.

But wait what's that? 

A flash of green caught my eye. 

Mmmm that's a nice colour. 

Oh and look at the print! 

It feels like a nice cotton.  

How much is it. ....where is that label? 

Ah there it is. 

What?  

How much? 

£45?

You have to be joking! 

Oh, but look,

  

it's Liberty. 

But still. ... £45? 

But there's 4 yards. 

But £45?

But it's gorgeous. 

But it's £45! 

I put it down. 

I picked it up again.

So what do I do? I definitely couldn't buy it then as I only had £5 in my wallet (due to a trip to the aforementioned lqs(I was goodish - batting, thread and a few £1 scraps stash builders)) and I don't carry cards any more. But I wanted it really bad..... So I asked them if they would keep it for me. I wouldn't be back in town until my first day back in work - Monday the 3rd. "No Problem" they said. I was quite glad that I didn't have the money on me; I have some purchases in my stash that I regret buying and they're only FQs! So I took a photo with my mobile and walked out. (I did have a quick stroke first though). So I had just over a week to mull it over. I ummed and I ahhed. I did some maths (4yards for £45 works out at around £13/m - a lot less than the £22/m Liberty usually goes for)

O God! Who am I trying to kid! I'm buying the fabric. So lunchtime on the 3rd I toddle over to the shop and.....they're closed.

Closed.

and I can't go back for at least a week.

They'll put it back in the bins. With that horrible synthetic fabric. Poor Liberty. What if someone else buys it? But it's my Liberty :( I went through a whole week of this. I couldn't go back until last Tuesday. I did a quick check of the bins. It wasn't there. Was this a good thing (it hadn't been put back in the bins) or a bad thing (it had been put back in the bins and someone had bought it). The lady behind the counter took an extraordinarily long time looking for it but in the end there it was - still with my name on it!!!!!!!

So here it is, all four yards of it

I'm thinking quilt back. and I can't use Liberty for the back without using Liberty for the front can I? So I plan on buying scraps of Liberty when and where I can. Hopefully in about a year I'll have enough to make a start. In the meantime this little lovely has gone to live in my stash but it does come out from time to time just for a quick gaze and stroke.

Linking up to Sunday Stash this week with Allison at Dreaming in Patchwork.