#UKminiswap

I finished something!

And I was only two days late.

Last time I showed you my #UKminiswap mini quilt it looked a little like this.

I'd asked on Instagram whether my partner would prefer to have the rainbow hexies or vintage hexies on their mini. The hope was that I would post progress shots of both in order to keep my partner guessing but who was I kidding? I'd left it to the last minute and only had time to make the one mini.

I started by basting my background fabric and my backing fabric to some wadding, I know that this might sound strange but I feel that when I'm hand appliquéing having a bit more body to the background fabric makes it easier for me to keep things straight. I then used a glue pen to place the hexies before appliquéing them down.

I was mainly inspired by this pin on my partner's Pinterest board and Nicole's recent activities. As much as I love Nicole's method of appliquéing the hexies I felt that doing it by hand would give me a bit more freedom to be creative with my quilting. I started quilting by adding one line of hand stitches around the flower using Aurifil No12. As much as I love the effect of hand quilting with Perle No8 I find the Aurifil much easier to work with whilst still giving a similar effect.

I then left the mini for a couple of days as I really didn't know how do carry on with the quilting. I half fancied doing some FMQ but since getting the frame I haven't attempted any FMQ the traditional way and didn't fancy spending hours reverse stitching so close to the sending deadline. In the end I decided to stick to straight lines with my walking foot using the hexies as a guide.

I also used a Hera marker to show where I needed to turn the quilt. After I'd added five lines of quilting I felt that it needed a little something extra. I had a tiny bit of a variegated Aurifil No12 in blue and added a single line of stitches around the star but not to the 'shoots'.

I love No12 and my machine deals with it really well, my only regret is that I didn't use a different colour. I think that the shade of blue I used and the fact that it's variegated makes the stitches look like I've marked the quilting lines with a washable pen and not bothered to wash it out. I really need to get more colours in this thread! (I only have three different colours at the moment, unfortunately I've not been able to find any UK stockists)

Before even starting on the quilting I'd been head scratching about the binding. On the sign up form for the swap we were asked for our favourite designers and/or fabric lines. Out of all those listed by my partner I only had one print! And that was the bias stripe from Scrumptious. I love a stripy binding but wanted the mini to have a more definite frame so toyed with the idea of adding a 'flange'.

I posted the above picture on Instagram and hoped that my partner would choose for me. Unfortunately she didn't comment but the majority vote was for the Dark Violet Kona at the bottom. This is what my gut had told me to go with too but I still liked the idea of adding a flange. Mainly as the quilt was quite simple and I though that it would add an extra little something.

In the end I decided to go for the Dark Violet but added a C+S Netorious in Plummy flange.

I followed Julie from Jaybird Quilts' tutorial and found it quite easy, however, if I was to add a flange again in future I think I'd start with 0.75" instead of 1" strips as I'd prefer it if the binding was wider than the flange.

So there you have it, my finished mini.

And I really must say I rather like it.

I love the way the dense(ish) quilting around the hexies makes them poofy.

I love the extra touch of the hand quilting. And that by carefully trimming the quilt I managed to keep that tiny bit of blue stitching there.

And I love that I managed to add a star to the quilting without actually quilting a star.

I added a label and to make it a little more 'me' I wrote it in Welsh.

Made with love

for ********
by @patshyncatrin.
Catrin Lewis
#UKminiswap
April 2015

Pity I ruined it by forgetting my first name!

I've had to cover the recipients name as although I posted it last Friday (the 24th - six whole days ago) my partner still hasn't confirmed that she'd received it. I really hope that this is because it's being held hostage in her local sorting office and not because the idiots have lost it. Or worse still, my partner has received it and doesn't like it so hasn't bothered to post on instagram!!!!!

I really, really, really hope that isn't the case as I loved this mini. It's my favourite make so far - a simple design where the quilting is important as the piecing (although there wasn't any piecing in this one, you know what I mean, right?) In fact, I'd say it's the most 'me' thing I've made so far, maybe not such a good thing considering we were supposed to be making to our partner's taste! Luckily I've already got number two ready to go and I'm keeping the next one. All. Mine.

Hopefully I'll get around to writing about the little extras I added to the parcel. I enjoyed making them almost as much as the mini itself.

Linking up with Shanna and Melissa as this was my April goal for ALYoF.

And with Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday as I finished this on Friday. Last Frday but still Friday ;o)

Finish Along 2015 Q2 Goal Setting

I'm not sure why I'm bothering to enter the Finish Along as last quarter I only completed one item from my list! I suppose it does make me blog about the few finishes I manage though so here we go again.

1 & 2. UKminiswap Quilts

I've made a tiny bit of progress in that I've appliquéd the hexies onto one version and added a tiny bit of handquilting so all I've got left to do is to applique the vintage sheet version, quilt and bind both, make at least one handmade extra and get it in the post. Hey, I've until the 22nd (eight days) so completely doable, right?


3. Kaffe Snowball.

I've very nearly finished the quilting on this one, after MONTHS of procrastination when it came to deciding how to quilt it I went with a simple stipple.....

I have to finish the quilting on this so that I can take the Juki off the frame to quilt my mini quilts.

I went up to the attic this morning to take a new picture of this one and actually ended up finishing the quilting. I even managed to trim it!

I already have the binding ready to go so there is hope that I can finish this one.


4 & 5. Heart cushions.

Same old story, took the girls to birthday parties empty handed with the promise of a gift one day. Two months go by and the girls are still waiting!

I need to finish pressing the half-blocks, turn them into blocks, sash them, turn them into tops, baste, quilt, sort out backings and then turn them into cushions.


6. Irish Chain Cushion.

Same story as above. I've been using these as leaders and enders whilst piecing the heart cushions. As soon as the heart cushions are finished I'll concentrate on this.

7. Siblings Together Home Sweet Home Quilt.

You may have noticed that Mary, Jo and Susy put a call out for these great Home Sweet Home blocks. They were hoping to get around 150 blocks so that they could make five quilts. So far the have received over 270! I made six blocks and instead of sending them to the girls I asked them to send me 24 of the blocks that they've already received and ordered some fabric from Jude's fab sale as a backing. I need to turn these blocks into a completed quilt ready to send in July.

Linking up with Adrianne at On the Windy Side

April ALYoF Goal - UK Mini Swap

March was a washout. I did get some sewing under my belt, but not much and I didn't touch my March ALYoF goal (my Kaffe Snowball quilt). I did actually start quilting it last night and with a little burst whilst the youngest two were napping this afternoon and another little half hour after they'd all gone to bed I'm over a quarter of the way through quilting it.

So you'd think that the logical option would be to set this same quilt as my April goal....

Maybe not. I did say at the start of the year that I wanted ALYoF to help make sure that I got at least twelve items finished this year. If I keep on rolling over the same project then that definitely isn't going to happen!

So what is my goal for April? Well it's something that I have to finish before the end of the month. In fact it has to be finished by the 22nd of April at the very latest as that's the posting date for the #ukminiswap taking place on instagram.

I'd love to say that I just need to add the binding but....

This is what it looked like waaaay back in January when I wrote my FAL Q1 goal setting post and it hasn't really changed much. So I just need to appliqué the hexies onto my background, quilt it, add hanging sleeves (really must try to remember that one), bind it and label it! Oh, and before I can quilt it I have to finish quilting March's goal as my sewing machine will be up in the attic until I do!

I've already bought a few small extras to go with my mini quilt but would really like to add a little something handmade like a pincushion or a needle book - that might be pushing it a little though!

Yep, so that's my goal, not just to finish my mini but to get it in the post (anyone else tend to have things ready to go, hanging around the house waiting for you to remember to post it?).

Linking up for hopefully not the last time this month with Shanna and Melissa.

I hate thinking of post titles

It's time to link up with Melissa and Shanna again for March's ALYoF goal setting. I've left it till the last minute again, mainly as I just couldn't decide what to set as my goal. I could have settled on one of the three birthday cushions I started last week or the nursing cushion for Benji which I really would like to make before I finish breastfeeding but something's been nagging me.

I have this really, really strong urge to quilt. I haven't touched the frame since the end of September/early October (that's nearly SIX months ago!!!!) when I finished quilting Millie's quilt. As soon as I'd finished Millie's quilt I loaded my Kaffe Snowball quilt.

I've just realised that I never took a picture of this as a completed quilt top with borders attached so instead you can have an insight into what my kitchen looks like when I'm sewing.

I already had a quilting pattern in mind and was raring to go but somehow never got around to it.

So this month I'm going to ignore the bee blocks (at least until this is done) and some kids will have to wait a little longer for their birthday pressies and whilst I just enjoy getting reacquainted with my frame.

Hopefully I'll manage to get the quilting finished before the end of the month as I might decide to give this to my brother on his thirtieth next month - I have the binding ready to go - surely nineteen days is enough to bind a quilt?

Linking as usual

Scrappy log finish (maybe?)

Yeah! I managed a second ALYoF finish!

Back at the start of the month I set my goal of finishing Mali's cushion before the end of the month and yesterday I did the last little bit of quilting, inserted a zip and sewed the cushion together. Unfortunately I wasn't home during daylight hours today so I only have a night time picture to show you.

I quilted the front with a variegated pink Coti thread that I bought at festival last year since I couldn't find an Aurifil one anywhere (I've since bought some from the lovely Cindy).

The crosshatch with the lines around 1/4" apart does take time but I love the texture that it gives. I find that marking the lines with a Clover Hera marker makes things a lot easier and my lines end up being so much straighter than if I tried to 'wing it'!

I decided that I was going to back the cushion with a FQ of a green floral from Posy but couldn't decide if I should quilt it with the same pink thread as the front or a variegated green Aurifil so I put it to the masses on Instagram...

...and the answer was a definite green. On the front of the cushion the variegation in the thread isn't obvious but on the back I really like the extra something that it adds to the overall effect.

Unfortunately the night time picture doesn't show the quilting as well as it should.

 Whilst I was basting the front and back for the cushion I forgot that I usually prefer to add the zip to the back of the cushion. By the time I remembered I'd already cut the fabric and the batting so it was too late so I just added the zip to the bottom of the cover.

I can't say that I'm 100% happy with this finish. I can't quite put my finger on it. It might be that it doesn't have any white in it, which I do like in my quilts, or it could be the absence of Mali's name on the front. I must admit that I'm toying with the idea of adding it to the blue fabric......

But for now I'm calling it finished and linking up with Melissa and Shanna.

Work in Progress Wednesday

In an attempt to stop my posts about finished items (few and far between as they are) from getting quite as long in future I'm going to try and blog more about them along the way.

So today's Wednesday and I actually got some sewing done last week!

I've tried my best to make Anwen's friends a little something handmade for their birthdays. I started last year when I made Mali a little zippy pouch.

It was around the time that the Economy block was all the rage on instagram and I knew that I didn't have the time (or the fussy cuttable stash) to make a full quilt. Making this block out of my Aneela Hoey stash seemed to satisfy my sheep like tendencies a little :0)

Anyway, I've managed to make each member of Anwen's closest group of friends either some kind of pouch or cushion cover for their birthday and now we've come around to Mali's birthday again.

As she got a pouch last year I decided to make her a cushion cover this year. With her birthday being at the start of the year it's coincided with another ...along on instagram. This year it's the #scrappylogcabinqal . With a quick baaaaa I dove into my bag of Aneela scraps and pulled out all the strings. I started with a fussy cut little rabbit and then just added the next strip that was closest to the size required. I didn't pay any attention to value and little attention to colour (I just tried to make sure that I didn't have two of the same colour/print touching) and before long I had a cushion top.

It's around 18.5" square. I've bought a 18" cushion pad thinking that quilting and the actual cushion seams will take this down to around 17". I do like to overstuff my cushions.

You'd think that since this was last Tuesday and Mali's party was on Saturday I'd have basted this straight away in the hope of getting it finished, however, Mali would have to wait as someone else had already been waiting a lot longer....

And she's still waiting. Anwen went to the party on Saturday empty handed. Luckily Mali and her mum both know what I'm like by now and know that she will get something eventually. In the hope that Mali doesn't have to wait five months like Esyllt had to though I'm going to make Mali's Cushion my February goal for ALYoF.

And linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

And with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Wish me luck!

Millie's Quilt. Finished

Yes, you read that right - I actually finished something!!!

This quilt started life as a little pile of Wee Wander that I bought from Natalie and Tracey at Pin it and Stitch at Quilts UK in Malvern last May. Unfortunately the girls had sold out of some of the prints but they were kind enough to point me in the direction of Little Laura's Haberdashery who had a few of the larger prints.

When I bought them I didn't have anything specific in mind I just knew that I needed these fabrics in my stash!

In June one of my husband's co-workers had a baby girl and I knew that I had to make her a quilt but between the all day nausea, constant tiredness and already too long list of WIPs/UFOs I didn't manage to make a start until the beginning of August.

I'd previously fallen in love with Susan's HR Fanclub Quilt and started fussy cutting some of the prints. As soon as I'd done this I decided that I wanted to add a few different solids. I had a look on-line to see if I could find anywhere that gave suggested matching Konas but all I could find were a few websites that named coordinating Cotton Couture. I don't know of anywhere in the UK that supplies Cotton Couture so I decided to wait a week so that I could compare colours in person at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.

I took some scraps of the different prints with me and with the help of two lovely ladies picked out Carnation, Candy Green and Dusty Blue as the best matches.

Picture courtesy of Anwen, aged 6.

As soon as I had the solids it didn't take me very long to get going again. In fact, as the beady eyed Nicky pointed out on IG I still had the entry stamp from FoQ on my hand! I was quite determined to get this quilt done, even if it did mean sewing with a toddler on my lap, and managed to get the top finished within the first two days of getting home from Birmingham.

Not sure how to quilt it I hung it up on our bedroom wall with some Washi tape and hoped that inspiration would strike.

This is where baby brain kicks in. I didn't take any pictures whilst I was quilting it and without the aid of 'Date Picture Taken' I have absolutely no memory of when I actually quilted this quilt. All I know is that I posted this picture of me adding some hand quilting whilst watching the GBBO final on iPlayer on the 13th of October!

I had a bit of a nightmare quilting this on the frame. The frame is set up in the attic where I have just enough headroom between the eves to use it. Last winter it was far too cold up there to do anything other than quickly grab a bag of hand-me-downs for Marged so the frame got neglected. When the weather got a little more spring like I went up to quilt my Soy Amado quilt (still not blogged that one properly) and noticed that there was mildew on the leaders. Thankfully I quick wipe with a damp cloth removed this and the frame didn't seem any the worst for wear. However, when I went to quilt this at the end of summer it became apparent that the changes in temperature that the frame was going through up there had warped the wood a little. It meant that the wooden runners which the sewing machine runs along during quilting didn't give as smooth a ride as usual. I also noticed that the pole that holds the quilt top in place didn't stay 'straight' when I was winding the quilt on. This combined with the quilting pattern I'd settled on and the fact that I was only quilting the background left my blocks very 'baggy' and I had gathers in some places.

The picture above shows the block which was most affected by this.

Tempted as I was to follow Susan's lead and pebble the background I knew from experience that although it gives stunning results it takes a very long time. I wanted something that was relatively quick but wanted to venture from my usual stipple. In the end I decided to go for a variation of the stipple. I think that I've heard it called the 'Riverbed' in the past but I'm not sure.

But I couldn't leave the quilt without at least a little pebbling so I pebbled around Millie's name.

I'm really glad that I did this as I feel that it makes Millie's name 'pop'.

The main reason why I'd left the blocks unquilted was because I wanted to add some hand quilting.

I kept it quite simple with just two lines running through the solid sashing. I used a matching colour thread in half the blocks and a contrasting thread in the other half. (Perle no8). I love the look of this chunky quilting but I think I could do with making the stitches a little longer next time - it might look a little neater on the back! (A vintage sheet, as if you needed to ask)

As I said in my goal setting post for ALYoF I made and attached the binding on Benji's Due date and then neglected it until January.

I sewed the binding down in short sessions here and there. I posted a picture on instagram and asked if anyone else tacked their binding down first. It turns out that I'm alone in this - most people seem to either use Wonderclips or binding clips or just keep the binding in place with their thumb as they go.

I've tried both of these methods and they just don't work for me. I find that clips get in the way of my left hand and make sewing uncomfortable. I can do it by holding the binding in place with my thumb but find that I'm having to adjust it all the time and that's not enjoyable either. I do enjoy hand sewing so really don't mind tacking the binding down first and it makes actually sewing the binfing down properly a breeze and gives me a neater finish.

One thing that doesn't work for me though is trying to hand sew whilst nursing. Trying to take a picture of this was even more difficult!

Anyway, I was soon finished and and with my husbands help I got some photos outside on a dry day!

But it wasn't finished yet. I needed to add the crinkle factor so I popped it in the washing machine along with a colour catcher and crossed my fingers. By the time it was out of the tumble dryer it was dark outside again and we haven't had a dry day since so you'll have to make do with a picture taken on our living room floor.

And lastly one of my favourite pictures as you can really see the crinkle added by the wash on the back.

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes as this was my goal for January.

And nearly forgot that this was on my FAL list and is therefore my first (and hopefully not last) finish of Q1. Linking up when the time comes with Adrianne over On the Windy Side.

Edited to add:

Turns out this was my last finish of Q1 :-( Adrianne you can find my goal setting post here and I hope that it's OK that I haven't written a recap/end of quarter post, I just haven't got the heart to do it with such a looserville number of finishes.