Tight as a duck's ****

So I said that I hoped to blog a little more often and look! it's only been nine days!

I've been doing some work on Caleb's quilt, in fact I've nearly got a finished quilt top! (we'll ignore the fact that this quilt was supposed to be by August ALYoF goal shall we)

I didn't want all of the blocks to be uniform - I wanted to add a little wonkyness to it. Boy do I regret that decision, it involved a LOT of maths and I thought that I was doing quite well until I came to do the last seam before adding the outside sashing. As you can see in the picture above, the bottom half was a little bit smaller than the top half!

I'd originally wanted the outside sashing (or border) to be the same width all the way round but I'd have to make it wonky to make up for the above mistake.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed that there's something missing.

Yep, there's no top or bottom border! I bought the yellow sashing fabric from Pin It and Stitch at the Festival of Quilts and I ummed and aghed over whether I should buy 0.75 metres or a whole one. Well the tight side of me won and I only bought 0.75m. Lesson learnt. I'm a whole 6" x WOF short. So I've ordered an extra half meter from their eBay shop and I'll add what's spare to my stash. Whilst I'm waiting I think I'll try and turn some of the scraps into a pieced strip for the back.

I must apologize for the awful pictures - I'm trying my best to take pictures in natural light but the Welsh weather doesn't always play ball.

When the light's good it's usually quite breezy!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday

 

My first bag!

It's been over a month now since I wrote my Finish-A-Long Q3 goal setting list and I can finally say that I've finished one of my goals although it doesn't actually qualify for the FAL as I hadn't started it before the quarter started.

As I stated in my FAL list my husband bought me this bag for Christmas one year and it's gotten a LOT of use since then. It's the perfect size for going shopping with the kids, carrying that extra packet of wipes, spare packet of raisins etc. It was also the perfect size for going to work - I could fit in my lunch, plenty of cans of diet coke and I sometimes even managed to carry a file or two!

But if you look at the handles you can see that it's started looking a little rough. I'd had a good look around the shops but couldn't find a similar bag in colours that I liked, soooooo there was only one thing for it, I'd have to make my own!

I already had the Lotta Jansdotter Echo print in my stash but thought that a heavier weight fabric would be better for the bottom of the bag. I happened to be in Ikea one day and saw this raspberry coloured home dec fabric and thought that it would go quite well with the Echo - I was right!

So these sat in my sewing room for a while waiting for me to get round to using them (all the while complaining that my interim handbag was far too small!) Then the day before going to Birmingham for the Festival of Quilts (yes I did go, no I'm not over it yet!) I decided I couldn't go without something me-made and needed a bag big enough to carry the fabric that I 'might' buy!

So I set Anwen up with her paints on the kitchen table and put Marged down for her nap and got going.

I'd already bought interfacing and had a zip for the inside pocket in my stash. What I didn't have was a zip long enough for the bag itself. However a rummage through an old box unearthed this:

A zip from an old fleece coat that my aunt had cut off when she threw the coat away, thinking that I might find a use for it one day, well it had now been around ten years and I'd completely forgotten about it but I found a use for it!

I also needed lining fabric. I toyed with the idea of using an old duvet cover but then remembered this shirt that my mum had found in a car boot sale.

I love the print and think that using it somewhere where I'll see it everyday is great!

So that's all the supplies ready

And where I stopped taking pictures!

I made the pattern up as I went along, using the original bag as a size guide adding an inch or two here and there.

And this is the finished article!

Lessons I learnt along the way

1. Always buy more interfacing than you think you're going to need - I had to use three offcuts of interfacing on one of my fabric panels as I didn't have a piece big enough left.

2. Think twice before making bag handles that you have to turn from inside out to right way out - I'd used interfacing in the handles to give them extra strength and they were VERY stiff to turn - took me around two hours to make the handles start to finish!

3. Follow a bag pattern at least once before trying to make a bag - The zip on my inside pocket is far from neat (although fully functional)

Evidence of messy pocket zip and misplaced topstitching (but don't you just love that lining?)

5. The weight of the chunky zip is going pull the top of the bag down so topstitch inline with the handles not an inch above.

4. Change your needle more often! I thought that the skipped stitches were down to my machine not being able to cope with the extra work. I changed to a Denim needles and not a single stitch was skipped thereafter.

One last picture that shows that one of my alterations really did work - when I made the handles longer it wasn't with the pushchair in mind - but look - it fits! (but could do with being an inch or two longer)

Despite all of the above I'm very happy with how the bag turned out and it's already gotten a LOT of use, needless to say it wasn't big enough for my fabric haul from foq, but that's a post for another day (when I can face taking pictures of my binge!)

Anwen's starting back in school tomorrow so although I'm still working five days a week I'm hoping that getting back in routine will mean that I start to blog a little more often. (Those of you that follow me on Instagram may know that I have a little news to share!)

Until then,

Catrin x

WIP after MIA

So I've been missing in action for a while now! Well I've been busy...

And then my baby turned five (five? how did that happen?) She was having a party the weekend after her actual birthday so we had a small 'tea party' at home after school on the day itself. Of course you can't have a party without a cake so at around midnight the night before her birthday this is what I was doing.

And whilst that was in the oven I did some last minute sewing. As I was putting her to bed Anwen was telling me how much she was looking forward to school in the morning. Everyone would sing happy birthday to her, the teachers would give her the bumps and she'd be wearing a badge with '5' on it....A badge! I hadn't bought her a badge!

So this is what sewing at the last minute when you're very tired looks like! At least when she was wearing it no one could see the back.

But the birthday girl loved it and was proud that no one else had worn a special fabric badge!

On the day of her birthday I was working so only had 30 minutes between picking Anwen up from school and our guests arriving to get everything ready. Needless to say I didn't manage it and had to decorate the cake in front of everyone - not one of my best!

Apologies for the awful phone camera shot.

The next weekend she had a 'proper' party where we hired the village hall and had a bouncy castle, glitter tattoos and most importantly pass the parcel (the oldies are the best!) Anwen's best friend has her birthday a fortnight after her and we decided to have a joint birthday party and her friend's mum asked me if I could make the cake. Now I've made all of Anwen's birthday cakes and they've gotten better as she gets older but this wasn't just a cake for my daughter - the pressure was on.

Now I'm a creature of habit, and one of my worst habits is leaving everything till the last minute. The day before the party was really hot and the thought of spending the day in the kitchen with the oven on didn't appeal so I left it until after supper. I'd completely forgotten that my favourite recipe takes 1:30hrs in the oven and that it needs to cool in the tin - I needed two cakes and only had one tin - it was another long night!

Whilst my mum made the sandwiches and some nibbles I got on with decorating the cake and just about managed to get it done in time.

Oh well - I won't leave it so late next year (famous last words)

The next week was the last of Anwen's first year at school. I knew what I wanted to make for the teachers (there are four full time members of staff in Anwen's class and although only one is an actual teacher the others seem to do more of the teaching!) and had planned to make it well in advance. I'd love to show you a picture of my first zip pouch with "Kity Derbyn" (Reception Kitty) embroidered on the front but I came out of my sewing 'room' at 1.00pm on the last day of school and yes, you guessed it, school finished at 1.00pm! I stuffed some money into it, grabbed the sleeping baby and made it to school by 1.10pm (good job we live quite close). I apologised about the wrapping (a carrier bag) and instructed the teachers to enjoy their end of term drink!

Since then I've not managed to get much sewing done. I have quite a few days booked off over the summer and had plans of endless sewing. What I'd forgotten was that I'd still have a five year old to entertain whilst Marged was napping! But now I have a real reason to sew, remember this little stash?

Well 'nephew's quilt' will now go by the name of 'Caleb's quilt'

Isn't he just gorgeous?

Even though I've had the fabric for a few months I just didn't feel like starting the quilt. This changed as soon as I saw him so I've started fussy cutting.

Little cuties for a farmer's son

And it's taking ages..... but I'm determined to get it finished by the end of the month as my cousin also had a little baby boy last week so I need to make him a quilt and my grandmother in law is insisting that I enter something into the village show. Entries have to be unwashed and unworn and as I tend to wash quilts as soon as I get the binding on my only option is enter this one. Entries have to be in by the last Saturday of August. Wish me luck!

Linking up with Shanna and Melissa at A Lovely Year of Finishes and making this my August goal.

And with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

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

Finish-A-Long Q3 Goal Setting

I was a little late joining this here thing called blogland so missed out on the chance of joining Q2 of the Finish Along over with Leanne at she can quilt. I've also been so busy this past week that I missed the July linky for ALYoF. Knowing that I need deadlines to get things done I think it best that make a list here of all my UFOs that I hope to get finished in the next few months. I also have a few new projects that I would like to start and finish during this time. I know that they won't qualify for the FAL as they aren't UFOs but I'd like to keep all my goals in one place!

So here goes- (I've highlighted my FAL goals in Red)

1. Anwen's quilt. After I finished Marged's quilt Anwen said that she wanted her own quilt and here it is. It's been basted for around two months and Anwen keeps on asking when her blanket's going to be finished. I think that the main reason that it's stayed in this sorry state for so long is because I'm scared of starting fmqing it and don't know what design to use!

2. Get Shirty. Quilt top and back are ready. I even bought the batting ready but I cut into it for this project. Need to get this done asap. The plan is to practice my fmq before tackling Anwen's quilt.

3. House quilt. Haven't touched this in ages. No reason why not just need to get my bum in gear.

4. Nephew's quilt. This baby is due at the end of the month and I still haven't started. I bought the fabric ages ago and need to start cutting as I know I haven't got enough and need to work out how much more to get.

5. A quilt for another baby due at the end of July. Nobody knows what colour (pink or blue) this baby's going to be so I haven't even bought the fabric yet.

6, 7, 8 & 9 Osian's, Elisa's, Rhys' and Megan's quilts. I think getting even one of these done during Q3 is a long shot but who knows?

10. Mum's quilt. Before the end of the year? Although her birthday is in October.

11, 12 & 13 Zig Zag quilt, impromptu along and distribution. These have all moved way down the list. Main reason for this is that they don't have recipients, they're just designs that I'd like to try.

1. Charms cut for Zig Zag quilt        2. Fabric for impromptu           3. Inspiration for distribution

Oh, so only 13 quilts on the list. Completely manageable!

On top of this there are a few other projects I'd like to get under my belt.

1. A few zipper pouches. Anwen really liked the way I'd appliquéd the butterflies onto Cadi's Quilt and as her birthday is coming up and I have some of the Cocoon fabric leftover I thought I'd make her a zipper pouch. Her friend had her birthday a few weeks back and is still waiting for a pressie and another friend has her birthday two weeks after Anwen. I thought that it would also be nice for Cadi's two sisters to have something to match their sister's quilt. So that's five pouches in total!

2. A new bag for me. For Christmas 2011 Endaf got me a new handbag. To say the truth I wasn't fussed, I think that the colour of the leatherette put me off, but after a few uses I was sold. It was the perfect sized bag! Roll on eighteen months and the bag is finished, kaput, really seen better days. I miss it so much so I'm going to try and make myself a new one using the old bag as a template (with a few tweaks). I have the fabric ready so just need to get in gear.

Fabric choice - a little bit of Bella and a heavier weight solid from Ikea

3. After moving things around a little at home the little table that used to hold our printer is now next to my corner on the sofa. It was a thrifty find when we first moved in together and the top has seen better days so I thought a little something quilty might do the trick for tarting it up. I might even drag something out of my ancient UFO pile for this one. It will also give me a good opportunity to practice making bias binding and sewing it onto a circular mini quilt.

4. Shorts for Anwen. I now have the pattern and the fabric. This is one make I hope to get finished before the end of the week.

Hoping to turn a thrifty old skirt into a pair of shorts with the aid of a free (to me) pattern 

5. Shorts for Marged. I seem to have been neglecting Marged recently so depending on how Anwen's shorts go I might try making a pair for Marged out of some fabric from my stash.

Right that's it. I think that eighteen projects (but only four qualify for the FAL) is more than enough for three months! I'll be impressed if I even get three ticked off. I can but try.

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced as it's Wednesday and I have more than one Work in Progress!