A Finished Quilt Top

Well, to all intents and purposes I have a finished quilt top.  It's been a long time coming and not without a couple of hiccups, which involved a lot of unpicking, measuring, remeasuring,  inserting strips, trimming blocks and then resewing the affected blocks together.  It measures roughly 70' x70"

In hindsight I  should have built rows around the very centre block, rather than making strips, and rows to piece together, that required gaps to be filled.  The quilt is a mix of English paper pieced blocks, hand sewn to background fabrics, foundation paper pieced blocks and machine pieced strips.

I plan to hand some applique along some of the low volume areas around the centre block, so am currently working on making components for this.  I'm also deciding whether to piece a backing and try and use up some of my stash or just use a wide backing fabric from my quilter. 

I need to think of a name for this quilt, I can't keep calling it the make it up as I go quilt. 

"Make it Up as I Go" Quilt

 

I've started a new quilt.  I have a really vague idea of how it will look, as it's sort of very loosely based Tales of Cloth's Seedling Quilt.  I've made a lovely central block and lots of lovely rows and columns of various blocks and strips of bright prints and low volume.  There will be a mix of English paper piecing and machine pieced blocks.

I still have a way to go before I can actually piece all the strips and rows together, but I'm having a lot of fun hunting through my stash for interesting scraps and fabrics.  I'm hoping I'll at least get the top finished this year.

Something New

My design board has been moved back into my sewing room, and is slowly getting covered with an assortment of  blocks.

Another new quilt is in progress. I was inspired by a short video my sister sent me of a quilt reveal. I watched it, had an AHA moment, and raced off to find a pen and notebook.  It will be another of my scrappy many different block quilt, based slightly on Tales of Cloth's - Seedlings Quilt, fetureing low volume ,Liberty and lots of other fabrics from the stash.  I'm trying to not buy new fabric for this one.  

Apart from the log cabin blocks I have just made, it is going to incorporate some English paper pieced blocks, three of which I have made already, probably a lot of my hexis that are sitting in a tin waiting for the right project,  it may also include some of the the Liberty/low volume x/+ blocks I have been making.  I'm quite enjoying being this inspired about a quilt, especially as I seem to have lost my sewjo for garment making.  Hopefully it returns with the warmer days we have been experiencing and an upcoming trip to Brisbane to look forward too,

Also enjoying the small posies I can make from violets and cyclamen currently flowering in my garden.

Groove is in the Heart - A Finished Quilt

 

Over the past few days I have put the final stitches in my Groove is in the Heart Quilt.

I started this project in October 2020, and in October 2021,  I finished sewing the blocks together to finish the top as well as making a vibrantly bright scrappy backing with some of my favourite fabrics.  I've decided that life is too short to save them all and they deserve to be used. 

As with most of my quilts,  I seriously debated hand quilting it, but with a change to my work hours (I'm now full time not part time) I realistically came to the conclusion, I just don't have time.  Once again I sent it to my friend  Leeanne to work her magic.  She was given a few ideas of quilting styles I liked, and I very trustingly put my faith in her picking the right one for the quilt. She picked E2E design Sugar n Spice and I  couldn't be more happy with the quilting design and how it looks.  

Binding was not the relatively simple choice I thought it would be,  Initially, I figured because of all the colour on the back and so many low volumes on the front, that a solid black/charcoal colour would frame both sides, but they looked flat and dull. Luckily a lovely customer at my local fabric store was happy to pull out bolts of fabrics and offer suggestions, till we found one that worked.  A vibrant pink/orange splotchy dot from Kaffe Fassett.

I love the look of this quilt and am so glad it is finished and ready to use this winter. Meeka has already given it the seal of approval.

Pattern is Groove is in the Heart from BlueMountainDaisyQuilts.

Fabrics are from my never decreasing stash.

E2E Sugar n Spice Quilting by Quiltmekiwi. Batting is a poly/wool blend from her too.

Hopeful Hearts

 

One benefit of lockdowns, is the time one gets to sew, (I'm lucky cos my kids are now independent teens, so when I'm not doing work things, I get quite a lot of free time), and create and play with our quite substantial fabric stash.  Sometimes instead of starting a new project, old works in progress get finished.

This is the case, with  my Groove is in the Heart Quilt, which I started here almost a year ago.  I had the majority of these large blocks made, and stored in a box.  Over the past week I finshed off the last six blocks I had waiting to be sewn, then stitched them altogether.

The pattern itself had 49 blocks, however I made this up using 36 blocks.  It's quite a large quilt already, but after looking at the photos, I have decied to make another six blocks, so I have a slightly more symmetrically balanced quilt.

Now, that the top is finished, and I have stepped back and watched it flapping in the wind, I am quite pleased with how it has turned out.  I think this one will be a keeper.

Pattern available from Rachel Daisy here

A New Sewing Machine Cover

 

After finishing my chair cover, I still felt like playing with all my quilt fabric scraps.  I didn't want to make another quilt, but decided to make a new cover for my sewing machine, my old one here, was very faded and just didn't look nice anymore.

Using the vinyl cover that came with my machine as a template for measurements, I pieced together a few scrappy blocks from predominately Anna Maria Horner scraps, and quilted them with some batting and yardage from my stash.  This was the easy part,

Assembling the pieces and stitching them teogether involved quite a bit of finangling through my machine.  The top corners I actually ended up hand sewing in place,  All seams were left exposed, so that I could bind them, again using a beautiful Anna Maria Horer Fabric.

I'm really pleased with how this has turned out.  It definitely brightens up my sewing room, and protects my machine from dust and sunlight.

Please Be Seated

 

Earlier this week, while aimlessly browsing Instagram, I happened to come across a photo of an office chair, with a quilted seat cover.  This immediately struck a chord with me, I couldn't believe I had never thought to do that to my perfectly functional but plain sewing chair.   That afternoon, I pulled out my bag of Anna Maria Horner scraps ( I had a lot) and randomly started piecing strips, and squares together.  For a little bit of variety, I also added some Amy Butler and Tula Pink scraps.  All  the fabrics are bright vibrant colours with bold designs and meld together perfectly into what I call  a hot mess.

I ended up with two large scrappy quilt blocks, which I quilted with an organic (not perfectly even) diagonal cross hatch.  Batting and backing fabrics were all from my stash.

I rounded the corners on the seat cover, than added a casing for elastic to be pulled through. I was so pleased with how this cover turned out.  The chair back took a lot more work, a little cursing and a bit of unpicking, till I got the shape and fit right.  Again I added a casing for the elastic to pull the base of the back in.  Both seat cover and the back piece are fully removeable, though I don't think I ever want to take them off my chair now.

In a way it was mindless easy sewing, I certainly didn't need to be as precise with my sewing as I have needed to be with the clothes I've made lately, and I didn't really worry about what fabrics or colours were used where.

I am delighted with how it has turned out, and at how cheerful it looks, and am looking forward to more lockdown sewing in my sewing room.

Groove is in the Heart - another new project

While browsing blogs recently, I came across a new quilt made by the very talented and not afraid to use colour quilter,  Rachael Daisy of Blue Mountain Daisy

I love hearts, and actually would love to have a wall space for all the beautiful ornamental hearts I see but don't buy.  Anyway before I get too far off topic here, she has made a new quilt featuring scrappy hearts on low volume fabrics, three of my favourite things in one quilt.  I am sure my heart sped up as I read her post and drooled over the quilt.  Of course, good me thought, "no you have too many wips, you don't need to start another project" , while bad me kept thinking about it all night saying" it would be a great portable project, bigger pieces much easier to travel with than your Fresh Cut quilt"

Obviously good me had no willpower, cos I bought downloaded and printed out the pattern and made the first block up that night. The hearts are hand appliqued onto the background fabrics.  Currently I have made up four blocks, and am having fun choosing fabrics for and prepping other hearts for when I feel like working on something easy.