What's Next?

I have almost finished the Smitten quilt. Just the side blocks to complete, then to sew it together. It'll probably take me another year. But it does get me thinking about what't the next big project? I'm not really sure. Lots of things are floating around.

After not really doing anything much quilting based this year, I suddenly feel a bit desperate. In a few weeks we need to pack up our home. I am avoiding it. Sigh. I haven't packed a thing. Have not thrown one thing away nor sorted through any of my crap in our cellar. I can't face any of it.

I look forlornly at my little sewing corner and know that I'll have to pack it away for at least 6 months or try and take a condensed version with me. Maybe just enough for one or two projects should I feel the need. If I get all the bits ready now then I can make a compact box of bits and do my best.

Here are some options...


Moda Dessert Sampler

I've had this pattern since my birthday. I can't decide what fabrics I would use, hence it't been on the backburner whilst I mull it over. I'd really like to use a collection so it all matches. It's a lovely book with really clear patterns.


I just want it to be perfect. Sew Lux made it last year and blogged every block which would really help. There was a quilt a long so there are lots of block examples out there. I think it might be too big of a project to be my 'move' project though.


It's a huge beast when you see it all laid out together. I love sampler quilts though as nothing gets too repetitive. That's a lot of fabric to sort out and precut though. You could just make random blocks but I like it when the fabric sort of matches and is thought through. I do have some Tula Pink fabrics which I bought for a Jen Kingwell quilt, but which would look good here.



I also have this pattern which I got from mum for Christmas. I am mega excited about it. I am not sure whether to use my precious Liberty prints for it, my Tula Pink ones or my bundle of solids. This is a strong contender because I can do it without my sewing machine. I would just need to decide what the background fabric would be. As luck would have it, my finest, most expensive white Egyptian duvet cover just ripped in the wash. For a few seconds I was gutted, then I thought about how much fabric was left there which I could use for a quilt! Kismet!

Mum was throwing out some of her old quilting mags last time I went home, plus she bought me one that she knew I liked. Out of them I found these great patterns.


I think this would be great in less flowery fabrics, but half the size and without the thick border.



This mini in solids without the wide border would make a great 'speaker quilt' which I have been tasked to make. It's nice and small which makes it very achievable.


I've been planning to make a pickle dish quilt for ages. I ummed and ahhed about buying Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance at Birmingham two years a go just for the great pickle dish pattern in it. The only downside was that every other pattern in the book was not my cup of tea so it felt excessive buying the entire book. I literally just want to photocopy that pattern and return the book! This small version would be easy to whip up and I love the solids. I have a bundle of pinks somewhere which would be perfect.



I love the colours in this fabric and how cosy it feels. It looks pretty big but I could just make a lap version.



Mum bought me a copy of Quilt Now which came with this Midsummer Nights dream quilt pattern and a great ruler. I do love rulers. I think I would just like to make one of these blocks. I love the orange, reds and pinks.



I think i'd just make a few blocks of this and not have so much solid colour inbetween them.

I'd also like to make an economy block quilt. I love My Paper Crane's one. Spoonflower offer a 10% discount for new customers so I ordered some of this fabric and a few of Heidi's other samples. I like the easiness of this pattern. And it's foundation piecing which I really like as it's so perfect. And the pattern is free!

So that's all the newish things rolling around my head. I am floundering trying to decide what to do. I need to ask Rachel and see if she will join me.

I might end up doing nothing, as to be honest, there seems to be no time these days. But I think if I get all the fabric cut and ready and packed in a tote bag. I can take it with me and it will be my extended holiday project. Yes, moving out for 6 months into a pokey flat whilst the house is gutted is going to be our 'extended summer holiday'. Joy!

Bear Paw Quilt

Mum made all her quilting friends some bear paw blocks for a gift a few months ago. It's my all time favourite block along with the similar maple leaf block. She gave me one! How special am I? I thought it was a really nice idea. I love my block. It's so her. It's just in her colours. I decided to make mine into a quilt, trying my best to use mum's sort of fabrics and colours. It seemed like a good excuse to make one of my favourite blocks.



I am not sure about the very dark purple one in the middle. I am going to call this my mum quilt. I am trying to stick to her kinds of greens and dark purples. It's hard because I automatically veer towards my sorts of fabrics which tend to be louder and lighter. Mum mixes patterns with batiks which I tend not to do. But I am trying.



I have used some of my precious Liberty fat quarters and a William Morris print I have had for years. I am really liking the result. It really makes me want to go to Birmingham this year.



This is my favourite block. I love this Liberty print.



This green fabric was bought by mum for one of the first quilts I ever made.



I love the little green square from mum's scrap bin in the middle.



I have made eight blocks so far, plus mum's block and I have nine. I have all the pieces cut out and ready for two more blocks. So then I'll have two more left to do. I plan to do plain skip blocks inbetween.

One day I'd love to make this bear paw quilt
Or this one. I love all the sizes. I could make this block all day. It's easy, but it looks great.
And here is a free pattern of the block

Smitten Update

The pile is growing bigger. I think I have broken the back of this project. Very, very slowly. A great deal of this has been achieved by watching Love Island. I really want to finish them before we move house. The race is on!


I am now onto the last small blocks which come together pretty quickly. It's a nice change of pace.

  Then I just need to do the side bits and sew it all together. I hope it doesn't look like a hot mess.


I like how they've got easier not harder as you progress.
     But is it a hot mess?

2019 here we come

So there is no last year round up this year. Last year was a sad year in all, but it's over now and I am keen to get back to some sewing tings. I feel that there is a little more time in life these days so I should make the most of it. In honour of this, I bought myself some fabric in the Boxing Day Sales from Sew Hot Fabrics. It's a new shop for me. I was really sad to see that Simply Solids stopped trading this Christmas. What with Strawberry Fayre closing last year, I feel that the retail decline is hitting the quilting industry and this makes me sad.


But the 20% off sale at Sew Hot made me happy! Check out my haul! I follow Laura Cunningham on Instagram and I always love her mix of subtle pink and apricot solids. I have been worrying that my Swoon was just too pattern heavy so I decided to mix it up a bit. Above (top to bottom) you have Kona solids in the following shades mostly influenced by Laura's great haul here:

• Valentine
• Punch
• Woodrose
• Candy Pink
• Baby Pink
• Pale Flesh (previously Shell)
• Pink
• Bellini (previously Flesh)
• Petal
• Bubblegum
• Dusty Peach

The first five fabrics are part of a pink fat eight bundle



I also bought a few solids to pad out the Swoon. I really like the Panorama Sunrise Drops in Lipstick on the left and the Hand Picked Triangles in pink. The last one is Dashwood Ditsies Little Trees in Punch which I am not 100% sure about.


I try to keep a reference in my scraggy notebook of the Kona colours I buy. I have a swatch card but they are all so tiny and so many of the fabrics outdate my colour card. Cutting a bit of the salve edge and noting the shade seems to work for me. I also keep salve edges here so I can remember the fabrics.


As for Smitten progress, I have managed to crack on with Small Hexagon Two. I've tried to start using solids more but I soon realised that I didn't have that many to choose from, hence my Xmas purchase.



As a group, I think they are looking better for having some solids in there. I am excited about using the new ones. Hopefully, this year will be better for sewing. I have no real goals apart from finishing the usual backlog. I would like to make one of Laura's bags out of the teatowel Rachel bought me from H&M. More about that later. And I would like to make some economy blocks with my Smitten leftovers. I also think this year might be the year for my Liberty fabric scrap quilt but I always say that! Just doing anything would be a good goal for this year. We'll see. We are undertaking a big house renovation project this year so all my sewing crap might well go into storage for half the year!

A Long Break

It's been a while, I know. The whole of 2018 has been pretty much of a washout so far sewing-wise. Mumple feel ill in January and she is really the driving force in all this quilting and sewing and making mallarky. It just didn't feel the same without her and I just felt too miserable to do anything.

After spending a week with her last week for half term, I am finally realising that she is getting back into sewing as much as she can post-injury and so I should too. It's been a rough year, so it's small steps but just watching her get her act back together has inspired me.

Plus she gave me this beautiful amish quilt she made, which has made me want to get back to sewing. I love the colours and the darkness of it. It's so lovely.



So I have unearthed my Smitten blocks and started on the smaller hexagons. It's slow going. They seem a bit bright and garish in comparison.

The Year Review

So, 2017, well, it was a break year for me really. There were many small reasons for this, nothing too major. Partly I just wasn't feeling it. I have such a pile of quilt tops to baste as no space to lay them out in. It's not my favourite part of the process and once I have them basted my quilting table area is just not big enough to work them through the machine without pulling it all out and making a mess.

A mess. The house is a huge mess. Just piled up to the brim with stuff that needs sorting out and throwing away. I didn't want to make a big quilt mess on top of this.

Time. We've started school here which has been great but has also meant that I have gone back to work full time. I get one afternoon off a week and that's taken up with a long standing playdate.

Then I decided to just read in the evenings as there was nothing much to watch on telly. So no hand quilting in front of Stranger Things anymore.

It all adds up to nothing much getting done! I did manage to do a few things.



I finished the quilt top just like mum's she made in her quilting group. It looks kind of gross I know. But it's excellent scrunched up on your lap. I can't explain it. And of course it reminds me of mum which makes it extra special. I think this is my batik phase over though. So I am going to use all the scraps to make up the back and use some 80/20 batting that mum was throwing out. Another quilt top to add to the pile! oh no!



Smitten update. So I have completed 13 blocks. I am really not sure how this quilt will look finished but I have decided to not think about it too much. Maybe the smaller blocks will help even things out. At the moment it's all a bit of a train crash.



I did manage to make it to Birmingham with mum and set myself up to make this Monkey Buttons pattern. I just need to get cutting.

So that's it. The sum of 2017. What's the plan for 2018? Well, I'd like to ease back into things a bit. I just want to finish off things. Here is my list of things to finish...

1. Jitterbug Quilt



2. Farmer Wife Quilt
   
   
   
3. Smitten Quilt
   
   
   
4. Batik Quilt
   
   
   
5. Monkey Buttons Quilt
   

Batik is back!

So I am finally back at the sewing machine. I have taken a week off work to settle Penelope into school so every morning I get three hours to myself. I admit, the first few days I just sat on the sofa worrying but by day three I had poked my nose into the cellar to bring up all the stuff I needed. My sewing world is so messy I have to keep it hidden away. I mean just look at the mess of my public shelf.

What a mess! Anyway, after a bit of a tidy up I got out all my batik blocks and laid them out. I was three blocks short so I got to use some of my new fabric as I was running low on mum's stash.

Finally I trimmed each block, some of mine were way off. Should have measured as I went along. Luckily nothing much needs to line up. I used my great new ruler I bought ages ago for some project or other. It's really great. I love Le Summit rulers.


This is the perfect size and the markings are really useful. Then I laid them out and numbered them.


I sewed the blocks into strips and ironed them. They are a bit lumpy because of the seams and the steam iron warped them a bit. Out of practice...


It came together really quickly in the end and the central block is made! I do think it looks a bit odd laid out like this but it's when it scrunches up that it looks great. You need to have it on your lap to truly appreciate it. It's much brighter than mums which was not my intention at all. Plus mine has blue in it which I didn't realise hers did not. I think if I were to do it again I would choose less bright Batiks, but it's so weird trying to pick them out when I buy them. I just look at them and think 'ew, disgusting' but then, later on, I love them. So I found it very hard to choose them. I still think it will be great when it's done. Now I just need to sew on the borders today.

What I bought

No Festival post would be complete without showing all the stuff I bought. I often look back through these types of post to identify where I bought something from so they are pretty useful to me.

For once, I don't think I went overboard. In a way it was sad, because I haven't been actively quilting I had no projects in mind really, no burning desires or half-baked plans. The only things I wanted were:

• Bottom Line Thread – It's perfect for hand piecing but it's expensive so I have decided to buy three rolls every year to build up a bit of a stash. At the moment I only have white and dark & light pink thinking that these would get me through, but if you want to be 100% invisible then it doesn't hurt to match thread to material colour as much as possible. So I am on a mission to amass a bit of a spectrum. They do an offer at Birmingham on three rolls so that's always good to take advantage of.

• Batik Fabric – Although I have paused on projects, the last thing I was working on was a batik log cabin made by mum's quilting group. I don't really own any batik fabric. I am not even sure I like it sometimes, but I loved mum's quilt she made and she had lots of extra strips cut. I mean loads! So I had nearly everything I needed. But I wanted to buy a few fat quarters and possibly a backing.

• Hiroshima Needles – So I bought some of these needles last year and they have grown on me. Of course my little glass test tube lost its cork whilst rattling around in my silly sewing kit which has gaps in the sides and half the needles were lost instantly. D'oh. SO I was on the look out for some more. 

THAT'S IT! 

Can you believe it?

Well of course, it's never quite that simple on the day...

So let's break it down

So I got my batik fabric, even the backing. It has made me motivated to finish it off.

Got my thread and needles. Amazingly I had forgotten the stalls I bought them from but they were in exactly the same position this year and I recognised the stalls instantly. And last but not least...

Every year mum buys me my birthday present from the show as it's only a few weeks after the show. This time she bought me this Monkey Buttons Sunset pattern and 8 fat quarters to go with it. I have a real issue with this quilt. I think I love it because of the fabric colours. I saw it last year and decided that I would never be able to recreate them as they are just not my colours. My mind can't even bend itself to their will. But I remembered it and went to look at it again. It just feels like an autumn/haloween/bonfire quilt. Mum talked me into it by saying the best course of action was to use fabric from their shop and to buy it all right then whilst we had the real quilt in front of us. It was very extravagant as the last thing I need is more fabric, but nothing much I have is those tones. So in the end, mum bought 8 quarters and I bought 8 so I would have enough. And then of course I got a few extra bits from my favourite stalls


I love The Shuttle. It's so cheap! I love their solids. They feel as if they are made from sheeting and go really soft. I am always on the lookout for warm greys for my stash so these were perfect.

I love Sunflower Fabrics. I always have to buy something from Maggie. Liberty fabric is so bloody expensive but this is one of my favourite patterns.

I didn't buy anything from Worn and Washed this year, but not because I didn't want to. I held back because I haven't touched what I bought time from Kim. I loved these hexagon cushions though. And last but not least... I bought one single fat quarter from The Eternal Maker. I have never been so restrained. Without Rachel there to guide me, plus the fact that I still haven't made the purse I bought all the stuff for last year, made me hold myself. So 1 fat quarter goes towards my Monkey Buttons quilt. That, as they say, is all folks.