Fussy Cut Swap update

Look what I got in the post!

I received my 12 squares from the Fussy Cut Swap organised by Amanda at What the Bobbin.  I made 12 doggy themes squares and received this lovely mix of squares.  Thanks to all who made these!

I really like these little guys. Must be the Autumn weather rolling in, the days getting shorter and the fact that I'm nearly done with Halloween sewing that I'm starting to look at Christmas sewing!

If anyone wants to join in on this adorable small block swap Round 2 is open at flickr here.

I'm going to make 4 more of my doggy blocks and sew them 4 x4 into a 16" cushion for the sofa.  They would make the perfect I Spy baby quilt though wouldn't they!

Linking up to Sunday Stash at Blossom Heart Quilts.

Friday Finishes

So I asked the question just how many makes can you get from one Jelly roll?  Turns out quite a lot.

I made a cushion, a doll quilt, and throw quilt for my cousin's new room and her 10th birthday.  This is the second Strip and Flip quilt I've made with jelly roll strips.  I really like it with 25 strips but I used a few more on this as a throw for her bed.  The tutorial is here at Cluck Cluck Sew.  The fabric is Posy by Aneela Hoey.  Instead of 2" strip and 1.5" sashing I used the 2.5" strips.

I pulled one of each strip from the Jelly roll and put together for a rainbow effect.  My first go gave me this but that orange strip in the middle jarred for me and I ripped it out and re-arranged it.

Then I pressed it and quilted it with zig zag chevrons. 

I used Ikea's musical scale fabric as backing.  I've had it in my stash since last Christmas.  I really wish Ikea would bring this out again.  It's my favourite backing fabric I've used, ever.

With the extra strips I made a doll quilt and a cushion blogged here.  So today I quilted them up and
finished them off as a set.

I tried my hand at free motion quilting stippling style.  I found it hard to move the quilt through the machine and then realised I had left the feed dogs up.  Oops!

Then I played it safe with straight line quilting for the cushion.  I think I'm going to make a few smaller projects and practice this Free Motion thing.  It definitely takes practice.

And this is all I had left over.  40 of those 2.5" strips sure go a long way.  I love the set all bundled up together.  Can't wait to give it to her!

Linking up to Finish it Friday and

and

WIP - Catching Up

Well it has been crazy busy here not that you would see from the blog posts or lack thereof.  Just finished up a busy work week and a trip to TV land, well Irish TV land in the form of my best friends mum getting called up for the national lottery show.  We had a brilliant day out, got to be on TV for all of 5 seconds and watched it replayed at least 3 times already!

So catching up this week on the Penny Sampler quilt.  I started high key and low volume and then something happened to me.  It's been a colour invasion.

 I did remember that I was going for low volume and did a mid make correction:

 But contrasting colour got the better of me again.

 It's going to be an interesting quilt this!

Linking up to

Pin cushion swap - update

Well Patrick my Pinfeathers pincushion got posted off today and is winging his way up the country.  While I was doing that the postman arrived at my house with this:

 I got a lovely log cabin style pincushion with this gorgeous backing fabric

 And a bundle of fabric.

These colours are so me and I love it.  Thank you Rosie!  I'm using my pincushion already and in total admiration of the perfect stitching.  Thanks for the fabric too!

Sunday Stash & A Finish!

I won a prize at the Mid-Western Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society!  It was my first time attending and the ladies were lovely and welcoming.  I couldn't believe it when my ticket number was called.  I felt kinda bad as it was only my first meeting but the prize is perfect: a quilting book, hand sewing needles, seam ripper and machine oil!

The Sewing Shed from Kerry had a stand on the night and I bought this fabric for my Doctor Who Paper Pieced Blocks.  Looking through my stash, trying to find the right material for the binding for my 40" Star Surround, I wasn't happy with what I had and then I thought of my new purchase and yes, I have used it already!

It was just the perfect thing for the colours in the quilt.  I just love this pattern by Melissa at Happy Quilting for a baby quilt.  I quilted it in straight lines and I really like it though it gave me trouble and I had to rip out 5 rows.  Yup 5 whole rows.  It took ages!  I had a problem with the top bunching up and pleating at the crossovers so I had to rip and re-baste 1/4 of the quilt.  All's well that ends well.  Next time I'll use more pins!

Linking up to Sunday Stash at Hot Pink Quilts.

Pincushion swap - Pinfeathers

As soon as I saw this tutorial for an owl pincushion I knew it was perfect for the Modern Irish Quilters Swap.  Lots of people had owls in their mosaics and my partner did too - happily for me I got to make Pinfeathers.  Though I've been calling him Patrick.

I used scraps from my dogwood cushion and Doctor Who blocks and bought some felt for his nose and feet.  I think he is a very handsome owl.   

And a very helpful one too with a pouch for notions and wings that can be open or closed and hold sewing needles etc.

So Patrick will be winging his way to my swap partner before the end of the month.  I hope she likes him!

WIP Wed - Just how many projects can you get out of a Jelly Roll?

Fluffy Sheep Quilting had a discount offer last month, so I bought a Jelly Roll of Posy by Aneela Hoey with the intention of making a second Strip and Flip quilt (pattern by Cluck, Cluck, Sew).

After making this baby quilt for a friend, I really wanted to try making another one with more of a rainbow or colour graduation effect. The quilt uses 25-27 strips , so at the weekend, I pulled 1 of every print out of the bundle and had quite a few leftover. It's my little cousin's 10th birthday coming up in October and she has just moved into a new room , so I thought a girly quilt would make a nice present.

With lovely jelly roll strips in my hands, instead of putting them back in my stash, I decided to make the Playcrafts Modern Chevron Block and join in on the QAL being hosted by Molli Sparkles . I made the first one a bit wonky but the second one was spot on.
 

So trying to figure out what to do with them and having some strips still to spare, I cut the wonky one in half and played around with a layout like this:

I was thinking doll quilt at this stage. Last year we went to the Build-a-Bear shop in Dublin and my cousin made a beautiful bunny rabbit , so I thought a lap quilt for her and a quilt for the rabbit would make an even better birthday present.

I made the last block out of the remaining strips and put it together last night. Oh there is a lot of bias on the edge of these blocks so I pinned like a madwoman and bordered and sashed everything. The sashing is 1" strips cut from Moda Bella White jelly roll and the outside border is 1.5" strips made from the leftovers.

 
So this is what I ended up with. From a design point of view I'd make an effort next time to match my chevrons (I guess I was in a rush to finish I didn't even think about it because of the plain sashing strip).  I'd also love to make a smaller one like this:

 
It's got a nice rule of thirds feel to it. But I think it would be too small for the bear so I'm sticking with what I've got.

Oh and because I can't seem to stop playing with scraps at the moment, I made this on Sunday from the scraps of the first two blocks and 1 or 2 spare strips from the Posy jelly roll.

 
I wasn't sure what to do with just one block so I've bordered it to either make a wall hanging or a cushion. I'm leaning towards cushion at this stage and adding it to the lap quilt & doll quilt.

 
I think it makes a nice set. And that's it Jelly Roll all used up! (well nearly, I still have to make the lap quilt!)

Linking up to

Star Crossing 12" block with 2.5" squares

I had great plans for today.  I planned to get my blocks for the Penny Sampler course and quilt we are making with Stitched in Color's Rachel.  But I had left out the scraps of Posy fabric I had generated from yesterday's Chevron blocks and I decided to cut them into 2.5" squares.

As I was cutting away I kept thinking of what they would be like on my star crossing block I had made in a 32" size last month.

A quick math's check told me I'd need 1.5" finished squares and HST to make a 12" block and yes I could get all the pieces needed from my scraps.  So that was that, I had to give it a go.

I made half square triangles from 2.5" squares and trimmed them to 2".  I'm not a big fan of trimming HST, for me its a matter of turning on the TV or radio and just getting on with it.  There's quite a few in this block as I didn't have enough scraps for flying geese for the centre sections and had to piece smaller squares.  Still it worked out grand with the exception of being short one of the white patterned squares so I used a square of Moda Bella white.  I read a great idea on a blog about adding in an embroidered signature or name so I'll do that to lift that bottom left corner square.

After all that hard work a cup of tea and a hobnob biscuit was in order!

All done.  I think the block works well in print as well as the solid I made last month.  I do wish I had used white for the dark pink squares as in my original design, but I was determined to use up scraps.  Up close it looks busy and very pink!  On the wall it looks ok to me.  Not sure what I'm going to do with just one 12.5" block!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday and Anything Goes Monday

Molli Sparkles Quilt-A-Long

The wonderful Molli Sparkles has started a quilt-a-long using this beautiful block from PlayCrafts.  There is lots of advice on Molli's blog giving colour suggestions and making a practice block to get the hang of it and it really is good advice.  My first block seemed to be going well but I made a boo boo.  I trimmed in the wrong place and now have an off centre wonky block and a bit left over with nowhere to go!
 

I still like it.  But not giving up I made a second and I can see now why this block is so addictive and versatile in terms of colour and fabric choice.

This is either going to be a cushion or a doll quilt to match a bigger quilt I'm planing for my little cousin.  We went to Dublin last year to the Build-a-Bear shop and she made a beautiful bunny rabbit and picked out sparkly clothes for her and I think these colours would be perfect.  The fabric range is Posy by Aneela Hoey and it's just so soft and pretty.  I used 6 Jelly Roll strips with sashing to make the 2 blocks so have plenty of fabric for more!

To see a rainbow of colours and lots of lovely blocks the flickr group is here.  There is even one with the whole block in a solid colour.  PlayCrafts flickr group showing more Chevron loveliness is here. 

I'm going to have to take a break from Chevrons, Wilbur is getting impatient for some attention. Charly is in his bed and won't let him in! Got to love Jack Russell's.  They really think they are 4 times bigger than they really are!

Bee Blocks

After Plum & June's summer blog hop for new bloggers called Let's Get Acquainted a few people got together to take part in Bees.  I've never been in a Bee before so when the call went out to those outside the US interested in joining one I jumped right in.  Those of us who don't mind keeping the postman employed on both sides of the Pond formed the Global Scrap Bee.

Adrienne over at Chezzet Cook Modernquilts is starting us off as Queen Bee for September. She's picked Don't Call Me Betsy's Patchwork Wheel Tutorial to start us all off and wanted colours with a beach theme (grey, blue, teal & orange).  Luckily I just happened to have all of these in my Penny Sampler material bundle. 

In my head these colours made sense to me for a beach in Ireland.  A bit of orange for the sun, lots of whitish blocks and pale blue for the foam horses on the waves, a bit of green for the tufty grass you find on the cliffs, some dark rocky pools and lots of grey because we have lots of rain.  In fact it was raining when I finished these blocks and couldn't hang them for vertical photo taking.  This block looks much better square on and the photos don't do it justice!  But they were taken in natural light so the colours look pretty spot on.  (Whoever invented Goretex and golf umbrellas - thank you!)

With some Half square triangles left over I figured I'd make a second block 'cause it's always nice to have two and for some reason this one became less scrappy and more symmetrical.  Maybe I crave order and can only live in chaos for short bursts? 

I prefer the scrappy one looking at it square on the wall but the symmetrial one looks better in the photos so I am going to send both!

Linking up to