Happy Post!

Getting quilt related items in the post can really cheer you up!  I'm still sick trying to get over sinus and on antibiotics but I had to get into the sewing room (aka kitchen dining area!) and lay out the lovely goodies I received in the last few weeks to show you and say Thank You to everyone! 

Isn't this mini quilt I received on the Schnitzel & Boo swap so happy looking.  Ruth (IG :@Cutenessfactor) I am delighted this one's mine!  Also in the parcel was a fabric card (love this!) and some goodies.  There was a bag of Hershey chocolates but Gordon nabbed them before I got the camera battery charged!

Mum also nabbed one of the fridge magnets but the rest is all mine!  Gorgeous fabric, lip balm holder and of course  the bright and cheery mini-quilt.  Thank you so much Ruth for a brilliant swap package!

Last Thursday, I was gifted some seriously cute Hedgehog fabric by Paula.  I have plans for this!  There is a Quilt-A-Long using Elizabeth Hartman's Hazel the Hedge hog pattern at Gnome Angel this month and I'm definitely using this somehow!  I've chosen the larger sized version II of the pattern but may yet end up buying the smaller hedgehog, and the fox, and the whale, at  Elizabeth's online shop.  If you want to quilt a long, there is a discount code for Hazel on Gnome Angel's page.

The cream fabric is magic paper.  You use it with paper piecing as the foundation instead of cartridge paper and you don't have to pull it out!  It is very lightweight and has a soft side and a flat side that you trace your template onto.  This was all sold out at Stitch Witch's stand in the Knitting & Stitching show last October and Paula kindly shared some.  I can feel some paper pieced Doctor Who Blocks coming along this month.  Out of the 12 from this Quilt-A-Long I only made 5.

Quite a few more to make yet!  So thank you Ruth and Paula for such lovely goodies!

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap

When I shared a photo like this one on Instagram describing how much fun I was having shredding fabric I got some very quick reactions.  The fabrics were from my scrap basket of prints and solids so not the end of the world if my exploration into confetti quilting didn't work out!

I had an idea for the quilt I wanted to make for the Schnitzel & Boo round 3 mini swap but it didn't seem to fit right with my partners taste in fabric.  My swap partner is a big Lori Holt fan liking white backgrounds and clear bright colours.  So instead of an orange peel multi-coloured project I decided to give this technique a try. 

I saw this project by Kerry @ Pennydog Quilting in this months Popular Patchwork magazine.  It involves chopping up fabric with your rotary cutter and using fusible to hold some of the pieces in place.  Cover with sheer net and quilt over it. 

I really liked the idea of it for clear bright rainbow colours so thought I'd go for it with letters instead!

I printed these using a font called Berlin Sans FB Demi and used them to cut templates from fusible paper and trace on the fabric background (Kona Snow) with an air erasable fabric marker.  It allowed me to place the fusible letters and then sprinkle the fabric pieces in place.

I initially thought about using the water soluble stuff that you quilt over and then washes out but i couldn't find any so I stuck with Kerry's instructions and bought some fine lightweight tulle that is used for wedding veils!  It practically disappears over the bright white fabric.

To keep it in place I handstitched around the letters with perle cotton.  I hoped this would give the letters some definition too.

I did get a good bit of pulling  and puckering after the handstitching and was a little worried at this stage that this letter idea was not going to work!  I may have overstuffed them a little bit too!

Thankfully after trimming around the letters and cutting into the net the tension in the piece relaxed quite a bit.

I was quite careful on the basting too and spray basted the back, wadding and top together.  Then I made sure it was a smooth as could be and pin basted near the letters too.

It worked a treat and flattened it back into shape!

Even under the net the pieces move quite a bit so a dense quilting pattern is recommended.  I decided I'd try coloured matchstick quilting. 

I had previously made a cushion and used this technique with just white and quickly got bored with it.  Changing up the colours and straight line quilting this small piece went very quickly and was really lots of fun!

I used 9 different threads, 3 variegated and 6 solids in colours close to the rainbow letters.  Threads were Auriful 40wt and YLI 50 wt.   I used a light and a dark and spaced them 1/8" approx apart.

This round in the Schnitzel & Boo mini quilt swap is trying to support animal rescue which is a subject near to my heart.  Our Basset Wilbur is a rescue that was very close to being put to sleep.  If it wasn't for the volunteers and kindness of Ash Animal Rescue, Wilbur would not be with us. Even he decided to leave his mark on this quilt!  

Every now and again Wilbur gets bored of sleeping and eating and wants some attention (Bassets are incredibly lazy dogs!).  He has a long bony nose that he likes to stick under your arm and flip very quickly into the air.  It's funny most of the time except when you have a cup of tea or are quilting.  There is one really wobbly line because of this that I'm calling the Wilbur wobble.  As it is a special cause we are supporting I decided to leave it be and not rip it out!

Charly, on the other hand, spent the day watching out for the neighbour's cat and tearing into a new toy my cousin sent from the states as part of a Christmas parcel.    The rest of us were ignored completely!

Leaving me to crack on and finish the quilting complete with Wilbur wobble.  I was quite surprised by how much the letters changed with the matchstick quilting.  They got well and truly squished and G in our sewing group described them as organic looking. Not what I expected!

I chose purple for the binding and finished it up with a label on the back prepared for the quilt swap by Ali.  I can't show you the label as it is a secret swap and this mini is going in the post this Friday! 

Really hope by partner likes this.  It's not quite the clean and crisp Lori Holt style that I intended but it was a real learning and quilting exploration all the same!  I did put a bit of work into it and tried my best to make it work.  I hope to make up for it by adding in lots of goodies.   Fingers crossed she's not expecting something completely different!

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt swap round 3!

So with everything going on, Christmas swaps, Night Sky Quilt -A-Long, writing my second pattern and making table runners and cushions for family, I decided to join another swap!

Received in swap round 1 - thanks Christina!

Made for swap 1

I really enjoyed rounds 1 and 2 of the Schnitzel & Boo Make a Quilt, Make a Friend swap, so I didn't want to leave myself out of this one.  Plus this one is on Instagram and not the usual blog/Flickr platforms, and I wanted to see how that would work in comparison to the last two swaps.  There has been a lot of talk on Instagram taking over from blogs and some people trying to cut down on social media are avoiding Facebook and deleting Flickr accounts in favour of Instagram.  A really good blog post looking at this is Whipstich's I thought it might be Instagram but it looks like its your phone's fault.

Made for round 2

Received in swap round 2 - thanks Lisa!

I like Instagram.  I like the simple picture format and the back and forth one line banter - seems to me a bit of Twitter and a bit of Flickr combined.  I miss the longer discussions though and for me still prefer the blog.  I've been on Flickr since 2008 and have a bit of an emotional attachment to it!  And I like big pictures.  I have a large smartphone Galaxy Note 2 and still would prefer to see bigger images but Instagram is not designed for PC.  Sure I can do the pinchy thing and zoom in but I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on something on Instagram.  So many hashtags, so many images in my feed and I only follow 180 people. Is that too many?  Swaps and de-stashes seem to happen and I've blinked and missed them.    Do I need to be more selective?

Anyway, I'm jumping in with both feet this time around to see what happens and this is my mosaic for my swap partner as inspiration.  I normally try and pick 16 likes and do a 4 x 4 to give a good selection but conscious of this going on IG I made it 3x3 so they wouldn't be too tiny - change in format is already having an influence on me and my decisions!

1. Diamonds mini quilt, 2. beautiful applique, 3. Thimble Blossoms Dwell Mini, 4. sewing machine cover, 5. Forest mini quilt, 6. The Snow Ball Mini Quilt, 7. Girl's Weekend Swap - My mini for Elena, 8. Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts, 9. DQS 13 Ready to Send!!

Still I'm looking forward to another mini quilt swap.  The social nature of sharing in progress and making with a secret partner in mind is great fun regardless of platform.  I will keep you updated of progress here on the blog and on IG and for old times sake I'm posting to Flickr too!

In the spirit of being social I'm linking up to Lorna at

Mini Quilt Finish

I finished my mini Swoon Quilt yesterday evening, binding sewn on and labelled and ready to go in the post for tomorrows ship date.  This is a project for Schnitzel & Boo's mini Quilt swap, called "Make a Quilt, Make a Friend"  (previous posts from initial idea , choosing fabrics and layout!).

So this morning before work, I decided to take some photos in the early morning light.  I had fun wandering around the garden looking for a spot to show it off.

Wilbur wandered around following me, not quite awake himself.  I’m sure that dog thinks I’m half cracked!  (Charly wisely stayed in bed and didn’t poke her head out until breakfast!)

I quilted it with large wiggly stipple.  It was quick and fun and super easy.  After the class at the weekend in Free Motion Quilting, I'd probably do a separate design in the colours and something different in the white but I really like the stipple too so I'm quite happy with it.  Hope my swap partner is too!

I really like how bright and colourful it is.  My swap partner loves rainbow quilts and bright modern fabrics on white backgrounds.  She also loves Heather Ross but I couldn't find anything I liked for the centre of the star so I mirrored the half square triangles and tried to arrange the centre star along complimentary colours touching the outer ring e.g. blue and yellow, red and green.

This was a really fun project!  The quilt pattern for this Swoon block can be found in Camille Roskelly's shop.  The block measures 24" square finished and is an update of a traditional block that Camille found on a vintage quilt.  If you want to follow step by step instructions Camille teaches how to make this quilt block on Craftsy's in her class Pre-cut piecing made simple.

Linking up to all the Friday finishes! Crazy Mom Quilts and