Thursday 29 February 2024

Lots of sewing news in the shortest month

Unlike some previous months when I have had hardly any sewing news to share, this month I’ve plenty of sewing news to share.

First up are two FPP mini quilts I made to decorate a friend’s sewing area. They have just got a new Bernina machine to go with their Singer treadle and so I decided to make modern and vintage machines in FPP.

Next, I repurposed a full size iron cover which I received in a swap at Fat Quarterly retreat in 2013. This has been unused for a while as I no longer take a full size iron to sewing days.

I was very pleased to be able to resize this to fit my travel iron and have enough off cuts to make a cover for my craft iron too.

The last of my news is that I had a sewing-related day out to Southport. The main purpose was to hunt for some brown fabrics for a tiny nine patch project I’ve started (more on that next month) and I didn’t come away empty handed after visits to Crafts and Quilts and Sewcrafty.

I was also just in time to see the Quilt | Grid | Pattern exhibition at The Atkinson. This included some very old quilts from the Gawthorpe Hall Quilt Collection and some modern reinterpretations of historic quilt making. I particularly liked the mixed media displays of painted canvas pieces that had been stitched together to look like quilts.


After a packed February, I wonder what March will bring.

 (A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Airspace quilt

My first post of 2024 is to share my last project of 2023 – a quilt for a friend whose baby was due in January 2024. The pattern is the Airspace quilt from Cowden Quilt School and I made the baby size, but added a border so that the triangles appeared to float more.

The background was quilted using a free motion “angular meander” and the triangles were quilted with a cross hatch using the walking foot.

The baby arrived two weeks ago and the quilt is now on its way to them.

 

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Sunday 31 December 2023

2023 Sewing Summary

I knew I had not done much sewing this year, but I didn’t realise just how little I have to show – three quilts, a 10” block with lots of tiny sewing and an sewing repair kit for the office.


 On a more positive note, there has been some progress on the Liberty Hexie quilt.

2023

2022

A new year resolution must be to do more sewing in 2024.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Thursday 30 November 2023

Shopping my stash

I was hoping not to buy backing fabric for the latest quilt I am making and had a piece of fabric in mind that would be suitable. However, when I was looking for it, I found something even better -the grey and orange triangles are ideal for this quilt.

Unfortunately, I was not as lucky when it came to threads for quilting and have had to order some for the green triangles.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Tuesday 31 October 2023

Revealing the tiny sewing

Finally, I can reveal the tiny secret sewing I was doing in the summer. It was a 10” block for a 60th birthday banner. My contribution was made using foundation paper pieced blocks and by happy coincidence there were 60 blocks around the centre embroidered square.

Several of us from an online sewing community contributed blocks which when stitched together made a banner approximately 5m long. The recipient is a keen quilter and various patchwork, embroidery and applique techniques were used in the blocks.

The banner was designed so parts of it could be displayed as scroll, rather than the full banner being on display.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Friday 29 September 2023

In preparation for sewing

The only sewing this month has been shortening a pair of mens trousers, which although it involved an overlocker, a sewing machine and hand sewing is not very interesting to photograph.

Instead here’s a photo of ~2 kg of quilting cottons from Abakhan which were added to my stash for less than £5 per metre.

I’ve a specific plan for most of these and so hopefully there will some sewing to report next month.

 (A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Thursday 31 August 2023

Finishing the tiny sewing and visiting Festival of Quilts

All my sewing and sewing-related activity seems to have taken place at the beginning of this month.

The tiny sewing has been completed, but as this is for a secret project that won’t be revealed until October, all I can show you for now is the back of the completed block before the FPP papers were removed.

My sewing-related activity for this month was a two-day visit to Festival of Quilts. To be accurate, it was two one-day trips to Festival of Quilts as this year I didn’t stay over, but returned home each day. By the time I was sure the trains would not be affected by strikes, it was cheaper to book two return train tickets than one return ticket and a hotel. This did mean I only had ~4 hours at the show each day, but it was long enough and it was quite nice to have time at home to reset and recharge after the first day.

As usual, even though I thought I had looked at the quilts in a logical order, there were still ones appearing on social media that I have no recollection of seeing. I took photos of only quilt and it was because it made me stop and take a closer look to see how the colour graduation had been done.

CT-04, Seaweed Sunset, Daisy Dodge

On very close inspection, it turns out the quilt is combination of squares and nine-patch blocks set on point.


It wouldn’t be Festival of Quilts without a bit of shopping and I think what I bought could be describe as “a bit”. From Crafty Quilter, I got a quilt pattern and some ombre fabric for it. The Millefiori book was from Kaleidoscope Books and doesn’t really count as it has been squirrelled away to reappear at Christmas as a present from my husband. From Lisa at Modern Quilt Club, I got some Flatter pressing spray and a selection of Aurifil 28wt thread. A couple of reels of Invisifil 100wt thread was purchased from Wonderfil and some bargains were found on the Project Linus stand – a pattern notching punch for 50p and two books at a £1 each.


After two years of my trips to Festival of Quilts being disrupted/governed by train strikes, it would be nice to hope that that things could be resolved in time for next year’s show.

 (A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)