Gifted... the double nine patch scrap baby quilt

 My July one monthly goal was to quilt and bind my double nine patch quilt.  I didn't quite get all the binding finished before getting a cold/flu in the last couple of week's of July and it has only been this week that the last side got hand sewn down.  AND the quilt has now been gifted to a wee baby!!

June saw this 2018 rainbow scrap challenge get basted... and then July was quilting month.  I really like how the relatively simple quilting turned out.

I don't seem to have any photos of the binding, but i used the same newspaper print that was used as the cornerstones in the sashing.  Yay... a quilt FINISH!!

Loosely Woven - a finished quilt!

The evening's over the last week have been spent hand stitching down binding.  I am not the quickest at hand stitching, and I find I am only able to sew relatively small sections before my hands get sore.  So I was really pleased last night to sew the final section of Loosely Woven to complete the mammoth task of binding.

Just to recap, the quilting plan was feathers in the striped columns, and interlocking boxes in the plain squares and border.

The backing fabric is a beige wide back, and I used a beige Seralene bobbin fill which blended nicely.

A narrow binding and label to finish it off.  As you can see, the quilting has great texture.  This interlocking boxes design is going to reappear on my Patchwork City quilt when I get to that stage (still a few more seams and backing decisions to make yet).

And some beautiful Aurifil threads to complement.  The FMQ does gobble through the thread!

This quilt was started in December 2018 after a couple of test blocks made in November.  Christmas holidays were mostly spent with piecing and I finished the top in late January 2019.  I had thread delays which resulted in about 8 weeks down time... so all in all, not bad progress (for me anyway). 

This quilt was commissioned so I will be very happy to hand it over to its new owner tomorrow, and get my sewing machine set up for blanket stitch again.

Alert! Alert! Quilt Finish!

Super excited last week to finish the binding on my Sugar Club Sampler quilt, and get the makers label attached over the weekend.

Then it kinda rained and was gross... but today the sun is shining... the grass is dry and my kids agreed to hold it up for me!

I was trying to work out why this photo had a blue band across the top... its the sky!  Duh!  And today has been truly beautiful.

This quilt started life back in June 2014 as part of a BOM run by Amy Gibson from Stitchery Dickory Dock, and I used my stash of Bonnie & Camille fabrics with Bella solid 'Feather' and a beige Moda crossweave.

The 12 blocks morphed into a 9 block setting with this interesting half square triangle frame arrangement.  The blocks upsize from their original 12 inches, to a massive 30 inch with these additional frames.  Combined with sashing this resulted in a quilt close to 100 inches square.

I made the decision to have this long arm quilted by Leeanne from Quilt Me Kiwi.  She did a wonderful edge to edge design.

I also experimented with a flange binding using a mix of leftover fabrics, but instead of machine stitching along the flange, I used a large running stitch and 12 weight thread.  It is a subtle feature but I really like it.

Interestingly both children were wondering if it was there's!  So maybe not a totally feminine quilt 😄

It's A Cross Tile Finish

Woohoo!  The Cross Tile quilt is all finished and the last thing to do is add a blog post before it can be forever ticked off my list.

Having a terribly lit, as well as small bedroom means you just can't get far enough away from the subject to fit it all into frame, but you'll get the idea.

These fabrics started life as a Designer Bundle of fat quarters from Stash Fabrics, curated by @misterdomestic.  There were a lot of prints that I never would have chosen (those deer heads!), but obviously the bundle intrigued me enough to buy it!  I love the challenge of finding a pattern to suit an eclectic mix of fabrics.  Adding new fabrics from my LQS The Country Yard and some from stash, I made a between size quilt with a 5x5 setting from 25 fat quarters.

The Cross Tile pattern is by Emily Dennis from Quilty Love.  I did a mix of walking foot, free motion with rulers, freehand free motion and big stitch hand quilting.

This is also the first quilt that I have hand stitched around the circumference to echo the binding.  I really like it!

I love the somewhat retro vibe of this quilt and the way the pattern encourages each different fabric to shine.

Pre-Christmas Progress amongst the Pre-Christmas Madness

As I technically finished work on the 7th of December (to coincide with the beginning of school summer holidays), I figured that I had plenty of time to then finish the Medallion quilt by the 20th of December, when the office actually closed so I could pass it onto it's recipient as promised.  Little did I realise that of those 9 work days in between, I would spend 6 of those days at work.  Between working (both at home and at the office) I pushed and pushed (and sweated and sweated - it's been flipping hot here in NZ) and finally got the medallion quilt finished.  This was a true whoop whoop moment.

Measuring around 68x89" it is a sizeable single.  In hindsight I should have not chosen the bold orange borders on the courthouse steps blocks... but hey... it's finished, and this border will hang off the end of the bed.

I did a mix of stippling the black and white prints... and quilting the coloured sections.

And used the magic binding technique using a scrappy peeper, with the Sketch as the binding portion.  Looks like a really complicated piping treatment, but I can only be thankful that the Sketch hides a multitude of sins.

From the back.

I placed my label so that it would get sewn into the binding... and just needed to handstitch the three sides after it was completed.  This ensures no little fingers could get caught in an unsewn loop.

Having quilting free areas means a bit of puffiness... sometimes this is good...

And sometimes not so good.

If I had more time I would have quilted more areas, and not had this problem.  I thought about adding some feathered sections to the pink parts of the star - most of these sections sat flat with a bit of encouragement - but just ran out of time.

Now that this project is crossed off the list, I got back to sewing my Sew House Seven "The Tea House Top and Dress".

You can see from the line drawings that this pattern has seams through the front that give it shaping, and that the pocket sides are caught in this seam, as well as the side seam.  There is a choice between side ties that are also sewn into this seam, or a back tunnel that captures a narrow tie, that can then be tied to the front.

I've got far enough through the process to be able to try it on... still need to finish some seams, and hem the bottom and the sleeves.

With this very drapy rayon the pockets just sort of hang in a somewhat depressed sort of way - interestingly each side hangs slightly differently.  Rayon is actually one of the fabrics recommended on the pattern packet - but I accept that some rayons are more drapey than others, and I think this rayon is just a bit too much.

Not only does the top of the pocket drape down, but the fullness of the pocket drapes down over the bottom stitching lines.

I never did quite get the back yoke to sit properly.  To be honest I kinda hate the back of this dress - it is very smock like, in a 90yr old granny sort of way.  My poor sewing skills have done it no favours.

I chose to alter the ties - I really dislike having wide ties that you do up at the back - I always find they sit right on a back bone and dig in.  But I am also not a fan of ties that come around to the front.  So, I narrowed the ties on the front...

And also added the ties to the back... so that I could tie it up at the sides.

Regardless of the shaping of the dress - it is actually the ties that give it any shape at all.  The built in shaping from the seams creates fullness in areas where I don't seem to be all that full. 

I think I bit off more than I could chew with this pattern - both with the design and the fabric choice.  I'm not sure whether I will wear it if/when it gets finished, but I'm planning a slight hi/low hem line - and am omitting the cuffed sleeves - they will just get a narrow hem and we'll call it done. 

Lesson's learnt - remember to look at the line drawing in detail before deciding to buy a pattern based on what the sample looks like.  Also, do the fabric wrinkle test in the shop - and remember that even expensive rayon is not worth the angst.

Beep Beep! Done Done!

I had a finish day in the back of my mind of Monday (yesterday), as this was hubby's first day back at work and it would have been nice for him to take it to his workmate at the start of the year.  But really, I didn't think that would give me enough time to quilt and finish binding... but it was a good goal, and encouraged me to keep at it.  And you know... today I finished the last little bit of hand stitching on the binding and sewed on the label.  Woohoo - my first finish of 2017!

We have a floor shot...

A close up of FM quilting... a mid size stipple that fits in nicely around the shapes but is still pretty quick to get done...

A bit of a binding shot... I decided to use some of my fabric scraps and had random lengths along with some larger sections of grey to give it a bit of space...

A shot of quilt holder-upper extraordinaire  getting his pose ready... note how he keeps the quilt up nice and high off the ground.

And yay... no wind!

And a little bit of wind.

 
Now I can shift my focus onto some of my other goals for January...

So how old is your oldest WIP?

After at least 9 years of hovering in the "technically a WIP" pile - my half log cabin quilt is finally finished.  Fully BOUND and the last block QUILTED.  I say it was technically a WIP as it has been on and off the bed a lot over the last 8 or so years, even though it was never technically finished.

This was the second quilt I ever started, and the quilt where I discovered that I loved fabric... all fabric... and I was determined to include it all into my quilt.  I also learned some life lessons along the way - like if you have a lot of medium fabrics and use them in both the dark and light sides of a high contrast quilt... well, lets just say it limits your layout options - this was originally going to be a radiating star layout :0).  I also learned that vacuuming a quilt with wool batting is just crazy (no matter how many cat hairs you have on it) and quilt as you go is a technique to avoid.  Having said that, it is still a quilt that I love, and still find interesting to look at, even after all those years of being unfinished.

I've also finished Block 84 of the Modern Sampler.  That means only 16 more blocks to go!

My block has one ugly set of fabrics in it...

But I liked the fact that they combined the pink, orange, tan and green of the surrounding blocks.  Not the easiest thing to do with just two fabrics.

One of the organisers of the sew along commented that some of the blocks would make good designs for pieced backings... I believe she may be correct... the start of a back for the Giant Chevron quilt... it does solve the question of what to do with a 1/2m of bug fabric :0)

 

That's about it for this week... enjoy your weekend.

Hometown Wagon Wheels - The Official Finish Post

It's done.  And on the bed (with clean sheets no less)!  And ready to be loved.

One of the best bits about hopping into bed is seeing the pieced backing poking out :0)

HomeTown Wagon Wheels 80 x 80"

Pattern: Denyse Schmidts book - Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration.
Fabric:  Sweetwater's Hometown for segments and cornerstones, circle centre and cross light and dark grey homespun from Spotlight,  sashing Heath by Alexander Henry in grey, background Moda Bella?? Unbleached White