Storm at sea quilt

Well I was all set to baste this quilt today,  but there's a problem :( , there's a tiny shadow showing through from the coloured fabric, its going to need to be trimmed.
And I thought taking out the paper was the boring job lol!

Storm at sea quilt

The blocks are all pieced,  so now it's time to pull the paper out.
I'm still undecided if im going to add any borders, will definitely not be making appliqué blocks thou as I've run out of oakshott,  the fat eighths bundle wouldn't stretch that far :(
The quilt as it is measures 36 x 36 and there's more wastage when you paper piece and I had already used some of the bundle making up the William Morris bird block, so I can't complain.
I am definitely in love with oakshott cottons and plan to buy more in the future.

Wishing you some sewing good times!

Storm at sea quilt

I'm thinking of adding some appliqué blocks to my quilt, I already have one made that I could make fit and there are loads of other blocks begging me to be made, they are from the William Morris in appliqué book by Michele Hill, I have a rough sketch of the layout, the blank squares are left for the appliqué blocks.

It would look great as a normal storm at sea quilt though...
Decisions decisions

I hope you are playing around with ideas too

The Blogger's Quilt Festival

This is my first time entering the festival, so I first want to thank our host Amy for organising it and also all the cool sponsors for their generosity :)

The quilt catergory that I would like to enter is the Home Machine Quilting one so here goes..

This is my flying geese applique quilt, its measures 48 inches square and hangs on the wall in my lounge, its my favourite quilt.

The applique is raw edge, sewn down with blanket stitch

 
And the applique designs are from a book called Machine Applique by Sue Nichels

Only the feather stems were marked onto the quilt.

The quilt was made in 2011

I'm so happy you popped by and hope you enjoy the rest of the festival.

Happy sewing!

Storm at sea quilt

This is the first finished block of my oakshott storm at sea quilt and I'm hoping to quilt the heck out of it!

I recently purchased a craftsy class by Cindy Needham and a Lisa Calle DVD, they are both super talented quilting queens!, so I'm full of inspiration and have started planning and playing around with designs.

I hope you are having fun too this weekend :)

Flower Ball sphere

This was my take along hand sewing for summer project,  its English Paper piecing,  perfect to have in your handbag, for those anytime anywhere (until it gets too big that is) moments.
I have used batiks from my stash, the pattern is by Geta Grama and is a download from her site romanianquiltstudio, im sorry thats not an active link.
I need to baste it next onto a backing fabric but I can't decide what colour would be best.
Happy sewing!

Paper piecing

Ive started a new project, its a Storm at sea quilt using my oakshott autumn fat eighths bundle.
Its a very wet and dreary Saturday here in Wales so its a perfect day for sewing while watching The Quiet Man.
I hope you are sewing too.

Pickle dish

Its finally finished!
The washing of it was nerve wracking because the Kate Spain terrain layer cake has bled in places grrr...Come on who washes a layer cake!
I did use colour catchers but they didn't help, this genius put her quilt in the washing machine on a quick wash and then spent 15 minutes watching as the water slowly dipped onto the quilt as it filled, im definitely using the bath next time.
Unfortunately I got the batting wrong, I used 2 layers of white request weight quilters dream, it was the only white batting I could get but I failed to notice that it has a antique crinkled look when finished and I definitely prefer my quilts not crinkled but the quilting does shout out more now.
On a happy note I am chuffed to bits with how it turned out.
Some quilty pics to follow....

Design wall Monday

This is my hexie wall hanging, it's ready to be sewn onto a white background with plenty of room around it for quilting, it's currently sitting on my pickle dish quilt, which im hoping to make some progress on soon.
Happy sewing!
Patricia

Bloglovin

 Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hi
I have temporarily lost my sewing mojo so no new photo's to show, I think I need a new project to get me going again.
anyways sorry for a boring post but I needed to claim my blog on bloglovin.
Happy sewing!
Patricia

Oakshott appliqué

I've started a small wallhanging to test how Oakshott fabric behaves when used for appliqué, I'm using the spray starch and raw edge methods of appliqué.
My favourite type of appliqué is spray starch but if the appliqué piece is small or hard to turn under il use steam a seam and then blanket stitch around it on my sewing machine.
As Oakshott fabric has a looser weave than some fabrics, it tends to fray quicker, when turning under the appliqué pieces over the freezer paper it worked better to have a wider seam allowance, the flowers and birds were no problem but it was trickier to turn under the leaves and stems as it is one piece and they were close together not leaving a lot of fabric to turn under so they were harder to do as fraying was more of an issue.
I've glue basted all the pieces in place with roxanne glue.
The design is from a book called William Morris in Appliqué by Michelle Hill.
Happy sewing!

Pickle dish quilt

I've finished the first corner of my pickle dish quilt, I cut up the freezer paper pattern from the centre, and used a quarter of the design to fit into the corner and happily it fits there very nicely!
The centre is now finished but the light isn't good enough for a photo.
I'm using the instagram app on my phone for this post, and I'm not very happy with the photos quality, but as time seems to get away from me most days before I can get a chance to blog, I thought this was better than nothing!
Happy sewing!

Hexie quilt

I'm back in the hexie business, I started this wallhanging last July, so I had to blow off the mothballs.
I have been sewing them for the last few weeks and have made very good progress (patting myself of my back).
Once it's sewn together I'm sticking it to some Kona White and then quilting around it, I'm thinking of doing something pictorial? it will be fun dreaming up a design.
Happy sewing!

Pond quilt

Unfortunately I seem to have lost my way on this quilt, and it has turned into a UFO for the last few months, the rot set in when I had trouble with the water lilies that I planned to make, they were lovely but just too deep for this wall quilt, I now have a new plan to make them flatter.
I have been thinking a lot about the quilting for the water and have come up with a design that excites me and I hope to freemotion scales in gold thread onto the fish.
Once I have finished appliquéing the fish it will be ready for quilting and the lilies will be attached after the binding.
It will have to sit in the quilting queue for a bit then thou.

Just wandering did anyone think I must have gone off my rocker when you saw my last post, I am totally blaming sleep deprivation for my wordless Wednesday post on a Monday!

Happy sewing!

Wordless Wednesday

Pickle dish

Been busy, I tried another filler in the oval, it's sits on top of two seam lines and the swirls don't hide them, so I have done a grid pattern to see if it works better, it definitely hides the seams but it's not as pretty, so I decided to leave both in and sew ovals to match them at either side.
I also started to sew in the straight line fillers, it was my first attempt and I will definitely be doing more of them in the future.
I hope you got some sewing time in today too.
Happy sewing!

Festival of Quilts in Birmingham

I spent two days at the quilt festival this year and had a blast, I took loads of photos of some really awesome quilts and have now uploaded them to my Flikr account.

So grab yourself a coffee, click on the link and enjoy!

www.flickr.com

Pickle dish

I have decided to postpone the unpicking of this motif

I'm still not 100% happy with it, but it doesn't look as bad as I originally judged, its a connecting design so I'm going to stitch the next one in and either I will like it or be un picking two motifs instead of one.

This is how the design was marked out

The oval motif is designed on freezer paper and then ironed in place, I can then mark around it with a soluble pen, I won't mark the swirls in the centre.

This blue line is just to tell me to stop sewing.

Using a curved ruler, I marked the feathers spine, I keep the ruler in the same curve for both sides and use the measure markings for length placement in this case from 7 to 2 cm and then on the opposite side, flip the ruler over and measure from 2 to 7cm.

There is actually a blue line marked for both spines, but it so faint it not showing up in the pic.
Anyways that it, minimal marking means more time sewing.

Happy sewing!

Wall quilts

I always make wall quilts, there have only been a few exceptions over the years, I think it's mostly a size thing, wall quilts are smaller, bed quilts are harder to freemotion due to their size and I love the quilting part of making a quilt the best, and there are only three beds in my house so in theory my hobby would be finished already if I made bed quilts even taking into account a summer and winter weight one, I know I could gift some quilts and I have but they take so long to make, only close members of my family have got lucky :)
There are loads of walls in my house thou and I could be seasonal too when I eventually fill them all, but the best thing about putting a quilt on the wall is the sheer enjoyment I get everyday from looking at them!
The following pics are from my lounge.
On the flying geese quilt the quilting only really shows up when I put the lights on in the evening, it's my favourite moment of the day!
Two posts in one day, I think I've got verbal diarrhoea!
Happy sewing! again

It also might be that wall quilts don't get touched or washed often, but that makes me sound OCD so Im sticking with the size thing theory!

Blogger app and instagram

I thought I might try using a blogger app with the instagram app as a quicker way of blogging, so here goes!

These are some photos of my folk art vase quilt, I have sewn down most of the flowers and have been enjoying the pleasures of hand sewing while listening to an audio book.
what bliss!

Happy sewing to you to!