Scrap comforter

One of my most used quilts, most washed and cuddly, the one that gets to sit on my knee when I’m ill is this one

One of my most used quilts, most washed and cuddly, the one that gets to sit on my knee when I’m ill is this one. It isn’t really a quilt as it has only two layers, the back being fleece. I based it on the Double Irish Chain, traditionally made in red and white. This one was made with my favourite hyacinth blue and a collection of my two inch scrap squares.

It is made up of two alternating blocks one block is made up of 25 two inch squares put together randomly apart from the centre square in each side which is the hyacinth blue fabric; the other block is a 4” square of the hyacinth fabric, surrounded by 4“ x 2” rectangles of hyacinth, topped and tailed with a random 2” scrap. When put together alternately the two blocks blend into squares and chains.


Sadly it has become rather faded over time, but still goes with us when we go camping and is a great comfort on chilly summer evenings. It sits on the back of the sofa in winter ready to go over a lap when a nod in the chair is needed, and even gets the occasional trip in the sports car if the roof is down and the weather less than perfect. I’m not precious about this one it’s just a comforter and a great comfort it has been, the epitome of what a quilt should be, bright and cheerful, soft and warm, always to hand when needed.

There in the middle is that fabric again, no show without Punch!

I think this was the last quilt I made which has a little of that old dress fabric in it.

More Christmas Stockings

You might want to consider tucking a ribbon (to use as a hanger) into the back seam of the outer pair, but remember to put it between the seam on the INSIDE before you stitch it, you don’t want it between the outer and the lining do you?

If you want to make your own quick and easy Christmas stockings you can buy ready printed panels, or simply choose a Christmassy fabric and a simple lining. Once you have found or drafted a pattern you are happy with cut two stockings from the outer fabric and two from the lining, make sure you cut them right sides of the fabric together so you get a left and a right, rather than two lefts or two rights.

Stitch each outer and its lining together along the top edge, then lay the two right sides together outer on outer, lining on lining and stitch right round the whole piece, leaving a gap on the back seam of the lining as indicated between the points of the scissors in the photo

You can then turn the whole thing right sides out, hand stitch the opening in the lining closed and then tuck the lining in.
You might want to consider tucking a ribbon (to use as a hanger) into the back seam of the outer pair, but remember to put it between the seam on the INSIDE before you stitch it, you don’t want it between the outer and the lining do you?
You might also want to top stitch the top edge to stop the lining rolling out, and a few stitches in the seam at the toe to hold the lining in place. And if you aren’t wadding and quilting then choose a furnishing fabric to give some substance to your stocking.

Christmas is coming

thank goodness I didn’t make them bigger, stockings have to be well filled at Christmas, a thin and meagre stocking is so dispiriting isn’t it?

And I need to finish a project I began 5 years ago, we were driving to Hull and back twice each weekend to facilitate contact with   my Dearest’s 7 yr old son and 11 yr old daughter. To while away the long car journeys and thinking I might have two children staying with us at Christmas, I began to make them a stocking each to hang at the fireplace.
I have already made a number of Christmas stockings but they are for adults and generally fairly small for the kind of little stocking gifts that amuse adults, these stockings would need to be bigger, much bigger.

I can’t remember where I got the original pattern from, but it has been modified a number of times over the years. There are plenty of stocking patterns on the net if you’d like to try this yourself.
The fabric was my quilt group’s Christmas challenge fabric for 2007, sadly I’m five years too late to enter the challenge, but they will be finished this Christmas, come what may!  There were two colours of co-ordinating fabric, and a collection of small panels. I chose two matching panels one for each side of each stocking, a different colour way for each stocking, so that I could tell them apart.

The panels were applied using bondaweb, and the edge stitched with Gold thread using a fancy machine stitch. I used a stitch which reminded me of icicles, it would have worked far better in silver but the embellishment on the fabric is gold, so my embellishments had to be gold too.

 

I will have to quilt the panels in gold tread before I stitch up the sides of the stockings, and I haven’t quite worked out how I will quilt them, but probably the holly leaves and berries, which I have used before. It’s easy to create your own quilting patterns or stencils, I found a simple line drawing of a holly leaf and berries on an advertising handbill, scaled it up and cut it out of cereal box. I might have used plastic film if I needed to use it on an entire quilt, but cereal packet is fine for a few uses.

Each stocking will have metre of ribbon folded in half and stitched into the back seam so it can be tied with a bow to whatever I want to attach it to, the banister rails are a favourite place.
I plan, if I have time to make a swing tag,a gift tag to hang from each stocking like the little dog on a Radley handbag, with just an initial for each of them V and T, the children are now 12 and 16, their gifts tend to be smaller and more expensive than back then, so the stockings are probably large enough, thank goodness I didn’t make them bigger, stockings have to be well filled at Christmas, a thin and meagre stocking is so dispiriting isn’t it?

The Quilt on my bed

my Dearest likes a 14 tog duvet, while I’d be happy with 4 togs (it’s my age, I’m told). In that single week in May we call Summer when the nights are warm and the duvet is cast off the bed, a sheet and this quilt suffice to sleep under.

This is the quilt which lives in my bedroom and is the first to be put on the bed if extra warmth is required, admittedly rarely because my Dearest likes a 14 tog duvet, while I’d be happy with 4 togs (it’s my age, I’m told). In that single week in May we call Summer when the nights are warm and the duvet is cast off the bed, a sheet and this quilt suffice to sleep under. It is my most used quilt but my Dearest still gets told off for sitting on it “en deshabille”.

The block is a simple collection of 16 x 2 inch squares put together randomly from scraps to create a 6 inch square, each block is interspersed with another block made of 4 quarter square triangles in ivory and burgundy, which are then placed with the colours positioned alternately in each row; so that each block of scraps appears to be set in the centre of a larger square of either ivory of burgundy.


Again I used some of my favourite tiny scraps, my 1960’s dress fabric features again, probably only because it could be made from such tiny pieces, and all I had left were the tiniest scraps. In fact I tend to cut 2 inch squares if I can from any fabric scraps I have left, on the grounds that if I can’t get a 2 inch square out of it, it probably isn’t worth keeping. These are then stored in a tin for my next scrap quilt project. It is hand and machine quilted very simply in ivory thread, I didn’t think it needed anything elaborate, scrap quilts don’t, their beauty lies in the fabrics.

The quilt is titled Remembrance, the blocks were a ”Block of the month” challenge which I won sometime back in 1996; made into a quilt that year and exhibited the following year. I didn’t attend the group meeting the night I won the blocks, I had been at a funeral that day, my cousin had lost a long fight with cancer. I thought of her often as I made this quilt, she was younger than me and the first person I had lost still in the flower of youth. Over the years this quilt has been packed away, or otherwise hidden from view, but whenever it surfaced my cousin was always my first thought when I saw it again, it might seem morbid but it isn’t to me, I’m happy to be reminded of her, she was a beautiful woman, and she lived her life. My memories of her are happy ones.

Pyramids Quilt

I took the pattern and volunteered to give it a trial run, to see if it would work as a group quilt

My quilt group have an exhibition biennially; we use it as an opportunity to raise money for charity and like to choose a small local charity rather than a large national charity. We don’t raise much but a little often goes a long way for a small charity, and makes a real and tangible difference. We always create a group quilt to raffle and to publicise the forthcoming exhibition.

This design was presented as a possible group project to create a quilt to raffle, as a member of the committee at the time I took the pattern and volunteered to give it a trial run, to see if it would work as a group quilt. There is one simple piece to cut, and to achieve an optical illusion similar to the tumbling blocks design, it’s necessary to chose fabrics in light, dark and medium tones, one of each tone is then sewn together to produce a triangle; placing the light, dark and medium in the same position in each block to give the effect of a pyramid viewed from above.It’s important always to have the three tones in the same position because the 3D effect of the pyramids only works if the light appears to be coming from the same angle across the whole surface of the quilt.

Although the triangles are put together in rows one pattern which also emerges is the hexagon; it was the hexagon I used as inspiration for my quilting design, as can be seen where it extends into the border.The design never made it as a group quilt, there were just too many possible variables, group quilts work best when the variables are kept to a minimum, this pattern required hand drawing of pieces round templates, cutting with scissors not rotary cutting, there would be fabric placement variables, seam allowance variables….. etc… etc. No there were just too many possible ways in which blocks made by many individuals would fail to go together neatly to produce a quality finished article.

Nevertheless I liked the finished article, so much so I began to make another quilt, from the same design but with a limited palette of just three fabrics, but somehow, somewhere I lost the template, and the impetus to finish, so for years I had a number of cut pieces and a bag of bits, but no template. The original pattern came from an Australian Quilt magazine, which didn’t belong to me, and I’m not sure who owns it. I have subsequently found another template for the same design in a quilting book I bought in (of all places) ALDI. Maybe I’ll get round to finishing that quilt, or maybe not, the thing is … the moment has passed.

Reasons to be cheerful, part two

My sister and I are both in our 50’s but always obedient girls; we did as we were bidden.

On 30th of October the BMW was taken to the garage, we were admittedly cutting it fine, if it didn’t pass, we’d have no car, so no surprises, it didn’t pass. Not much needed doing but it meant we couldn’t pick it up on 31st. Today the 1st November I was going to risk driving my car without tax, only a short trip on country roads, surely I’d be unlucky to get caught. My Dad got wind of it and rang my sister, she couldn’t give us a lift up to the garage either because, co-incidentally her car was at the garage too, waiting for a part to arrive so her heater could be fixed. Dad insisted that my niece would need to take us all up to collect our cars and my Mazda was to be delivered to his garage to be mothballed as planned. My sister and I are both in our 50’s but always obedient girls; we did as we were bidden.

So today we have been a no car family, what a disaster, I had taken a few days off work in the hiatus between jobs, and had hoped to have some rest and peace, unfortunately my neighbour is having her kitchen refitted so BANG, BANG, BANG, DRILL, BANG, DRILL on the party wall for several days till my beloved and I were ready to do murder. This morning I took my car to Dad’s, tucked it up for the winter and walked home.

We went to the pub for lunch just to get out and again about three O’clock to trawl the local charity shops, but really to get away from the constant banging and drilling, we got caught in a brief Hail storm, twice. I bought a book and couple of men’s ties, (of which more another time), and we got chilled to the bone. When we got back the builder’s van had gone so we risked brewing some tea, in the hope of an hour’s respite, but it was not to be, before the tea was drunk the builder had returned, more bang, drill, bang, ARRRGH!

Thought Stalking

Have you ever been stalked by a thought, or an image, or a half formed plan?

Have you ever been stalked by a thought, or an image, or a half formed plan? Some months ago I saw a block of a yacht and had a half-cocked idea for a quilt but the block itself didn’t really do it for me, it had no sense of movement and wasn’t very yacht-like, so the idea didn’t progress further than that initial “hmmmm” moment.

However since then I have been stalked by images of yacht’s, not just the real thing at sea or on lakes but wherever I go, in stained glass, in shop windows, in magazines or on fabric, toy pond yachts on window sills in houses I pass (not one but several in a single week), postcards, even in a bag of Haribo sweets, and a shower curtain.

Am I being stalked or are Yacht’s simply ‘on trend’ at the moment, either way I think I need to work out my thoughts in fabric. What is a Yacht without billowing sails, a floating gin palace; a glorified floating caravan? My Yachts must have wind in their sails, and movement in the block, I don’t want the quilt to represent a flat calm, but I’d rather have a brisk breezy day than stormy weather.

In only half an hour

I now have a mini bin to sit on the corner of my work bench, in which to drop all those snips and threads, and it only took half an hour to complete start to finish.

My Dearest often complains about stray threads on the carpet, and I have to admit that when sewing I tend to put threads in a little heap on the nearest surface meaning to sweep them into the bin later. My threads and fabric trimmings have a tendency to creep and float, catch a lift on clothes and end up anywhere but where I put them. I’ve been meaning to find a suitable bin to put wherever I sit to sew and recently came up with a solution.

This is something I think a saw in a magazine years ago, long before Pinterest , maybe even before I had a PC, I have no idea who to credit with the original idea.

 

 

 

 

I recently emptied this container for in-wash stain remover, but it could just as easily have contained mini flapjack or millionaire’s shortbread. I rubbed the surface over with a wire scouring pad to roughen the surface, and spread the surface with PVA glue, using a finger.

Then I used fabric scraps cut with pinking shears which have been sitting in a drawer for years since mail order fabric buying relied on receiving actual samples through the post to choose from rather than choosing from virtual reality fabric in on line shops. I stuck each scrap on, slightly overlapping the one before, dabbing a little glue on the dry edge of the previous scrap to make sure the overlap stuck.
I now have a mini bin to sit on the corner of my work bench, in which to drop all those snips and threads, and it only took half an hour to complete start to finish, though probably years in the incubation of the thought.

Silk purse from a Pig’s Ear

I unpicked this sorry excuse, restitched the letterbox opening, unpicked his wobbly stitches, snipped the corners, turned it out, and top stitched round the opening with a decorative stitch.

At the end of the summer term the 12 year old brought home his textiles project to be “finished”; not that he had any intention of finishing it himself; if I hadn’t emptied out his school bag it would have been slid surreptitiously into the bin when no-one was looking. What a pig’s ear, supposedly a peg bag, if I had been his teacher I would have been ashamed to let that out of the class room. Two pieces of fabric right sides together and stitched round a letterbox opening then turned out without snipping the corners, so there’s no way it would ever lie flat to be top-stitched. Consequently the top-stitching was a mess.
Then he’d corrected some stitching after putting the back on, stitching through all three layers, goodness knows how one would get the pegs in, or out again. It had lain in a sorry heap on the kitchen counter since I found it, not wanting to throw it out and yet despairing of ever getting him to complete the task.
On Saturday he had a friend over; in half an hour of ‘idle moment’ while waiting for his friend’s mum to arrive to collect him, and before dashing out to buy shoes, I unpicked this sorry excuse, restitched the letterbox opening, unpicked his wobbly stitches, snipped the corners, turned it out, and top stitched round the opening with a decorative stitch.

On returning home with shoes, (success, managed to get a 12 year old boy to town, shoes tried on and said shoes bought, admittedly identical to the last pair just a size larger, without recourse to begging or promising fast food as an inducement), I added another decorative border and stitched the back on. The hanger needs to be wrapped with ribbon to make it look nice but, it might make a suitable gift from a small boy to an aged relative, and Christmas is coming.
I suggested he take it to show his teacher, that idea did not go down well, maybe I’ll just e-mail her the link to my site, or maybe not.

Union Jacks

The red diagonal stripe is appliquéd onto the white, the rest of the pattern is pieced.

Union flag
Another year, another challenge, as a long-standing member of my quilting group I do try to rise to the annual challenge, but a couple of years ago I was stuck for an idea, we had to use flowery fabric, and I didn’t have much time, so what to make? Thumbing through magazines looking for inspiration I came across several Union flag cushions, I’d also seen them in fancy interiors shops, I’d picked up and put down with a gasp examples at exorbitant prices. Then I saw in a magazine, a pastel shaded version, in pretty Liberty prints, and knew that I could produce something similar at a fraction of the cost.

my entry for challenge 2010,

In my stash was the red and cream, both Liberty fabric scraps, and the navy, a 1980’s Laura Ashley dress, My sister reminds me again we had one each of these too, and when she’d worn hers out I gave her mine, which clearly didn’t get worn out before it was retired to my fabric stash. I can’t find a picture of the dress but I guess if you were around in the 80’s you’d remember those dresses, huge mutton leg sleeves, drop waist, voluminous skirts,( think a newly married Princess Diana). Needless to say….. There is enough left to make something else as well, and I already have an idea.

So where to find a pattern? I could have spent hours searching the internet for a pattern but fortunately and coincidentally on Armed Forces Day there was a pull out supplement in the newspaper; an advert on the back page pictured half a union flag which was just the right size, so I traced and reversed it to create a sectional pattern to work from. The red diagonal stripe is appliquéd onto the white, the rest of the pattern is pieced.

Union flags II
Just before Christmas 2011 my stepdaughter asked me to help her make a gift for a friend who loves the Union Jack; she wanted me to help her make a cushion like mine.

Happy Christmas

Happy to encourage creativity in others I was pleased to assist, this time we bought fabrics, and I amended my technique to simplify the pattern, using more appliqué rather than piecing. The diagonals are all appliquéd on this cushion. The white fabric was lined to prevent the blue showing through.

We were very pleased with the result; I hope her friend was too.