On a whim

and on the scrounge.

The whim led me to enter a quilt in this week's Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell.  The theme is "quilts for teens" and as I was reading the blog post yesterday I thought, "I've made one of those",  and next thing I know I've uploaded a pic and a blurb and pressed "submit".  Not very like me, but I did.

This is the "Sweetest Sixteen" quilt I made for my niece last year - all funky Amy Butler goodness!

So now I'm on the scrounge for your votes.  If you have a wee mo and are interested pop over and see if my quilt is your fave.  If it is vote for it, or even for one of the others if they're better.  You could try entering the weekly giveaway while you're there.  Never know what you might win!

"Sweetest Sixteen" Quilt Finished!

It's finished, it's on time and I hope she likes it!

Sunglasses needed for that binding!

Sweetest Sixteen Quilt finished.

Bits and Pieces

So I put on my big girl pants and went for it and quilted the Soul Blossoms quilt in a wavy grid pattern, and I'm very happy with the result.

It's not fussy quilting which I don't think would be the recipient's style and it was fun to do (if quilting is ever fun - yep, it's the part I hate most in the process).  The fear of "should I? shouldn't I?"  with the quilting design originates in my inability to visualise how quilting lines that cut across or through the patchwork patterns will actually translate onto the fabric, and what effect they will have on carefully created patchwork designs.  This one turned out well, though.  And, I've since managed to machine stitch the binding so just need to finish it off on the back (hopefully over this weekend).

Also this week in the Sew Me "playroom"  I've been fiddling with scraps and ribbons and notions.  So far this is what I've got.

The maths went out the window on this one, so I'm making adjustments left, right and centre (literally) as I go along.  There's still quite a bit more to do but I'm in no hurry as this one is just for me and I've already been waiting 6 mths since I decided I wanted to do it!  BTW it's supposed to be a jewellery tidy, but we'll see how (or what) it ends up!

At class we played with our scraps and bondaweb last night, and ta da!

I'm showing you now before I let myself loose on it next week with my newly acquired sketching skills (ahem!).  So in case you never see it looking this beautiful again, you will know that it did at least have potential.  And yes, those are soul blossom scraps along with bits of my old denim skirt.  Finally, a little bit of SB to keep for me!

And lastly, I've been trying to think of an idea for my partner in the Mouthy Stitches Swap.  She's made a lovely mosaic and has been helpful in her comments on discussion threads, so I'm hoping I can make her something she really will like.  As a starting point, here are my design options -

They're all based on linen and embroidery with fabrics, possibly scrappy.  Hope at least one of them will be her type of thing!

Quick peek at Soul Blossoms again

It has been a busy weekend without much sewing so far I'm afraid, so not much to show you that's new.  I will show you this though

I did get the Soul Blossoms D9P top pieced during the week and I love it more with every stitch!  Now for the quilting.  I know what I'd like to do just not sure if I'm brave enough to try it in case it turns out to be a bad idea.  And no, it won't be fmq-ing, since this is not a 10" square old sheeting sandwich!

The exciting news for this weekend is that I can now put my deerstalker hat on and light my pipe for some sleuthing as partners have been assigned in the first round of the Mouthy Stitches Swap!

Soul Blossom D9P Progress

There is definitely something mad about sewing 9 patches together to have this

 only to then chop it again like this

all to sew it together again!

Of course, when you mix it up a little as the Disappearing 9 Patch should be, then you see why you would undertake this madness.

Love it!

And when you get 20 blocks stitched, chopped, re-stitched and trimmed square then you can have loveliness such as this -

Please don't tell me if you spot a patterned fabric which will meet itself when the blocks are joined.  We spent a fun (!) Saturday evening crawling around the floor arranging and re-arranging blocks to avoid such meetings.  I think I got there in the end!

I love these Amy Butler fabrics and think they mix up very nicely in the D9P.



PS - If you'd like to see a great tutorial for the Disappearing 9 patch block check out my lovely friend Judith's post here.

Soul Blossoms D9P Quilt

The problem with this hobby is that even when common sense is telling you not to take on any more big projects, beautiful fabrics and creative longings just keep coming and eventually overrule that common sense altogether (sometimes it really doesn't take that long)!

So...  my teenage niece LOVED her Soul Blossoms cushion that I gifted her for Christmas (what a relief!), remember it?

And, in among the other more random fabrics in my little "stash" are sitting the remains of the Soul Blossom fqs that I bought to have a good variety in her cushion.  At the time I justified the purchase of such a selection because I really loved them myself and thought I would make something for me with the leftovers.  However, seeing how much she loved them I want to use the remaining fabrics to make her a quilt she can love too and this fits in rather nicely with the fact that her sweet 16th is in Feb and I need to have a pressie for her (would help if it was in March actually, but I haven't yet learned how to magically shift a person's date of birth).

So with some very careful cutting to get 100 Soul Blossom squares from the remaining fqs (I had enough fabric for 102 squares!)  I now have this little pile of loveliness - with a new piece for binding - to make into 9 patches and then chop up again to make them disappear.  (Am I mad?)

Here's to another quilt in the making and hopefully making her even happier than her Christmas pressie did!

Soul Blossoms Cushion

At the end of August I showed you my cutting preparation for another gift cushion -

This cushion will be the second of my Christmas gift makes for my three nieces (sisters aged 2, 9 and 15).  First cushion blogged here.

Last weekend I got a chance to piece the cushion panels (front and back) together.  I know my cutting layout my have inferred some kind of cross pattern was ahead, but the reality is in fact much more simple.  I wanted to keep this cushion unfussy and to make the most of the larger scale prints that Amy Butlers Soul Blossoms are.  This gift is for my fifteen year old niece who is very beautiful and very fashionable and I don't want her to find it old-fashioned or wonder what on earth her fuddy-duddy aunt was thinking giving her patchwork for a gift.  So, I opted for this -

Front of cushion

Back of cushion

Front and back - positive and negative of each other

I really like this piecing which allows the fabrics to speak for themselves, and hopefully my niece will too when the time comes.  I'm happy to have made some progress on this but I'll be leaving the quilting and the finish aside for a bit as there's a lot going on here in the next couple of weeks.  Good to feel ahead of the game for once!  (Bet it'll be shortlived!)