Baby Beginnings

One of the new makes I referred to in my 2017 plans post is a quilt for my cousin's expected baby.

I mulled over lots of ideas and fabrics for a few months actually, but my mind kept coming back to scrappy.  (I think I found it hard to get a 'feel' for what my cousin might like, without asking directly, and I'd like it to be a surprise - sort of).  Scrappy wonky stars on a scrappy low volume background sort of forced their way to the forefront of my thoughts and before long I had raided my scraps and stash for fabrics, ready to make a start in the New Year.

I love how wonky stars make up so quickly, though these ones are only made up on the horizontal sections so far the upper and lower points have now yet been stitched in.  There's still a lot of piecing to go, but it's good to have made fair progress already.  Wonky stars never fail to disappoint me, just hope my cousin will feel the same when/if it's ready to gift to her.

Memory Quilts - Getting on with it

Doing my very best to stay focussed on the Memory Quilts here, even though so many other lovelies are calling my name from the various books, boxes and shelves of my sewing room.  La la la la - I'm not listening!  But oh how I wish I could.  Just for a small project or two.  I'm in the mood to do something I can start and finish in a weekend.  Must not give in, must remain focussed!

So, the result of such amazing self-denial is that the red pixel heart memory quilt top is now all pieced

and so is the aqua one.  I'm happy that both seem to have worked well and that the heart made from my Brother-in-law's shirt fabrics is well enough defined in each case.  These tops measure 60.5" which is a little smaller than Judith's original pattern (I used a slightly smaller square as my pixel base size).

I've hung the tops up for now as I ponder potential sources of backings - to piece or not to piece?  Will depend greatly on available suitable fabrics and available time and as you well know, pieced backing are not my favourite thing to do.  We'll see ....

With the pixels underway, I did break up the monotony of sewing so many squares together (there's a lot of them in two quilts!) by starting on the wonky stars that will be the feature of the memory quilt for our nephew.  I do love making wonky stars.  Nice tutorial here if you've never tried them before.

Once the aqua heart top was completed, I whipped up the remaining wonky stars (9 in total) and then spent an evening on my knees laying out the third memory quilt.  I do like these randomly placed stars and coloured pixels (stardust perhaps?) among the more muted shirt fabric background.

Layout finalised, I gathered everything up in labelled sections to make the piecing easier (I hope) and to avoid muddling up squares.  After spending so long trying to make sure no two same fabrics were touching, I do not want to get these shuffled up now!

So, looks like my weekend sewing is sorted.  What will you be up to?

Scraptastic Tuesday - Wonky Star Baby Quilt

Are you joining Nicky and Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday today?    I missed the first link up last month so I'm sharing my scrap related musings today.  The question of what constitutes a 'scrap' is one I think (and write) about quite often.  My time reading other people's blogs has convinced me that everybody has their own ideas on this. Nicky has a useful little list of what she considers scraps here, but I'm sure you all are already thinking of one or two other definitions to add to her list.  Leanne's thoughts on the subject are interesting too.

Perhaps scraps are simply those pieces of fabrics we don't consider 'stash'.  I'm shrugging my shoulders because I'm still not sure and my brain is always telling me that scraps are really only very small pieces.

Anyway, enough waffle. To counteract my brain's notion of a scrap and picking up on Nicky's first listed definition of a scrap - "anything left over from making a quilt" - today I am sharing this baby boy quilt top.

Cute little owls.

The wonky star / 9 patch mixed quilt top is made up of about 90% leftovers from this plus quilt which I made for my cousin's new son last year.  The "scraps" of that quilt were probably in the region of fat eighth sort of sizes, give or take a little and I have supplemented them with a few other fabric scraps in order to stretch them out to a quilt size.

I just love these teeny weeny foxes!

The original woodland themed fabrics were too nice to throw away and yet too specific really to be used in much else than a baby quilt.  Determination to raid my stash and scraps for project fabrics before resorting to purchases has impacted the quilt top somewhat in that it's not as ordered and balanced as it would have been had I chosen an all new fabric selection.  (Control freak alert!) But, therein lies the challenge and point of making scrappy quilts, right?

I treated this quilt to my wavy line quilting and think the yellow binding has really helped to re-balance some of the stronger blue tones a bit.  My same cousin has another baby due on Christmas day so if it's a boy, he can have this partner quilt to his big brother's.  If it's a girl .... well, I have something else in mind for that.

Happy scrapping!

Linking up to Scraptastic Tuesday.


Oh and before I forget, this finish qualifies for one tick off my Finish-A-Long Quarter 4 list!  Yay!

Not all plain sailing

Finished up my wonky star cushion from class this week -

The design for the cushion is to have a positive side and a negative side which works really well for the fabrics I chose for this one.  I love the splash of turquoise among the charcoal and white, and the postmark stamp fabrics is really fun without being too childishly novelty.

I used a lovely turquoise thread to outline quilt the star - works a treat against the charcoal.

The real challenge for me in this class (aside from trying to achieve wonk with a brain that likes straight!) was inserting an invisible zip.

Now I know I've had a go at zips before - in cushions and in pouches, but if I'm honest it's all a bit hit and miss with me and the zip.  My efforts for the Mouthy Stitches Swap earlier this year were reasonably successful, but something seems to happen when I try to get the needle close to the zip teeth and keep running straight along the bulk of the fabric and wadding layers.

The insertion of this zip was not fun, entirely user error, of course, but not fun!  If you could see closer up you would see two or three lines of unpicked stitches on that charcoal Kona.  Other than that it looks okay from this distance now, but it really could have and should have been better.   The pattern instructions were great and the class demonstration made it all look so straightforward but, me and my zip foot have issues - we may need some therapy to work them through!  It almost feels like I should use the quilting foot to keep it all feeding nice and evenly through the machine, rather than the zip foot itself.  Hmmm, need to figure this one out ...

In the meantime, I do have a lovely finished cushion and I don't expect the invisible zip police to be inspecting often!



PS - If you're at all interested in the pattern for this cushion it is available on the Just Jude Etsy shop (and be assured the zip issues are all mine not the fault of the pattern).

New Things

Two new things for you tonight ...

First up is my new class project - charcoal and white wonky stars for a boy cushion.

I'll be adding in a splash of this turquoise too.

It's been a great excuse to cut into the postmarks fabric which I LOVE.

I've not been able to go to classes for a while and it was so much fun to be back among friends, stitching up a storm and maybe having a giggle or two as well!

And, being back at class brings me to the second new thing I have to share.

Click here

Fiona, who I met at class in January, is discovering or perhaps re-discovering her love of stitching and has taken to class like a duck to water.  It was the beginning of the slippery slope (you all know what I mean, admit it) and now she's stitching away, nurturing a seedling addiction to fabrics AND she has started her own blog.  Please, please pop over and visit her at Sew Fi as she settles in and finds her blogging feet and voice!  Last weekend she bought fabric and made a quilt all in a day!  The girl's got it bad (in the best possible way), I tell you.  Go visit and leave her an wee word of encouragement - you know how much that means to all of us.

Hope you are all getting a fair share of the glorious sunshine.  Have a fun weekend!

Trio of Totes

Squeezed in some time in the sewing room last weekend and came up with these three totebags -

This one is child sized and is my favourite of the three!

There are plans for these wee bags but that's a story for another day.

I have also been working on another small Bee Blessed pram blanket, this time in blues -

I love this one!  There's another one to come which I love too - it's a brights one (watch this space).  Check out the pink one here.  I have loved the challenge of making sure these extra blocks get a special finish to allow the group to spread more blessings to their recipients.  If your blocks are here, I hope you like the finish, and thank you so much for your contribution.

Hive of Activity

Sorry about the pun, but if you'd been at my house yesterday afternoon when the Bees descended upon it you'd know that I really couldn't title this post anything else.

It was our second meeting of the Bee Blessed group and it was time to get busy laying out and piecing all those wonderful wonky star blocks into quilt tops for those who could use a little blessing and thoughtfulness in their lives.

I wish I had had the foresight to take a snap when the Bees were busy laying out blocks all over my living room floor - it was like patchwork carpeting!  Here's what my room looks like

now imagine the sofa on the right pushed all the way back and that entire space covered in wonky stars!  Why didn't I think to lift the camera?

 My normally spacious kitchen/dining area

swarmed with Bees and was transformed into this -

It became the hub of industry as these wonder women, stitched, ironed, trimmed and laughed their way through a few hours to quilt Susan's beautiful quilt top

piece a blue boy quilt

sorry about the blurry pic

a pink girl quilt

and a blue mix/girl print quilt

Judith and I can't thank the ladies enough for all their hard work yesterday, nor our blog friends for your generous block contributions - you're all amazing!  Thanks so much!

Next time we hope to get them finished and make a start on something new.  Those of you interested in the next blocks should keep a wee eye to the flickr group or Judith's blog.