Quilt for a New Little Star

I've been snatching little bits of time late on weekend nights to progress the scrappy wonky stars quilt for my cousin's new arrival and thought I was on target to make a finish before his mid-March due date, but he beat me to it by putting in an appearance last weekend!  Thankfully, by then, I had the top together and quilted with my go-to and much loved wavy lines.

So, some scrappy binding and a label was all it took to finish it off.

I'm looking forward to meeting this new little bundle of energy and gifting him his quilt soon. Of course, I'm also happy to be able to call this a second finish for my FAL Quarter 1 list.


Just to show you how hard it is to get quilt pics around here these days, here are the outtakes from my attempt to lay a quilt flat and snap a picture -

Um, yeah, this is the trade off for daylight pictures!! Lol!

FAL 2017: Meet the Host #2

This month FAL is introducing you to our host Jess from Elven Garden Quilts.  Many of you will have come across Jess in one way or another.  I first came across her blog and her brilliant posts when she was co-hosting the Decipher Your Quilt series with Leanne and it's been lovely to read lots more about her here in her introductory post. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Jess, otherwise known as Elven Garden Quilts. This is my second year as a FAL host, and although I'm not great at actually participating in the FAL (I have a pretty bad history of not finishing anything on my list!), it's great to be back to cheer you all along for a second year. I thought this was going to be a really hard post to write - but once I got started it was surprisingly easy. So I've inserted photos of some of my favorite quilts in amongst the text - feel free to skim the words if you'd rather just look at quilts ;o).

I'm a 36 year old mum of three not-so-small people - my eldest son (12 year old) started high school this year (grade 7), and I have a 9 year old son and a 6 year old daughter. Needless to say, moments of sewing have been few and far between over the last few months while they've had their summer holidays - but they went back to school last week, so there is some semblance of normality in our household again :o). I have an incredible partner too, who encourages me in all my quilty endeavours and listens patiently when I ramble on about my current projects. We also have two fur babies - Shadow and Pepper, our little quilt-cats, who spend at least 90% of their time asleep on various quilts and cushions around the house! I'll often go back to hand stitch binding and find my quilt has been invaded by cats ;o).

We live in Tasmania, Australia - that little island that sits off the southern coast of mainland Australia. It's a beautiful place to live - we don't have a huge population and we are surrounded by some of the most gorgeous wilderness in the world (in my humble opinion!). I grew up in a pretty arty/crafty family - my Dad studied ceramics at Art School and is an art teacher at a college, and my mum has always been involved with some sort of textile art. She made most of our clothes as kids, and is now obsessed with spinning and knitting all kinds of gorgeous yarn. So it's kinda unsurprising that I've grown up to be a maker.

Although I have a science degree (and work as a lab technician part time), I've always enjoyed making stuff. I started cross stitching when I was quite young, and continued that hobby right through to my university years. It wasn't until I had my youngest child that I decided to get a sewing machine - with the intention of making clothes and toys for my kids. I had fun doing this for a while, but then on a whim I bought a beginner's quilting magazine and that was the beginning of a true obsession. For me, quilting is the perfect marriage of maths and art - I love numbers and I love working with colour, so it's not surprising it has overtaken all of my spare time!

I started quilting around 5 or 6 years ago - and back when I started, my tiny sewing room overlooked the garden - so Elven Garden Quilts was born! After a few years, I outgrew that little room, so my 'studio' is now our garage - not the prettiest location, but I can be as messy as I want (and believe me, the term creative chaos fits me perfectly!) and close the door on it so no one else has to be subjected to it ;o).

I first started blogging for a few reasons. Mainly because I didn't actually know anyone who quilted and I didn't want to bore my family and friends to tears constantly talking about my quilts, and blogging was the perfect way to share what I was making. But it quickly became a way to connect with people all over the world who shared my passion. I'm ever in awe of how supportive and wonderful the online quilting community is, and my life would be very different if I hadn't started blogging. I am a self-taught quilter, thanks to the enormous generosity of so many people in sharing tutorials and ideas, and a love of trying to figure out how to make things work!

I loosely call myself a modern quilter - although I've made plenty of quilts that are far more traditional than modern! I think I'm probably best known for my love of free motion quilting - everything I piece is quilted to death on my domestic Bernina. About three years ago, I was actually invited to become a Bernina Ambassador here in Australia, which is an incredible honour :o). I have several free motion quilting tutorials available on my YouTube channel - and I plan on doing a lot more of these this year! I've been teaching patchwork and quilting classes on a weekly basis for the last three years (although I'm currently having a break, after burning out from a pretty hefty teaching load last year), which is something I absolutely love.

Last year was a big year for me as a quilter, both on a professional and personal level. I won several awards for my quilts at some of our national quilt shows (the Australian Modern Quilt Show and the Australian Machine Quilting Festival), and I taught a lot of classes - both patchwork and free motion quitling. On the personal side of things, I feel like I really grew as a quilter. Although I've always loved making quilts and been happy with the finished product, I've struggled to find my style. But in the last half of last year I feel like I started to find my voice, and started making quilts that are more 'me' than ever before. Although I've always used and loved my design wall, I now rely on it constantly as a tool to design my quilts. Aviatrix is one of the last quilts I made using someone else's pattern - and I think it will be the last for a fairly long time. I'm enjoying doing my own thing so much right now!

The last few quilts I've made (and my current work in progress) all started as a vague idea and a giant pile of fabric, and relied on my design wall to figure out what they would become. You can read all about the process I went through when making Scattered (shown below) here, here, here and here. And if you're attending QuiltCon this year, please go say hi to her - she was juried into the show which is enormously exciting!

I recently wrote about the process of making one of my recent finishes, Flow. Again this quilt started as a pile of fabric and a very vague idea (as in, I knew I wanted to use improv curves), but the design came together through trial and error.

Although I'm much better at starting and finishing projects than I used to be (which isn't to say I don't have any WIPs - there are lots of those!), I work best when don't feel like I *have* to work on a particular project. Which is probably why I make FAL lists and then largely ignore them... Having said that, I have several projects that have been ignored for far too long that I do want to finish this year, so next quarter you can expect me to fully participate and knock over some very long term WIPs!

Thanks for letting me introduce myself (and my quilts!), and I look forward to cheering you all on this year as you work through your FAL lists!

xx Jess

Happy Days BOM - quilt top centre

Three months of a gap since my last update on my Sarah Fielke 'Happy Days' BOM quilt wasn't part of the plan, but I am here today to report what feels like significant progress to me.

I finally stitched the last three of those border wreath blocks, enjoying the mix of low volume fabrics I chose.  After that, there was some late night shuffling of blocks last weekend just to get a better balance of colours across the quilt top.  I didn't move too many around, just made sure that the red wasn't allowed to dominate by congregating in that lower left hand corner.

Once I had the layout settled it was time to tackle step down piecing.  This was my first ever attempt at step down piecing and although it took a wee bit of concentration, I did eventually get a rhythm going and the top came together without the frustration I feared it might.  Sarah's video instruction and BOM notes were very helpful as always.

Of course, it took some time to get all of this stitched together so it was MUCH later than expected when I finished and I did suffer quilter's hangover the next morning!  I would not fear step down piecing again and in fact, welcome it for the variety it allows in a quilt construction other than just straight sewn rows.  One day I shall try it again, like when my WIPs list is much smaller ;-)

I know the late night photography and lighting has killed the beautiful colours in the fabrics of the quilt but trust me, it's very pretty and I am REALLY happy to have completed all of the blocks and the piecing, trying all sorts of new-to-me techniques along the way.  I hope anyone joining Sarah's new BOM for 2017 will enjoy it every bit as much as I have this one.

So now this quilt needs some borders and I am musing what to do.  There are three border options provided by Sarah for the BOM but I am considering doing something different from any of those.  There are a number of reasons for that. 1) I don't want this quilt to grow much bigger for the space I hope to hang it in eventually and Sarah's border options are quite substantial, 2) I need something that won't take forever and a day to do given my current dearth of sewing time and 3) the border options provided don't feel really "me".  Hence, the musing.  I don't want to make a choice that doesn't do justice to the work done so far, so I shall ponder a little more before making my fabric calculations and getting on with it.

I hope it won't take too long, though I do suspect that putting this quilt on my Q1 FAL list has been somewhat optimistic!

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.

Refreshing for Pressing

Grotty and gross are just about the only suitable words to describe my small ironing board cover.  Replacing it to make it look respectable again has been on my (very lengthy) To Do list for some time.  

I've even had the new fabric and wadding layers cut and ready for a while now.

Shame (and having posted it on my Q1 FAL proposed finishes) finally got the better of me and now my little board is all fresh to press on again.

This fabric is a dec weight from Ikea (£4/m) which I thought co-ordinated quite nicely with vintage tea cup patterns on my dresser which it sits next to when in use.

I wonder how long until it looks shameful again? ;-)

So, that's a tick for the first and easiest of my Q1 FAL Proposed Finishes.  Have you got a finish yet?

Cheer Up January Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner folks!

Since entries no 1 -21 were here on the blog, no 33 is an IG follower and the 12th commenter over there.

Congratulations Janine @janithom!!!  I hope this little parcel dropping through your letterbox will cheer up January a little, or maybe February by the time it gets all the way to Australia.  Have fun stitching in 2017!

Thank you everyone for entering.  I really appreciate your interest in my blog and my IG page - and, of course, pretty prizes ;-)

January Giveaway!

It has been a while since I had a giveaway and, since I have rather fallen out of synch with my blogiversary (it was 6 years in Dec), I have decided to have a little giveaway just to cheer up the very long, grey month of January.  This giveaway is going to be open to Instagram entries as well as entries here on the blog. It's only open today and tomorrow, so don't leave it too late to enter!

I want to share this lovely little Moda tin with one of you lovelies. When it reaches your home you might fill it with any number of lovely stitchy things but I can't send you an empty tin, can I?  So inside, I will include my very favourite brand of seam ripper (love this so much), a spool of Aurifil 2312, a little needle book and magnetic needle minder, and some little emergency chocolates (you can keep them until all the Christmas choccies have disappeared).  I will also send you a Bonnie & Camille Handmade charm pack to get your new year sewing off to a pretty start.  Interested?

To enter, you must be a follower. Leave a comment here telling me how you follow me (Bloglovin', IG etc).  That's all you have to do.

If you are following me both here on the blog and on IG you may have ONE entry on EACH, but any duplicate entries on either will not be considered.  Please include an email address or your IG name if you are a no-reply blogger so that I can contact you for mailing info.  If I cannot contact you, I will have to re-draw and that would be a shame.  When it comes to drawing the winner, I will number the blog entries from 1 onwards and then continue the numbering over on my IG post entries.  Hope that makes sense.

Entries will close at 22:00 GMT on Friday 20 January 2017.