Ikea

Yesterday I went to Ikea just to check out what they had in fabrics. I found these cute prints which I believe have been out for a while now. They are prepacked in little bundles. There are lots more designs to chose from but one can go overboard if not careful and I am going to a fabric sale tomorrow so I need to save some money for that too.

I haven't ironed out the wrinkles yet

After searching the kiddies section I went to the real fabric section and in the soft furnishings range I bought 3 fabrics with a project in mind. I wanted to make a thank you present for a friend who had my family over for dinner last week and I forgot to bring a present along.

So I made this pot mitt glove for her. It will match her slate grey kitchen.

Too Pooped to Pop

Usually my weekend is filled with the clacking and vibrations of my sewing machine. The table top is buried by scraps of fabric in all shapes and sizes. The carpet is strewn with fibres and threads and I am happy.
This weekend was devoted to cleaning, tidying, rearranging furniture and preparing for 30 plus eighty year olds and a few of us 'young ones.'
My nephew and his wife, who live in Adelaide, have a new baby boy and my 86 year old father in law decided he just had to have a party to show of the baby to his buddies. The baby and Mum are here for a visit while dad plays cricket in South Africa. We ate, drank and ate some more and everyone had a great time before going to their respective homes for their Nana naps.
It's now 3pm. The house is clean, although another load has to go in the dishwasher, and it's all quiet.
But I just can't move. My mind is saying 'Get your gear out and start making,' but my body is saying that it's not going anywhere. Maybe later....
Anyway just because you can't post without a photo, I will show you what I have been working on for the last couple of months. It's another baby blanket but I am not really that happy with it. I'm just going to show you bits in case it doesn't work out.

I thought this would take a day to knock up.

With most of the squares laid out and some cutting still to go, it didn't seem too big a job. I thought a solid day sewing and it would all be put together. How wrong I was. After sewing and cutting for 6 solid hours I still had two thirds to go and had to get my family to carefully walk around the carpet to get to the dinner table. 

My design rug is right in the middle of the house and the main thoroughfare to the living spaces. The family are fairly used to my mess so I left it there on the floor over night. Another whole day and night of sewing and still not done. 

Finally, day three and here it is.

I have to say that I am in love with the colours and the way it's turned out but my poor fingers are aching and my back is not much better. I made the squares 3" which means they ended up only 2.5". The quilt is not all that big but I don't want to add a border. I might just have to do it all over again but with larger squares.

Colour Madness

The crazy log cabins I made were taken away and assembled by Rivka and then the borders were added by me. Here is a sneak preview until it goes away to be quilted. I get to put the binding on and the colour mad lady who ordered this baby should be very happy!

The design was inspired by this......

Talk about different!

This one was made for me and is almost finished.

In Your Dreams

I was meant to go to school on Thursday to work with my year level partner but he cancelled and I was left with a day unplanned. Out came the Kaffe Fassett fabric because I had an idea which involved cool blues and green, shot cotton and stripes. I was going to make a very basic pattern which hopefully would capture the movement through colour and stripes.
Shot cotton is beautiful but is loosely woven and at times has a mind of it's own. I wanted my stripes to all point in the same direction. Cutting triangles, sewing 2 colours together and getting a perfect square is a nightmare. It was time consuming, fiddly and annoying. I know how to lay 2 squares together, draw a diagonal line down one, sew on either side of the line and cut them in half but that doesn't help with stripes as they all end up pointing the wrong way
Anyway, I plodded along and was very happy with the beginnings as I lay the pieces out on the carpet. This may not end up the colour layout but I wanted to see if the idea was going to work.

I packed it up for the night and so far so good.

That night I went to sleep with no thought of the quilt on my mind.

In my sleep though, the shot cottons, stripes and pain of having to cut more triangles must have weighed heavily on my mind.

This is what I dreamt.

Take 2 squares, measured to the correct proportions. I wanted to end up with 3" squares so I cut 4.75" squares which would give me 4 lots of 3" squares with 2 x stripes going horizontally and 2 x stripes going vertically.

Place one square on to the other and pin it in the middle.

Now sew with the usual 1/4 " around all 4 sides

Iron it flat.

Carefully cut the fabrics through corner to corner diagonally both ways, trying to keep it still so its straight.

Open the triangles and iron them flat and you will have 4 squares as neat as can be!

 

As you can see, 2 have stripes going one way and 2 have stripes going the other.

These took me about a minute to put together whilst the ones I made the day before took much longer, wriggled and became askew.

Now most likely someone thought of this before, or maybe I read it in a book at one time or another but I really don't care. I am just so excited at how easy these were to make.

Design Brief - The more colourful the better!

During this week I had a fun day sewing with my friend Rivka. A friend of hers has commissioned me to help sew a quilt and Rivka was going to help, donate the fabric and learn the techniques as we went along. Well we had lots of fun making wonky log cabins with the most ridiculous fabric from Rivka's stash. I never photographed the squares but I did manage to capture the outer borders.

Rivka was so inspired she went home and sewed all the blocks together. I can't wait to see what it looks like.

I think size does matter!

There is a certain amount of envy and awe in my bones when I read Red Pepper Quilt's blog. Everything seems to match, fit exactly and is stitched evenly.
On the weekend I attempted to machine quilt a cot quilt. Usually I make big quilts and they always cause me grief with pinched stitches where the lines meet.
Here is what I discovered on the weekend.
If you pull down on the quilt as you stitch it, the fabric stretches enough to stop the folding over at crossroads. I have always tried to spread the fabric horizontally. Now I hang on to the the part that has just gone under the needle at the back, and the bit that is feeding in through the front. The quilt is stretched vertically (in the same direction as the stitching).
Next I decided not to quilt in the ditch as according to the guru at Red Pepper - it's harder.
Lastly, I think the fact that the quilt was only little also made a huge difference. I didn't have to carry all the weight of the fabric, roll it up to fit through the machine or concentrate for so long.
So small it better when we are talking about quilting!

I stitched everything in one direction first

And then I went the other way.
It's still not perfect but no pinched fabric makes me so happy.

I am on holiday from school at the moment so I spent 5 hours whipping up another quilt with my friend Rivka. We made 25 X 9" blocks out of some of her scrap fabrics. Her friend is paying me to make the quilt and Rivka is supplying the fabric. Silly me, gave her back the blocks without taking photos but they will have to come back for the sashings etc. I just have to wait for them to choose colours.

I did get to read, go out for coffee and have a walk in the sunshine too.