Catch up Quilting

For once I'm in the position of having to catch up on the blogging not the sewing - a rare occurrence. The unpredictable British summer continued and the heat started up again.  August came and a family holiday to celebrate Dad's 60th year on the planet.  Unfortunately truck issues meant Olly couldn't come at the last minute so Debbie (Rahrah to the boys) came in his place.  So it's fitting that when back from vacances I picked up on a project abandoned many moons ago.  This quilt for Debbie was started maybe 3 years ago or more, the blocks were all separate still and there was little cohesion.  However, Debbie is a girl with crazy tastes so after our holiday I was inspired to continue.  I've joined up these 8 blocks and popped a border on.  The plan (in time for a Christmas present) is to add another 2 borders, one made up of squares of the original fabrics, then a plain one and then to go to town on crazy decorations, I'm thinking kitsch patches, sequins etc

My next project has a long history.  When my Granny and Grandpa moved into a nursing home their house was emptied.  My Mum and Dad saved me some bags of what appeared to be table linen.  On closer inspection these belonged to my Granny's father Charles Micklem.  Charles Micklem joined the Howitzer Brigade of the Royal Artillery and saw action at Gallipoli and in France.  He must have been quite a remarkable man as he found time to take a law degree while serving in the trenches.  What I had was a bag of his linen from World War I all monogrammed in some way.  I decided to make something for my Granny Dora out of these.  I'd seen a similar pattern to what I ended up making but couldn't find it so made it up as I went along and this is how it turned out:

The idea was for it to be a little envelope bag, so I sewed strips of slightly different patterned linens together, used a strange embroidered face/table cloth corner to be the flap.  I then lined it with a pretty floral fabric.

My final project of late has been one that I won't finish until I'm 101.  A charm quilt that has been on the go since I first heard the idea of no one piece of fabric being the same - what fun!  My Mother in Law explained EPP (English paper piecing) to me after I had already started using the most laborious method ever so I then thought that it had been pointless and chalked it up to experience...however, I revisited it and found that I can join EPP bits to it, so the charm quilt lives and will go on growing....gradually!

Should anybody ever ask, I know the history of all these little bits of fabric from my Nana's nightdress to a skirt I bought in River Island aged 15!

Binding Achieved!

Breaking with convention somewhat I have bound my quilt before I've finished quilting it and it's turned out to be a brilliant idea!  The raw edges of the quilt were really stressing me when I working on it and I think I needed to feel like some more progress had been made to spur me on.  It's meant my quilt feels a lot more secure to work on  and I've fallen back in love with it.

The weather has been terrible these last few weeks in what is supposed to be summer.  Having taken the boys to France with my Mum for a week at the end of June/beginning of July in a 40 degree heatwave I wasn't expecting to work on this quilt again until the season changed.  This is the largest quilt I have ever attempted and when working on it you feel like you're sitting in bed as it fits on a double bed!  So in a way this cooler spell has been a blessing although wearing socks and slippers in late July is just rude.

As you can see there's a lot of work to do, spiraling every light grey square and quilting in the ditch between everything else but there's a sense of achievement already in that it is now a functional item. If it snowed tomorrow, unlikely I know, I could gather everybody under this and watch Disney's Hercules for the 5th time this week.

Also we're redecorating the living room and so when we're all snuggled under this we'll be perfectly co-ordinated, almost camouflaged!

Spiral Quilting

We have quilt off!
It's a relief to finally be hand quilting this project and I'm starting to see it come together.

I took the boys to my parent's for the weekend so my husband could have his friends over for a boozy 'Super Saturday' (last day of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament for those blissfully unaware).  This turned out to be rather handy for the making of my quilt sandwich.  As I had started to lay out the backing fabric the folly of having this hobby whilst living in a Victorian terraced house became apparent - NONE OF MY ROOMS ARE BIG ENOUGH TO LAY OUT MY QUILT!!

Thankfully Mum & Dad's living room is bigger than mine

So when the boys were napping I started.  This was the lovely clear sky that followed the morning where we had a near total eclipse.  We didn't see any eclipse as it was so cloudy but it did turn eerily dusk like for half an hour or so and the day that followed was beautiful.

I feel the Emilly Herrick fabric is really working with this pattern but made me realise I will not quilt all of it in the way suggested in the pattern as the individual squares were solid colours.  I plan to quilt in the ditch around the coloured squares and the white strips and do straight line spirals in the larger grey squares.  My backing fabric is a darker grey from the lovely ladies at Sew Simple  in Taverham one of whom not only cut my backing fabric to size but also said that my children were definitely in the better behaved end of the spectrum she saw in the shop.  We thanked her and hastily left before they showed their true colours!

Under the Sea Baby Quilt

We knew a little person was expected across the road from us on the 18th February as our neighbour was booked in to have the baby by C-Section.  I had planned to make a quilt for this baby and as Amanda got larger and larger I kept on thinking well I better start soon!  On the 12th February I finally got into gear!  I decided to make a modern chevron based pattern I'd seen in Love Patchwork & Quilting (issue 4) by Manda McGrory.  I thought the mustard & grey she used were gorgeous but having left it until the last minute I delved into my own fabrics.

I chose a navy fabric and a blue/green batik and got going.

First look at blocks

  I had said from the beginning of the pregnancy that I thought the baby was going to be a boy but having committed to traditionally masculine colours I started to worry & thus a gender neutral themed quilt was born - Under the Sea.  I figured that the chevrons could look like waves...and if this baby was going to be inconveniently female we would just add a few pink fish at the end! 

Once the quilt top was assembled I started to rough edge applique some fish/seaweed/urchins etc onto it.  I really wished at this point I'd started earlier as I was tempted to keep going and going, I think it's definitely inspired me for future baby quilts!

Halfway through

The orange fish in above picture never made it to the final quilt but at this stage I had more pressing problems afoot - the baby had arrived and was a beautiful baby boy - Theodore Geoffrey John. When my two boys were born I'd received framed cross-stitch pictures with their details on and I loved them so much that decided to embroider Theo's onto the quilt.  For once I prepared and BOUGHT AN EMBROIDERY HOOP, I know, anyone would think I was learning from my mistakes.  

The Hoop in action

Once his name, date of birth and birth weight were embroidered I faffed about a bit with three blue fish I'd added in the seaweed and then fixed the fluffy blue backing.  The instructions were brilliant and I found the pattern easy to follow.  Below you can see the finished present, it's currently in the washing machine and will be given to Theo tomorrow - I hope he likes it and if he becomes a Marine Biologist I hope to take a little of the credit.

'Under the Sea' for Theo

 

  

Sick Note!

So here we are into a new year and the last time I wrote this blog progress was fast and satisfying.  We had a week or so to go before the start of advent and I had completed 5 out of 12 blocks but was starting to be able to put a block together in an hour (if the pieces were cut out and ready!) so felt that although it would be tight my deadline was achievable.  Then the first bug hit....Caspar was the first to be sick, then Elias, then myself then my husband.  Then Elias got earache, then I got earache, then Caspar was sick again and we continued in this vein until only really close family could bear to listen to us.  We were ill for so long it was boring people.
Then Christmas happened, we should have been expecting it but it crept up and the aprons I had decided to make for my Aunt, Sister and a friend's Mum had to be made.

So there it is.  I failed my first deadline! Now to pick it up and carry on.  I stole away to the top room where the Beast awaits and sat down to assess the situation...7 blocks complete and an 8th within what I felt was striking distance.

The Beast did not agree.  Maybe it's been lonely for her over Christmas but she went on strike.  So I packed her up in her case and sent her to Magdalen St to a lovely lady at Sew Creative for a service.  Fingers crossed she'll be OK.  In the meantime I shall return to hand sewing in a bid to catch up on some of the lost time.  Here is a picture of THE QUILT TOP SO FAR............(to be continued!)