The Beast from the East

Having ventured to Copenhagen in February half term I thought we were hardy to this cold....but no!  We didn't count on the Beast from the East and being in the East of England (Norwich) we really got hit by it!

A few weeks ago I felt that nothing I was sewing was coming from the heart.  I started reading about improvised quilts and felt like 'Yes!  This is what I should be doing!'....it wasn't easy.

Olly and I had been missing skiing and wishing we'd booked to go and gradually the blocks and different sized half square triangles were forming something like a mountain scene.

For once instead of feeling like it 'had' to develop into a quilt I decided to have a go at a wall hanging.  I feel I should let you know that at this point I felt that I was making the best of a bad job but I guess that's part of finding yourself as an artist is to let yourself make these mistakes and grow with them.

Starting to quilt this wall hanging was a relief, with my complete lack of FMQ skills I decided to just jump on in and give it a go...I wanted swirling wind/mist round the mountains....I got this!!

Do you know what though...I finished it and then took it out to play in the snow!

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

 

  

Quilt Update!

Well, it's taken me ages to cut out most of my blocks.  Caspar has been cutting his 2nd tooth and refusing to sleep at the same time as his brother at lunchtime so I've still not finished cutting out the white strips that frame them....BUT I couldn't resist any longer and had to join a few blocks up to motivate me onwards.

I've decided to machine piece this quilt as I want to see results quicker which has some irony as my sewing machine (we'll call her The Beast), is two floors up so escaping up there without waking sleeping babes is often time consuming in itself.

The Beast

The Beast used to belong to a lady who lived on the Isle of Wight in my Father-in-Law's Parish (he is a Church of England Vicar), and when she died her husband gave her sewing box and machine to my Mother-in-Law. Along with the Beast came a box filled with bobbins, a few different feet and threads.  I don't know the lady's name or anything about her but the smell that comes when you open the box is very much a person's smell (not in a bad way), and consequently I feel strangely linked to her whenever I use it.  The Beast is my first sewing machine - she is a Singer and I love her.  Except when I'm having bobbin dramas but more of that another day.

With much fanfare here are my first two blocks, of course as soon as I'd chain pieced a few more a wished I'd finished cutting them out first BUT I find being purely logical a struggle and it is nice to be reminded again of why you're doing something.  So onwards and upwards, I hope to report back within a week or so with more blocks pieced!

The Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

This next quilt was put together hastily with the onset of Winter.  Elias was born in September 2012 and within weeks the weather was getting cooler.  We had decorated his Nursery in the theme of the children's book by Eric Carle 'The Hungry Caterpillar'.

 A crib made for my brother Jonathan by my Grandad  was used again and a huge green leaf from Ikea stood over it.  The walls were painted sky blue and I made small pictures of the caterpillar chomping his way through leaves and all the other bits and bobs he eats (NB I could tell you - I know the entire wretched book by heart).

The quilt top was several simple 'Pinwheel' blocks.  I used two 'Hungry Caterpillar' fabrics and these were interspersed with a tablecloth which had belonged to my Grandparents.  Neither my Nana or Grandad are with us any more and so using something of theirs to help keep my baby warm felt right.  I think this is the reason I find throwing fabric away so hard, surely every piece is right for something!

This quilt was the first time I had used my new but old Singer Sewing Machine and close inspection would show it!  I'm still so new to patchwork and quilting that I couldn't tell you my preferred technique but given the practical need for this quilt I appreciated how quickly it came together because of the machine.

Soon it was time for Eli to move into his big boy bedroom to make room for someone else.  In February 2014 Caspar was born, and here is No. 2 son modelling No. 2 Quilt.