Keeping up with the Kashubians

Firstly apologies to anyone of Kashub descent for that shocking title but it was too tempting to resist!

Without further ado let me just show you why we're talking about this ethnic group from North/Central Poland....

YES - a fabulous folk print, I'm getting obsessed with folk prints.  They're having a fashion moment and this is one you DON'T see everywhere.

This 100% cotton print and will shortly be available for sale on my website www.finecityquilting.co.uk and is inspired by the rich embroidery patterns of the Kashubian people.  Etsy is awash with beautiful Kashubian inspired embroidery and if you want to go back to the source to get some inspiration, I found this site really useful:  http://originalhandicraft.org/en/kashubian-embroidery-symbolism-and-history/

I'm thinking these patterns would look awesome quilted on a whole cloth quilt too...

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!

The Splendid Sampler is taking over my life!!

Since Valentines Day there has been a new love in my life...The Splendid Sampler!

The above shot was taken as we reached 18/100 blocks.  This project run by Pat Sloan & Jane Davidson is great fun...more to come soon WHEN I HAVE TIME!!!

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