Christmas Gifts

I made three people gifts for Christmas.  The first was a lap quilt for my daughter.  I'd bought a pack of Riley Blake's Seaside charm squares and wanted to make something that would use all of them, but being inexperienced I didn't realise that 25 squares don't go very far, so had to order some matching yardage to go with it.  I copied the Sandcastle Quilt from the Fat Quarter Shop which is a version of the Peyton at Play quilt, but I used my own measurements and worked out exactly how much I'd need.  Quite a lot of calculations involved but I had just enough with little to spare.

I took out the 3 squares that had children building sandcastles on them as I didn't think they went so well and replaced them with a bit of the border fabric.  The batting is Hobbs 80/20 cotton and the backing is plain cream cotton sheeting.  I quilted it on my machine using echo quilting around the central patches and straight lines about 3/8" apart around the border..  The double binding was stitched to the back by hand.  I finshed it off with a machined label.  The finished quilt measures 48" square.

The second gift was for a friend who had very kindly given me some cotton scraps to help build my scrap stash.  I made this table mat using a tutorial from the Moda Bake Shop.

I quilted it by machine following the zig-zag pattern.

My final gift was a pair of bags for another friend.  This is the smaller bag but I don't seem to have taken a photo of the larger bag that went with it.  It is the same design only bigger.  The fabric came from Ikea and they are lined with the burnt orange cotton fabric, also from Ikea.  I used a very good tutorial from bijoulovelydesigns.com.

I haven't done any sewing since Christmas, but I just can't wait to get started again once all the Xmas stuff is put away tomorrow.

Lily's Quilt

I made this quilt for my Great-great niece who was born at the beginning of December.  She was due after Christmas but decided to make an early appearance.

The fabric came from a Moda Scrap bag.  All of the strips were from the "Happy!" range by Me and My Sister Designs.  By the time I had cut the selvedges off I could cut 2" strips so that is what I went with.   The cream fabric came from a cotton bed valance I picked up at a charity shop for £2.  The batting is Hobbs 80/20 cotton. The binding is purple and came from a checked shirt.  I finished the binding with hand stitching on the back. The backing was another charity shop find.  One and a half yards of variegated poly-cotton for £1.50.  I've enough strips and backing to make another quilt this size, so quite a budget quilt.

This quilt measures 30"x39".   I quilted it using my new Husqvarna Viking Opal 670 in diagonal rows of a wavy stitch.  For the border I did straight lines using the edge of my walking foot to keep them straight and even.  This machine has an alphabet so I made a label and stitched it on by hand.

This quilt went together very quickly, completed in 2 days.

Chambray Rose

This is the second quilt I made.  I started this in September and finished it in November.  The fabric is all from one range - Chambray Rose by Shabby Chic.  I bought it from Pelenna Patchworks.  The pattern is called Garden Trellis and was a free download from The Whimsical Workshop.

I used 80/20 cotton batting by Hobbs and quilted it by hand.

I used another fabric from the range for the backing.  The finished size is 58" square, just the right size to use as a topper on my double bed.

My very first quilt

Last August  I made some bunting for my granddaughter's fifth birthday party.  She had a fairy princess themed party in the garden.  A pop-up gazebo was her castle, so the bunting decorated it beautifully.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it, but it was made from all my pink and green fabric scraps I had leftover from dressmaking.  When my daughter saw the bunting she thought it was perfect, but said that her old wooden garden table could do with a tablecloth to match. And so my venture into patchwork began.

I didn't have much fabric left, but did have a few odd pieces of green and pink.  I found out an old white cotton sheet, looked on the internet for guidance and this is what I came up with.

I went with half-square triangles so I could get more square blocks, and found a scrap of red to fill it out a bit more, adding a wide white border to make it a bit bigger. Each block is a finished 4" square.The back is just plain white and I bound it in single strips of the pink pattern stuff as I didn't have enough fabric to make it double. The quilting is just stitch in the ditch around each large square of the pattern, with echo stitching around the centre block.  There is no batting and it measures about 44" square.

I had it ready for my daughter's birthday two weeks later and she was delighted with it.  I enjoyed making it so much, my head became filled with so many projects I wanted to try and my time was taken up with scouring the internet and blog land for inspiration.  My new hobby had begun!

Good Intentions

A new blog to record my venture into patchwork and quilting.  I've always been interested in sewing but I've mainly made clothes or curtains, but now I've discovered how addictive patchwork can be.  I will post my creations here to record my makes.