Sheep Bag

Yesterday was another of our sporadic Houston buddies sewing days and we were joined by another lady who is coming to Ireland with us next week (the Irish Quilt Festival). I had a very productive day making this cute bag, I just needed to put the button on when I got home. I bought the sheep fabric when we were on holiday in Brecon last year and have been wanting to make a bag from it for ages. I bought the black fabric on ebay and the button is a self-covered one. I used Pellon 987 fusible fleece as wadding and there's very little quilting on it, I didn't want to detract from the fabric design.  I used the Bow Tucks pattern, but left off the front pocket, again because I didn't want to take away from the cute sheep fabric.  If I made it again I would try to position the sheep a bit better, one has ended up with the button on her face!

Quick Cushion

Last weekend I went on a Philippa Naylor free machine quilting course at the Bramble Patch, what a fun but intense day it was.  I have done one of her courses before, and was extremely pleased with how much my control has improved in the intervening years.  As we were at the Bramble Patch, it would have been rude not to bimble around the shop and buy something :o).  This cushion kit caught my eye straight away and had to come home with me.  As Monday was a bank holiday, it also got made up very quickly.  It was good to practice my free machining straight away.

Nic's Quilt

This quilt has been a very long time in production, but was recently finished.  There's nothing like having a deadline, I'm taking it with me to South Africa.  It's got a Quilters Dream mid loft poly wadding (black) and I used a Valdani thread for the quilting.  Most of it is hand-quilted, including the large stipple stitch, but there is also some machine quilting to stabilize the whole thing.  I'll try to take some better pictures once I'm in SA and I have a few more hands to help hold it up!

Another Finish

After about 3 years of on and off hand quilting, I have finished this lovely little cot quilt.  There was never a destination or deadline, it was just a hand sewing project that I would take with me to any exhibition or event where there was an opportunity to sit and stitch quietly.  The front and back fabrics are commercial batiks and the wadding is Quilters Dream Wool.  It's quilted with a King Tut thread, they're as good for hand quilting as machine. The pattern is a Sandie Lush one, I can't remember the name. I'm very pleased with how it's turned out, so much so that I'm busy marking up the next one - Fleur by Sandie Lush.  Much as I love the pattern I've done, there were a lot of short lines and much turning of the quilt while working on it, so the new pattern has a lot more flowing lines.  Only one disappointment with the finished quilt, I seem to have spilt some tea on it at some point, I don't remember doing this, but I'm going to have to try to get it out.  How frustrating! 

Cute Box

My quilt group ran a box-making workshop recently, it was lead by one of the group members and it was a thoroughly enjoyable day.  The lady running it was extremely well organised, her husband had cut kits of daler board and we just had to supply fabric and glue.  She had also baked a couple of very yummy cakes, what more can you ask for?  I made a fabric flower for the top of my box from the book Kanzashi in Bloom, it's a very inspiring book and I'll be making more of these I'm sure. 

Bags

I've neglected the quilting blog of late, it's not that I haven't been sewing, rather that I haven't achieved very much with said sewing. However, a couple of weeks ago I had a head cold, I didn't feel like doing anything big, but I did fancy making "something". The result of this creative surge is two bags, one a casual shopping bag made from an Amy Butler pattern called the Swing Bag and the other a lunch bag made from a pattern I saw in a recent Australian Homespun magazine. I used Insul-bright for the wadding, so hopefully it will have some thermal properties, I'm sure it's more than adequate to keep my lunch in good nick on my Wednesday sewing days :o). You may recognise the fabric of the Swing Bag from the Happy Quilt, I've got enough leftovers to make a couple more quilts, let alone a small bag and scarf!




I did also recently make a bed topper for my yoga teacher in exchange for a yoga massage, which took much longer than anticipated as I tied it. However, in my haste to finish it and hand it over, I forgot to take a photo :(. I will try to remember to ask her to take a quick snap, I was pleased with the end result.

In addition to this, I've been quilting the Christmas Quilt. I've also been doing a lot of reverse sewing, hence the delay in updates. I did at one point think it was done bar the binding, but there were so many tucks and pleats in the border quilting that I had to take it all out and go back to the all-over pattern, rather than just having that in the middle with something different round the edges. When it's done I will post a picture - my target is to get it finished before Christmas. I seem to have been working on it forever, but looking back at the blog I see it's only since mid-May. Having said that, that's nearly 6 months ago ...

July Christmas Quiltalong - Good Progress

The Glace quilt now has the centre quilted, I really like the way the back looks too. "Just" the border to do!