What can I say? I ‘ve still not finished 
the BIG quilt and as we are experiencing a bit of a heatwave here in the UK I am spending quite a lot of the early morning and evening hours wielding hoses and watering cans around the garden and allotment. These are my excuses reasons for not compiling an edition of Saturday Quilting Bring and Share for last weekend. I also have over 90 blog post email notifications stacked up in my inbox :-O I’m loath to discard them as I know just how long it will have taken to compile each of those blog post! My intention is to enjoy reading my way through the back-log and share what grabs my attention on my Pins of the Week Pinterest board and/or in the next edition of Saturday Morning Bring and Share 🙂
Away from the sewing room I have been getting on with some hand sewing. We (hubby and me) sat down one evening and watched a favourite film. I’ve seen ‘The Dish’* (see orange text below for more information about the film) several times so I could keep track of the story whilst stitching down the binding to a quilt. As a result I have a finish to share.
This is my version of the Beginners Quilt, made alongside the class and used as my demonstration model. The fabrics are a mix from my stash and Viv’s stock at Purple Stitches. The colours look fresh and cool – even in a photo taken outside in the bright sunshine. I altered Viv’s basic design (well! it was my fifth time making this quilt!), adding a bunch of half-size squares in the centre of the quilt top. It was an ideal practice piece for my feather quilting.
There’s a free motion feather wreath in the centre with an orange peel design across the rest of the small patchwork squares. I switched to my walking foot to stitch a cross-hatch design through the larger squares before reverting to the free motion set up for feathers in the borders and feather swirls in the corner patches. I’m pleased with my efforts and I like the final addition of the scrappy binding. IT’S A FINISH!!!
*The Dish is based on the true story of how NASA relied on a huge satellite dish situated in the middle of a sheep farm in Australia to relay the footage of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. The blurb on the back of the DVD reads ‘The Dish is a warm-hearted and hilarious comedy based on a true story of what the world didn’t see’. I don’t know about ‘hilarious’, it is funny and warm-hearted whilst conveying the wonder of that Apollo 11 space mission and the heroism of the people involved. Well worth a watch 🙂
Linking with Connie at Free Motion by the River for Linky Tuesday and Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Bee Social. Connie is recovering from a bout of illness and shares a link to a beautiful Autumnal quilt while Lorna is sharing some photos of quilts made using her animal patterns.
Allison
Post Script: I’ve completed the quilting on the BIG Carrie Nation Variation Quilt and machine stitched the binding to the front. Wahoo!
Now for several hours of peaceful hand stitching…. I wonder which film(s) I should stick in the DVD player?
Linky Tuesday
Chocolatier BOM and a Seaside Break
I’m back in the sewing room after a sensationally sunny break by the sea 🙂 We drove to Eastbourne on Friday to attend the 10th Bible By The Beach conference. It was our first time staying in the seaside town. Look at these photos of the tiled path leading up to our B&B hotel. No patchwork quilter could fail to feel anything but welcomed by such a sight!
I tell no lie the sun shone for four days and we did not see a cloud during our whole stay! You can imagine the seafront was busy with many holiday makers and day trippers making the most of this rare event – warm sunshine over an entire Bank Holiday weekend! Our B&B was less than a minutes walk from the seafront. Each morning we woke early and took a walk along the promenade – between 7 and 8am – we saw people running, roller blading and or/walking their dogs and a magnificent clean-up team emptying bins and preparing the seafront for the days visitors. The sun sparkled on the sea and gave a comfortable warmth – such good memories of those pre-breakfast walks 🙂
Bible By The Beach was attended by around 800 people. Meetings were held in a local theatre. The speakers were all excellent, giving such encouraging and challenging messages from the Bible. There were children’s groups running alongside the meetings for adults. The children’s groups venues included the Eastbourne Tennis Centre (that’s where the pre-Wimbledon ladies tennis tournament takes place each year – the grass looked in excellent condition!). Music for worship was provided by the very talented EMU Music.
Now we are back home and thankfully the sun continues to shine so I’ve been giving our washing machine a workout after it’s weekend rest…
But back to the sewing room…
The Chocolatier BOM organised by Viv at Purple Stitches is drawing to a close. After 11 months all the 6″ blocks are complete and it’s time to cut the background materials and put the whole quilt together. This is Viv’s rainbow colourway Chocolatier quilt:
I’ve been holding monthly workshops to give some tips and advice as partakers tackle new techniques. As a result I have a full set of blocks (well! I do need to make four more of the border strip blocks…) but I’ve decided not to make the full size quilt. So today I’ve been playing with possible layouts: switching between arranging virtual blocks on EQ7 and rearranging the actual blocks up on my design wall.
My EQ7 design is pretty rough but it’s helping me try out different ideas. If I stick with this on-point layout I will need to make one more block to fill the gap in the lower right hand corner. I have some left-over fabrics so I should be able to do that. I’m thinking I will break up the blocks with some narrow sashing as shown in the EQ7 design. I’m enjoying designing the layout using the computer alongside the physical design wall. I’m switching between the two – sometimes making a change on the computer and then implementing it on the design wall, other times moving the blocks on the design wall before recording the alteration on the computer image. Much quicker than using paper, pencil and eraser!
Linking with Connie for Linky Tuesday at Free Motion by the River.
Allison
A finish, a missed deadline and a piecing tip
I am having one of those weeks when I can be very glad my diary looks fairly blank. The unexpected has been happening and although my to-do list doesn’t have many ticks I have been busy! An elderly friend has had a fall at home and requires a course of treatment in hospital. I’m glad to have had the time to help her and to meet up with more of her friends from her other social circles. Her situation – no close relatives – hi-lights the importance of nurturing friendships. Most of us don’t have a ‘developing friendships’ tick box on our to-do lists but time ‘doing’ friendship should never be counted as wasted time 🙂
I have a finish to share 🙂 Finally I have put the last stitch in the binding of ‘Morning Mist’. Sadly that last stitch was secured eleven hours too late to share this quilt in the April One Monthly Goal linky but, none-the-less, I am counting Misty Morning as my April goal achieved.
I stitched the label to the backing last year – just before making the quilt sandwich, just before the sandwich then became a UFO. The label therefore states the quilt’s date of making as February 2017! Ah! Well!
I will be adding a photo of the quilt to my 2018 Gallery (click the button at the top of the page to see my – small – collection of finishes). And I will be adding the quilt to the collection in my Folksy shop.
So that’s the story of the finish and the missed deadline mentioned in the title of this post. Now for the ‘piecing tip’:
Last Saturday the fifth Beginners Course got underway at Purple Stitches quilt store. In the first of the four sessions I teach rotary cutting, stitching accurate ¼” seams and we begin piecing patchwork blocks. Along with the class notes, I provide a page of little number labels – one label to pin to each of the sixty-four fabric squares required for the quilt. Once the students are happy with the arrangement of their fabric squares and have decided on the orientation of any directional fabrics I encourage them to label each square.
I find this numbering and labeling of patchwork blocks actually saves a lot of time. I number each label like this: the first digit corresponds to the row; the second digit to the position along the row. The numbers work from the top left block of the layout (label 1.1) to the bottom right (for this quilt, label 8.8). In the past I have just used little scraps of paper and scribbled the numbers on with a pencil. For my students I thought it might be kinder (and more professional) to produce a printed sheet.
If you would like a copy of the labels try clicking this link and hopefully you will be able to download the PDF file 🙂 Row and block markers – 8 x 8
I find numbering each block in this way does save time during the piecing process:
- It’s possible to stack all the blocks next to my sewing machine and go in for some great chain-piecing action.
- If I drop the blocks or muddle the blocks at the
ironing boardpressing station (Ha!Ha!) it’s possible get them back in order without having to lay them all out again and check the arrangement. - The numbered labels help me keep the blocks up the right way. Otherwise, in the short movement of lifting blocks from the table at the side of my sewing machine to bringing them under the needle, blocks have a strange habit of spinning in my hands and having the wrong edges stitched together!
A few minutes adding labels can avoid having to spend a lot of time unpicking seams 🙂
Caveat – This system is not foolproof. I, Dear Reader, must count myself a fool. Look what I managed to do last night – I placed the higher numbered block under the lower numbered block and stitched them together! Resulting in blocks being the wrong way round – TWICE!!! 😀
I’m adding this and other tips to my newly launched Facebook group called ‘Patchwork Tips and Tales’ – you can access the group via my New Every Morning page. I hope you will consider joining this branch of the worldwide quilty community. My intention is that the group will allow us to share tips, learn from one another and help find solutions to patchwork or quilting project problems members may encounter. I’m very happy for you to share links to your blog posts and helpful tutorials with the other members of this closed, members only, group. I look forward to receiving your membership request and welcoming you into the Patchwork Tips and Tales group 🙂
As I stated at the top of the post I will have to give quite a bit of time over to dealing with the unexpected, and here in the UK we have a Bank Holiday weekend coming up too, so I’ve decided not to create a Saturday Quilting Bring & Share post this week. The posts will be back through the rest of May and on into the Summer – that’s as long as I’m not in for a run of ‘unexpecteds’!
Linking with Connie at Free Motion by The River for another Linky Tuesday – click the link and find lots of patchwork & quilting inspiration, storage ideas and maybe a recipe or two as well 🙂
Also linking with Amanda Jean for Finish It Up Friday – she’s been finishing a UFO too!
Allison
A Finish; A New Ruler; A One Monthly Goal; and a Fresh Start
The Plus Sign quilt is finished and I’ve been ‘wing clipping’ (no chickens were harmed in the production of this blog post!)