WIP Mash Up

I’ve got so many projects on the go and in various stages I thought I would post a few…

I bought myself one of those quick curve rulers quite sometime ago just to make this block they had posted on their blog. It’s such a cool ruler and I’m always so impressed with what smart women out there come up with. I got 3 blocks made and then moved on to other things, realizing that I wasn’t going to make a whole quilt. So here I am auditioning the blocks in order to make a table runner.

I think I have enough of this brown to make a border and call it done. I’m not really sold on the brown but I told myself I’ve got to start using up some of my stash.

Here I’ve used more of the focus fabric but I think it’s too much of a good thing. I just love that fabric but maybe I’ll use it on the back.

This is some of the double gauze everyone has been talking about. I can really see the attraction – so soft and appealing. I found it at my “local” fabric shop – only a 70 mile round trip. This past summer the building next to them caught on fire and, although their building didn’t actually burn, there was so much smoke damage they were in ruins. They have been closed for several months and have recently reopened in a new location with all new stock arriving all the time.

Who could resist these mama and baby elephants ?? No, there are no babies on my horizon but I’ll make some receiving blankets to have on hand for gift giving. The gauze was on sale for half price – $13.00 a meter so, SCORE ! Apparently receiving blankets made out of double gauze sell for $40.00 each :0

I’m slowly working on my Gardenvale cross blocks. These are actually quite quick to sew so I have no excuse other than having a short attention span. I’ve also been doing some random paper piecing that I didn’t take pictures of.

This bunch of lovelies has been sitting in the wings for awhile now. Argh, I just looked it up, I bought these late fall of 2012 !! Since I can’t remember if I ever had a plan for them I have been going round and round trying to choose a project for them… Moda has a great sampler block quilt along going right now, have you seen it ? Here’s a link. So that’s another option in the huge wide sea of options out there… isn’t it hard to focus on just one idea at a time ?

Happy Sewing to you all, thanks for having a look.

Linking up with Lee over at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesdays.

 

 

 

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A Quilt for my Son

This is the quilt that I made for my son. It has been finished for awhile now but I was really disappointed with the longarm quilting so it has been folded away in a dark corner. I think when disappointment strikes it is best to leave some time and space… move on to other things and look at it with fresh eyes at a later date. So that’s what I’ve done and it’s time to quit pouting and show it to the world !

This is the largest quilt I have ever made. It measures aproximately 71″ x 86.5″.

The fabric collection is Parson Grey’s “Seven Wonders” with some Robert Kauffman Essex linen dusty blue, russet and lime as well as some solid brown for the background. Nobody does masculine prints like David Butler !

I used the “rain” print for the backing.

The blocks are 15.5″ and made with hst’s. I didn’t follow any pattern, I just started putting up blocks on my design wall and went from there.

I wanted to bring the quilt up to a twin size so I added a 4.5″ border

There are a lot of problems with the quilting on this quilt. The person that I took the quilt to owns a professional longarm business and she has done quite acceptable edge to edge quilting for me in the past. With this quilt I paid extra for the centre to be quilted with one swirling design and for the border to have a separate quilt pattern. As you can see in the close-up below, there are quite a few wobbles and the centre of the pattern crosses at different places everywhere.

click the picture to see more detail

I didn’t take any close-ups of the backing but there are a lot of little “nests” of thread where she may have been having tension issues with her bobbin. I am not sure if I should try and pick out some of the loops of thread to make these less noticeable and risk having the quilting loosen or just leave them ? I haven’t voiced my unhappiness to the longarmer – she is not a person that would benefit from a discussion as she would just get defensive and throw off any constructive criticism. Needless to say I haven’t taken her any more quilts !

I am gradually getting over my disappointment and seeing the quilt as a whole in these pictures has helped. I am happy with it now instead of just seeing the mistakes. The next step will be to wash it… it still has all the chalk markings on the border and perhaps some of the wobbles will sink into the batting and be less obvious.

Thanks for having a look. Enjoy your weekend !

Linking up with Amanda at CrazyMomQuilts for Finish it up Friday.

Friday Again ???

This week has gone by in a blur ! I haven’t had much time for sewing but I did manage to finish up one small project to show you today.

Cath over at Wombat Quilts has a sweet 3inch paper pieced heart block tutorial. Once I had a few blocks made I had to decide where this was going…  I  haven’t caught the mini-quilt fever (yet) that seems to be going around so I decided to make a couple of my blocks into a little zip bag.

I started with Anna’s smallest wide-open pouch  measurements but had been wanting to try and incorporate one of those zippers where the end tabs are sewn into the seams.

I pretty much guessed my way through it and I’m happy with how it turned out. The top end of the zipper was just sewn right into the seam but I added some double fold bias tape onto the other end so that the teeth of the zipper would not add bulk to the seam. In retrospect I should have taken a photo to show you that end before I sewed up the seam. Oops !

I do like the size of this bag, perfect for throwing a few cosmetics and yer toothbrush into for a weekend get-away. Hope you’ve got something enjoyable going on this weekend… we should have a full house, as we’re celebrating my husbands birthday a bit early. Let there be cake 🙂  !

Thanks for dropping by.

linking up with Amanda’s Finish it up Friday.