I just had to...

 I mentioned that I had used almost all of the lovely text fabric from Madrona Road (called Memoir) in that quilt top using the Novella charm pack (the top is finished by the way - hopefully the day is bright enough to take some pictures). I did a quick search and found that there really wasn't a lot of it left out there, but Pink Castle still had some, and I decided that yes, I had to save it! After all I hadn't even read the story properly before I cut into it...

 And as we all know it's a waste of postage to buy just one piece of fabric, so I did a bit of browsing, and found this great architect print by Yuwa...

... and a few other lovelies. So what if there isn't really room for more fabric in my sewing room - I'll just have to do some more sewing then, right?

Did I mention Daisy?

 I know I have shown this on Instagram, but somehow I forgot to blog about it. When I visited the European Quilt Festival in Birmingham, UK a couple of years ago I came back with a layer cake of Daisy Chain by Amy Butler (well, that wasn't the only thing I came home with, you know...). Or maybe "layer cake" isn't the right term, that's a Moda trade mark, isn't it? Well, anyway - I bought a stack of 10" squares and have had them lying around for ages, leafing through them and not known what to do with them. Eventually I gave them a wash (inside a pillow case) and after trimming them - they weren't quite 10" any more, so I trimmed them down to 9"- cut a strip of 3,5" off horisontaly and vertically, leaving me with a pile of 5,5" squares and 3,5" strips of varying lengths.

Last weekend I finally got to work, playing with the squares on my design wall (glorious name for a flanell sheet hung from two hooks...) and started sewing. I combined the squares with strips of white Kona and stitched all the floral strips together alternating short and long ones, after sorting them into random piles. I used these strips in between and as a border. All in all the top came together quite easily and I'm quite pleased with it. I even found a big enough length of backing fabric in my stash, so it shouldn't be too long before I can start quilting it.

And once I was done, this is all that I had left. Now if that isn't efficient use of a pre-cut packet I don't know what is!

PS! I tend to think I have come up with designs of my own, but sometimes it's my subconcious playing a trick and I have a suspicion that I might have seen a  similar quilt layout somewhere online. If you think you have seen it somewhere, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

Containing it all

Confession: My sewing table is usually a big mess! I'm sure this never happens to anyone of you, but I always end up with too much stuff lying around. I started with a tin of important things I might need while sewing, next to my sewing machine, like seam ripper, scissors, needles and pins, tape measure... over the years the list has grown longer and the tin has been overflowing, making it harder to locate what I need when I need it. So I made myself some fabric buckets using this tutorial .

I used fabric from the Mama Said Sew collection by Sweetwater - quite fitting for the sewing room, don't you think? For the bottoms and handles I used charcoal linen with red thread for the topstitches - a nice accent, I think. The buckets were easy to make and I would happily recommend the tutorial. I might actually make some more, as they would work well for lots of spaces, not only the sewing area.

The little one is so sweet! It looks like a tiny shopping bag - in fact it might be just perfect as a gift for a little girl. Yet it is big enough to hold four rolls of zippers by the yard and then some, while the biggest one holds two bags of scraps and a bag of leftover batting and backing fabric for mug rugs - a whole sewing kit in it's own right there, in fact.
I realize now that I should have taken pictures before I started tidying up to give you the full "before" and "after" thing, but for your own protection I didn't ( or I just forgot...).
Now we'll just have to see how long it is until I have created a big mess again - not long, I suppose, but for now it all looks very nice at least!

I need a bigger design wall

I had a god day sewing yesterday. Today not so much. Back to yesterday - in between the never ending story of organizing fabric and all the rest I managed to finish all 14 strips of my italian quilt. I started out hanging them neatly side by side, but soon realized that there was not enough room, so I had to overlap them. Still, you get a good impression of what it will look like and I must admit I like what I see. The colours are warm and mellow with just a bit of azure and green thrown in to set the warm colours off. Yes, this is my idea of Italy all right. And now I have the strips hanging there in the right order until I get time to sew them together.
Today I got the bright idea that I should layer my xplus-quilt and do a bit of quilting on my numbers quilt instead, but I was just not into it. I got the xplus layered with batting and backing all right, so I can start quilting whenever. I also sorted the fabrics for backing on the italian and found a perfect backing fabric for the Valori charms quilt. By the time I got around to the quilting part I suppose I was too tired. I had thought that I might finish the quilting today (I have already done some of it), but it was just not happening. I didn't get into the flow and wasn't all that happy with my results, so I called it a day and went and made some oven baked spring rolls instead. Delicious, if I may say so myself. The ones I didn't eat are in the freezer, so no photos, sorry. I enjoyed making them and will make another batch with a different filling soon, I think. These were with ground pork, carrots, cabbage and spinach. Next time I will try a recipe I vaguely remember with crab meat if only I can find it (or make something up). Baking them in the oven worked really well too - I just brushed them with oil and baked them at high heat for 15 min. They came out nice and crispy. Mmmm.

Scooting along

Sorry, couldn't resist that title...
I just had to show you the 3 zipper pouch I made for my niece's birthday. She turned 17 last week and has been getting about on a scooter this past year. When I found this scooter fabric from Monaluna, I knew right away that I needed to make something for her, and why not another pouch - they are quite addictive...
Because of the directional fabric, I needed to add a seam at the bottom, but unfortunately I miscalculated. I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't notice until I turned it inside out that the seam ended up 1/4" up on the front. Pulling the whole thing apart to amend it wasn't an option at that stage, so I added tiny box corners instead, giving the pouch a narrow bottom - it looked as if I had planned it that way and I was in fact complimented on that. So I'm not telling ;-)
The young lady herself had one comment: "cool" - and that's about the highest praise you can get from a 17-year old, isn't it!

On the wall today

I have been so good at working on my UFOs lately that I thought I might end up with too few of them.

I bet that's an excuse you've never heard before for starting a new quilt! Well, actually, it's more about not being able to stop myself. I have two quilts layered and ready for quilting, one finished top and backing prepared and two quilts I'm piecing, with a third waiting in the wings for the design wall to become available - that's April for you!
After cold winter months with very little going on, my creative spirit seems to unfurl itself like the buds of the crocus on the lawn outside. Suddenly the day has too few hours and my mind can't find rest - there are just so many quilts I need to make!

This one is based on a charm pack of Valorie Wells' Novella. I'm joining them with pieces of robin's egg blue and that wonderful text fabric from Madrona Road. I have used almost all of it now, and will be sad to see it go. Maybe I should get another yard, just in case...? The sashing will be a light grey. I'm still working on the details, but my mind has gone on to the quilting. I find quilting designs whirling through my mind while trying to sleep and my pen doodling furiously in the margins of my notebook during meetings at work - I think I'll have it all worked out by the time I finish the top, so I'll be ready to quilt right away - if I don't start piecing a new top first...

Such fun!

Finish-A-Long Q2

I managed to finish three things on my list during the first quarter, and start some new things, of course... While uploading pictures for this post I started thinking I might be overly ambitious, but why not? It's not as if I'll be punished if I don't finish them all, is it? I've been on a roll these last couple of days, so let's see if I can keep it up!

I've cut all the pieces for my Dreaming og Italy quilt and stitched all the fourpatches so now it's time to get it up on the design wall and start playing with the placement.

My xplus quilt top is finished and I've got the back and batting sorted. I should be able to finish the quilting during Q2.

I have all the pieces cut out for this one as well, so it will be next on the design wall.

Next in line - although it should have been first, since it has been ready for stitching the longest, but I will get there!

This one and the next one are both layered and ready for quilting.

 

Six quilts. That's doable, isn't it? Some of them are quite large, and I know I tend to procrastinate between finished top and quilting, but the promise of spring has made me quite motivated, so I believe I can do it. Let's get started!

See the rest of the entries here!