Slowly but surely

For once I have some sewing output to show - not much (blame half term) but a little:

First up, a Bee block for Tracey at QuiltMeHappy:

This is the same Tracey who so expertly long-armed my Apple Crisp quilt.  Tracey sent ready-made HST blocks and asked us to arrange them however we liked - one big block, a couple of small blocks, even all in a big long row!  No matter how wacky I tried to make my block, symmetry kept winning out so I went with this layout in the end.

The other thing I have been chipping away at is my Pervalong:

I have made all of the central blocks now but just need to sew them together into 4 quarters and then join the quarters to make the centre of the quilt.  The thing with paper piecing being backwards (well it is in my head anyway) is that I don't really have a feel of how the quilt is looking as I am going along.  I can't wait to get these blocks all together so I have something to show for it instead of 4 envelopes stuffed with numbered blocks.

Right - off to carry on binding my Apple Crisp before the 31 March comes around and it is still on my WIP list.  Not this time!

All the gear, no idea

Back when I was young and hip (all right, just young) we used to go on a group skiing holiday every year.  It was a real motley crew - various friends of friends - and one of our group always had all the latest stuff - titanium skis, heated boots, de-misting goggles.  However, whilst the rest of our group went merrily sailing down black runs, he usually skied with me on the nice gentle blue runs in what we termed "Remedial Ski School".  One of his mates dubbed him "All the gear, no idea".

I am the equivalent of "All the gear, no idea" in the world of machine quilting.  Take a look:

Supreme slider - check

Bobbin washers - check

Craftsy online class with Leah Day - check

Multitude of FMQ books - check

300 pages of quilt doodles - check

Hideous fabric from remnant shop to be sacrificed in inaugural FMQ attempt - check.

Have I tried it out?  No.

Too scared.

Quilt doodles

Perhaps one of the ironies of having a blog called "Quilting for England" is that I am actually not very good at the "quilting" bit.  More accurately my blog should be "Mainly piecing and the occasional bit of applique for England (and Wales)" but it didn't have quite the same ring to it.

My choices would appear to be:
     (a) change my blog name
     (b) live with the hypocrisy
     (c) learn to quilt, woman

I am opting for (c).

I am far better at being a "theoretical expert" - got the books, bookmarked the blog posts, noted all the top tips - than I am at biting the bullet and actually *doing* it.  One of the "top tips" I speak of was to doodle quilting patterns on paper before trying them on a machine.  I realised I had to get better at this, as with my first few doodles, I would get stuck at a point and not know how to get out of it.  If I can't doodle my way out on paper, there's no way I could quilt my way out.

I have been practising swirly doodles and I think I have finally found a pattern that I can do competently and always find a 'way out' for where I would move next:

 

My doodle is based on Judi Madsen's Feather Swirl Tutorial on Youtube - admittedly I was watching this in a popup window at the same time as my youngest was watching IgglePiggle - but I think I caught enough of it to work out how to do the basic move and then move onto the next space.

If you haven't read Judi's blog (Green Fairy Quilts) before, do pop over - but first fetch a cushion and pop it on your desk so that when your jaw drops at what this lady can do with a long arm machine, you don't injure your chin too badly.  Here is the link to a "Dear Jane" quilt which is one of my favourite quilts of all time - but if you read the rest of her blog, you will see it is fairly par for the course for Judi, who is playing a whole different quilting game to the rest of us. 

Judi has a book out in the near future which I will be popping onto my Amazon wishlist straight away - it is called "Quilting Wide Open Spaces" and is due out in the Autumn.

Totes amaze, as the yoof of today might say.

First Q1 FAL finish!

Apologies for the fuzzy photo (my phone) and terrible light (evening) and thankfully you can't see the dreadful tartan carpet (previous house owner) - but I am so excited to have my first Q1 FAL finish that I just had to post it today:

This is a sundress pattern called Zephyr by Figgy's which I got here from the Village Haberdashery, along with the fabric which is a floaty double gauze called Little Letter by Nani Iro.  The contrast yoke is Kona solid in Rose (yes nicked a smidge from my Pervalong bundle - but it went so nicely!).

My daughter is a bit of a skinny minnie so I added side ties to sort out any skinny waist problems.  I will definitely be making another one of these dresses so on my paper pattern I am going to adjust the yoke inwards a little to make it skinnier too.  The nicest parts of this pattern - curiously the parts I had been sceptical about before I started - are the braided shoulder straps and the button loop detail on the front yoke.  They really are very pretty little details.

This is the first time I have sewed with double gauze but I definitely will do again - it is easy to sew - not slippy as I had feared - and has such beautiful drape.

Also in FAL news I have completed my Dolce quilt top (also for the same daughter - she is having a lucky week) but in my haste I bundled it all up ready to send to be long arm quilted without taking a photo of it first.  Pah.  Here it is at the all-blocks-completed stage:

 

You will just have to believe me when I say it looks much better all sewn up. 

And on top of all this I am sewing down the binding on my Apple Crisp so - God forbid - I might get 3 of my FALs done on time?  Surely not. 

Updated to link to the Let's Get Aquainted link up at Bold Goods:

Super quick post

Hello

I am going to just post a couple of pictures so I can get on and sew!  This morning is my only sewing window all week so I have to make the most of it.

I have been chipping away at my Finish-a-Long stuff so hopefully I will have an update on at least one of those very soon.  In the meantime, I managed to put together this for the February LMQG challenge:

The challenge theme is "Year of the Snake" and this is supposed to be the Chinese symbol for 'snake'.  It is approx 8.5" square, and so is too big for a mug rug, but is a bit small for a wall hanging, so I'm not sure what to do with it yet.  But I enjoyed making it.  Maybe I could make one for all 12 Chinese zodiac years and turn them into a quilt!

The other thing I made this week - and which was delightfully quick to do - was a Victorian style mob cap.  One of the mums at school asked if I could knock something together for her, as she is helping out at "Victorians Day" for one of her children's classes and the grown-ups have been asked to dress up.  I enlarged a child's pattern that I have in the depths of my pattern box, and came up with this:

...skillfully modelled by Billy the Bear.  It's actually very comfy! 

Right now I am going to do a bit more sewing on my daughter's Nano Iro sundress, and if I have time I am going to start my Pervalong!  Fabric pressed, foundation papers prepped, and I'm ready to go!  Wheeeeeeeee!

Have a great week everyone x

Curly Watts?

Let me explain my conundrum with a tenuous analogy:

Imagine you have a loaf of bread, dated tomorrow (say).  Then for some reason*, you suddenly have 2 more loaves of bread, both dated a week or so from now.  Experience tells you that you aren't going to eat 2 full loaves of bread in the space of a week.

Do you:
(a) open the bread dated tomorrow and use it until it starts to go mouldy?
(b) open the bread dated tomorrow and use it just for today, then chuck it?
(c) chuck the bread with tomorrow's date and move straight onto the fresh bread?

Out of habit, our family tends to go with (a), which always causes my Mum to declare "Curly Watts!".  Apparently Curly Watts, whilst managing his local supermarket on Coronation Street, often used to come home with surplus food, which he then insisted on eating in date order.  The running joke was that he came home with fresh bread every day but always ate stale bread.

My conundrum is re: fabric.  Admittedly, fabric doesn't go mouldy (hopefully!) but it can seem a bit 'stale' once it's been hanging around in the cupboard for a while.

The Mrs Beeton's Household Management in me tells me that I should use up my old stuff first, so that I don't end up with very old stuff in my cupboard.

 

My impatient self shouts "Curly Watts!" as I worry that I will always be sewing with older stuff that I don't love any more instead of nice fresh stuff I've just bought.

What I really want to be sewing with right now...

Of course, the answer to all this is to sew more and buy less.  Yeah, right!

I am dutifully working through my Finish-a-Long - and getting through it, step by step - I will post an update soon.  However I always have one eye on what I will choose for my next big project.  Old or new?  What to do?

Answers on a postcard please....

G x

* P.S. The way you end up with twice as much food as you need is when your parents come to visit and they bring their own bags of food (literally the equivalent of a supermarket shopping trip) just in case I haven't been competent enough to stock my fridge and cupboards with edible produce.  Yes really.

2013 Finish-a-Long

Oh boy.  Did ever I need the Finish-a-Long to carry on this year.  Hats off to Rhonda for hosting the fabulous 2012 FAL - which did wonders for my WIP last year - and an enormous thank you to Leanne for picking up the torch and carrying it into 2013!

I have been thinking long and hard about my list and here it is:

(1) Rouenneries Apple Crisp - I really am on the home straight for this now - it is back from Tracey who did a beautiful long arm custom quilting job on it.  Even my husband commented on the loveliness of Tracey's quilting - and don't forget this is the same quilt he unthinkingly threw his trousers onto last year.  This is just waiting for the binding.  Surely I can manage that?!

(2) Figgy's Zephyr Sundress in Nano Iro Little Letter - This will be a summer dress for my elder daughter and I have to get it finished by the time the weather gets nice and before she grows out of it!  I love this double gauze fabric, it is so lovely and floaty.  This is all cut and ready to go.

(3) Slouch bag in Spoonflower fabric - I love this pattern by Just Jude and I am hoping it will look quite funky in the Spoonflower fabric I ordered just before Christmas.  I have seen various versions on the interweb, like this one by Di @ Willowbeck Designs:

(4) Pervalong - I finally have all my foundation papers prepped and my fabric pressed and ready to go.  I can't wait to get this one underway.

(5) Dolce quilt - blocks have been done since the beginning of October so quite why they are still in a box waiting to be made into a top is beyond me.  Must must must get this done in Q1.

I think this is probaby enough for Q1 - I must get this linked up to Leanne's FAL linky page now as it's half an hour to midnight on deadline day - a familiar feeling for me.

G x