Ballerina Quilt for Siblings Together

As well as the group quilt I am co-ordinating  for the Siblings Together project I am making a very sugary girly quilt. It's made with some yardage of ballerina fabric and some scraps I had left over from when I used to make items to sell. This seemed like the ideal oppurtunity to use the fabrics for a good cause.

 

Now to the quilting but first of all I need to do the basting. My least favourite part of quilt making.

I usually lay the quilt out on the living room floor to baste but this is what it looks like at the moment!

It looks like I'm off to move furniture in the dining room for some floor space.

Maria x

Geese Around the World Mini Quilt

I recently finished a mini quilt taken from the book Quilting From Little Things by Sarah Fielke. The quilt I chose to make was Geese Around The World. It's a paper pieced flying geese design. I found the instructions well written but the only critisism I had was that if you sewed on the printed side of the pattern as the instructions in the section on paper piceing at the back of the book tells you too, the geese would be flying in the opposite direction to the ones on the quilt which does not match with the diagram in the instructions.This confused  my little brain.

I used similar colours as sarah's quilt but didn't have any spotty fabric for the background which was a shame as it looks really cute.
Here's the quilt from the book.

And here's my version.

I don't know what happened to the bottom pink goose, it seems to have lost it's point! I loved the binding Sarah used on her quilt. I would never in a million years have thought to have used that fabric with the colour scheme of the quilt. Luckily I had a similar fabric left over from another project and am really pleased with how it looks. It  reminds me of a wooden picture frame.

Bye for now, Maria

Siblings Together

Yet again I'm starting a blog post with the phrase "It's been a long time since my last post". Never mind it's a free country. I have a couple of small finishes to show but they can wait until another day.

Over the last week I've become inspired by a flickr group called "Siblings Together". A group of quilters are making quilts to give to siblings seperated by the care system who are to attend a summer camp.

If you would like to know more this is the website for the charity and this is the starter post by Lynne of Lily's Quilts who put out the call for quilts.

Some of us are making quilts and some people who may not have the fabric or time to make a whole quilt are making blocks which will be sent to one person who will put the quilt together. I've set myself the task of making a girl's quilt from some ballet fabric I've had for ages and a boy's quilt from truck fabric.

I was concerned that there may be a lack of quilts for older boys (the age range is 7-17) and I have limited fabrics to make a whole quilt so I decided to volunteer to make a quilt from donated blocks. I thought simple 9 patch blocks would be quick and easy and I'm using muted blues, browns, greens and greys. Here is the flickr thread with more details.
 I have had some wonderful volunteers who have already made or are going to make blocks and a hugely generous member of the group has volunteered to supply the backing and wadding and quilt it, she's going to bind it too. How brilliant is that?
Talking of generous the wonderful Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey fame has donated loads of fabric and she is sending me some fabric for the quilt.

If anyone fancys joining us and making some blocks, that would fantastic as I need about 42 for the quilt, leave a comment and I'll let you know the details.
Here is an example block.

 Sorry about the photo, it's taken with my phone in poor light.

Bye for now, Maria x

Unroll that Jelly Roll!

I was lucky to recieve a Jelly Roll of Joel Dewbury's Heirloom line for Christmas. This is my first venture into the world of Jelly Rolls and as cutting is probably my least favourite part of quilt making, (apart from basting), I was excited to get started sewing with these lovely fabrics without a load of cutting first.

I recently bought Jelly Roll Quilts: The Perfect Guide to Making The Most Of The Latest Strip Rolls by Pam and Nicky Lintott     and was waiting to get my hands on a jelly roll so I could have a go at making one of  the quilts from the book. The book uses Moda Jelly Rolls which consist of 40 strips and mine had 30 so I  had to add a few of my own fabrics.
Before I could start I had to take the big step of opening the perfectly formed roll of fabric candy which wasn't easy! It was great to see the fabrics all layed out though.

Hopefully soon I'll show you my progress with the quilt.......I have however been sidetracked with another quilt that needs finishing. As the saying goes variety is the spice of life.
 I just wanted to say "Hi" to Ruby if you read this, I've been told that you do!
Maria .

Christmas Canasta quilt complete.

Hi there. I hope you had a great Christmas. We spent time at my parent's house and my brother was home from the U.S, there was lots of eating and relaxing which was great. I was in need of a few days rest. I'm not back at work for another week so there should be time for some sewing.

I made my brother a quilt for Christmas and I didn't finish it until 23.45 on Friday, I needed to get it done by Christmas Eve and just managed to get it done with 15mins to spare. Many thanks go to my husband who took over cooking duties for the last week while I worked on getting it finished. Note to self, start a project like this with more time to spare another time.

I would highly recommend the pattern which was the Natural Canasta Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman from oh Franson!
I did make a few mistakes which were frustrating but that was more down to me rather than the pattern.

Sorry about the photo quality, they were taken in a hurry on a phone.
I used fabric from a variety of ranges. I didn't realise until I started this quilt that there is a severe lack of fabric ranges out there for men. It took ages tracking down appropriate fabrics but I'm pleased with how this quilt turned out.

The original quilt is quilted in an all over free motion design. I wanted a more geometric look so quilted about a quarter of an inch around the seam line of some of the squares.
After spending so many hours together I've had to wave goodbye to the quilt as today it's off to it's new home at my brother's apartment in NYC.

Happy New Year!

Maria x
I've linked this post to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day. The button is over on my side bar. I can't work out how to put it here. Any help with this would be appreciated!
Tuesday 3rd Jan: Also linked to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, button on side bar.
Friday 6th Jan. Now linking to Amylouwho's Sew and Tell Friday. Again, button on side bar.

A finish on Friday.

The cushion I made for the Duo QAL on flickr is finished. Hurray! The block is a concentric square design which was quick and easy to make.

I tried some new to me quilting patterns which include feather quilting, clam shell and pebble quilting. The hand quilting is in a variagated perle thread. 

The cushion has an envelope closure on the reverse and the back is quilted which helps to make it nice and squishy. It's great how reading craft blogs shows you new ways of doing things. A revelation to me was binding the edges as you would a quilt, I can't remember which blogs I read it on but thanks to whoever you are. It saves making a piped edging , I love it.

I made the cushion to match the quilt I made for Lily's Quilts Dead Simple QAL. I love the autumnal colours.

Here it is with the back of the quilt.

Now onwards and upwards. I decided, perhaps rather too late to Christmas to make a quilt as a Christmas gift for a member of my family. The fabrics are washed and ironed ready and I've decided on the design which I've designed myself but  I'm nervous to cut into the fabrics and get going in case my design doesn't work...............I'll show my progress soon.

I'm linking this post to Amylouwho's  sew and tell Friday, her button is in my side bar if you fancy popping over to see what others have been up to.

Also linking to Crazymomquilts Finish it up Friday.
Now also linking to Fabric Tuesday over at Quiltstory.

November Rainbow Quilt

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, the colours of the rainbow. The idea behind this quilt top was to make a rainbow quilt starting with red blocks at the top and graduating the colours down to violet at the bottom with no defined point where each colour changes.

I'm pleased with how it turned out especially as the fabrics were not bought specifically for the design.
Fabrics used were a couple of charm packs by Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler and fabrics from my scrap bag. The background is made from various shades of plain greens left over from other projects.

The blocks are Windmill blocks made from half square triangles. I'll definately be using half square  triangles again, they are so quick and easy to make.

The photo I took of the whole quilt laying on the floor looked terrible so you'll have to imagine how it looks from these two photos. Unfortunately there are no quilt top holder upers here today to help! 

I've linked this post to Fabric Tuesday on the Quilt Story Blog, their button is over on my side bar if you want to pay a visit.
Now to decide on the quilting. Any suggestions on how to quilt it will be gratefuly recieved.
Maria.