Goodies in the post

Look at this lovely package of goodies that arrived in the post this morning! I was the lucky winner on the Jacey Craft Blog during the His and Hers Sew Along with Micro Mod with Green Bee Patterns back in April. Thank you for my lovely prize!

I think the last time I made myself a dress was nearly 20 years ago and I think I have a total of 2 dresses hanging in my wardrobe!! Not much of a dress person, especially with 3 kids to run around after. But maybe this pattern will inspire me...

The fabrics are just gorgeous. Can't wait to do something with them, but what...

At the beginning of the week I finally started quilting my charm pack challenge. I am about 1/3 of the way through, and so far so good :)

I wanted to do some straight line quilting as I have been focusing quite heavily on FMQ lately. So in the white space I have quilted four lines 0.25" apart and then a gap of 1". On the noteworthy fabrics I have been FMQ a flowing glass or stacked ripple type of pattern (it probably has a proper name that eludes me at the moment). 

The next picture of the back of the quilt shows the two types of quilting more clearly!

I am finding quilting the straight lines more difficult than the FMQ! Probably because there is less room for error, if the lines aren't straight it is very noticeable!! Also, this quilt is not very large at roughly 44" x 50" and yet it is quite a handful trying to manoeuvre it through my domestic machine when doing the straight lines.

I find it strange to think if I had been asked 6 months ago what type of quilting I prefer, I would probably have said straight line quilting with the walking foot, but now, I would be more likely to say FQM! How things change!

Linking to The Needle and Thread Network and Freshly pieced.

WIP Wednesday

I have got my charm pack challenge quilt basted and ready for quilting. I kind of know what I want to do, I just need to take the plunge and actually start quilting it. 

Front

Using the remaining fabrics and a lot more Kona snow I put together a back, which is almost visible in this picture. In the end I used the whole charm pack apart from two 2.5" squares! So that in my book can't be bad! 

Looking at the picture now it is hard to believe it was taken yesterday. Today is wet and chilly again! It changes so quickly!

Whilst contemplating the quilting of the charm pack quilt I have been working on some of the Mario blocks. I now have nearly 7 completed. Poor Luigi needs a head! But I think that takes me to half way through the quilt now, thank goodness!! I really like it but it's not an easy one to do!

Mario Quilt

I have this lovely stack of fabric to work with too! Loving this Comma range, so fun and bright. 

Comma

Lastly, I can't help but share this picture of our youngest little girl graduating from preschool this morning! It was so sweet! 

Linking to The Needle and Thread Network and Freshly pieced.

Something New Sampler - Finished!!

I so enjoyed doing this quilt-a-long with Amy at 13 Spools. It was so fun to experiment with lots of different techniques. The quilting took me much longer than I had anticipated as I quilted each block differently and played with lots of new FMQ patterns. Some of the seams on some blocks (the cathedral windows and folded patchwork!) were rather hard work to get through and the stitching went a bit awry in places! 

But here it is done:

And some close ups of the quilting as the picture above doesn't really show much of my hard work! :)

Pinless Curves

Modern Bargello

Scraptastic

Folded Patchwork

Cathedral Windows

Border - figure eights

This is the back of the trapunto block, I just love how the trapunto stands out. The pebble maze is a great pattern for creating texture too, although I did find it quite an intensive pattern to do!!

The back was just a collection of the fabrics left over from the front, that got sewn together randomly. I used all the pink fabrics to create the binding as not many had been used on the front and I felt it worked well against the solid green.

There we have it. Finished! Yay!

Quilt Stats:
Fabric : 9 dots by Henry Glass, Kona white and a Bella green (can't remember the name!)
Size: 38" x 65"
Started: January 2013
Finished: May 2013

Experimenting with a charm pack!

Oh boy, where did June appear from! 

My mum has travelled from the UK to stay with us for a few weeks, leaving my dad and the dog at home. It's really nice having her around. Aside from us being able to chat about sewing (it's all her doing getting me into this fabric obsession) and do things we don't normally get the chance to do, she keeps doing my ironing for me and has relieved me of some of the school runs! What could be better than that!

The birthday party now over, Mario has been pushed to the back of my mind for a while, and I have moved onto something new!

Since distance prevents mum and I from sewing together much, we have been making the most of it this last week or so. I had a couple of charm packs of the noteworthy collection sat in my stash and we decided to see what we could each do with them.

There was one restriction we could only add a solid, or possibly two, to the design. So out came the Kona Snow and we started planning.

Mum has pretty much tried everything related to sewing and quilting over the years, but has always picked more traditional fabrics and patterns or appliqué. But I have been pushing modern designs and fabrics her way more recently and she is changing her ways! She saw my curved pieces on the design wall and hasn't got the quick curve ruler at home so is experimenting with that this week! This has been made a bit more challenging by the small size of the fabric squares! But she is adaptable and she likes to do small pieces, so she is doing alright so far.

I am loving the colours she has put together! Here is one of them:

I have gone for a more simple design. I had in my mind something dots and dashes style. So I started by cutting my charms in half and then one half into half again. Then cut lots of Kona Snow and just started sewing them together! This pile was the result:

After lots of crawling about on the floor moving pieces around and observing the layouts, I have settled on a design. A bit more Kona snow and sewing later and here is a shot of a part of it:

It wasn't quite what I had in my mind, I am terrible at planning and designing on paper, but that's the price I pay for just jumping in feet first! Now that I am seeing some of it sewn together it is growing on me!

So my goal for this month is to finish the top and get it basted and ready to quilt. If I can start the quilting that would be a bonus, but since there is rather a lot going on outside of my sewing room this month I am not going to push it too far!

Linking up with