A Birthday Keepsake

Cushions seem to be my "thing" in recent times!  And that's ok!  I adore making quilted cushions, and love that my customers want me to make them!  One such customer messaged me Thursday night and put in a request for TWO!  This is the first.....

The only specifications I had were: Girly fabric and personalised with name and birth date.  Easy!  I have had this Sarah Jane fabric sitting on my shelf awaiting the perfect project.  I've cut out 6.5" squares, and knew I'd hit the jackpot when I saw the Mirror print - perfect for personalising!

I also had some of the fabulous border print leftover from some little frocks I made last year.  It works brilliantly as a cushion back! 

I did a simple meandering quilting pattern using Aurifil #2410.

and then for the name and birth date, I've used Aurifil #1100 and free motioned the writing.  It was just a little bit tricky, due to the size of it, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome! 

Now to get a start on the second cushion ordered.  It's going to be pretty darn cute!  Think paper piecing and woodland creatures.

Have a great weekend!

T.G.I.F.F. - Wonky Star Cot Quilt

The Purple, Silver and Green quilt has been finished!  I shared with you on Wednesday that I had a few concerns about this one, but all concerns were squashed as this beauty came together.  I saw the intended recipient yesterday - who is due to give birth any day now - so it gave me a push (pardon the pun!) to finish it up.  I completed the quilt top yesterday, and managed to baste, quilt and bind it today!  Finishing up at 5pm.......right on cue for the rain to begin!  So without further ado, here it is - being photographed wonky style on the decking, out of the rain!

 

When deciding which pattern I would use, all I knew was that it had to be gender neutral, and I wanted to incorporate stars.  I went to my trusty Wombat Stew gals and asked for ideas (because my brain was mush and lacking any!), and the lovely Lara suggested the Reverse Hopscotch, which funnily enough is by the designer at V & Co!  I jumped at the idea and went ahead and bought the pattern HERE.  Unfortunately, although Vanessa has based the Reverse Hopscotch on this pattern, it took a bit of mathematics for me to figure it out!  Not only for making the blocks, but also for making the cot size version.  Remarkably - I did not fail!  It's basically a 9 patch block mixed with a wonky star block.  Easy peasy.

 

The fabrics are a custom bundle put together by Julie at The Intrepid Thread.  The request for green, purple and silver threw me a bit - but Julie made it work!  There are a few prints from the V & Co "Simply Style" range.  And lots of other gorgeous lines mixed in.

 

I think the stars would have stood out much more with a different colour to silver!

 

I used this gorgeous grey chevron print from Spotlight to back it.  Love it.

 

 

Very simple straight line quilting, echoing the inside of each star, and then on both sides of each 5" square.  I used Aurifil 50wt #2024 white for the stars and Aurifil 50wt #2605 silver/grey everywhere else.  I've also started lengthening my straight stitch to 3.0 when quilting, and am loving the look of it.  A couple of ladies at our quilt gathering on Sunday asked me why Aurifil was so special?  Well, I like how shiny and smooth it is.  The colour range is spectacular and best of all - my sewing machine LOVES it!  If you haven't tried it, you should.

And that's a wrap!  Would you believe that is quilt number 14 for 2013?  CRAZY!!!!!  I love this quilting thing......

I'm linking up with T.G.I.F.F. being hosted by Pippa's Patch - You can too!

W.I.P. Wednesday - Green, Purple and Silver

This W.I.P. Wednesday is brought to you by the colours Green, Purple and Silver!  It's also accompanied by some Doubt, Anxiety and a sprinkling of Trust.  I've thrown in some hope and Faith for good measure!

Doubt that the three colours would go together well.  Anxiety over my choice of design.  Trusting my instincts would be correct.  Hoping that when I've finished all the blocks it will look amazing, and faith that the recipient will love it!

So far......so good!

I'm linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday - You can too!

Fresh Sewing Day - July Round Up!

It would be fair to say that I've had a pretty big month!  In fact, it's the biggest July I have EVER had in my life!  Apart from all the interesting side stories happening, I managed to sew up an absolute storm hurricane.  It truly is amazing how much you can get done when you put your mind to it AND desperately use sewing as therapy!  Here's a little old round up for you......

Clockwise from top left: My first Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Block of The Month - I forgot to post about this one!  Admittedly, it is not my usual style at all - but I'm going to stick with it, and at the end will have a lovely little semi-traditional quilt to give to someone!

My 9 Patch Mash Up Cushion - boredom with a block got the better of me, so I tried something different, and showed you a little tutorial of sorts.

Goldilocks & The Three Bears paper pieced block - for Gina's month in our Wombat Stew Bee.

A sweet little Field Study Pinnafore ordered by a friend for a gift.  I love it when my customers see something someone else has ordered, and have to have one themselves!  I now have two more of these beauties to make - in the blue colour way.

I somehow managed to start AND finish my Swoon quilt!  I'm still wondering where and how that happened?  I think someone must have slipped me something in my cereal for a few weeks??  I am VERY pleased to say that this humungous quilt arrived back on my doorstep this morning, from Jeanette, who did the quilting for me!  Come back tomorrow and you will see the completely finished quilt!  Eeeek!

And just because I bought new fabric and had to sew with it - I also started and finished this divine Circa quilt top!  The quilting was completed yesterday, and today I did the binding.  Another big reveal for tomorrow!

I also snuck in plenty of repairs and alterations for work - the only people I will willingly do that for!  And made a couple of gorgeous dresses for my girls.  It's certainly been a productive month!

Hello August!

I'm linking up with Fresh Sewing Day over at Lily's Quilts - You can too!

W.I.P. Wednesday - A Little Circa Fun

It's not often that I buy fabric because I think it will be popular - rather than me really loving it.  But that's exactly what I did when I chose to add some Circa to my last fabric order.  I must say - I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw it!  It is probably the girliest fabric I've ever had!  And yes - NOW I love it!

Anyway, after it started speaking to me, I thought I best listen and got to thinking about what to do with it.  And this is what I came up with!

It's a very simple design, but oh so effective.  I made the nine blocks first, and then they sat there over the weekend.  When I pulled them out yesterday, I was muddled where to go to from there.  It was originally going to be a cot sized quilt, but when I did the math (you know how much I suck at math) I realised it would be the wrong dimensions for a cot size!  So, I just re-jigged my technical drawing (this time on the back of an envelope) to up it to a single size.  And added some reverse blocks on the ends.  LOTS of white space for quilting!

And my favourite view of quilts.

I've also made the backing, but it photographed terribly due to being mostly white!  So you will have to wait to see that until next week - when I hope I've been able to go and buy some more batting and will have it quilted - Fingers crossed!

A little reminder that today is the last day to enter my GIVEAWAY.  It ends tonight and the winner will be announced here tomorrow night!

I'm linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday - You can too!

A 9 Patch Mash Up!

Yesterday after work, I got cracking on a cushion cover that is being gifted to a good friend of mine.  She's a shabby chic kind of gal, and has ordered quite a few dresses for her nieces from me, so I knew that she loved the Flora range of fabrics.  I whipped out the range and chose nine prints.  I had planned to make a disappearing nine patch, (You can see my first attempts at these HERE) but not long in to sewing, felt the need to change it up.  So this is how I put together a "9 Patch Mash Up"!

 

I went about the usual directions for a 9 patch - in this case, I used 6.5" squares, joined them together to make the 9 patch, and cut them through the middle to make the disappearing 9 patch....

 

After playing around with the layout for too long, I started wondering if I could change it up.

 

Having no idea what I was doing, I lined up my ruler on the diagonal and sliced straight through.

 

And then had a slight panic attack, wondering if I'd stuffed it up?!  Either way, I continued to slice and dice.

 

Until I was left with all of these lovely big triangles of patchwork.

 

And so began working out the layout I liked.  I really love that there are so many different shapes in the blocks now.  The layout above is like a big old arrow.

 

Another layout.

 

And the layout I eventually went with.  From here, I literally just joined the triangles together diagonally, which gave me four square blocks.  I did bring my seam allowance in a couple of notches, so just under 1/4".  Join the four blocks together and Voila!  I had me a cushion cover!

 

I was tempted to continue slicing and dicing, but I was on a deadline. You can see in the photo above, that if you just kept splitting the blocks, you would end up with an even more patchy look.

 

The end result.  A gorgeous 18" quilted cushion cover.  I had fun free motion quilting the front of it, using a range of little designs.  I followed the pattern on the pale green print with the circles, did some rainbow arches on the yellow and lots of squiggles everywhere else.

 

I love that it's a little "organic" in its layout and quilting!

And a nice simple enclosed zipper back, with a rusty lattice binding.  I am hoping the recipient loves it!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday - You can too!