Create

I know it's already mid-March, but I haven't posted to the blog yet this year so this is my token New Years post.

If you've been following along my ramblings for a while you'll know that I have an aversion to new years resolutions. My theory is that if you want or need to make a change in your life you shouldn't wait for some arbitrary date; plan it and do it, .

So while I didn't make any new year resolutions, I have decided to take on a single word as my 'theme' for the year.  As you can probably tell from the title of this post and the image at the top , the word I have chosen is....

CREATE

The idea is that this single word will help to give a focus to my decision-making and actions for the year ahead, and it can be applied in all areas of my life whether that be at work, at home, with my family and friends, and of course in my crafty adventures. Hopefully all this creating will also feed into the blog a little bit too.

Speaking of crafty adventures... I've discovered (become a bit obsessed with) paper piecing as a sewing/quilting technique and have been going a bit nuts with it.

My sewing machine now has a nifty quilted cover with the word CREATE paper pieced into the front panel as a constant reminder of my theme word.

Create sewing machine cover

The paper piecing obsession has led to some really geeky fandom sewing over the last couple of months and even extended as far as starting to design my own patterns. So I'll leave you with a deluge of pics of paper pieced quilt blocks I've made so far.

My first ever completed paper pieced block - the TARDIS
I'm tempted to pull it apart to try and get that light sitting properly,
but on the other hand it serves as a reminder of how far I've come in such a short time

Darth Vader

Storm Trooper

R2-D2

BB8

Sewing for me: New purse (Part 2)

I did it! Not only did I design my own purse and draw it out, I actually sewed it all together and finished it and it worked! (happy dance).

It was actually finished a few months ago and I've been using it constantly since then so I consider it a success. Its a little wonky, but that's OK; it's functional and that's the most important part.

So now for a deluge of photos during construction.

Purse interior pieces - cut and marked

Interfacing added to reinforce card pockets

Card pockets folded and sewn,
zippered coin section starting to come together

Purse interior - complete

Purse exterior - cut  and pieced

Purse reinforcing / stabiliser - cardboard cut to size

Purse complete (except for a button closure which I haven't photographed)

Ta Da! All done.

World quilt

This quilt was originally going to be a "Welcome to the world" gift for a colleague's newborn baby several months ago but in my usual style I left it too late to even start the project, let alone finish it in time for her work farewell or the baby's birth. 

Combine my tardiness with a few technical difficulties along the way and  I'm sorry to say that this one is still a work in progress and will almost certainly go to a different cause if when it finally gets finished.

Free quilt pattern

The pattern for this quilt is a freebie from Schwin & Schwin.

Choosing fabrics

The pattern is rather time consuming to print, trace and cut out because even though the continents are rounded out a bit, the coastlines and islands are still pretty intricate and fiddly.

Once I got the pattern printed I left the instructions and went on my own course which was, in hindsight, probably not the most efficient way of doing things. Somehow I found myself tracing the pattern 3 times - on the quilt front to guide placement, on the fabric selected for each continent and finally on to the heat and bond; and then I had to cut it out twice - once from the heat and bond and once from the continent fabric.

Losing the battle with the 'Heat & Bond'

I selected a variety of fairly neutral gender colours from the same fabric line and went with a plain white background.

I must remember if I ever make this quilt again, to trace the pattern on the heat and bond in reverse. It was a bit of a sticky mess but eventually I got it all unstuck and smoothed out enough to place the pieces properly.

Once the pieces were all stuck to the white background it was time to stitch them there. I went for a rough edge applique with straight line stitching close to the edges of the pieces rather than a satin stitch. (Satin stitching would have taken forever, used thousands of metres of thread and I'm not so confident on my ability to keep the stitching neat and consistent around all those twists and turns of the coastlines.)

Quilt sandwich all laid out and pinned - ready to quilt.

After the applique, it was time to make a quilt sandwich with the batting and backing, pin it all together and start quilting.

I had decided to quilt the entirety of the quilt using straight lines about an inch apart and a decorative stitch setting on my machine (a wavy line). The hope was the stitching would be almost invisible on the land parts, but on the water sections would look like waves.

Nice theory, unfortunately it hasn't turned out the way I had imagined it. So far I've done 3 lines across the top of the quilt (the arctic circle) and for some reason I keep getting missed stitches that look really strange and messy. I've unpicked all the stitching several times and re-done, with the same result every time.

And that's pretty much as far as I got... in my frustration at the quilting issues this one got thrown into "time-out" until I have the patience to try and work though it again.

Just working through this post has been useful though. The more I look at the pics, the more I'm thinking I should give up on the decorative wave stitching, change to a contrasting colour thread (maybe an ochre or dark grey) and try longitude and latitude lines instead.

hmmm...  starting to feel inspired again now... sadly I don't really have the time to pull the world quilt out of time-out and finish it - there's other projects that need to be done before we head off in a couple of days on a long overdue holiday... maybe if I have some time when we get back and before I return to work??

K

Back into it...quilting again

I know,  I know!  I've been a bad blogger and not posted anything for like six months.... anyway moving on...

So I'm going to do something that i would usually avoid today.  Normally i wouldn't post about making gifts until they had made their way to the intended recipient. In this case that person is my Nanna who is approaching 90 years old and not especially tech savvy (and legally blind as well) so I think I'm pretty safe in sharing it early.

I've spent the last month cutting and sewing and ironing, then sewing some more and ironing more; all with the intention of having a lap quilt finished before we head off on a road trip. Well its done! I made my deadline for once!

It ended up being a bit of a hybrid... its a lap quilt, and its a quillow, and its got a hand warmer/kangaroo pocket at the top. And to top it all off its not got any batting in the middle layer.

It seems my Nan is always cold so a lap quilt should be just the thing to keep her warm while she sits and 'watches' her favourite TV shows.

I wanted the quilt to be warm, but didnt want it to be too bulky so I've gone for a luxurious and warm minky backing, a heavy cotton middle layer and the quilting cotton top. The top and middle cotton layer have been quilted together and then the minky added last so it didnt end up with lots of stitching through it ruining the lush softness of that fabric. There's no quilt batting but it seems to be heavy and warm enough without it.

The kangaroo pocket at the top should help to keep Nans hands warm and stop the quilt falling off her lap at the same time.

A pocket sewn on to the back of the quilt lets it all fold together and store nicely as a pillow when not in use as a quilt.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I hope Nan likes it too and gets lots of use from it.

The finished quilt

Quilt folded into a pillow 

Sewing for me: New purse

My purse has, after many years of good service, come to the end of it's useful life.  The zips are broken,  the card holders are torn and loose; is time for a new one.

Just as when I was making the wallet for the other half, none of the patterns I've looked at are quite right for me so I'm freestyling and designing my own.

Here's what I've come up with so far:
 
Now to work out the individual pattern pieces and the assembly. Stay tuned.

K