Tag: patchwork

Absolutely love it!

stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone

Am very excited this week as the Splendid Sampler  people have not only released the most gorgeous paper-pieced block but also a great bonus idea of what to do with it.

The block was released on Thursday and is called Stitching Fashion and it was designed by Charise.

Charise stitching_fashion_pic_yellow -small

I have visited her blog before and love her designs. She has step by step instructions at this post and you can download the pattern from the Splendid Sampler here.

There is also a Periscope video here by Alyssa from Penguin and Fish.

It was obviously very popular as there have been so many beautiful blocks made since then. All pictures come from the Splendid Sampler site and the Facebook page and are by,  (in no particular order), Carrie, Debbie, Lydia, Maria, Maudy and Amanda, brilliant work ladies.

Charise also has an Etsy shop with many more gorgeous paper pieced things. I was looking at her Flickr group  as well and came across this fab idea made with one of her other patterns for a vintage dress that could just as easily be made with this one.

Barbie Doll Tidy

This is by Miss Ginny from England, you are a star and I love this!

As is that wasn’t enough excitement yesterday a bonus project for this block was released, this cute notions pouch available from Craftsy here. Charise also has her patterns for sale here as well including some lovely free vintage blocks.

SplendidNotionsPouch - medium

Don’t you think this would make a great make up bag gift as well without the spool , or storage for all those Barbie shoes and accessories. Makes me wish Ellie was little again as I used to love making things for her Barbie dolls.

We once spent the Easter holidays making an entire Barbie flat out of large cardboard boxes, with real carpet and wallpaper and all the furniture made out of cereal packets!

I am going to go back and look at some more of Charise’s patterns, have never done any paper piecing as have been put off by all the little bits but look at the cuteness of this that she made as a block a while ago. I also really enjoyed making the sewing machine cover and that was 33 pieces and 9 hours but great sense of achievement .Photo from her Flickr site.

Charise paper pieced sewing composite -small

Right am off to spend the rest of the weekend hand sewing braid while watching mindless television! Have been super busy at work including working the last two weekends as well so really looking forward to doing very little that needs a brain.

Have only about 10 feet of the braid left to go on Ellie’s coat and that needs to be finished for next weekend as we have an event at Ashby de la Zouche Castle. And I get to finally go and see her new flat and the chapel at Clumber Park 🙂

Have a lovely weekend and week ahead and thanks for visiting, oh and enjoy the Bank Holiday next Monday if you are in the UK, you never know it might even be sunny!

When I get a moment …..

stitchesoftime7 Comments

Hello everyone, I hope that you have a had a good weekend. I have had a very productive one but sadly not in the crafty sense. Due to the inspectors being with us this week I have had to work this weekend to catch up so have spent most of it in work mode.

I have managed a bit of time stitching more braid on Ellie’s coat, there is about 30 feet of it to do so it will take a while but should be on track for my deadline which is for our next event in two weeks.

The rest of my time has spent storing up new projects for my to do list as I have at least had a little bit of blog browsing time late each evening.

First up is this very cute needlebook from Very Berry Handmade. Ali used to sell Liberty fabrics but has just stopped trading 😦 however she still has lots of lovely ideas on her blog.

Ali hexi needlebook 1

I love this, not only does it have my favourite hexis but I love the unusual shape and the quilting on the linen. Fabulous stuff.

As I told you in my last post I have just finished a sewing machine cover with a pieced design on the front and what should be today’s release for the Splendid Sampler  block but this lovely design.

Splendid Sampler May15_PatSloan_SewingMachine_Block

There have already been some beautiful blocks made like this one from Texas Quilting and I also love the one below with the cat from Bernice in Zimbabwe.

Sewing machine block 1

Sewing machine block 2

So I will be putting these on my, ‘to do very soon’ , list once normal crafting service is resumed.Hope that you all have a lovely week ahead with no interruptions to your ‘me’ time. Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

 

Spring resolutions

stitchesoftime2 Comments

I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. I have had the same one for the last 10 years now to do more fun stuff and less housework and boring stuff but have been inspired by the prospect of Spring and a bit more time and nicer weather to think about sorting and getting on with stuff.

I am not going to do this – that would be foolish and would not help support all those lovely  businesses run by hardworking women who share my passion for fabric.

Stash joke

So I am going to tackle the WIP pile! It is not very big but now that I am on a roll with the machine I am going to get the few projects that have been waiting for me to have some serious sewing time sorted.

I am not going to set a time frame for finishing everything but am going to try and complete one a month.

First one to be done is the cover for my new sewing machine. When I bought it in July I promised it a new cover and the poor thing has been languishing under its flimsy plastic one every since.

You may remember that I bought a lovely sewing machine themed spool rack last year and that my lovely children bought me the matching hook set for Christmas.

I found some great sewing machine panels that I thought would maybe look good as a hanging in the craft room and decided that one of those would make a pretty cover.

My chosen panel comes from the Snapshots Quilt Along  held last year by the Fat Quarter Shop blog. This is a great set of patterns and they raised money as well as for each download they suggested that you donate to a children’s hospital.

Here is a picture of the full quilt from Pat Sloan’s blog.

Snapshots quilt along quilt

The block is called Sew On and Sew On and there were some lovely versions made like these ones from the Flickr group by Pam Kitty Morning and Stamperville using the original colourway from the pattern.

Snapshots sewing machine - Flicker Pam Kitty Morning small

Snapshots sewing machine - Flicker Stamperville small

I got as far as cutting this out last year and then the machine had a bit of wobbly, probably due to lack of nice cover so I had not had chance to sew it together.

So last Sunday I pulled all of the pieces out of the WIPs box and got them assembled.

sewing machine cover 1

The pattern suggests labelling each of the 32 pieces with Alphabitties, those little letter labels seen in the above photo but I don’t have any of those so used normal sticky labels cut into pieces which meant I could put dimensions as well as the pattern colour on to keep track while I sewed them together.

sewing machine cover 2

I found the video of how to sew the picture on the Fat Quarter shop blog very useful, it took a couple of hours but soon had this lovely picture.

sewing machine cover 3

I had thought I had enough fabric to do a single piece back as I had picked up some more of the turquoise print in a local craft shop a couple of months ago but when  I unfolded the fat quarter it had fade marks along all of the fold lines so I had to be creative.

I did a pieced back with some 1 inch patches from the rest of the scraps.

sewing machine cover 4

I just ended up quilting in the ditch, I know I did the machine quilting course a while ago but need a bit more practise before I ruin something I have spent hours on!

So here it is a back and front view over a chair and in situ, went for a simple side tied and bound finish with the last of the turquoise strips.

sewing machine cover 5

sewing machine cover 6

sewing machine cover 7

I am extraordinarily pleased with this, even though it took about 9 hours in total including hand stitching the binding it was well worth it and my machine is very happy!

I am counting this as another project for the Sewing Bucket List – number 11 a project from a PDF pattern.

I also love the camera block they designed for the backing.

Snapshots Camera block -small

Not much crafting will be going on here this weekend, we have Ofsted (government inspectors) due in on Monday at work so have been busy with prep for that and the things I didn’t get done this week I need to do tomorrow.

Roll on next weekend 🙂

Hope you have a nice rest of the weekend and week ahead and see you soon, thanks for visiting.

 

May miniature madness

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there, happy 1st of May.Hope that you are all having all had a good weekend, I am thoroughly enjoying the extended weekend here.

It is not feeling very Spring like yet but luckily all the snow has melted. Could not believe it when I woke up on Friday morning as it was all completely white. Bizarre even for Yorkshire.

I have always been drawn to making little things, whenever I craft it always seems to end up being a small project, mini hexagon patchwork, cross stitch so small you need a magnifier to do it, knitting little animal parts, I am always making tiny things. Ellie’s Barbie dolls used to be well kitted out with clothes 🙂

Maybe it is because I don’t have much time and like to get things finished, or maybe I was a pixie in a previous life but most of my projects seem to end up small. I take great inspiration from crafters like Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts  as she loves making things out of tiny scraps.

This weekend I excelled in making small things, I started with a basket (another!) and wanted to use up a small piece of the fusible foam that I had left. This became a basket which is only 3 inches high – so cute! I used Perle thread to topstitch which gives a great definition to the top edge.

bags may mini 3

Being a make do and mend sort of crafter I used the cut outs from the bottom of the bag again to make a pincushion only this time decided to add from my scrap drawer and use half square triangles so here is a very tiny pincushion.

Pictures show bag and front and I suppose it is a Bow Tie block.

bags may mini 4

This is only two inches across and I am very pleased with how neat my seams are, even the one underneath the button has great matching. I might crack this piecing lark after all.

bags may mini 6

There was a small piece left over from cutting as well so I thought a little needlebook would be nice, this is just less than two inches wide and is lined with batting and has a little bit of felt inside. Both pincushion and needlebook have detachable straps as well.

bags may mini 7

I am very pleased with everything even though it did take hours to make as most of it needed to be hand stitched as it was too small to machine. And look I am using stash less that a week after it arrived in the house, before it has time to go off 🙂

bags may mini 8

I did make a normal sized one as well, this is the very cute sheep fabric, look at that one knitting.

bags may mini 2

bags may mini 1

The pattern, Friends of the One Hour Basket by Kelby Sews, is very well written and easy to follow but I have made some adjustments to the process that I have detailed here in case they are useful.

  • When I cut out the squares from the bottom of the padded exterior section I tack the bottom and side seams flat, this seems to make it stand up easier without rocking.
  • I tack the handles into place before sewing the lining so that they stay still as I found the first couple slipped out of place when I pulled the lining up.
  • I hand stitch the lining inside at the top rather than topstitching, I am not the neatest machine sewer and like not having a line on the patterned fabric.
  • I iron the bag again at the end, both on the inside which makes the lining stick down to the other side of the fusible fleece and carefully around the outside, trying not to iron my hand as I hold it 😉

With my extra day tomorrow I am going to do something different and make something for my sewing room, something I have been meaning to do for a while, don’t know how far I will get but watch this space.

Hope you have a great Bank Holiday if you are in the UK and commiserations if it is just a normal Monday for you. Thanks for visiting and have a great week ahead.

 

 

More inspiration – now just need more time!

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello again

Since I started following the Splendid Sampler Facebook page I have been notified of other things of a similar type and one of the new things that I have been loving and finding amazingly inspiring is the Millefori/La Passcaglia quilt group.

It is similar to other Millefiori quilts but is based on a book by Willyne Hammerstein which has now gone on my wish list, along with the wish for more days in the week, just an extra weekend each week would be brilliant, one for handwork and for machine work and then I would be quite happy to work five days inbetween them!

They are amazing quilts – these are some of my favourite colour combinations, all pictures from the Facebook page.

Millefiori quilt complete blue

Millefiori quilt purple and green

Millefiori quilt rainbow

Millefiori quilt rainbow 2-small

I have bought a sample pack of papers for one rosette from Honey Be Quilting on Ebay, they are double sized so make a big rosette which should be doable in not too much time. Most of these projects above took about a year so that project is going on my retirement list!

Have also been reading some new inspiring blogs, more about those in a later post but one of them had this saying as part of the header and I found a great picture to go with it.

Love the life you live quote-small

Have not heard this quote for a while and it was a great reminder of how lucky I am to have a lovely life with so much inspiration and love and fun things in it.

Hope you are having a good week, it is always very inspiring for me this time of year when my students come back from their placements.

They haven’t been together as a group since end of February and they are always so happy to be back together .This is a really inspiring time for them as well when they realise how far they have come since September. I am very lucky to love my job, even without the four day weekend!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

 

Compensations

stitchesoftime6 Comments

Well unfortunately I didn’t make it to our event this weekend as have been struck down by a horrible flu bug but I have been feeling well enough to sew and have finished off one little fabric basket and made two others.

I may be slightly addicted, but they are so cute! And so useful. These ones will be for Sarah’s stall in September at Yarndale as she is producing another book of patterns and has asked me to make some more things to sell alongside that again.

The first one was to go with some of the things I made for the stall last year that I had left over, I thought this would make a good threads or scraps basket along with the matching pincushion and needlebook.

Baskets April 2016 5

Baskets April 2016 6

I adapted the pattern from the original one from Kelbysews at Hearts and Bees on Craftsy   in order to make this smaller one but have since bought the Friends of the One Hour Basket Pattern by the same designer on Craftsy which gives you the sizes to make all these lovely ones. Picture from Craftsy.

Friends of the Hour Basket

I used this new pattern to make two of the Melanie Baskets which are the second from smallest of the sizes. The pattern contains sizes for 8 baskets including a tote bag and is great value at about £3.50.

Do you remember this lovely fabric that I bought at Harrogate last year, (proof that I do use my stash!).

Baskets April 2016 7

Baskets April 2016 8

This is the fabric I purchased recently, just couldn’t resist more sewing notions patterned fabric.

I made the little detachable matching pincushion for this one out of the scraps from when you cut out the corner squares to make the box shape, waste not want not. It has a press stud on the strap for removal.

I am going to make a matching pincushion for the French sewing themed bag as well, the motifs on the scrap corners were too small but I have plenty of this lovely fabric left.

They look so cute in my craft room 🙂

Baskets April 2016 9

Baskets April 2016 10

I may just have ordered a few bits of sheep themed fabric to make some for knitters as well, could not find much in the way of nice wool or knitting motifs but found plenty of cute sheep and as Yarndale is held in a cattle market and is full of sheep stuff thought those might sell well.

Hope you have a lovely week ahead, my students are back this week which will be very lovely and then we have a Bank Holiday weekend to look forward to – yippee three days of making bags!

Thanks as always for visiting.

 

A tisket, a tasket, a fabric basket!

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone, hope you are all well and happy. I am fine, had a very busy week with virtually no crafting at all so am making up for it this weekend.

Bizarrely enough it is snowing while I type this – I am just glad that I got home from my Simply Solids  class before it started so now I am snuggled up under my fleece on the sofa with my lovely new fabric basket.

The title of my post comes from a nursery rhyme  that I used to sing and play the accompanying game to when I was younger, no idea what a tisket or a tasket is but it makes a nice rhyme for basket.

The class was based around pattern for the one – hour basket which is a free pattern on Craftsy that you can find here .

The creator is KelbySews and she has another pattern  for sale on her blog for different sized baskets.

There were just 3 of us in the class today and we had a lovely time, although it is called a one-hour basket it took nearly 3 hours for this first attempt.

The fabric is an ombre from V and Co for the outside and last of my Moda sewing notions fabric from a couple of years ago for the lining.

I have previously made some sewing gifts  for my sister -in -law from this fabric so have decided that I will give this one to her for an Xmas gift as  basket for all her sewing, am planning to add an embroidered label to the outside.

I am hopefully going to make another one tomorrow as I have bought more supplies of the foam used for the lining so will see if I can make the next one a bit faster.

There are loads of versions of it for inspiration, I found these pretty ones on Craftsy and here and would like to do some patchwork or embroidered ones.

The other thing that is keeping me busy is sewing new braid on one of my daughter’s medieval dresses, that is lovely soothing stitching for evenings when I am too tired to concentrate.

Hope that you have a very nice week ahead, I am really looking forward to our first re-enactment event of the year next week, back to fun in fields 🙂

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

 

 

 

Keeping it in the family

stitchesoftime1 Comment

On my recent visit to Spain my lovely Mum was very pleased to be able to show me her first completed quilt.

She has always knitted but had not done any quilting until I showed her what to do last year. She is now enjoying a variety of styles including English Paper Piecing.

This first quilt is made from label fabric that I bought a few years ago from one of the many quilt shows I visited plus some of my Simply Solids stash. These photos are taken in her lovely sunny spare room which she is converting into a craft room.

We made up the layout together and she has spent a lot of time piecing, backing and hand quilting it.

Doesn’t it look brilliant? It has been donated to a local charity and she is going to get to work on the next one for them using some pirate label fabric that I also have in my stash that I have not used up.

It is great to be able to donate my unused stash to her and she has also been buying fabric of her own as well for projects like this table mat which was her first go at machine piecing and quilting. There are not many quilt shops in Spain but we did find a lovely one about half and hour’s drive away so she goes there when she can.

Mum - dino quilt 4

Meanwhile I keep her supplied with fabric, I have just bought her a charm square pack of the Moda Picnic fabric that I showed you a couple of posts ago as part of her Mother’s Day present and she was the recipient of the Patchsmith mug rugs books that I shared with you in the earlier post as well.

I have been buying a little more fabric and ribbon as well, was searching for something else when I came across this lovely stuff on Ebay from Elliequilts.She has a great range, especially of batiks, and the service was really speedy.

‘Don’t you already have a little bit of sewing themed fabric Alison?’, I can hear you saying which is very true but Sarah, she of the wonderful knitting genius, is doing another stall at Yarndale and has asked me to make some more things so over the summer I will be working  on some sewing and knitting project bags that she can sell there.

Besides look at the cuteness here, the pieced hexis and the sampler, just couldn’t resist 😉

Had a very productive weekend, garden all tidy just waiting for me to get some new plants for the pots and did lots of stitching.

It was a very bizarre day weather wise, lovely and sunny in the morning, even a bit hot so the washing dried very quickly then by six o’clock the rain that came turned to snow! Yorkshire is renowned for having four seasons in one day and that was proof of it.

Am off to Simply Solids this Saturday for another one of their great courses, this time to make a fabric basket so will let you know the results of my endeavours.

Take care, have a lovely rest of the week and thanks for visiting.

A lovely crafting weekend!

stitchesoftime2 Comments

 

Hello everyone

Hope that you have had a great weekend, here in the UK it has been Mother’s Day and I had planned a Crafternoon so I have had a thoroughly splendid time and got flowers as well!

Mothers Day Flowers

Ellie came up for both days, we had the usual cake and pink fizz in the company of Sarah, Helen and Sharon from knitting group and then on Sunday had a little trip out.

Can’t show you much from the Crafternoon as everyone but me was working on secret projects, Sarah for her new knitting book due out later this year and Ellie and Helen on gifts.

March crafternoon 1

March crafternoon 2

I thought I would start on a bit of paper piecing for Christmas – never too early!

Our planned visits further afield on Sunday were curtailed by heavy snow on Friday but we still had a lovely time and I have some new things to show you.

Firstly a couple of lovely quilt books, one bought by me last week and the other from my children, credit due to Ellie for spotting this in the National Trust gift shop! Apparently when she told him what she was planning Jake said he didn’t think I needed another quilt book, how wrong 😉

Quilt books - Mothers day 1

As you know I love textile history and this gorgeous book, ‘A World of Quilts’, by Cassandra Ellis is all about making historic quilts, the author has used mainly recycled material and this gives the quilts a wonderful vintage look.

Each of the quilt patterns has a little bit of history with it and the finished quilts are beautifully photographed. A really excellent present!

Quilt books - Mothers day 2

Quilt books - Mothers day 3

Quilt books - Mothers day 4

I bought this one, ‘Tile Quilt Revival’,   from Amazon recently as I came across a reference to the tile quilts on a blog. Again they are based on historic quilts and have some really unusual designs.

Quilt books - tile book 1

The quilts are made from applique which is done onto a plain background with spaces between the pieces giving the appearance of grout. Here is a better picture of the cover quilt.

Quilt books - tile book 3

There are some wonderful patterns in here and as I have established I am much better at applique than piecing so am very drawn to this quilt style.

I have also been doing some applique myself, this is one of the Splendid Sampler blocks I mentioned previously, Happy Happy by Jen Kingwell .

Splendid Sampler Block 4 Happy-Happy-Block-picture

I really liked the pattern and all of the examples that I was seeing so have been spending most of the last week working on this.

SS Happy Happy Block 1

The fabric is a Liberty print for the vase and the flowers are all made from part of a Moda Best Wishes charm pack. I am improving my skills at chain stitch as well and am very pleased how this has come out.

SS Happy Happy Block 3

Am adding a couple of Jenny’s cute birds to the piece to finish it off.

I love the way that everyone has interpreted this design differently, there are buttons, fussy cut flowers and so many beautiful fabrics.

On this mosaic are designs from Lori, Nantje, Dianna, Kandy, Heather, Coralie, Jill, Beth, Christine and Alicia, all pictures from the Splendid Sampler blog and Facebook page. Wonderful work ladies!

Have an exciting weekend ahead as well as am off to another quilting course at Simply Solids on Saturday learning how to improve my freestyle machine quilting. Will share progress with that on Sunday.

Have a lovely rest of the week, take care and thanks for visiting.

 

A whole lot of quilting going on..

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

Not by me I hasten to add as my productivity is at an all time low at the moment on the quilting front.

I am sure my mojo will return as soon as time spent away from the house decreases, we have had some lovely sunny weather recently so I am looking forward to long summer days and time at my machine.

Winter is always a time for hunkering down on the sofa with a fleecy blanket and knitting and embroidery for me however I am keeping up to date with what is going on in the quilting world and though I would share these with you in case you have missed earlier posts.

The Splendid Sampler is really taking off with an amazing 16,000 plus members on the Facebook group and more that are joining in who are not using that forum. The first three blocks have been released and can be found here.

I really like the first heart block from Pat Sloan and this looks about my level of piecing 😉

Feb14_PatSloan_HeartsA_Block

I am loving the Facebook page as well and all of the great colour combinations that people have used for the first three blocks.

These are beautiful fabrics and are made by, clockwise from top left, Debbie Miller, Karen Saw, Susan Burtrum and Lisa Leimone. Brilliant work ladies!

Also really like this fussy cut one from Stacy Mcgee Lee, love the Elizabethan motif here and great use of colour.

Stacy Mcgee Lee - SS 3 blocks

I have also discovered a new quilt designer, The Patchsmith , and have bought a couple of her books as gifts for a certain quilting buddy who shall remain nameless at present.

Amanda specialises in mug rugs and her designs are gorgeous and can be scaled up and down and the individual motifs used in all sorts of ways.

Go and have a look at her Craftsy store, the individual patterns are only £ 1.42 which I think is really good value. This one is especially calling to me for some reason!

Patchsmith AppliqueandMugRugAlphabet_1

And this is one of the cutest designs I have ever seen, I love it.

Patchsmith Whale mug rug

The books that I have bought are the Christmas and Hobby designs. I think the reindeer on the front cover would be brilliant on a child’s stocking.

By the way I am not affiliated with any of the sites that I tell you about or get any reward from these links, I just like sharing the loveliness that I find with you.

I am planning another fairly quiet weekend at home, only have this weekend free as next weekend we are having a crafternoon, never to early to start on those Christmas ornaments.The weekend after that I am at a machine embroidery workshop! How very exciting and craftilicious!

Hope you are having a lovely time, thanks for visiting.