Something different for Project Linus

In a change from the usual quilts I make for Project Linus, I was asked if I could complete an Advent Calendar panel for one of the children’s charities.

There were minimal instructions with the panel and while they made sense for the horizontal rows of pockets, they didn’t make sense for the pre printed vertical rows of pockets, so I ended up making and lining each pocket individually. This did have the added advantage that I could put the pockets in a random order, though I was limited by pocket colour.

I added an extra border to the panel and backed it with royal blue fleece. Quilting was minimal – just a free motion meander around the snowflakes in the border and outlining the sleigh and reindeers. I added a handing sleeve to the back and used an extendable rod for net/voile curtains to allow it to be hung from hooks.

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A scraps and stash quilt

I started this quilt at the beginning of the year after I acquired some scraps at a quilt group meeting which were left over from a quilt.

I added some more fabrics from my stash and came up with a layout based on the City Park quilt by Cherry House Quilts, but then progress ground to a halt for several months.

However, a sew along for UFOs (unfinished objects) was what I need to get the blocks assembled into a quilt top and then completed.

The black squares have been quilted with a “square spiral” (which is more visible on the back) and the rest of the space was filled with a free motion “angular meander”.

This will be heading off to Project Linus (the local Project Linus co-ordinator is happy to accept larger quilts suitable for older children and teenagers), along with a seasonal project that has to be completed next month – more on that in November.

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A quick post about a quick quilt

This month the local quilting group received a request for quilts for a family area of a local library. I had everything in my stash to get this three-yard quit based on the Town Square pattern from Fabric Café finished in time and ready to take to the group meeting.

The quilt is backed with fleece and quilted in a diagonal grid using the serpentine stitch on my machine.

I think this could be useful pattern to showcase feature fabrics and I can see myself making it again.

 

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Summer sporting sewing (and a trip to Festival of Quilts)

This month has seen a couple of projects completed for an informal challenge on a online sewing forum. The challenge was to sew a garment or accessory which relates to any sport or the country of France and I took inspiration from the Tour de France and the 2024 Olympics.

My first entry was a set of four mug rugs inspired by the Tour de France which was taking place during the early weeks of the challenge. In the race, cyclists are awarded different coloured jerseys for four different classifications. The most famous is the yellow for the overall leader, but there are three other jerseys - green for points, polka dot for mountains and white for young rider.

I found a line drawing of a cycling jersey via Google and adapted it to make more suitable for a machine appliqué shape. The jerseys were machine appliqued and a "zip" added using a narrow zig-zag. Once layered with backing and wading, I echo-quilted around each jersey using red, white and blue threads. If you look closely, you'll see I had to go over the white quilting a second time so that it had the similar prominence as the red and blue quilting. The backing was the nearest I could find to bikes and I like to think it suggests bicycle wheels.

The second project was a mini quilt inspired by the design on the hoardings at some Olympic venues. I tracked down the official “Paris 2024 look” and reduced four of the elements to basic outlines for English paper piecing (EPP).

Preparing and stitching the pieces was a bit more challenging than my usual EPP projects as there were several curved pieces, but tacking through the papers helped to make these manageable.

Each of the four elements were ~4” square so I added sashing and borders to make a mini quilt that finishes at ~10.5” square.

Seeing as some of the fabrics included gold or silver highlights, I quilted in the ditch within the four elements and around each of them using a bronze metallic thread so that the quilt reflected all three Olympic medals.

As it is August, this month’s post wouldn’t be complete without mention of Festival of Quilts. There were no workshops or talks that caught my attention this year, so I only went for the day and accepted that I wouldn’t see everything. While changing trains at Wolverhampton, I unexpectedly met someone from Waterloo Quilters and we decided that we would look at the quilts together before parting ways at lunchtime. It has been a while since I wandered round the quilts with someone and it was nice to be able to see what caught their eye and to look at quilts that I may have walked past. This year I had some shopping that I needed to do for the sporting challenge and I was able to find the fabrics I needed, along with a few extra items as well.

(A new cutting mat from Siesta Frames, two spotty half metres from The Fabric Townhouse, two FQs from Shoppers Planet, Aso Oke fabric and a Noodlehead pattern from Urbanstax, a half metre of ombré fabric from The Crafty Quilter, and an impulse purchase of a FQ bundle of Tilda chambray from Kaleidoscope.)

I’ve tried various options for visiting Festival of Quilts over the last few years – overnight stays, two day trips and now visiting for just a single day and I’m still not sure what works best for me. Given the price of train tickets, show tickets and workshop/talk tickets, and that images of the quilts are now available online, it can be an expensive outing and I am finding it difficult to justify the cost on the basis of shopping opportunities alone.

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A sewing free month

It's that time of year when the garden takes priority over sewing, so I've no sewing news to report, but I have been gathering ideas for when the sewing can restart.

Back at the beginning of the month, there was a general election in the UK and I spotted that the results were being shown as a hexagon map. This could be another EPP project, but would require rather a lot of red fabrics.

In the past week, the Olympics have started in Paris. In the opening ceremony, my attention was drawn to the "floor" on which one of the participants was dancing - another idea for a quilt (apologies for the blurry photo of a TV screen).

Finally, the signs and hoardings at the venues are full of potential quilt designs and so I found the official Paris 2024 look which has plenty of inspiration for at least a mini quilt.

This is ideal timing as I will have the chance to look for suitable fabrics at Festival of Quilts in a few days time.

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Midsummer sewing

At this month’s Waterloo Quilters meeting, we had the option to make a multi-pocketed drawstring bag and at times it was a bit like one of the challenges on the Great British Sewing Bee. Some people were regretting their fabric choices, some chose not to follow the instructions and most were wondering if we could finish it in time. I chose to use an old pair of jeans for mine which meant I got two bonus pockets. We all finished our bags, but were very glad that no judging was involved.

My other sewing this month has been a major catch up on the blocks for the tiny nine patch challenge. These have been mainly done while the TV has been occupied by the football and I’ve managed to get over 100 blocks sewn and back on track.

Seeing as there will be more sporting-related TV disruption due to Wimbledon and the Olympics, July may also prove to be a productive month for this project.

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Some new items to sew for charity

Just a few bits of charity sewing to show this month.

At the recent meeting of Waterloo Quilters, we made post-surgery heart comfort cushions and syringe driver bags, both of which were new to me.

I managed to finish four cushions and one bag during the meeting and made four more bags at home.

This made a nice change from quilt sewing and it will be useful to have some more options to use up fabrics in my stash.

 

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A small quilt from stash

I've had this panel in my stash for ages, but a Project Linus sewing day at Waterloo Quilters was the impetus I needed to use it.

The fabrics for the borders and binding were all from my stash, and the batting and backing were provided by Waterloo Quilters.

Quilting was a free motion meander with flowers in the borders and on the panel I quilted around elements of the design.

This is another quilt to add to the pile that I must take to the local Project Linus co-ordinator.

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Tiny Nine Patch Challenge

I started this project earlier this year after seeing it on Instagram. It is being run by Reproquiltlover and the idea is that by making 10 blocks each week, you will have enough to reproduce an antique quilt from Reproquiltlover’s collection by the end of the year.

Photo from https://reproquiltlover.com/tiny-nine-patch-quilt-blocks/

The main part of the original quilt has 480 1½″ nine patch quilt blocks set on point and I have decided to keep to the original block size but with a limited colour palette of dark reds and browns (mainly to use up some of these fabrics from my stash).

 

It took me a while to work out a system for making these blocks and at first I was just using up scraps, but when I started to need to cut from stash, I became more methodical. Initially, I’m making 5 blocks of each light/dark combination but I’ve not yet worked out if this will give me enough blocks.

I tend not to make the blocks each week but have a catching up session once a month or so and have had to expand my storage option from a biscuit tin to a box file.

I’m making steady progress but might wait a little longer before counting how many blocks I’ve made and, more importantly, how many are still needed.

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Lots of sewing news in the shortest month

Unlike some previous months when I have had hardly any sewing news to share, this month I’ve plenty of sewing news to share.

First up are two FPP mini quilts I made to decorate a friend’s sewing area. They have just got a new Bernina machine to go with their Singer treadle and so I decided to make modern and vintage machines in FPP.

Next, I repurposed a full size iron cover which I received in a swap at Fat Quarterly retreat in 2013. This has been unused for a while as I no longer take a full size iron to sewing days.

I was very pleased to be able to resize this to fit my travel iron and have enough off cuts to make a cover for my craft iron too.

The last of my news is that I had a sewing-related day out to Southport. The main purpose was to hunt for some brown fabrics for a tiny nine patch project I’ve started (more on that next month) and I didn’t come away empty handed after visits to Crafts and Quilts and Sewcrafty.

I was also just in time to see the Quilt | Grid | Pattern exhibition at The Atkinson. This included some very old quilts from the Gawthorpe Hall Quilt Collection and some modern reinterpretations of historic quilt making. I particularly liked the mixed media displays of painted canvas pieces that had been stitched together to look like quilts.

After a packed February, I wonder what March will bring.

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Airspace quilt

My first post of 2024 is to share my last project of 2023 – a quilt for a friend whose baby was due in January 2024. The pattern is the Airspace quilt from Cowden Quilt School and I made the baby size, but added a border so that the triangles appeared to float more.

The background was quilted using a free motion “angular meander” and the triangles were quilted with a cross hatch using the walking foot.

The baby arrived two weeks ago and the quilt is now on its way to them.

 

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