More teeny hexagons, sofa sewing station and preparing for Festival of Quilts

  (A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.) 

This month has been quite productive for making teeny hexagons. After trying various options to use as a stamp, I found a thimble that was just the right size and have been using this to stamp the circles for the hexagons. It is much quicker and easier than trying to draw round a coin.

One problem with hexagons this small is that they are very easy to lose on the sofa. Fortunately I found a child’s lap tray reduced in the supermarket that could become an ideal sofa sewing station. Unlike some adult lap trays, this did not have a rim around the edge making it easier to repurpose it.

I removed the plastic insert by sliding a craft knife under the edge and removed some of the stuffing to make it more squishy. I then glued a layer of quilting batting to the top so that the original design wouldn’t show through the top fabric which I stitched to the cushion in a similar way binding is hand stitched to a quilt. Finally , I made some modular accessories for the plastic insert - a small tray for threads, two spool pins made from screws set in a foam block and covered with unshrunk heat-shrink tubing, and a small pin cushion with an elongated edge for fabric clips. I also added a fixed needle minder beneath the pin cushion.

Preparations for my trip to Festival of Quilts have also included some teeny hexagons with me making a pair of earrings using some scraps of Liberty lawn.

Something that will probably be more useful for Festival of Quilts is the new app launched this year and available for Apple and Android devices. Features include a list of exhibitors, timetable of workshops/talks (including ticket availability) and perhaps most useful for me - a floor plan.

I’ll be there for Thursday and Friday and have three workshops/talks booked for Thursday and one for Friday, but should still have plenty of time for admiring the quilts and shopping. If you spot the earrings, do say hello.

Wonderland sampler progress and a trip to Harrogate

This month has seen a little progress on the Wonderland Sampler quilt and a slightly unexpected trip to the Knit+Stitch show in Harrogate.

I’ve completed seven more of the EPP blocks for Wonderland Sampler quilt and a couple more (not shown) have been partly completed in that the EPP part is done, but they require an additional part to be appliqued.

These blocks gave me the chance to try some fussy cutting and, as with the first three blocks I completed, I have tried to keep to the same or similar fabrics as in the book. Again, I have made some minor changes to the shapes to reduce the number of hexagon shaped blocks.

Looking back at the blog, I think it has been 5 years since I last went to the Knitting and Stitching (now renamed Knit+ Stitch) show in Harrogate. This show can be difficult for me to get to by train but one of the sewing/quilting groups had late availability on a coach trip and I took the opportunity to go.

As usual, I didn’t particularly “need” anything, but I did manage to find some bargain items that will be useful and I was able to get some Schmetz Super Universal non-stick needles for projects involving bondaweb etc. One thing I did need to get was something for the quilting group Secret Santa and after much looking I finally found something that I hope will be well received (not shown in the photo just in case anyone relevant is reading this!).

As the show also covers embroidery and yarn crafts, it does mean that once I’ve looked at the sewing/quilting stands, there is time to go into Harrogate and get some cakes from Betty’s to bring home. This year’s choice was a mocha torte and two fat rascals.

 Going as a group makes the ticket prices reasonable and I think with this show, I regard it more as trip to Harrogate with the added bonus of a small sewing show on the side.

 (A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)  

Sewing has finally started on the Wonderland Sampler quilt

After many weeks (or even months) of preparation, I’ve finally started sewing blocks for the Wonderland Sampler quilt!

At the start of this month, I went along to one of Alice Caroline’s pop-up shops and topped up my Liberty stash with a few fabrics for the Wonderland Sampler quilt and some small pieces of plain lawn. There were no Liberty bargains, but I did find some other bargains - 1.5m of sage green chambray with a printing fault for £10, Aurifil thread with a 25% discount, a Merchant & Mills point turner for £1 and a pack of Tulip needles for £1.

 

This month’s Waterloo Quilters meeting was a free sewing session and I took along some of the English paper piecing (EPP) blocks from the Wonderland Sampler quilt to stitch. I managed to complete three blocks during the meeting and the rest of the EPP blocks are all now tacked to the papers ready to stitch together.

As you can see, for two of the blocks although the fabrics are different I have kept to the book’s designs, but for the other block, I decided to omit the outer diamonds to reduce the number of hexagon shaped blocks.

It’s been a while since I last did any EPP, but I’m hoping I can get into the habit of doing a little stitching each evening now that the clocks have gone back.

 

 

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)  

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.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

2023 Sewing Summary

I knew I had not done much sewing this year, but I didn’t realise just how little I have to show – three quilts, a 10” block with lots of tiny sewing and an sewing repair kit for the office.

 On a more positive note, there has been some progress on the Liberty Hexie quilt.

2023

2022

A new year resolution must be to do more sewing in 2024.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

More tiny sewing

After sewing some tiny foundation paper pieced (FPP) blocks last month, this month I have been doing some teeny tiny English paper piecing (EPP).

The FPP blocks have been completed for the secret sewing project, but there were four plain blocks that needed embellishing. I decided to applique tiny Dresden plates onto these but the only problem was making the plates small enough to fit on a 1¼" block!

I first tried assembling the plates the traditional way but these turned out too big. I then tried using EPP to piece the plates - these were the right size, but the centre was untidy. To overcome the untidy centre,  I got rid of the centre and made a "Dresden ring" instead.

 

For something so small, these were very time consuming to make and I'm glad that only four were needed for the project.

 

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

An old project and a new trick for a new year

The start of a new year has seen me return to an old project started back in 2013. I’ve been working on this Liberty hexie EPP quilt at Leeds Quilt Group for the past few months and finally remembered to take a photo so I can keep track of progress.

2023

Progress goes in fits and starts and when I started this quilt I had limited Liberty in my stash and the fabrics would not now be my first choice.

2016 (top) versus 2019 (bottom)

I’ve also changed the design several times (mainly due to not having enough of one fabric), but I have stuck with the 2019 revision and am now more than half way through.

One thing that will make sewing this easier is a trick I was shown at this month's Leeds meeting to stop my needle unthreading. It is called “Marrying the needle” and details can be found in this blog post.

Let’s see if my interest in this project continues and if I have more progress to show at the end of the year.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

Crafting for Christmas

This month I have been sewing some tree decorations for the hospice Christmas Fayre. These were a variation on EPP and were made by tacking fabric to hexagon papers, folding each in half and then sewing three hexagons together.

I included ribbon for hanging and added some beads and bells to given them some weight to help them hang.

I also made a few more gift bags, this time with a boxed base and a cardboard insert to give more structure.

As everything I made was sold at the Fayre, I think I will be on the look out for festive fabrics in the sales to make more next year.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

2019 - my sewing summary

I’m writing this post in January, but hopefully with some technological wizardry it will travel back in time and appear in the archives for December – a much more suitable place for a look back on my year of sewing.

2019 turned out to be quite a product year. I took part in the Finish-a-Long which gave me deadlines to get things done and I even managed to finish some things not on the list. In total, and in no apparent order, I managed to finish:

• 2 large quilts
• 3 small quilts
• 1 mini quilt
• 1 mug rug
• 2 coasters
• 1 tote bag
• 2 reusable non-plastic bags
• 24 drawstring bags for the Leeds MQG charity sewing day
• 1 ironing mat
• 2 tops
• 5 skirts (including 4 from the Style Arc Faye pattern)
• 2 key fob holders
• 5 mini Christmas stocking

There were also quite a few alterations (shortening 5 pairs of trousers for my husband, shortening 3 tops for me which needed the coverstitch machine being brought back into action, adding an inside pocket to a jacket) as well as various repairs that were quick to do, but had been put off for ages.
 

 

Some progress has been made on an EPP hexie patchwork quilt that is a very long term work in progress. My activity on this quilt seems to go in three year cycles – I started it way back in 2013, decided to change the design back in 2016, and I have changed the design again in 2019. I’ve kept the mirror idea, but switched the mirror effect from one side to the other. 
 

The change in design required a bit of unpicking and then I realised that I won’t have enough of one of the pink fabrics, so I've started using an alternative and will replace some of the other pieces to give me enough to finish the quilt. Even though there will be a bit more unpicking to do yet, I think I have passed the halfway stage now with this and can see progress from the 2016 photo to the 2019 photo.

For 2020, I’ve already got a short list of quilts I’d like to make and I bought some fabric in Abakhan’s sale to make yet another Style Arc Faye skirt. The Finish-a-Long has moved to Instagram for 2020 so I’ll give it a go again and see how I get on with the new format – I can be found on Instagram as @sewlittletosay if you want to see what I have planned.

(A WordPress version of this post is available here as it may be more mobile-friendly for viewing and commenting.)

January – comings and goings

Just a quick post with a few bits from the tail end of last year and some plans for this year.

Christmas (which seems so long ago) saw some new sewing arrivals for me – a FQ bundle of Liberty’s English Garden quilting cotton and a Fiskars folding ruler.

I’ve no project in mind yet for the Liberty FQs, but I know the ruler will be great to take on the train when I go to Leeds MQG. To make space for the new FQs I destashed a few FQs online, though the net result was still a gain but at least some fabric has found new homes where hopefully it will get used.

 

After missing 4 months of meetings I finally managed to get to Leeds MQG this month and spent the day sewing some POTC blocks. I’m still working on the joining blocks but now I have decided on the two fabrics for these, once I have a few more made I think it will make it easier to pick the fabrics for the “cross” blocks.

The only other sewing this month has been sewing name tags on to clothes for my Mum who is having to spend some time in a nursing home (and which probably will become a long term stay). For such small items, they seem to take a disproportionally long time to sew.

Next month’s sewing is likely to be a FPP quilt for a friend’s baby which I need to get done it time for her return from maternity leave and her daughter’s first birthday. It is my first attempt at an entire quilt using FPP blocks, but at least if I get stuck I will be able to take it to the next MQG meeting for help and advice.

2017 - my sewing year in numbers

This year has been more productive than last year and finished quilts actually make an appearance in my annual round up. Again, small and quick projects feature quite strongly and for some projects, a needle and thread has been replaced by glue and a brush. I've started a new EPP project (Lucy Boston's Patchwork of the Crosses), but progress has been slow and I have only got as far as chosing the fabric for the linking blocks, and have not started going through my Liberty fabrics for the main blocks.

Not too much fabric has been added to my stash this year, and now Standfast & Barrack no longer sell Liberty lawn in their factory shop, I can't see my Liberty stash increasing much in 2018. I did buy a few dressmaking patterns and fabrics this year, so perhaps some garments will appear in next year's montage.

In summary, this is what I have achieved this year:

• 6 spotty coasters sewn
• 5 boxes/cases repurposed and covered in Liberty fabric
• 4 quilts finished
• 2 garments refashioned
• 1 mini quilt stitched
• 1 cushion made and gifted
• 1 insulated lunch bag designed and created
• 1 bag customised with Liberty EPP
• 1 replacement iPad case completed
• 1 peek-a-boo pouch made
• 1 new EPP project started

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Slow, but steady, progress is being made with the first set of blocks for the Patchwork of the Crosses quilt. After having picked just two fabrics so far, I thought it time to make the third choice – the one that will be used for the squares in the “sashing”.

I chose several fabrics from my Liberty stash, but having photographed them with the two other fabrics, I think I might have to go back for another rummage or change my plans and go for the scrappy approach.

If it takes me this long to come up with just three fabrics, picking fabrics and choosing layouts for the crosses blocks could take some time.