Revealing the tiny sewing

Finally, I can reveal the tiny secret sewing I was doing in the summer. It was a 10” block for a 60th birthday banner. My contribution was made using foundation paper pieced blocks and by happy coincidence there were 60 blocks around the centre embroidered square.

Several of us from an online sewing community contributed blocks which when stitched together made a banner approximately 5m long. The recipient is a keen quilter and various patchwork, embroidery and applique techniques were used in the blocks.

The banner was designed so parts of it could be displayed as scroll, rather than the full banner being on display.

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In preparation for sewing

The only sewing this month has been shortening a pair of mens trousers, which although it involved an overlocker, a sewing machine and hand sewing is not very interesting to photograph.

Instead here’s a photo of ~2 kg of quilting cottons from Abakhan which were added to my stash for less than £5 per metre.

I’ve a specific plan for most of these and so hopefully there will some sewing to report next month.

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Finishing the tiny sewing and visiting Festival of Quilts

All my sewing and sewing-related activity seems to have taken place at the beginning of this month.

The tiny sewing has been completed, but as this is for a secret project that won’t be revealed until October, all I can show you for now is the back of the completed block before the FPP papers were removed.

My sewing-related activity for this month was a two-day visit to Festival of Quilts. To be accurate, it was two one-day trips to Festival of Quilts as this year I didn’t stay over, but returned home each day. By the time I was sure the trains would not be affected by strikes, it was cheaper to book two return train tickets than one return ticket and a hotel. This did mean I only had ~4 hours at the show each day, but it was long enough and it was quite nice to have time at home to reset and recharge after the first day.

As usual, even though I thought I had looked at the quilts in a logical order, there were still ones appearing on social media that I have no recollection of seeing. I took photos of only quilt and it was because it made me stop and take a closer look to see how the colour graduation had been done.

CT-04, Seaweed Sunset, Daisy Dodge

On very close inspection, it turns out the quilt is combination of squares and nine-patch blocks set on point.

It wouldn’t be Festival of Quilts without a bit of shopping and I think what I bought could be describe as “a bit”. From Crafty Quilter, I got a quilt pattern and some ombre fabric for it. The Millefiori book was from Kaleidoscope Books and doesn’t really count as it has been squirrelled away to reappear at Christmas as a present from my husband. From Lisa at Modern Quilt Club, I got some Flatter pressing spray and a selection of Aurifil 28wt thread. A couple of reels of Invisifil 100wt thread was purchased from Wonderfil and some bargains were found on the Project Linus stand – a pattern notching punch for 50p and two books at a £1 each.

After two years of my trips to Festival of Quilts being disrupted/governed by train strikes, it would be nice to hope that that things could be resolved in time for next year’s show.

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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.

 

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A tiny amount of tiny sewing

This month I’ve been sewing some tiny foundation paper pieced blocks. These blocks were supposed to be 1¼” when finished, but due to a printing discrepancy, they will be slightly smaller!

I can’t say too much about my plans for these blocks as they are for one of those annoying secret sewing projects, but I need to make 48 more blocks of various designs. 

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Two spaces after a full stop*

*A phrase that may be familiar to some from the days of typing lessons

There has not been much to show on the sewing front for the past few months and then like buses, two quilts come along at the same time.

I got the black and the white space-themed fabrics in a destash at Leeds Quilt Group and after doing some back of the envelope calculations, I worked out a way of making two small quilts for Project Linus. As I had ideal fabrics for the sashing and binding in my stash, I only needed to buy some fleece for the backing.

I’ve quilted in the sashing using a “star and squiggle” free motion pattern which is quickly becoming a favourite of mine. As I’ve used fleece rather than batting and backing, I don’t have to worry about minimum quilting distances, but I’ve added a free motion star to each square to help hold the two layers together.

 

Now I just need to keep up the momentum and decide on what to make next. Quite a lot of my spare time is being spent currently on tackling the weeds in the garden, so sewing might be delayed until the garden looks tidy.

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Quilt maths

Despite my best efforts, my back of the envelope calculations show I don’t have enough fabric for my initial plans.

Time to find another envelope I think.

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