New Year, New Site

I’ve been blogging here on Blogspot for nearly six years and I wonder if it is time for a change.

In the early years of the blog it was easy for me to write blog posts on my iPad, but the Blogger app has disappeared from the Apple store and I have struggled to find an alternative app. This has been part of the reason for the frequency of posting becoming monthly updates (and partly because some months there has not been a lot of sewing going on). I have also noticed that it has become more difficult to comment on Blogspot blogs when reading them on a tablet or phone which might account in part for the decline in comments on posts see by me and other bloggers.

I have decided to give WordPress a go and see if that is more mobile friendly. All the content from this site has been imported into WordPress, though I still need to check existing links, find a selection of follow widgets, and I might need to change the layout a bit. I’ve tried to make the two sites look as similar as possible, but my first impressions of the free version of WordPress is that it is not as customisable as Blogspot so I don't think I will be able to make them exactly the same. I am also not sure how annoying the ads will be on the WordPress site, so I will be interested to see what you think.

For the time being I will continue to put the same posts on both sites and will see how it goes it terms of ease of posting and ease of commenting. If you want to take a look at the WordPress version and see how it compares to this, you can find me at sewlittlesay.wordpress.com. Please do take a look at both sites and let me know which works best for you, especially if you now use a tablet or phone for reading blogs.

2018 - a round up

Sewing has had to take a back seat this year, so my list of finishes is not great. I have managed to complete a quilt for Project Linus and have another top ready to quilt in the new year. I wrote a couple of the tutorials for the BOM club and have added two project tutorials to this website and finished various other bits and pieces. There has also been time to learn some new techniques at Leeds MQG (crumb blocks and a triple Drunkard's Path) which I might put to use in 2019.

There has been a bit of garment sewing (but no photos) and a couple of trips to shows which gave me the chance to meet up with online friends, as well as succumbing to the usual shopping opportunities these events offer.

There was a late addition to the fabric stash - I won some gorgeous Japanese style fabrics just before Christmas in a giveaway from P&Q Magazine on Instagram.

I've also inherited a couple of sewing items - a Victorian style cotton reel stand that used to belong to my Grandma and a Bernina Minimatic sewing machine that was my Mum's. The bobbin stand has been put to use, but I'm now keeping an eye out in charity shops for wooden cotton reels to display on it. Unfortunately, the Bernina will need some attention before I can use it as it will sew a few stitches and then the needle stops going up and down, but I'm hoping this will be fixable.

I hoping for more sewing time in 2019 and first on my list is finishing a quilt for a great nephew who appeared in the summer and is still waiting for his quilt (though I don't think he minds).

A flurry of finishes

My sew-jo seems to have returned and there has been quite a bit of sewing going on in December. First is one of those annoying secret sewing projects that I can't show as it was made for a Secret Santa swap that has been delayed to January.

Moving quickly onto things I can show, I've been working my way through a Block of the Month this year and December's BOM was a 3D Santa. I decided to scale down the pattern and make a tree decoration sized Santa (standard sized visiting cat shown for scale).


Fortunately, I had a spare block from one of the other months and so I was able to use this to complete a quilt top that will probably go to Project Linus. There have been a variety of blocks, but using a limited number of fabrics and adding a narrow dark border to the blocks has brought the various patterns together.

Back in February, I started a FPP challenge for 2018 and I managed to get this completed with a day or two to spare. The original challenge was for the curved pattern, but I made an additional panel using a simplified straight line design and then used the two panels to make a bag for my quilting rulers. I used fusible Bosal R foam to give the bag some structure, but it doesn't want to stay fused so I might try to unfuse it to give a more even effect with the quilting.


After this flurry of activity, I think I need some time tidying up my sewing stuff which seems to have taken over the kitchen table.

Show Time

There’s a bit more to report on the stitching front this month – still no major sewing, but I’m gradually getting back into the swing of things.

The cross stitch design I was working on last month was finished a few weeks ago and made into a card. There was bit of artistic license with the design, but it was recognisable as their new house.


Last week saw my first trip to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate for four years. Previously I had gone on a coach trip, but these have not been running for the past few years. However, train times have improved and it now only takes a couple of hours to get to Harrogate, very similar to going Birmingham for Festival of Quilts. A friend had got a couple of complimentary tickets, but these were not valid on the Saturday so I took a day of work and we went on the Friday instead.

Friday was “Black Friday” and it was lovely to miss out on all the sell, sell, sell messages from large retailers and spend the time looking at what independent traders had to offer. The show didn’t seem too busy and it was easy to get to the stands to have a look around. I didn’t particularly need anything, but of course that didn’t stop me buying some things.

I got some spare bobbins for my machine, some bag making bits, a few Christmas cards, and a half price back issue of a magazine that I had contemplated buying when it came out just for the free gift. I recently inherited a Victorian thread stand and I have been on the lookout for some wooden reels to display on it. I didn’t expect to find any at the show, but to my surprise a couple of stands had some so I was able to get a few of those. I’ve seen pressing/cutting mat combos and want to make a travel sized one to take to Leeds MQG, so I was pleased to spot some wool felt that should be ideal for the pressing side of the mat. Quilting Antics had scrap rolls of tweed and after much rummaging in the basket, I chose just one (though I was tempted by several others). I’m not sure what I will do with this, but I’m thinking some type bag might be possible.

My final show purchase was a Shaker style box made by Keith Shorrock. There were several different designs of boxes and pin cushions, but I picked an oval box (long enough to hold a small pair of scissors) which came with an insert for you to add your own design to the lid. I’m not sure what I will add to the lid, but I’m wondering about some Liberty patchwork to make a padded top to use as a pin cushion.

No trip to the Harrogate show would be complete without a trip to Betty’s, and after we had seen all we wanted to see at the show, we went and joined a very short queue and enjoyed a sit down, a cup of tea and a cake before heading home. As would be expected, a couple of cakes also headed home with me.

Just a bit of stitching

There’s not much to report this month on the sewing front. The only stitching has been starting this cross stitch house to use as a “New Home” card for someone who moves in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully next month will have a bit more sewing to share.

Ever decreasing circles

At this month’s Leeds MQG meeting, Jenny from Pappersaxsten came to teach us how to sew curves without pins. We had a choice of two patterns – Footloose, a triple Drunkard’s Path, or Sunflower, a standard Drunkard’s Path. I chose the Footloose pattern as it would give me plenty of opportunity to sew curves of different sizes. We were told to bring a small rotary cutter if we had one as it would be easier for cutting curves with the templates and I couldn’t resist bring a few pin, just in case …
 

After Jenny had demonstrated how to sew curves and in what order to assemble the block pieces, it was time for us to give her no pins method a go. I did try a few pieces without using pins, but I found I was much quicker and the edges lined up much better if I used a single pin to match the centre points of the curve. With the help of a few pins, I was able to get 16 blocks completed and joined with sashing so it could go on its way to someone who needs to make a quilt in a hurry and had asked for any spare blocks in purple and black.

Sewing the curves got easier with practice, but I did find it odd trying to cut curves with a template and rotary cutter. I wasn’t put off entirely and bought Jenny’s templates for the Sunflower block so I can make that pattern at some point.
 

Jenny’s templates include a generous ½” seam allowance on the edge of the block and a square-up template. This means that there isn’t the pressure to ensure perfectly matching edges and makes it for more likely for me to try other Drunkard’s Paths patterns when I want a change from sewing straight seam blocks.

It's Festival of Quilts time again

It’s August (but not for much longer) and so it must be time for a report about my trip to Festival of Quilts. After last year’s whirlwind one day visit, this year I went back to a two day visit, mainly because I had the chance to meet up with some friends from an online sewing community.

 

We had been running a little challenge to make quilts for Project Linus using only two colours and neutrals, with the colours having to be complementary on the colour wheel. There was also going to be a competition element to the challenge with the finished quilts being put to a vote.

I had seen a quilt in Lynne Goldsworthy’s book “Quick and Easy Quilts” which had a red balloon appliqued to a neutral log cabin background. By adding a second balloon I was able to meet the two colour requirement, though I knew that this design would be regarded as stretching the rules and wouldn’t do me any favours when it came to the voting. Adding the second balloon meant I could make a larger quilt as these tend to be in short supply for Project Linus.

To avoid any raw edges on the balloons, I used an interfacing technique to enclose the raw edges and then used a blanket stitch on my machine to attach the balloon to the quilt top. The strings were made from a tube of fabric and applied to the quilt top with a straight stitch.

I did echo quilting around the balloons and the strings and then quilted in the ditch for the body of the balloons. The rest of the quilting was just diagonal straight lines. The backing was a cotton lawn from Standfast and Barracks which picked up the neutral theme from the front and went well with the dark binding.

It was lovely to meet up with friends from the forum and to see all the quilts being handed over to Project Linus. As expected, mine was not a winning quilt, but my priority was to make a quilt suitable for an older child and not the competition side of things.

No trip to Festival of Quilts would be complete without a little bit of shopping and I actually managed to come back with some money left in my purse this year.

With visiting for two days, I had time to attend a lecture about geometric design in Islamic art by Eric Broug. I found the way the designs can be created fascinating and I will have to try to make time to try this for some EPP designs.

 

As usual I had mixed feelings about the quilts and I am thinking now that this down to the competition element. Looking at some of the quilts hanging side by side in the same category, I felt uncomfortable that they were being judged against each other. Even though I have been going to Festival of Quilts for a few years, I found it more difficult to find my way around this year and probably missed quite a few exhibits. Galleries seemed to be more in the midst of trading stands than previously and the miniature quilts and modern quilts were over in a far corner of one of the halls away from the other categories of quilts. Perhaps it is time for the organisers to rethink the layout and to have more distinct areas for trading, quilts, galleries and catering.