The phenomenal Finish Along 2014 second quarter

I still cannot believe just how much I got finished this quarter!

Do pinch me, one of you, but not too hard!  Ouch!

The last month of the last quarter showed me the way as I sneaked four finishes into one month!

I thought what if I did that over the three months?

Well as you know from earlier today I didn't manage that in June but here is what I did do - just in case you have forgotten...

Farmer's Wife gets Pizza

Would you believe I used a (clean) pizza base to draw circles on my quilt and filled them in with quilting but only in the white sashing and setting squares?   

The quilting appears to go behind my quilt blocks - an idea picked up from a quilting Craftsy class with Cindy Needham - she insists you need to quilt in every ditch and by gritting my teeth I did just about every single one - no mean feat in those pieced blocks but after doing that the rest was made much easier....

Round and Round the Garden (an original design by me!)

Mama bear watches from above while baby bear wanders round the garden.  Great quilt for using up those bonus HSTs and fun to fussy cut the squares!  (note to self: write up a pattern before you forget how to make this one!)

Our House in the Middle of our Street - Wonky house quilt mainly put together from swap blocks and backed in a beautiful soft needlecord.  I went Quilt as you Go with this one thinking (rightly) that the cord would make it heavy to work with.

Charm quilt - another I got help with, this time from my Scrappy? Sew Bee it mates!  I love all the colours and the spiral quilting worked out well!  

Moving Mountains - made using this tutorial on Bonnie Hunter's awesome Quiltville website.  (Loads of tutorials and information there!) 

I just used a different layout going for a more modern look and borrowing an idea from the lovely and creative Charlotte I added lots of tiny triangles to the background.  Then quilted it using ammonites as my inspiration.   

Konaville

Oh I could live here!  My Kona colour chart with background fabrics relating to school subjects

Vintage Squares - really need a better name for my favourite quilt ever! 

This began as a propeller block quilt but I got bored making those blocks and so I ended up using them as the background.  I added 12" vintage blocks from Jan Halgrimson's out of print books and added a skinny border to make it all fit!   The edges of my on point blocks are finished off with scrappy strippy setting triangles.

The backing - Vintage Happy Circles - was a gift from the lovely Fluffy Sheep that is Cindy - well part giveaway, part loyalty points! 

Did I tell you this is my favourite quilt I've made so far!??

Cosmic Flare - another bee quilt - my Modern Stitching Bee mates helped with this one.  The coloured pieced triangles are Arrowhead blocks by Wendy Hill from the Modern Blocks book compiled by Suzanne Woods.  I then added complimentary triangles and stars were born!  These make up very big hexagon blocks so my bee mates each made a half block!

I added extra wadding behind the stars for some machine trapunto and extra puff!  The background is more densely quilted to look like the cosmic wind ...well that's my story!

Books for Me! (not babies)

And last but by no means least - my precious Star of Africa

bee quilt - transforming my treasured bee blocks with the books for babies pattern from Ayumi's great book Patchwork Please!  

Nine quilts finished in one quarter!  And thirteen in the year so far...



I only have seven projects on my FAL list left! This is how they stand...

Friendship Garden - I've pieced the backing

Hexy Big Balls - I have the backing for this one - just needs to be pieced together

Oakshott Heart - no progress

Stingy Bee Plus - it's huge and I have lots to do to piece the back of this one - no progress yet

Dancing Tulips - all current blocks pieced together - just got to decide what next!  Looks like this at the moment...

Sewing words - Done quite a bit of paper piecing pictures to go with the words I received from my Sew & Bee Happy bee mates but still quite a bit to go ...just to get the top finished! 

Vintage Circles - good progress on this one - it's up on the wall at the moment but joining up the bits is not going to be a picnic. 

I seem to be enjoying making life difficult for myself ....oh well learning lots along the way...

And that's it for this quarter!  Phew!  

New quarter to look forward to and new list to come!  Bring it on Q3.

Linking up with Queen Katy!

My June in Fabric

You'd think I went to sleep in June!  No posts but the one where I managed to finish off five quilts!  Well I haven't been completely idle but no finished quilts this time - though maybe tomorrow?!

So what did I do in June apart from sleeping?

Well I made bee blocks for the Siblings Together Bee, which continues without our wonderful sponsors this year, so we are making from stash and clever Jo picked this Rocky Mountain Puzzle block times 4! 

I fussy cut some child friendly leftovers from my Star of Africa bee book quilt for the centre square as I hadn't quite tidied them away...

And for Stingy Bee and Collette I made two wonky log cabins using up some of the colours and text print I used in my schoolhouse quilt.

Quite a bit of recycling going on..

Then there was a nametag for the Fat Quarterly retreat for a secret someone...is it you?

And I made a tablerunner, wrote the pattern and joined a bloghop ...but that was yesterday!

Something else was made and written up but that is another (secret) story to be revealed some day in the future...but here is a taster...

I use this item every day!  Hope you like it when it gets it's tadda moment!


And now I'm linking up with the lovely Lynne for 

Oakshott Colourshott Bloghop

Hello and welcome if you are dropping in for the Oakshott Bloghop from Lilysquilts.

I am delighted to be able to join in this event as Oakshott really are among my favourite fabrics!  I love the colours, the sheen they have, the feel of them and also how they quilt but this pattern makes use of the ability to use both sides of the woven fabric to make mirror blocks.

I chose the lovely mix of blues and green in the Derwent fat eighth bundle. 

 While thinking of inspiration my garden came to the rescue.   It is full of greens and blues of different shades.  

I designed this pattern as a table runner with the dark blue fabric creating a lattice 'sashing'.  It makes me think of looking at the garden through Trellis so that's what I'm calling my pattern.

Finished runner is 20" x 50"

What you will need

One fat eighth bundle of Oakshott Derwent 
Wadding 24" x 54"
Backing fabric 26" x 56"
Binding fabric - 150" of 1.5" single fold binding 
Usual sewing and cutting kit

Template  - make your own as below
Draw a line 6" long.  At right angles to the first line draw another 3.5" long.
Join the two lines to make a right angled triangle.  This is your stitching line.  Draw a line one quarter of an inch outside this triangle.  This is your cutting line.  It is easiest to draw this accurately on a piece of graph paper, either pre-printed or downloaded from your computer.

 Please remember:

Read through all the instructions before starting
All seams are 1/4 " throughout
Exercise great care in cutting out as this pattern uses almost all of the bundle


Cutting fabrics


Cut out fabric for each block as follows:

Four triangles in two colours (use template) making a total of eight triangles
One 2.5" square in the background fabric
Four strips 1" x 6.5" of sashing fabric from the darkest fabric in your bundle


For the runner you will need ten blocks, which equates to:

12 triangles from six colours and 8 triangles from one colour (use template)
Ten 2.5" squares from the background fabric
Forty 1" x 6.5" sashing strips - this used up the whole of my fat eighth of fabric so cut carefully!


Tip: it doesn't matter which way up the fabric and template are as this fabric can be used either side but please align the straight edge of the triangle with the straight edge of the fabric!   

If you use this pattern for printed fabric you will need to cut reverse triangles.

Layout

for the 5 clockwise blocks - the sashing seems to make these blocks spin clockwise

and the 5 anti-clockwise blocks

Plan out all ten blocks before stitching so that you can adjust the colour balance throughout your runner as preferred.  Once you start stitching it will be harder to make changes on account of the mirror blocks.

Making the blocks

Tip:  It will be easier to stitch all the blocks going in the same direction first, then the other mirror set.


Step 1 Starting with the clockwise blocks stitch the triangles together to make Half Rectangle Triangle (HRT) blocks.  Trim to 4" x 6.5" 

Please note this HRT is upside down in relation to the next photo.

Step 2 Stitch the 'sashing' fabric to the inner triangle fabric.  Press the seam towards the 'sashing' fabric. Trim this unit to 4.5" x 6.5".  One unit is done - now repeat with the other three units...

Step 3 Stitch the first HRT unit to the central square in the background colour with a partial seam.  

When opened out it provides the width required to stitch the next seam in full.

Step 4 Stitch the second unit matching ends

Please press and stitch the seam allowance towards the middle of the 'sashing' overlapping if necessary. 

Step 5 - Repeat the process till all units are attached as below

Step 6 - For the last seam you will notice that it continues the seam you started stitching in Step 3.

Step 7 - Your first clockwise block is complete.  

Repeat 4 more times with your chosen fabrics until all five clockwise blocks are complete.

Step 8 - Now repeat with your anti-clockwise blocks - you will notice the diagonal seam goes across the rectangle in the opposite direction and the sashing strips rotate anticlockwise!

Now all the blocks are completed.


Step 9 Join the blocks together in mirror pairs paying attention to matching the 'sashing' seams.  All sashing seam allowance should be stitched towards the sashing.  This raises the sashing slightly and as the sashing is darker will not show the seam allowance through the fabric.

Stitch 5 pairs of blocks

Tip:  I stitch a few stitches at the point I want to match even if this is in the middle of the seam I want to stitch.  

Then I check to see how well the seams match - if it is a good match I will stitch the rest - if not I only have a few stitches to unpick.

Step 10  Next join sets of pairs, alternating how they are turned to form the trellis pattern.

Pay attention to matching the 'sashing seams'.  Also match the centres of the diamond patterns, nesting these seams, at the intersections of your four blocks.  Stitch just those matching sections first, check the match then finish the seam when acceptable.

Step 11 - Repeat until all seams are complete - well done you have mastered Half Rectangle Triangles and Partial Seams!

Step 12 -  Layer top, wadding and backing fabric and baste as preferred.  Then quilt and bind using the single fold binding.


Enjoy using your fabulous Oakshott Trellis runner!

I hope this tutorial gets you to try out Half Rectangle Triangles and partial seams if you haven't already tried them.  Do let me know if you do!  

This pattern will be available at the launch of Oakshott Colourshott bundles at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK!  

Tomorrow on the Oakshott Colourshott bloghop is my fabulous friend Helen at Archie the Wonder Dog. I know you will be amazed by what she has come up with....
Here is the full schedule

31 June:  Jo from My Bearpaw

1 July:     Kerry from Very Kerry Berry

3 July:     Nicky from Mrs Sew And Sow

4 July:     Helen from Archie The Wonder Dog

7  July:    Sonia from Fabric And Flowers

8 July:     Charlotte from Displacement Activity

10 July:   Trudi from Trudi-Quilting Prolifically

11 July:   Susan Claire from Gourmet Quilter

My May in Fabric

I have been on a mission of late!   To finish all my UFOs and in March and April I managed to finish four quilts in each month!  I was happy with that.  I was well on my way to achieving my goal!

But this month I have beaten even this target!

Fifth month of the year and five finishes to share with you this fine Fresh Sewing Day!

This one is Moving Mountains, made from a Bonnie Hunter tutorial and has ammonite inspired quilting.  The backing is one of my favourite prints Mystic Traveller

Meet Konaville, my Kona colour chart of schoolhouse blocks. All the background fabrics are school subject based - my favourite being the chemistry lab!  The backing is Just My Type Letterpress.

This quilt is my so far favourite quilt - I love the complexity of all the blocks in the background and the large blocks edged in a mini sashing.  Put your blocks on point and it always looks so much more complicated.  The edges are finished with strip pieced setting triangles and the quilt is backed in Happy Vintage White Circles. Quilted simply in the ditch because I reckoned it didn't need anything more!   

The blocks are propeller blocks as background and the large 12" blocks are taken from books by Jan Halgrimson - now out of print but great resources for something a bit different if you can cope with templates and minimal or no instructions.  I sort of like puzzling it out myself!

The next quilt is a bee quilt made with the help of my Modern Stitches bee.  This is my first attempt at trapunto - I added an extra layer of wadding behind my stars and lightly quilted those and did cosmic quilting in the background.  The backing I used on this quilt is an Echino linen/cotton mix and one that picks up the colours in my top.  I used my #Aurifil 28 in lots of colours to match the stars and different greys in the background and had invisible thread in the bobbin.

Really pleased with how it turned out both front and back!

  

And here is my fifth finish...another bee quilt.  My bee mates in the Star of Africa bee excelled themselves in making their blocks for me - based on a book character from their country.  I set them using Ayumi's Books for Baby pattern from her book Patchwork Please!  This gives my books a bit of a 3D feel and the background relates in some way to the books as if something has escaped ....!  Maybe I've channeled Cornelia Funke's Inkheart too much here!?

  
I really love all the different personalities of block and maker that I see in this small quilt.  My block is Long John Silver representing Scotland of course.  I added a few more books with reading related quotes inked on them as titles: 

A child who reads grows up to be an adult who thinks! (Helen gave me this one but doesn't claim to be the originator)
Reading gives us somewhere to go when we have to stay where we are (Mason Cooley)
To learn to read is to light a fire (Victor Hugo)
There is no friend as loyal as a book ( E Hemmingway)


For backing I didn't have any piece of fabric set aside so decided to piece a back and then to embellish it with machine appliqued letters: 

read lots read more! 

Okay less eloquent than the others but you get my meaning and you can quote me on that!

Enjoy visiting a few new blogs and a few familiar ones and I hope you find time for a bit of stitching too!