Carrot and stick mentality!

These are the pretties I get to play with this evening

Once I get back from the gym :(

Pixelated heart quilt Finish!

And no colour bleeds! 

Super soft voiles, tana lawn and cottons! 

Pretty clotted cream colours when the light plays nice! 

Straight line quilting on the diagonal makes for diamonds on the back through those giant poppies.

I'll shut up now and let you have a look at the whole thing :) 

It has now been listed in my Etsy shop ready for the holidays! 

Patchwork Cushions with Hand Quilting

Some of you that follow me on Flickr may have seen this image around the beginning of October and then nothing more of it, worry not my exploits into hand quilting cushions went well! I just didn't have the chance to get any more photos taken until this week :)

That super bright perle cotton toned in really well with the bright florals but just to make sure it wasn't too bold I went with a cream to stitch the horizontal lines.

The binding is my new favourite grey with white spots.

I didn't know I had this many floral or ditzy prints in my stash truth be told but I had fun throwing them all together!

And I had to go with another floral fabric for the backing because it was sitting there just looking so right for it! 

It ended up sized for a  22"x22" cushion pad.

Once that one was done I was itching to do another (I did mention in an older post these things are addictive to make!) 

 So this was whipped together 

I pulled a load of animal theme fabrics and two types of quilters linen, sorry I can't remember the shade names right now but I'll go hunt them out if anyone is desperate to know, and set to marking out a quilting grid.

I've quilted each linen square with a different colour thread to try and pick out some of the colours in the animal fabrics.

Yup again with that grey with white dots! I really do love it as a binding :)

The back is a really bright fox fabric from Ikea that I had a small amount of, it only seemed right after hearing Madam play "That fox song" over and over again for the last few days! 

I'm coming to realise I do get a kick out of patchworking with squares. 

One of my 1st quilt books- a birthday gift from Him in door's mum The gentle art of quilt making by Jane Brocket keeps re-inspiring me to work with the colours of the fabric and the simple shapes I can create to make items that will stand the test of time and my ever changing tastes. I have to say it's been a bit of a shock and revelation as one glance through my Flickr faves will leave you thinking EPP is the way I roll lol I highly recommend the book or having a good browse with the "Look inside" feature of Amazon to get a feel for taking quilts back to simple shapes and colour palettes. Anyway enough waffling on here is the last cushion cover I put together for the heck of it :D

I had a load of Liberty scraps left after making our giant log cabin quilt top and figured it would be rude to let them go to waste!

 I machine quilted on the diagonal through the prints and hand stitched through the linen, again with perle 8 (I like the chunky look it gives) 

I went with a floral binding for this one!

Really simple linen envelope backing to finish, I thought I'd better calm it down after the fox fabric! 

All three of these will be making their way into the shop today...possibly tomorrow after seeing the time!

Pixelated heart Quilt

I came across this post a while back on Blue Elephant stitches and the question of a 5" version has sort of tickled my brain ever since. Half term and a week off work were heading up on me and I thought why not? So here is the photo diary of my Pixelated Heart quilt.

I hadn't realised just how many pinks reds and plums I have in my stash!

Chopped into 5" squares (Ignore the fact they need pressed please!) 

I quickly realised I needed a design wall for this one, Him in doors was very sweet and helped me with the high areas! I am height challenged at 5' 2"and this was hitting the very top of the ceiling in our loft.

I will admit to now wanting a "real" design wall as seriously how much easier did it make my life!?! I am impressed :)

Once I'd figured out my layout came the fun part of transferring it to the sewing machine, keeping my fingers crossed the whole time that I didn't muddle the squares up.

I had a look around the internet to see if anyone other than Blue elephant stitches had stated a preference for line by line or making blocks then sewing them together but no one had so I went with my "need to see results quickly" mentality and made blocks.

Again please ignore the ironing board and iron flex :) 

And they came together faster than I thought.

It took most of my day off last week to get the top done (New job, that I'm loving, with more hours = less sewing time-karma pay off perhaps?) 

 Then today, first day of half term I got this bad girl quilted! Plain and practical straight line quilting through each square, keeping with the clean lines look.

Next on the to do list is binding then a trip around the washing machine with a million colour catcher sheets! I'll let you know how that goes :D 

Patchwork cushions

This blog post was scheduled to go live a good few days ago and didn't, I don't know why it didn't as it is pretty straightforward to schedule posts on blogger but I suspect it was something I did and that ladies and gentlemen is why I fear one day I'll break the internet.

I wanted to make some cushion covers in extra large to accommodate the cushions that I salvaged from my old sofa before it bit the dust earlier in the year. It was furnished with four 24" feather monsters along the backrest and they were just too comfy to throw out!

I had a rummage in my "low volume but not too low volume" scrap pile (Does anyone else organise like that?) and came up with these bad gals. 

5x5 5" squares later this is what I had made

I quilted 1/4" from the seam lines and called it done.

Yeah I'm not one for over complicating things when a quick finish is on the cards! 

Sorry about the crappy iphone photos no excuses other than laziness.

I made it into an envelope back due to my fear of zippers as its nice and fast then threw on a grey spotty binding. 

Done and loving it. 

Loved it that much I made a brighter version to join it! 

I can see some of these being made and added to the shop in the next few weeks as I really had fun making them and how much more instant gratification can a girl want than sewing up a cushion in half an hour (Yes I know I live a rock n roll life) 

So this is how the sofa looks now that it has been decorated with handmade cushions...Yup still room for me, 'Bella and a few more cushions! 

Large log cabin quilt top is nearly done!

Ok so it's not the best photo in blogland, but I was just laying the nearly finished top over the bed to check for size and I thought why not :) 

Bella approves.

I do think the next few rounds will loose the light/dark values as I work with the fabrics I have to get the drop on either side of the bed but I'm good with that :) 

Crochet cushion

So this is how the crochet cushion looks now it has a back and is sitting pretty on the sofa.

If I had thought ahead I would have taken some construction photos along the way, not to worry though I am sure I'll make another one soon! 

I sewed the crochet to a pale check fabric oblong, nothing special just what I had to hand, and then treat the whole thing like a normal envelope back cushion. I did pay close attention to the seam lines just so I didn't loose the crochet pattern in there! 

Right now it's covering a cushion that is much too plump for it but I'm showing you anyway because I Love the fabric on the back, it's my newest Ikea fabric purchase. I bought it along with the sofa with the intention of using as cushion backs-I love it when a plan comes together! 

By the time I had crocheted the cushion front I had remembered how much I enjoy sitting in the sitting room on an evening crocheting with a film on and Him in doors grumbling on the sofa with me so I pulled out what was left of my stash and went on the hunt for a pattern.

This is the one I went with.

It's a basic stripe pattern and again this one is for our bed! Can you tell I'm worried it's going to be a COLD winter :D 

So I have a little bit of paperwork to get through this evening and then I'm off to the sewing room for an hour or two of Liberty sewing! 

Lovely Log cabin Liberty

My Liberty of London goodies came and Oh My Word was I excited! 

I am "That girl" the one that gets excited about packaging :) 

It also tickled me that they sent the shop bag with an online order so I could give them as a gift (if I was out of my mind) to a like minded packaging fool, it makes me feel better that I can't be the only one! 

These were nestled under a layer of tissue and I nearly tore a nail off in my rush to get them opened up.

Liberty patchwork bundles are the way forward. 

I went totally Gollum at this point. 

Pressed and hung up so I could see all the pretties together.

Once I'd calmed myself down I set to trimming them, they come fairly wonky as the photo below shows. 

It does however mean I now have a fair bit of Liberty in my scrap bin :D

The point of the purchase (other than to pet the pretty fabric) is to make an heirloom style quilt for our bed.

A giant log cabin design is where it is all headed, under the watchful big eyes of some Blythe dolls and a hanging Santa butt.

After some thought and conversation it was agreed that the pattern is a good use of the fabric and still has the "vintage quilt" style we wanted for the bedroom.

 I am really pleased I managed to get the red centre in the cabin :) 

And this is how it's been left for this evening, I can't wait to get started on it again tomorrow after work!

Taking a liberty!

This is me eating super noodles through to November!

I'm super excited and I can't wait to show and tell :D