Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014 - Octastring quilt

While the great and good of the quilting industry have been hustling at International Quilt Market I've been busy putting the finishing touches to this quilt with the sole intention of being able to share it in Amy's  Blogger's Quilt Festival. My Octastring quilt has been a long time in the making! Apologies to regular visitors for re-visiting familiar territory, I'll keep it brief ;) I designed the block in 2012, originally intending to use my Flea Market Fancy  and Hope Valley stash, but quickly ran out of steam for the project.

A year later I had a light-bulb moment, why not get the ladies of the HipBees to make the blocks for me?! By this time Denyse Schmidt had released yet more fabulous fabric ranges to plunder for this project. I threw in prints from Shelburne Falls and Florence to supplement the Hope Valley and Flea Market Fancy. I received 10 fabulous blocks and added 2 of my own to complete the lap-sized quilt top. I'm a sucker for a secondary pattern!

Then, as is usual for me the WIP got put to one side yet again. It sat like this on my design wall for way too long! The problem was mainly that I felt the top needed a border but I didn't want anything too big in case it detracted from the design.

Finally, last week, I added a 2 and a half inch solid border and cracked on with finishing the project! I pieced a simple backing for the quilt using some of the scrap remnants from the original block construction and some yardage of one of my favourite prints from the Flea Market Fancy reprint.

I did a very simple quilting treatment as there's so much going on in this quilt already with all those prints. I used a nice aqua blue Aurifil thread for some straight line machine quilting then echo quilted the octagons with chunky hand quilting and Perle 8 thread.

The finishing touch was the self-binding, slightly fiddly but well worth the faff.

I'm absolutely delighted with how the quilt has turned out and I'm so thankful to my fabulous bee mates for making it happen!
This quilt finished up at around  45" by 58", so perfect for keeping my lap warm in the evenings when watching tv. I can't resist leaving you with the finished quilt again :)

I'm linking this one up to the Original Design category of the Blogger's quilt festival. If you like it maybe you'd be able to see your way clear to voting for it or maybe even nominating it for a Viewer's choice award. Either way it's well worth visiting Amy's site to check out all the other awesome entries!

If you fancy making an Octastring project yourself, you'll find the Octastring block details on our website.
Thanks for visiting today, I hope you'll visit again. Catch you soon x

Prepping

Well it's been a very busy time in this neck of the woods. I've been secret sewing, blog updating and website building.I've added some new content over at www.nelliesniceties.com so if you haven't already visited it might be a good time to check it out. I'd love to know what you think of the facelift so far! I'm going to try migrating this blog over to the website in the next few days so apologies in advance for any disruption. If it doesn't work out I'll just leave it here and add new posts here and on the website; me and technology are not the greatest of friends.

In amongst all this business I remembered that I'd signed up for this year's Fat Quarterly Retreat Sample Swap. Given that retreat starts next Friday it really was about time for me to get cracking on making my samples! I've been procrastinating as I really didn't know what to make, then this afternoon I had a light-bulb moment when I decided to make reversible aprons :) I dug out some pretty fabrics and set to work. They go together really quickly and I'm a little bit delighted with them. This is the first one that I've finished, I've just got to add apron ties to 3 more tomorrow. Front...

and back...

There's another one in theses fabrics and then another 2 that are the grey version of this Flea Market fancy print with a Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow print. I'm hoping that they won't be too offensive for whoever is in my swap group. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get on with finishing the other 3 aprons after I've been to the hairdressers to tame my crazy hair for retreat. I'm not sharing a picture here of me until that mess is remedied! Catch you soon x

Hexiestars

After finishing my last hand sewing project I was keen to get cracking on another one :) So, I had an idea that I'd like some sort of star. A bit of fiddling around, on TouchDraw on the iPad, later I had this plan.

 With my new found love of gluebasting it wasn't long before I had it ready to sew together in fabric form.

I sew all the thin triangle pieces to the central hexie then fill in with the larger grey triangles. They are quick, fun and addictive :)

I've been showing my progress on Instagram and quite a few people had asked where I got the pattern from so I thought I'd share the templates here for anyone that might fancy a go at there own :) If you do have a go I'd love to see! #hexiestars

You'll find the EPP template pdf here

Catch you soon x

Addicted

This week has confirmed to me that I am addicted to fabric and sewing. The first indication of the level of my addiction came with the arrival of my new sewing table. Excuse the mess I'm too tired to tidy but just about rested enough to do a small amount of sewing ;) We decided against going down the homemade route for the craft table and instead relied on good old Ikea. This monster is nearly 5 foot square, no more scrabbling around on the floor while basting quilts, woohoo!

The second indication was that about 30 minutes after the postman delivering this gorgeous package from Sarah I was "racing" up the stairs to sew them together on the machine. Yep, first time using the machine since my op but well worth the exhaustion! I knew it was a good idea getting the ladies of the HipBees to make string blocks for me :)

The third indication was a bit groundhog day...up the stairs to the machine I went this afternoon with this package of goodies from Amy. The result was equally pleasing :)

This is most definitely going to be a favourite quilt! Look how gorgeous they are next to each other :)

If I hadn't already been convinced of my fabric addiction the final indication was the overwhelming need to start another hand-sewing project having been woken in the middle of the night by an idea! I started with this tray of yummy fabrics (I've added more since this photo was taken)...

 and very soon these

became this.

I just love this combination of colours at the moment. I'm not sure how big this is going to grow but for now I'm just enjoying the process. Suffice to say I feel much more like myself now I've got some "proper" sewing done. I'm some way off wrestling with quilts but a cushion isn't too far off achievable now :)  Catch you soon x

Coo-eee

Long time no speak. Thank you all for your get well wishes! I'm slowly starting to recover following my surgery and 2 post-op infections. I'm not back to sewing on the machine yet but I have managed to do a bit of tapestry and hexie stitching so it's not all bad. My sick bed is rather welcoming so it's not a chore to spend time on it. Hubby hung my Marcelle Medallion for me last weekend :)

It's my turn to be Queen bee in the HipBees. I foolishly thought it would be less stressful to have the other bees sewing for me this month, knowing that I wouldn't be able to sew and not wanting to let anyone else down, what I didn't consider was the amount of work involved in putting the fabrics together for 11 people...anyway, 3 weeks after starting to put packages together they are finally ready for posting and will be on their way to the other HipBees tomorrow :)

I've asked the HipBees to make 8 small string blocks each for me so that I can finally finish a project that I started last year. Each package contains a lovely selection of Denyse Schmidt fabrics; Flea Market Fancy, Hope Valley, Florence and Shelburne Falls, some grey kona strips, a grey rectangle for writing their siggies and 8 -  5" squares of paper for use as foundation templates.

Half the bees will have predominantly red/pink/orange/brown fabrics with half as many blue/green/grey fabrics and the other half will have the opposite. Each bee member will make 4 straightforward string blocks like so...

...and 4 diagonal string blocks like so...

When the blocks come back to me I'll be constructing the larger finished blocks like so...

The centre of each block will house the siggie of the Bee member :) I'm really looking forward to this one being finished! I just know it's going to be another family favourite. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Catch you soon x

Ho, hum

It's been one of those weeks so far, I feel like pushing fast forward! It's probably just as well that's impossible as I've had a million and one things to do this week. First up an angel mini quilt for the Brit Quilt Swap.  I'm feeling particularly proud of myself for parting with this block that I made as soon as my Flea Market Fancy arrived. It was intended to be part of a larger quilt but I think my angel recipient will love it so I'll just have to make myself another block at a later date.

 I backed it with this blossom print from the Farmdale range and did my signature straight line quilting. Hopefully this will put a smile on the recipient's face :)

 This month is Jude's month in the HipBee. We've been asked to make these wonky braids using scraps that Jude sent us. They are super quick and very liberating, made all the better by the munching of Rolos (thanks Jude)! Fun!

 Finally, I joined the Modern Scrappy Bits swap over on Flickr. A super easy swap, send scraps and small item made from scraps....job done. I made my first boxy pouch using this tutorial. I foresee more of these in my future!

That's Tula Pink Parisville scraps! I think I must be having a funny turn with all this beloved fabric leaving my clutches!!! I lined it with scraps of an Ikea print.

 Here it is full of scrappy goodies for my partner. Hope she likes it :)

I'm now free to sew for fun again as my swap commitments are all fulfilled. I won't be taking on any more swaps until we move house, no news on that front yet. Slap me if I tell you I've signed up for anything else!! Catch you soon x