Mini octastrings

A while ago I signed up for the Pillow Talk swap on Instagram. I absolutely could not resist it as it was my favourite swap back in the days when Flickr was fun to use. My partner is a fan of scrappy so I decided to resize my Octastring block for an epic mini version.

Each block finishes up around 6" and as each block is made up of 9 patches they are rather time consuming, well over 20 hours of work to get it to this point, but I think the end result is worth it.

Prepare for photo overload, I wanted to remember what each of the blocks looked like.

I echo quilted each of the blocks with a pink variegated Aurifil thread as I wanted the quilting to be simple and fade into the background as there was already so much going on with the scrappiness.

For the back of the cushion I used one of my favourite prints from Anna Maria Horner with the pink solid for a bit of continuity.

Before sending it on to its new owner I had to get a picture of it with the original Octastring quilt. I will admit this was a really tough one to part with!

I really hope my partner loves it as much as I do! Catch you soon x

Prairie points

Not much to report from these parts at the moment. Creativity is crawling along thanks to an irritated nerve in my neck that is giving me the equivalent of sciatica in my arm and shoulder which is just peachy when you need to move said arm to use the sewing machine! I've had to do some quick thinking to rejig my plans for the Quilt Now BOM to reduce some of the reliance on the sewing machine for the final few blocks.

As Issue 9 has just hit the shelves of shops in the UK I can show you what we've done so far and I have to admit to being delighted with it.

All of the fabrics are from various collections for Art Gallery Fabrics and they all play beautifully together. If you're on Instagram you can search #quiltnowbom to see pictures of other BOM quilts in progress.
This month's BOM technique is Folded patchwork Prairie Points. A super quick technique that demanded a fun BOM project - a travel memory game. I dug out some of my Laurie Wisbrun and Heather Ross hoard for a bit of fussy cutting fun.

The free pattern will be  is available on the Quilt Now website soon now. I'm off to finish watching the Great British Sewing Bee now. Catch you soon x

Beehive finish

We're just back from our local Christmas fireworks and lights switch on. Most amusingly it turns out we were stood next to the green control box where the lighting engineer switches the lights on after the countdown :) It's almost like being told that there's no such thing as Santa (we all know there is!), I always thought the lights went on by magic when some random celebrity pressed the plunger, what do I know, eh?! Anyway, that has absolutely nothing to do with today's project reveal so I'll get to the point... I finished Florence's quilt :) I broke out my limited free-motion skills in the form of a loop-da-loop type pattern over the majority of the quilt.

I left a few areas un-quilted (is that even a word?), for example, around the flowers as I'd raw edge applique'd them in place. It gives the quilt a lovely texture which should be nice and tactile for little fingers.

I love the way the quilting looks on the back of the quilt too.

I can't remember what line this backing fabric is from but I thought it was perfect for this little quilt as it picked out the orange, yellow and pink from the Briar Rose on the front. I self-bound as I didn't want the extra bulk around the edge of such a small quilt. You can see my amateur free-motion "skills" in this shot, my stitch length is anything but regular! Thankfully the Aurifil thread is very forgiving and doesn't snap every two seconds :)

Here's the finished quilt in all it's glory ;) It's been really difficult to capture it properly in photo form as usual! I'm really pleased with the end result though and I'm fairly sure it will be well received. I think it might be more of a wall-hanging than a snuggle under quilt as it is quite stiff with all the quilting.

 I do love a quick project! It's so satisfying to complete a quilt in less than a week :) I hope you all have a good weekend. Catch you soon x

Busy Bee

I've started work on a special quilt for one of my best friend's new baby, Florence. Florence was born while I was on bed rest following my op so I had to content myself with sketching out a plan for the quilt. My sketching is awful, I am no artist! I'm not even showing you the sketch it's that bad but thankfully I am quite good with fabric ;) I bought a fat quarter stack of Briar Rose from Justine at Simply Solids earlier this year and this project was perfect for it! Hopefully you can tell that it's supposed to be a beehive, if not just humour me :) I strip pieced the beehive then appliqued it the solid.

I added some flowers that I cut with my Go!Baby...

...then got busy with some sky writing. Excuse the  dodgy quality photo, it was getting dark again. I felt most pleased with myself for the fussy cut bee and the sky writing was passable although it does look a little like the bee might have been out on the tiles before doing it ;) 

So, tomorrow I hope to finish this baby quilt in daylight so I can get some nice photos before I send it to it's new home. Catch you soon x

Proof of life

I might not be firing on all cylinders at the moment but I've been doing quite a bit of secret sewing that I can't share with you yet. Here's a little sneak of one of the secret projects that I can get away with revealing :)  A rather lovely man quilt grew out of these yummy Parson Gray fabrics!

 

 I've managed to sneak in some bee sewing too :) This block is for Lynz's month in the HipBees. Lynz asked us to use a bit of our own patterned fabric in the block and I think my choices represent my taste fairly well; Denyse Schmidt, Tula Pink and Heather Ross.

I just had to include this little horse/donkey for Chook!

I'm sure Yvonne will be back very soon to amuse you all with her special brand of humour. I can't promise you giggles but I'll hopefully have pretty stuff to show you next time around :) Catch you all soon x

Blogger's quilt festival - Heather Ross baby quilt

I've got another entry for Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival. This time it's in the Baby quilt category. If you're a new visitor to the blog you can find the back story for my Heather Ross baby quilt here. If you like what you see we'd love you to come back soon :) If you're a regular reader it's not been too long since I started this little quilt for our new nephew so I'm sure you'll be impressed that I got it done so quickly! 

I didn't have a firm plan in mind for this quilt other than wanting it to be a kind of eye-spy quilt but if I did have a plan it would have looked exactly as it does ;) Our nephew's parents don't own a tv and they are a very musical family so I'm sure they will find plenty of things to sing about when this quilt is in use.

Starting point for the quilt

These prints by Heather Ross are perfect for fussy cutting! I framed a few little pieces with solids but really the prints sing all on their own.

When it came to quilting I didn't want anything too fussy so I just did some organic(otherwise known as wonky) straight lines in a neutral Aurifil thread. I used this chirpy print from Ikea for the back. It's a home decor weight fabric that will stand up to outdoor picnics much more readily than the quilting cotton.

This juicy orange pezzy print from American Jane made the perfect choice for binding.

So there we have it, one very cute (even if I say so myself) baby quilt measuring approximately 43"x 45".  I'm really hoping the recipients will love it as much as I do! Thanks for taking a look, don't forget to check out all the other quilts in the baby quilt category. Catch you soon x

Baby boy quilt in progress

There's a new member of the Witchard clan thanks to hubby's middle brother and his wife so I've been playing with these rather scrummy Heather Ross prints. 

 As usual I had no set plan for the quilt so I've been cutting, sewing and hoping for the best :) I started with these wonky stars.

 Then I couldn't resist using this little bit of selvedge...

 and the guitar print is perfect for our musical relatives :)

I'm doing my usual trick of throwing in some co-ordinating solids and making it up as I go along. I'm pleased with how it's looking so far :)

I'm hoping to finish this off tomorrow. There might also be another finish to show you...Catch you soon x