2011 - a year full of achievements

Remind me next year when I have a moan about having to much work and not enough time to sew how much I achieved in 2011 despite having had the busiest year in my line of work ever.

Compiling this mosaic here really brought it home that I crafted a lot:

• 19 Quilts of which I gifted 7, swapped 1, sold 5
• 4 pillows
• 2 needle books
• 4 mini pincushion
• 1 Advent calender
• 5 bags/pouches
• baby bibs, table sets, burp clothes
• 1 skirt
• some 20 or so bee blocks
• 1 knitted baby blanket, jumper and pair of socks
• 1 journal cover

 So I guess there is absolutely nothing to complain about.
And with that I wish you all a happy New Year and may 2012 bring us many more creative opportunities.

Socks

Just wanted to pop in and say a quick hello after the Christmas break.
Apart from eat to much like everybody else did I also knitted a pair of socks for my friend Leigh who I am about to visit today.

For those who who are interested the wool is a 4 ply from Regia that I bought in my local wool shop in Germany. The pattern is also from Regia from  the Inspiration booklet Nor 43 III.

Just in time - one finshed Pirate themed quilt

This is definitional the last quilt I finish before Christmas but not the last one this year as I still have to make a small one for my new god-daughter Anya who I will be seeing just after Christmas.

For now I wish you all a very merry Christmas and say goodbye until next week with some images of my finished "Pirates, Doges and Bones"quilt that I made for the most important little man in my world; my nephew and godson Hauke.

Hauke

The front of the quilt is made of 192  5 inch squares measuring in total about 60 x 80 inches  (2 x 1.5 m). I used fabric from my stash including the specifically purchased pirate themed fabric by Emily Taylor Pirate and Alexander Henry 'Bizness Pirate. I also added quite a few Timeless Treasure 'Dogs' and replaced the amount of sculls with cute little dogs and bones thereby a bit. After all I don't want Hauke to have nightmares.

I also kept two of the prints that have such wonderful detail as plam trees, boats and maps on them as large pieces because fussy cutting wouldn't have worked here. I also hope it adds a kind of "I spy" effect to the quilt top.

 

The back is a print wiht lots of blue stars on a cream backround from the 'Amercian Banner Rose ' collection from Moda purchased at my local Tikki quilt store (and yes Corinne you were right with the choice of fabric for the back and also with the binding !)

  

I kept the quilting simple in straight lines along the seam lines which I must confess is one of my favourite straight line quilting "patterns" - simple yet so beautiful.

 

  

I used a lovely stripy number again for the binding to give the quilt a little bit of a kick. The stripes are from the Lecien basics collections and were also bought at  Tikki. I love the black and white contrast.

 

I really really love this quilt and hope my nephew will enjoy it for many years to come. 

I wish you all lots of food, lots of help with the washing up; hopefully some breathing space in between and as few quarrels as possible (let's face it x-mas never passes without them entirely) over the festive days.

See you all after Christmas !

Pirates, Dogs and Bones

Having finished 'Lotta fly away' last week I wasted no time moving on to a new quilt project. After some contemplation I decided I'll make a quilt for my little nephew for Christmas although I already bought a book for him. That will make it two presents from me which is not something we normally do but my excuse is that he is my godson and he will get a normal single bed soon, so he needs a new quilt.

I am using my Emily Taylor Pirate,  Timeless Treasure 'Dogs', Alexander Henry 'Bizness Pirate' for this plus others from my stash.

Have a lovely Sunday
Judith

And we have a winner

This has been the most amazing response to a giveaway I have ever done. I asked you guys to tell me and everybody else your proudest creative achievement of this year and I have been utterly blown away by the fantastic pieces that you made this year.

A lot of you made something that they would necessary not make for themselves but it made somebody else very very happy.
Others, a lot of others actually had first time quilts, clothes  or other things they made.
And again others are proudest about quilts they made for their loved ones.

And then there are some of you that are proudest about the moments they shared with their kids making something together. 

I tried to respond to every comment and made good progress doing so on Monday evening for several hours and on Tuesday but I'm afraid I didn't manage to sent each and everyone of you a little thank you or well done.

One the funniest crafty items I saw was from Michelle Mathews who blogs over at "Little Peanut" She made a Darf Wader costume for her daughter and I swear this is the cutest bad guy costume I have ever seen. Check the post to the picture out here.

Darf Wader by Michelle Mathews of "Little Peanut"

However Random org did not favour Darf Wader but instead Heather A. from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada who finished her first solo quilt this year. Well done Heather  (I think I know the binding you used on this quilt)

Congratulation Heather, a mail is on its way to you and once I have your address I'll sent the goodies out to you.

Lotta fly away - spreading its wings

... only its gonna stay put because I keep it !

So here it is; all done and actually already in use on my bed. Just to recap briefly,  this quilt is made of the new line 'Echo' by Lotta Jansdotter in combination with Kona Snow and various other Kona solids (see details in this post here). 'Echo'  was bought at Seamstar here in the UK and the Kona solids are from Riverfabrics here in the UK and from existing stash I had.

The quilt measures 70 x 76 inches (1.78 x 1.92 m) and the front is made of 136 flying gees units ( 7 x 3.5 inches) from Kona snow and patterned fabric plus a border of units in coordinating solids that are 5 x 2.5 inches).
I used two different methods to make the flying geese units and both work well. I made the larger units with my flying geese ruler. With this method there is no need to cut off dog ears at the corners but it can waste fabric. However one can minimize this by doing some calculations before measuring the fabrics strips. For the border units I used the "No Waste method for making flying geese units" by patchpieces. This is an excellent method that wastes absolutely no fabric (as title says....), the unit dimensions are easy to calculate for any size you wish but you end up with dog ears.
The reason why I used two methods was just because I wanted to try them and see how they compare. I think I am slightly in favour of the no waste method as I hate having to many fabric offcuts.

The back is pieced using the same solids that were used for the border on the front plus 'Echo' leftovers and a generous amount of Kona Coal for background.

 

I quilted in zickzack lines below and above the stitch lines to emphasis the flying gees pattern. I used two different Guetermann Sulky colours. On the front my 1071 and on the back my favourite steel grey colour 1328.

  

As always I am particularly excited about my choice of binding .It is a stripy number in rich pink and orange from the Taza collection of Dena Design bought at my local quilt shop Tiki.

 

And for good measure a few roll-ups...

 

 

A thank you on Giveaway day

Sew Mama Sew are hosting their annual giveaway day this week (i.e. not a day but a week) and I decided to use the occasion to thank you my blog readers and followers for your continued support.

Sometime last year in October I think it was when I decided to start a blog and flickr photostream. I already had finished several quilts since April that year and was graving a larger audience to share my creations with and also a community of like minded crafters to bounce of ideas.  It has been a fantastic journey and I learned so much from your comments and suggestions.

And for that I thank you.

I will giveaway this week one Rolie Polie of the delightful and so aptly named  Riley Blake collection 'Delighted' and one banner sheet of the same collection to one lucky reader.

To be eligible for this  giveaway I would like to know from you which project you made this year you are most proud of. That may be the most beautiful item you crafted or perhaps the one that was a challenge or had a special meaning to you. Please include a link in the comment so I can have a look and also don't forget your e-mail address if it is not in your blogger profile.
The giveaway is open as always to everybody, national, internationals and Aliens are all welcome.
The giveaway is open until the 16th.

The project I am most proud of this year is my "Very Berry" quilt simply because it was such an achievement due its enormous size.

Stash Note 39

Flannels !

I love the the incredible soft feel of flannels but I have not used them as quilt backs yet. For some reason I find a quilt back to precious for flannel. And I think that I am entirely wrong here as flannels are actually more expensive than for example Kona cotton. So it should actually be the other way around that flannels are to precious to use as a quilt back (rambling here think....)

Anyway lately I have been making baby blankets with flannel backs. I used a whole stack for solid coloured flannels I bought when I was in the US in Spring. So I am again on the lookout for flannels and I was immediately attracted by the colours of these when they came out a few months ago. The flannels in these images are from Anna-Maria-Horner's 'Lou Lou Thi' collection, Sarah Jane's 'Children at Play' and one is also by Anna-Maria Horner but from her 'Folksy' collection'.

What I love in particular about the 'Children at play pints is that they are actually really good for boy baby blankets. So often I find that fabrics lean more toward little girls and it is often hard to find boy friendly prints.

From left to right:
AMH - Lou Lou Thi, In the Clearing
SJ - Children at Play, Rockets Blue
SJ - Children at Play, On the Go Coral

From left to right:
AMH - Lou Lou This, Jewlry Ruby
AMH - Folks, Diamond Mine Sun
AMH - Lou Lou Thi, Flower Go Around Maiden
SJ - Children at Play, Chasing airplanes blue

Countdown to Christmas - final part incl. template -

Well the official countdown to Christmas started in earnest last week but my 'Countdown to x-mas' quilt is already (or finally) finished.
First things first; as promised I created a template for the blocks and if you wish to use it you can download it from here. I squared the blocks down to 8 inches.

In my last post about this quilt I asked for advice on how to quilt it and got a lot of very good suggestions from you (thank you). For a while I was very partial to Laura's suggestion to use a cross-hatch pattern. I also liked Fiona's suggestion of loopy stars that Katy's trusted longarmer Chris used on Katy's constellation quilt but dismissed it as I didn't want to use a longarmer.

After some more pondering I had this revelation a few weeks back while running that I would make a Christmas Star pattern starting in the middle and then gradually increasing its dimension towards the outside of the quilt. I chose a star that was suitable for the rectangle shape of the quilt.

I made a template from carton and drew with an hera marker the first star in the middle and then machine stitched along the outline with a double line. My plan was to then slowly increase the star using the guide on the machine.
But that didn't work as the star I chose, albeit really beautiful, wasn't easily expandable without making new templates.
So I changed my plan rather to undo the quilting and machine stitched many stars which in effect brings me close to the quilting of the Constellation Star quilt after all !

 

When I had covered the quilt sufficiently with machine stitched large stars I moved on to hand quilting smaller stars. I used three different colours for hand quilting, a cream, dark red and dark green that are all in the same tones as the fabric but increase the contrast on the front of the quilt a little bit more. The machine stitched stars are all held in cream.

I am happy with the outcome and in particular because I really enjoyed hand quilting again but I must admit that I am disappointed that my original plan didn't work out and therefore this isn't a quilt I am madly in love with (sorry my dear quilt..) but maybe this is one where love will grow over time.
What I am very satisfied with is the way I made good use of almost all of the jelly role strips by incorporating them in the back. All solids used on the back are also from my stash of red fabrics I built originally up for the Very Berry quilt. It is a good feeling to be able to just pull fabric from stash (and to see said stash reducing somewhat !).

I am really pleased with my choice of binding as it frames both the top and the back nicely. The binding is a dark green cotton with red dots which I believe is from the same collection but I am not sure (stats below).

And here the usual quilt statistics:

• Size: 57 x 66 inches (1.45 x 1.57 cm)
• Blocks: Template to download here, block size after squaring up should be 8 inches (7 1/2 finished block size)
• Fabric used for the front: One Jelly role of Countdown to x-mas from Sweetwater and several yards of background and sashing fabric of the same collection bought at Delray Fabric and Hulu Crafts. 
• Fabric used for the back: leftovers from the Jelly role and leftovers of Kona in shades of red
• Binding: bought at my local quilt shop Tikki
• Quilting thread: Guetermann Sulky 30 in 1071 for the machine quilting part and No 8 Perle for hand quilting in colours 3000 (cream), 1667 (red) and 4565 (green)
• Wadding: Hobbs Heirloom in 100 % cotton

 

Stash Note 38

Some more additions to my stash of useful and beautiful blenders.
I was looking for some more Pearl Brecelet prints from Lizzy House when I came across Carolyn Gavin's Wild Thyme and some Khristian Howell prints that miraculously all worked brilliantly together.

The prints in this image are all from Carolyn Gavin's Wild Thyme collection.
From left to right, Pod in blue, red, orange, green and brown.

From left to right again.
Lizzy House, Pearl Bracelet in Feather and Pond.
Khristian Howell, Tiles in Rust and Verte from the Moroccan Mirage collection.

With the exception of the blue Wild Thyme print all where bought at sewfreshfabric. The blue 'Wild Thyme' print was ordered at Sew Me Happy here in the UK.

These cute text prints are from the new collection 'Meet the Gang' by Creative Thursday.
Left to right are' Friends' in teal, green and yellow

More Pearl Bracelet from Lizzy House' new 'Outfoxed 'collection in yellow, red and light orange (although that to me is a soft peach).

And because I just could not leave this one out, Flour Sacks from Floursack by Windham.
These were all bought at sewfreshfabric.