A Prickle of Hedgehogs

When my kids were little we used to play a game whilst they were in the bath. I would quiz them on the name of animal young and collective nouns. It must have stuck in the memory of my youngest as he bought me a print for my birthday last year with many animal collective nouns on it.

When I started making this quilt for Siblings Together, I looked to see what the collective noun for hedgehogs was, and it said a prickle!! Now, I didn't really believe this so I checked it out, and as far as I can see it's true. There is an alternative, which is an array, but I'm going to stick with a prickle. It makes me smile!

So my prickle of hedgehogs is complete. There are 12 of them and I had enough scraps of the fabric left to make a co-ordinating border. I think it adds a nice finishing touch. 

I pin basted it yesterday.

Those poor little hedgehogs. I felt bad putting pins into their faces!

So now it's the quilting. I'm torn between haphazard elongated wavy lines running from top to bottom and a tight zig zag line using one of the decorative stitches on my machine. The second option would be a lot slower, but its the one I'm leaning towards. I'm hoping to test them both out in the next day or so before I finally decide.

The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman and you can buy it here

We are hoping to get 100 quilts for Siblings Together before the summer camps start this year so that they can be given out to the children as a reminder of their time spent with their siblings. As you can see from the "Quiltometer" in my side bar we are a quarter of the way there! 

If you would like to know more about the charity or to help in any way, please take a look at this post by Mary Emmens

Linking up with Let's Bee Social and Work in Progress Wednesday

Passacaglia Progress

                 

My Passacaglia quilt is progressing well. It's all hand stitched, english paper piecing. It's slow stitching, happy stitching, calming and relaxing stitching, the best sort! When I know I can't rush something, that I'm  not going to get in finished in the next week, month or whatever, I just slow down and enjoy the journey, take time to gather my thoughts and unwind. I'm sure it's good for the soul.

Part of the reason I've been working on this quilt is that my sewing machine is being serviced this week. It made me wonder what life would have been like many years ago when everything had to be hand sewn. Being without my machine really does make me appreciate having the choice to hand or machine sew!!

The top photo is where I'm at now on the second large rosette. These are BIG and take a long time. I couldn't resist trying out the final round of stars before I'd finished the round of pale pink pentagons. 

                                  

This is a close up of the first large rosette. (None of them are complete as they all have to interlink when the quilt is put together). The pattern is from Millefiori Quilts by Willynne Hammerstein.

And this is all three together! Although there is one more large rosette in the quilt, I'm going to work on some of the smaller ones next. A little (almost!!) instant gratification is needed!

Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday     Let's Bee Social   and Work in Progress Wednesday

Thanks for stopping by.

Julie

Mother's Day Mug Rug

Today I'm happy to say that I'm a guest blogger over on the Simply Solids Blog

When Justine asked me to make something for the beginning of March, I realised that it was only a couple of week"s away from Mother's day, so a gift for a Mum seemed to be the obvious choice.

I love making Mug Rugs. They're bigger and therefore more useful than a simple coaster, but not so big that you only bring them out of special occasions. They're the perfect size for a cake and a cuppa!

The background is a simple 2x3 grid of low volume fabrics. I've provided full scale pattern pieces, ready reversed which you can trace onto iron-on adhesive  (I used Bondaweb) 

Cut them out

Trace the wording ready to embroider

Iron them onto the background

Sew around with a zig zag stitch and add a little embroidery.

And finish as you would a normal quilt.

I went a little over the top with the quilting...straight lines, just over a 1/4" apart! Yes, I was having fun. There were of course a lot of ends to sew in, but with a Clover Easy Thread needle where you just pull the thread in at the top rather than having to thread it, the job wasn't too bad.

Of course you don't have to embroider the word "Mum" you could  make one for a friend., or even for yourself! You can trace any name onto the mug band. Just make sure there's a nice edible treat to go with it!

Do pop over to Simply Solids Blog for full details of how to make it. You can also download the instructions  with full size pattern pieces as a printable PDF HERE