10 Minutes a Day in 2016

Hi! and welcome to my first post of 2016.

This is going to be a busy year!

I have such plans for my pattern designs, both knitted and quilted, I'm going to become a grandparent for the first time and I'm going to do a lot of travelling. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Knowing what was ahead, I started to be careful what I committed to towards the end of last year. 

The usual rounds of quilt alongs and swaps needed be declined. It was hard to say no, but its no good agreeing to do something if I don't have the time to see it through.

My little grandson will be born any day now, and I've been busy making organic baby clothes, blankets, fitted crib sheets, all of which I'll show you in another post. I've been to Toronto to help his Mum and Dad get their house ready for his arrival, and I'll go again as soon as he is born.

I've managed to keep up with some of the groups I'm in, but deadlines are hard, especially when you're not even on the right side of the world.

My sewing has to be done as and when it fits into my schedule this year, but I don't want to give up on the things that are important to me, like making quilts for Siblings Together.

Last year I made several for them, including this one.

and this one.

It was whilst I was rushing around trying to complete everything I'm committed to for this month, that I had an idea. Just because I can't commit to deadlines, doesn't mean I can't still make a Siblings Together quilt or two. I just need to make it slowly, on my own, rather than as part of a group where I might let people down.

I looked at my stash of scraps. Its huge!

I keep even the tiniest pieces. I have this box full of odd size little scraps. They are so little they usually get rejected whenever I'm hunting for pieces for a specific quilt bee block.

I have this box full of squares I cut over a year ago in preparation for a postage stamp quilt. Those little pieces are just 1.5" square! The quilt of course never got started!

I have Jelly Rolls that I've never used and lots of blocks that were either experiments or just didn't make the cut when I was making previous quilts.

So my plan is to try to spend just 10 minutes a day, or an hour a week, sewing up the scrappy pieces into a scrappy quilt for Siblings Together. They will be simple blocks that take no thought or preparation - nine patches and string blocks. Anyone can find 10 minutes a day, surely. I'm not putting any pressure on myself. If it doesn't get done, or I'm away, then no worries. But when I can I shall put that 10 minutes to good use. 

A 10 minute coffee break spent chain piecing. Getting up 10 minutes early and cutting up some scraps. Doing 10 minutes sewing before I go to bed. 10 minutes sewing instead of 10 minutes on social media.

Its surprising just how much you can get done in 10 minutes. 

I chain pieced 40 postage stamp pieces into twos yesterday. 

I made them into 20 four patches today!

To keep myself accountable, to spur myself on, and hopefully to encourage someone else to do the same, I'm documenting my progress on Instagram (I'm mackandmabel). I shall be using the hashtags

#10forsiblingstogether and #10minutesaday

I'll share progress on this blog from time to time when there is more to see.

If you have scraps to spare why not join me!

A Quilt Finish!

It's a finish! My Hazel Hedgehog quilt for Siblings Together is finally all done. I'm kind of sad, it was such fun to make, and got such a lot of lovely comments here on my blog and on Instagram. But now I can send this, along with the other two I have, off to Siblings Together to be handed out at their summer camps, and I can move on to all the other hundred and one things in my head!
There was no chance of an outdoor photo. We've had gale force wind and a hail storm yesterday! but I think you can see it OK on this bed.

I quilted it with wavy lines from top to bottom....nice and easy and no ends to sew in.

Fortunately I had just enough of some of the fabric scraps left over from the hedgehogs to make a scrappy binding. The backing fabric is Lime Twist Harlequin by Makower which I bought at a recent visit to the Sewing for Pleasure and Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC Birmimgham. Its such a lovely fabric and very useful for backings. I wish I had bought more of it.

I also have another finish to share this week (Two in one week must be a record for me!)
Its this "Little Zippy Pouch" from Quilt Now magazine volume 9.
Sonia from fabricandflowersuk kindly hosted a Sew Along for this pouch on Instagram, which was great fun to follow. Its the perfect size for all my paper piecing paraphernalia, so was put to good use right away.

I used only organic fabrics. The patterned fabrics are Wildwood by Cloud9 and the solids are Cirrus solids again by Cloud9

Linking up with Work In Progress Wednesday and Lets Bee Social

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter

Julie

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

A Hazel Hedgehog Quilt for Siblings Together

So last week I finished my Siblings Together Bee quilt and started to think about a new project. But then I saw THIS PATTERN by Elizabeth Hartman for the cutest hedgehog quilt that I have ever seen! I tried to ignore it, after all, I had other plans, but an idea took hold and wouldn't let me ignore it. This pattern would make a wonderful quilt for Siblings Together. It could be made from scraps. A wide age range of children, both boys and girls would love a hedgehog quilt. Siblings Together are having a quilt drive to try and get 100 quilts before the summer camps start. I really ought to make this quilt for them!

So, the deed was done! Pattern purchased and my weekend spent with hedgehogs breeding like rabbits!

To be perfectly honest, when I made the first block, I wondered what I had got myself into. 

This was not a quick make. Just cutting out the pieces took quite some time. It was very good fun t make though.

To speed things up, I set up a production line. The pieces for 8 Hazels were cut out and each stage of sewing the block repeated 8 times.

It made things go much faster, and I thoroughly recommend this method to anyone considering making this quit. No planning went into the colour choices. I just grabbed pieces of solid fabric that looked to be big enough. I'm very pleased with the results though and love each and every one of these little Hazel Hedgehogs. I still have quite a way to go, but it's fun project for a good cause.

As you can see from the Quiltometer in my sidebar, we now have 13 finished quilts for Siblings Together, and I know a good few are in process of being made. If you want to help out in any way, or find out more about the charity, hop over to Maria's blog at Sew Love To Sew for more information.

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

Siblings Together Quilt - A Finish!

Siblings Together is a charity which works to keep children  who have been separated by the care system in contact with their siblings by arranging, among other things, residential camps where the siblings can meet up and enjoy precious quality time together 

I belong to a quilting Bee which makes quilts that are handed to the children at the end of their camp as a reminder of their time spent with their sibling. January was my month and I chose these simple blocks to make a bright quilt that would suit either gender.
Over the past few weeks I've been sewing all the donated blocks together and quilting it.
Yesterday I finished it. Yay! I'm really pleased with the outcome.
I like to use Quilting Bees or charity quilts in general as a chance to try something new, so I chose a new (to me) quilting design. I quilted an offset diamond and then echoed around it at about 1" spacing using my walking foot. If I was doing this again I would use narrower spacing to make the diamond more prominent, but at least it was quick to do.

I have another quilt that I'm in the process of finishing, hopefully in time to be sent off along with this one.
The Siblings Together charity are hoping to be able to donate 100 quilts at this year's summer camps. I have a "Quiltometer" in the side bar of my blog, and as you can see, we still have a long way to go!
If anyone reading this would like to help, we would be enormously grateful.
You could help by:

:

•  Donating a quilt
• Donating one or two blocks to a group quilt
• Offering to put together a group quilt 
• Donating some unwanted fabric for someone else to make a quilt if you have fabric but not time
• Offering to make a quilt with donated fabric
• Donating fabric for backing or wadding.
• Spreading the word on social media or to quilting friends or guilds.
• Any other way you can think of.

If you think you might be interested, Maria who blogs at Sew Love To Sew has written a lovely blog post giving more details about the charity and how to get involved.
It would be lovely if we could meet this target and we would love for as many people as possible to get involved!

Not My Usual Sewing

The lovely sunny weather we have been enjoying has meant I don't want to spend too much time in my sewing room. My current knitting project is big so I haven't wanted to do that either. The solution? English Paper Piecing whilst sitting in my favourite chair in my most favourite spot in the garden!

These are 1" diamonds and they're all organic cotton.This is a slow project, I'm talking years here, not months, and I'm just making it up as I go along. When I've made a few of these, I'll switch to a different shape. I've no idea how big this will get. I may be in my dotage before it becomes something useful, but for now I'm enjoying a few minutes each day sitting in the garden english paper piecing!

I've also been making table runners for my youngest son's fast approaching wedding. Working with hessian is interesting. I LOVE the smell of it, but Oh how it sheds fibres! They were everywhere - the floor, the work surfaces, my cup of tea, even my underwear!!

These are my blocks for this month's Siblings Together Bee. This was a great block to make - quick and fun and all made from scraps!

This is the sewing that has taken most of my time over the past few weeks, but is not the most exciting thing to photograph!
It is a set of organic cotton bed linen for my eldest son and daughter in law in Canada. I've made a fitted bottom sheet, a flat top sheet, a duvet cover and four pillow cases and edged them with one of the decorative stitches on my machine.
These were very easy to sew and ended up costing about half the price of bought ones. The hardest part was manoeuvring a very large amount of very wide fabric and cutting it up.
The fabric is cotton percale from the  Organic Textile Company

And finally, I've been helping my soon to be daughter in law make a dress to take on honeymoon, but I suspect that either this will not get finished, or we are going to have one almighty panic sewing session in about 2 weeks time!! This is the stage it has been at for quite some time. It is very pretty fabric and it's going to really suit her. We just need to find the time to get together and finish it !