More Passacaglia Progress

Slow, peaceful and contemplative stitching. My english paper pieced Passacaglia quilt continues to grow. So much so that it is too large for my design wall now - hence the need for photographing it on the carpet if I want to show all the rosettes together. 

Just 4 more grey stars need to be added to this one and then its complete.

This one is my favourite so far.

This one has a place in my heart too.

And this was the first large one to be completed.
All the big rosettes are complete now. Its time to work on the little ones! That means lots of fussy cutting for the centres and lots of playing around with colours. Its a little too pink for my liking at the moment. Need to tone it down a bit with more neutral colours.
Heaven knows how I'll photograph it though until I start sewing some more of the rosettes together.
I can honestly say I'm enjoying this project more than any others I can think of.
Slow hand stitching is good for the soul !!

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

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

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!