Swoon Progress

I've been making good progress with my Swoon blocks this week.
Having completed 5 blocks, I had just 4 left to make, so I set up a little production line.

I cut out all the pieces for the final four blocks and paired up all the squares for the half square triangles. There are a LOT of HSTs in four blocks!!

Then I marked all the diagonal lines for the half square triangles.

I chain pieced the seams.............Still feeling pretty pleased with myself here.

Don't they look pretty, strung up like bunting, waiting to be cut apart and pressed flat. All is still going well....

Then I did the same for the flying geese units. I'm imagining four finished blocks pretty soon....
The geese went well too, and then I came to piece the blocks.Take your time, Julie. Do them one at a time - don't rush them..... But, from this point on NOTHING went right! Points didn't quite match up to my satisfaction. I unpicked and re-sewed. I pressurised a few seams into submission. There is nothing quite like a hot iron to show then who is boss.
I finally laid the block out ready to photograph it, when I realised I had sewn one of the thirds on the wrong way round! I din't have a star in the centre, I just had this weird shape!! I really wish I had gone ahead and photographed it. It certainly would have given you a good laugh!
So, back to the seam ripper, and finally I had block #6

I can't face the other three for a few days. Fortunately it's supposed to be a dry weekend, so some gardening will be just the distraction I need before resuming progress on these next week.

I hope you have a good weekend, too :-)

Anyone for Tea?

 If you live in the UK, you'll be needing a nice hot cuppa right now to keep you warm. Autumn has certainly arrived and we are all feeling a little chilled.
I have been busy making a block from this book by Sarah Fielke.

A while back, Sarah asked if people might like to make a teacup block or two and send them to her. She is going to make a quilt from everybody's blocks. Would you believe that, other than her Mum, no-one  has ever made her a quilt! Well I had the book so I volunteered to make one.
It started off fairly simple - just cutting wedges off a 4 1/2" block to make the main part of the cup

but then I really struggled with the half square triangles on the side of the saucer. They were cut from templates and I thought I must have cut them wrong. I cut again, I sewed, I unpicked, I sewed again. What I thought would take me an hour, has taken a whole morning! In the end I just made an ordinary half square triangle and trimmed it to the right size. Now, I'm laughing about it - having just this minute searched for and read Sarah's original post  requesting the teacup blocks, I notice she said there's a mistake in the book and the template is wrong!! Why oh why didn't I look for the post first!! 

Never mind, my block is finished and I aim to make a second.

I have also been cutting out the pieces for the remaining Swoon blocks.

I's going to be a bit more blue/grey than I had originally intended, as I didn't quite have enough of the beige fabrics to include them in the remaining blocks. This is what 4 completed blocks look like

I really hope to have this finished very soon. With the weather turning colder, everyone's hugging a quilt round here!

Linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Have a good week!

A Quilty Gift

I received the most wonderful gift in the post this week. This beautiful bag was made for me by Jennifer of Glinda Quilts. I feel really guilty actually. She is an online friend that I've recently made through a sewing bee. She had blogged about the Pants Bags she had been making and I commented on the post saying I was really lazy, didn't bother to unpack my case when I went on holiday and just stuffed my pants into the corners of my case. Well, she replied straight away saying she would make me one, and even wanted to know what colours I liked!! You know, quilters are some of the kindest, most generous people I have ever come across.

This bag is so beautifully made! Jennifer's sewing skills put mine to shame !
What is more I am totally in awe of the design of this bag. Don't think old school pump bags that were hard to draw up, this bag glides open and closed with amazing smoothness. It took me a while to understand how it works (yeah, I'm the sort of person that struggles to operate even the simplest of things)

Fortunately my son showed me - it's two separate drawstrings, so that when you pull it closed the fabric doesn't all bunch up at one end. Duh! I guess everybody knew about this except me - well, I know now, and I'm going to have a go at making one.

The other thing I really like, that I wouldn't have thought about doing, is attaching the band in two separate pieces so that there is plenty of room for the strings to move freely.

I really look forward to using this bag next time I go travelling. In the meantime I really wanted to look at it and appreciate it, so,  ....... ooh, Look! some knitting just happened to find it's way inside !!

I'm very pleased to say it makes an excellent knitting bag too !! Thank you so much Jennifer. Your kindness has made me very happy and I'm going to have a go at making one for someone too :)

Talking of knitting, I have been busy trying to catch up on my Greenfields Africa Challenge. I've completed 2 baby cardigans, and another is almost finished.

For this one I used up a couple of balls of Rowan Purelife Revive that I had bought a while back to experiment with. This is an eco friendly yarn as it is made with 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton and 28% recycled viscose. It isn't a baby yarn, but I had played with, decided I didn't like it, so it needed using up. Why didn't I like it? I didn't like the feel of it in my hands as I worked. I love working with cotton, I like using silk when blended with wool, but this? It just didn't feel good. Also it has very little stretch. It will breathe nicely, so it will be good for a little African baby in that respect, but I won't be buying this yarn again.

 

The second cardigan was made with my all time favourite yarn Debbie Bliss Eco Baby. This is sports weight organic cotton, and the only reason I was happy to part with this was because the oddments I had were from old dye lots that didn't match. Some prudent placement of white stripes however meant that you can't tell where one dye lot ends and the next starts.

And finally, the WIP uses another of my favourite yarns - Rowan Belle Organic by Amy Butler.

This is 50% organic cotton, 50% organic wool - BUT, it's been discontinued !! 

I love this yarn. Why did you do this, Rowan ?? Was I the only person in the world who liked and bought it? 

This is made completely of oddments, and I didn't think the lime green would last out to complete the stripes, but it has and I'm very pleased with it.

So, I'm probably still a little behind with my challenge to myself (I want to make 52 items for the charity during the 52 weeks of 2013, but I can always catch up with a few quickly knitted baby hats!

It's been a productive start to September so far.

Have a good weekend, with lots of craftiness!   Julie

Swoon Progress

Its September already, and I'm determined to have a productive month. I have been working on my Swoon quilt, and have not just one more, but 4 more blocks completed!

Please excuse the appalling photos - I love the sun, but it was playing havoc with my photography. I get lovely dancing shadows from a big tree outside when it is sunny at this time of the day. Or rather, they are lovely to look at, but not to photograph large quilt blocks in!

I set up a bit of a production line and cut out the pieces for 4 blocks. I then chained pieced all the half square triangles and the flying geese.

I love seeing nice neat piles of flying geese!

As one block swiftly followed another

I was able to remember the construction and so refer to the notes a lot less.

It took no time at all to get these four blocks made.

I had made the mistake of using a directional print for this last one. I'm quite pleased that I took the time to line the stripes up as much as possible, but if I was doing it again I would  fussy cut the centre square to get that diamond right in the centre. I'm not stressing too much though. I'm enjoying making this quilt and I don't think it will stand out so much when it is part of the whole.

Only another 4 Swoon blocks to go!!

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts and Anything Goes Mondays @ Stitch by Stitch Hoping you feel as inspired by the start of September as I do :)

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

How do you eat an elephant? The answer is one mouthful at a time, and this has to be my mantra for the next week, month, or more.
I have returned from a wonderful holiday with my family in Cornwall. We had glorious weather and a great time.

We feasted on fresh locally caught fish at idyllic pubs. We sampled the local saffron bread. (I have acquired a recipe, and can't wait to try and re-create it) and relaxed on the wonderful beaches.
If you're wondering why we made a sand turtle, not a sandcastle, it's a Canadian thing apparently - it was a first for me, and just as much fun as a castle!

We were staying on the Lizard and the beaches and scenery were breathtaking. Top left is Lizard Point, the next two are Kynance Cove and the bottom right is Hendra beach. It never ceases to amaze me that if you are just prepared to walk a little way, you can virtually have a beach to yourselves. We swam and fished and generally relaxed, enjoying precious moments of family togetherness.

The villages were so pretty and I love the aqua, red and white splashes of colour in the harbours. And a boat as a flower tub?? I don't think it would have quite the same effect in the Midlands!

So now I'm back home, and my son and daughter-in-law have gone back to Canada. I have a love-hate relationship with airports. They're exciting, bubbly places if I'm there to meet them off an incoming flight, but places of tears and heartache if I'm saying goodbye, especially when I don't know when I'll see them again. But life has to go on, and at least in this day and age we have Skype  and FaceTime, so I should count my blessings.

Inevitably thoughts now turn to tasks that need to be done and works in progress that need to be progressed and that's where the elephant comes in:
I have soooooo many projects to finish, and even more in my head, jostling for first place on the starting line.
I have my Greenfields knitting projects to do....and I'm way behind with those. By my calculation we are 33 weeks into the year, so I should have 33 completed baby items.......I only have 29 and enthusiasm is waning.

Not the enthusiasm for the knitting, just for the yarn that I'm using. I'm left with drab or odd colours that don't make good baby clothes. The point of the exercise is to use up my stash, so I can't justify buying some really cheerful colours to add to it, well, not yet, anyway. I may have to if the finished items start to look really awful!
I have my Swoon quilt to complete - now I don't need any encouragement to work on this, just time.

I need to do a lot more work on my Farmer's Wife quilt. This is supposed to be a quiet moments project, not a "must get done" type, but it keeps getting pushed to the back of the pile.

I have the Rows Quilt Along from Bee in My Bonnet to finish that I started about this time last year, and haven't done any more to since. Ooops!!

I have at least 4 new knitting patterns at various stages of completion for the Etsy and Craftsy shops, and I need to get these done!! Some are so ridiculously close to being finished, I don't know why I haven't done them ages ago.

I have so many ideas for quilty things in my head that it's fit to burst, but I can't start them until I have completed a few of the WIPs, and finally (saving the best till last here) I have a ton of baby knitting, baby sewing and nursery sewing that I want to do because I recently heard that one of my nieces is expecting a baby in February!!! I shall be a great aunt! Yikes, that makes me feel so old!!! My niece is a great photographer too, so maybe, just maybe I shall have a new little model for some of my patterns as well.
I've told myself I can't start any happy, exciting, super special baby projects until some of the WIPs are completed, so in order to stop myself rushing frantically from one half finished project to another, picking them up, putting them down, and generally being in too much of a tizz to finish anything, I have to adopt the "one bite of the elephant at a time" policy and go steadily and methodically through the backlog,  and see if I can get caught up enough to unleash some of the new project ideas buzzing around in my head.
At least it means I don't have too much time to miss my family!
If you have any techniques to help get you through the unfinished projects in your life, please share them with me.

More Sewing For Me

It's not often that I sew for me, it's usually for family, friends or charity, but this is the second thing I've made in a week.
It was a last minute make, another top for my upcoming holiday. I started it at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and had it finished by the time i went to bed!! I do love projects like that.
This is the Sorbetto top by Collette Patterns and it's a free download.
There are so many wonderful things about this pattern - apart from the fact that it's free!!
Firstly, it's very, very simple.
It uses very little fabric - I had an oddment that was perfect for this top.
It's quick to make.
It's a very flattering fit.
It is very easy to embellish with different trims, buttons, or a frill for instance, so you can use the same pattern time and time again and all your tops will look different.

There are no arm or neck facings, just a bias edging, so you can choose to make it match or contrast. I love my contrasting bias edging. I'm so glad I didn't have enough of the main fabric. I might have been tempted to use that. The fabric I used for the edging is an oddment of voile that I had. It's the perfect colour match, but I did wonder if it was going to be sturdy enough. I needn't have been concerned. It was a little tricky to put through the bias maker as it was so flimsy, but after that it worked wonderfully.

Have you ever used a bias maker before? I have to confess to having mine for about a year, and this was the first time I'd used it! It won't be the last, it was so easy to use. You just cut your bias strips, join them together, pass them through the wide end of the gadget and iron them as they come out the other end ready folded - so simple!!

I added three tiny square buttons to the pleated front to complete the look. By tiny, I mean really tiny! These are scrapbook embellishment buttons and less than 1 centimetre in size. 

I think this top might become one of my favourites. Let's hope there is enough summer weather still to come to be able to wear it.

sewing with Knits

 Finally, I have had a go at sewing with knits. I've been dressmaking as long as I can remember - dresses, skirts, shorts, even my own wedding dress!, but I've never sewn with knits before.
Sometime last year I bought the Craftsy class Sewing with Knits. 

I've watched it several times over, but never actually practised what I watched......until now. The trigger was a visit to Stratford upon Avon with a friend, where we came upon a lovely little sewing shop Sew Me Something. It's only tiny, and we didn't have long to browse, but  low down in a corner I spotted some organic cotton knit jersey. How wonderful! I bought 2 metres on the spot without any idea of what I was going to make with it, and made a good mental note of what colours they had for future reference.
So now it was time to put the class viewing into practise.
I didn't want to use my precious organic cotton for my first attempt so I found some knit jersey with the right amount of stretch in my local John Lewis.
It isn't cotton though, it's viscose, and I have to say I wouldn't buy viscose again. It was slippery to work with and I don't really like the feel of it against my skin.
I made the scoop neck T shirt, which is the second project in the class.
I had to buy a few new tools or notions that were recommended.
First, some ballpoint pins:

Regular pins would make holes in the knit fabric. These were easy to find.They stocked them in John Lewis and I also saw them in Sew Me Something in Stratford.

Also I needed some transparent elastic to reinforce the shoulder seams.

I managed to find this, but it was slightly wider than recommended. I shall continue to look for some that is a little narrower.

Finally, I needed a twin needle for sewing machine in order to get the nice double row of stretch stitching along the bottom and sleeve hems.

This I managed to find online from a Bernina sewing machine specialist.
I thoroughly enjoyed following the class.  Cutting out the fabric was probably the hardest part because it was so slippery. It took a long time to make sure the pattern pieces were exactly along the line of the wales in the fabric, but it was worth the effort.
I have an overlocker machine, so sewing the seams was easy. Yes, I have to confess, I've had it for several years, and only used it for neatening seams. (I'm sure I'm not alone in that!).
Sewing the neck band in place was not quite so easy. At the first attempt I decided it was a teeny bit too loose, so I shortened it and then it puckered very slightly, right at the front of the scoop.

It doesn't really show when I'm wearing it, but I've learned not to meddle too much next time!!

Having now made a basic T shirt, I feel confident enough to use my organic cotton and start adding my own design elements to future T shirt makes. I'm think cuffs and button tabs on the sleeves, raw edge rolled finishes on the neck band, pockets and cotton lace inserts.

It certainly isn't cheaper to make your own T, but it's a lot more fun!!

I totally recommend this class if you are considering branching out into sewing with knits. Meg McElwee is a lovely teacher. She fills you with confidence and inspires you to have a go. The detailed stages are easy to follow and I learned a lot about the different types of knit fabrics that are available.
I shall definitely be buying a lot more knit fabric (hopefully organic!) in the future.