Big quilt

The day has come - I've finally finished the Big Quilt!

It's for my colleague's sister's 21st birthday. It's taken about 3 months to complete. She wanted detail of handbags, cherries, cupcakes, birds, and lots of colours. Quite feminine, hence lots of red and pink, without being too girly.

I used several different fabrics for the binding - mainly because I didn't have enough of one fabric to do it all the same. The cupcakes worked really well on the binding.

I found it challenging working on such a big quilt, having done so many small projects lately. The last big one I did was all by hand, and I was living in my flat which had lots of space to spread out. For this one, I had to use the spare room, and laid out flat the quilt took up all of the floor space!! It made pinning very tricky, and I'm sure the backing isn't as smooth as it could be for that reason.

I couldn't do any quilting through all the layers though, which I was disappointed about. The quilt was just too big for me to manoeuvre around my sewing machine - especially as the wadding I used was quick thick. I tried to quilt by hand but ditto the problems of thickness again. I bought a sewing loop hoop recently, but again, the wadding was too thick to use that with it! Lessons learned for next time however.

My colleague was really pleased with it, and has already asked me to make one for herself in the new year. She wants some castle fabric if possible, but I'm having trouble finding any.

I always get a little sad when I have to say goodbye to one of my quilts.... it was even sadder for such a large quilt. A lot of time and effort goes into making things for other people. Sometimes it would be nice if someone spent so much time and effort on me.

Big quilt on the way

I've been asked to make a friend a large quilt for her sister's 21st birthday / Christmas present. It's a variety of colours, with cupcakes, cherries, and handbags as special fabric. I decided it was easiest to put together as 6 blocks of 42 squares (252 altogether - if my maths is correct!).

Today I had the day off work and I've got the first 42-square block done. I love seeing it all come together! It's taken ages to cut all the squares out - the most laborious part, and my least favourite. But once the sewing machine kicks in, and it all starts to make sense... I don't want to do anything else.

Three's a good crowd

I did some good sewing tonight - three of my squares - looking good. 

I'm enjoying doing more of a pattern, albeit a loose one, rather than just regular square patches. Learning more about my sewing machine as I'm doing it - including how I ought to change the tension for different-weight fabrics (the left square has a much thicker, suede-type material).

Italian and quilts

Went out for Italian tonight with two great friends. A good chat about life, love, and everything in between - and they advised me that I ought to buy Cosmo tomorrow for some light entertainment. Eek... Dinner was lovely - sweet chilli chicken, spinach, and mascapone pizza followed by a trio of delicious desserts, and a double espresso (hmm maybe that's why I can't think about going to bed yet...)

Someone at work has commissioned me to make two baby quilts! So the sewing machine will be coming out this week and I'll be hard at work. At the moment the only brief is 'squares' and 'colourful' - we don't know the sex of either of the babies, so no particular pink/blue colour theme.

I made her daughter a quilt a while ago, but one of my first, so no actual quilting or binding. So tomorrow I'll show her my newest quilt, all done properly, to see whether she wants the old style or the new, improved, how-it's-supposed-to-look version.

From one extreme to the other - from Cosmo and its advice on sex, to making patchwork quilts...

Happy New Year!

I've been absent for a while, enjoying the Christmas and New Year festivities. So to update, here are some of my brilliant Christmas presents.

Firstly, a new sewing machine!!!! It's an Elna 6600, the "Quilter's Dream" - it's amazing! It does about a million pre-programmed stitches, including a penguin. It took several days to read the instructions before I built up the courage to turn it on... But it really is a dream.

A gorgeous teapot, a 1920s Royal Albert design teacup and saucer, and a chicken teapot were also received with glee:

So now I'm off to make tea and so some quilting!

A sewing machine around my neck?!

Yes, I would like to wear a sewing machine around my neck! Another beautiful necklace from www.folksy.com

I haven't done any proper sewing for the last few days. Having the sewing machine on my coffee table while I sit on the sofa to use it means I've developed a terrible back ache. I feel so old! But it means the sewing machine is resting, and I'll consider doing some hand sewing instead once it's eased a bit.

In the mean time I'm reading 'No and Me', about a French teenage genius who befriends a homeless girl.

Time has come to gift my little quilt to my friend Ian, whose son Sam has finally arrived. I personalised it yesterday with a tag for his name and birth date. Hopefully they'll all love it.


I experimented with a few triangles on this one, and also a natty little area of half- and third-sized patches - some on purpose, but the dotty part was perhaps due to a useless bit of measuring. I ended up cutting the blue dotted piece in half and inserting the red dots - covering up a deliberate mistake!

Tonight's project was quilting my teapot and cake quilt. It went quite well until I ran out of red thread, which was a pain.

However, I eased that pain with a batch of scones. Brilliant.

I'm off to sample my scones with a cup of tea. It's Assam, with a dash of milk, and a good book.

Bringing up the Bobbin Thread

Do you know how long it's taken me to figure out how to bring up the bobbin thread?!?

A long time! Longer than I should have spent thinking about this!!

Thank you to this brilliantly helpful video on YouTube that's made my life a whole lot easier now - and my quilts a whole lot neater.




Phew!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fluff on the needle

Fluff on the needle, originally uploaded by Missy Cookie Monster.

My first official needle fluffing! I feel like a proper quilter...