W is for Weezy Works and Weddings

W is for Weezy Works, another podcast that I love to listen to. Tina is a multi faceted/ multi skilled crafter who talks about her life and her crafts on her podcast. As well as being a quilter and cross stitcher she also collects and restores vintage sewing machines. She shares her skills in all these areas on her blog and her podcast.

Weezy Work's podcast is available from iTunes and from Tina's website

Tina has a page on her blog about making quilts for other people - on commission. She sets out the many steps in making a quilt and the costs incurred. It is well worth looking at. I don't make quilts on commission.  If someone has ever given you a quilt it may surprise you as to just what is involved and the relative costs. It will help you realise just how generous a gift that quilt is.

I don't make quilts on commission because I doubt anyone would actually be prepared to pay me what it costs to make the quilt - especially not if they were going to pay me for my time and effort. The quilts I make are gifts for family and friends. For special occasions. Usually I make a quilt as a gift for a new baby. I have made one for all of my great nieces and nephews and for babies who have been born to close friends. My most recent one was for baby Theo, my close friend's grandson. I knew his mum when she was born too.

And at the beginning of this month I gave another close friend a quilt for a wedding present. Usually my husband makes the bride and groom a turned wood lamp but he had already made the bride, our former minister one when she moved to another church. We weren't expecting to make her one for a wedding present (she was 59 and single) but a year later she announced her engagement to another friend of ours. So... it was my turn to make the gift  - a quilt for their bed.

She loved it :)

The wedding party. I was chief bridal attendant

Sunday Stash - More finishes

So excited. I am on a roll. I got another quilt finished. Dash That Cat is now done, even labelled and ready to go to its new home . It is great to have another finish under my belt. The finished quilt is 265 cm x 232 cms (91"x 104") and used 13.91m of fabric. It might even have been more since both the binding and backing were pieced but I will let it sit at just under 14m of fabric. I occasionally use a bit of fabric I have acquired and no add into the spread sheet so it evens out in the end.

I'm sorry I don't have a decent photo of it but its so huge its hard to get one, especially since my rotary hoist clothes line broke a few years back

I have also been making some cute little baskets for Handmade with Love. 

Anyway back to the fabric baskets I made. We put Easter Eggs in them for a little but it was so hot they were getting soft so we had to put them into the cold box to firm up. Some of the fabric in them was from Handmade Love but I supplied all the linings. 55cms in all. 

The pattern for the baskets was based on this link which came from an email from All People Quilt with links to Easter projects. I adapted it to make some slightly larger baskets and also to account for one way fabric.

We had a stall for Handmade Love on Saturday at the markets associated with our town Sunflower Festival. We didn't make a heap of money but $200 is a welcome addition to our coffers and it is encouraging to see stuff we make going on out into the community. 

It helps us recognise what sells and what doesn't. So far my zipper pouches for the ear buds haven't been a big hit but I love them and so does everyone I've given them to. I made another rectangular casserole carrier to go with one I'd made earlier in the week and 3 sets of pot mitts to match. The fabric used in the carrier and pot mitts came from Zambia, bought back by our project director on one of her trips to the school (Our Rainbow House in Chainda, Lusaka Zambia) 

I also made a little zipper purse for the stall. None of the fabric for these things came from my stash - all was from Handmade Love stocks. 

No purchases this week.

Stats from Weeks 13

                 Fabric used            14.46m

                 Fabric added           0.00m

Year to Date

                 Fabric used         29.38m

                 Fabric added       19.17m

Net Used                              +10.20m  

Yes I am finally into the black for the first time this year. Those two fat quarter bundles at the beginning of the year have taken a lot to pare back. But we are there at last. I have another quilt pinned and ready to be quilted - My Twilters Hashtag quilt, a quilt top finished that I am working on the backing for (Diamond Dash 2), and another top finished this week (My Hexie Quilt - still no name - maybe that is going to be it). If I became uber productive in this next week I could get all 3 finished (or not) They will make a giant leap in my fabric used stats.

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

I am really excited. I have made fantastic progress on 2 projects this week.

Hexie quilt: The top is completed - as far as stitching goes. I put the last stitch in it at the conclusion of our church council meeting last night. It was a long meeting and I was able to get the "Sky" connected to the rest of the quilt.

This morning at Patchwork I took out the basting stitches and removed all the papers apart from around the edge. I am leaving them in till I have it pinned ready to quilt. The hand stitching is a little too fragile to take the dragging around. The seams unravel easily even though I double knotted them as much as possible.

 Now to work out the backing! I have left over hexies and I am wondering about incorporating them but think I might leave them for another project and do a non pieced backing

I am so thrilled to have it done. People ask me what I am going to do with it and honestly I don't know. I have no plans for it... no particular place for it to go. But I am sure I will find somewhere special for it.

Dash That Cat (that I have called Drat that Cat a few times....) The quilting is completed. Yes. under the needle was tricky although made easier by the fact I quilted in rows... along each row of blocks. Still restling that mammoth quilt (91"x 104") was awkward 

 Just the binding to go. I am a pretty slack quilter compared to some of the quilting I see others do. But... I don't get excited by it, quilting I mean. I do a pretty good meander and other times I do a lovely loose free motion free form quilting pattern and that is what I have done on DTC. 

I tried out a variety of different patterns on the blocks going across the quilt... spirals, meander and this loose swirl and dip thing... which I also did on the sashing and  the top and bottom borders. I did a chain of hearts on the side borders and they were all different sizes and free form. I enjoyed doing them. I used an Aurifil thread from Tula Pink's collection - choosing a varigated peachy pink. 

I made the binding at Patchwork group this morning. I needed 400 inches. I used some of the bits I trimmed off the backing after I had quilted it plus other bits of left over fabric and cut up one more fat quarter from the Japanese fabric bundle - Uki. There seems to be oodles of it but I can use leftovers in the binding for  Diamond Dash 2 quilt

At Handmade Love this week I was able to do some fun sewing. I made a little zipper bag to go on a key fob using a pattern called Teeny Tiny Mini Zipper Pouch keyring by So Sew Easy found here (the title is bigger than the pouch)

I also made a casserole carrier using some African fabric the director of Our Rainbow House Alison bought back with her on trip to our school in Zambia

It was good to get a couple of finishes under the belt. I cut out the fabric for a 2nd casserole carrier which will be the reverse of this one (green on the outside, blue inside) and there are scraps to make pot mitts to match. 

What have you been sewing this week?

Linking up with

WIP Wednesday

I didn't get a Stash report this week but given that there was nothing to report I guess you didn't miss much!!

I've been working on a few different things this week.

Hexie Quilt I'm going to have to come up with a better name for this project! Anyway - my hand piecing project. I have made great progress on this again this week. I completed the bottom section and added it to the centre piece which is all but done (has a few half hexies to be added to the sides)

I've started work on the top piece which consists of clouds and the sky. I completed the foundation row - the row that will attach to the part of the quilt that is already completed. I will built on that and finish it off before attaching it to the rest of the completed quilt.  I am going to have to redo a bit of it cause I made a mistake but still... it was completed for a little bit :)

Dash that Cat - the first of my Diamond Dash quilts. Today at Patchwork group I got it pinned out. I had to buy more pins for it. Its so huge it took almost 600 pins to baste it. I am not looking forward to quilting it on my home machine but I will. (I keep telling myself that anyway) I had lots of help from 2 friends at Patchwork this morning... thanks Lindy and Daph. I owe them big time. Pinning it got a bit tricky cause the batting was only just wide enough (I used the full width of the roll) and the backing only just long enough so between the two it took quite a bit of juggling. No pictures of this one. I forgot to take any... too busy pinning pinning pinning

Handmade with Love I finally managed to get to a sewing day for Handmade  With Love. ( For newbies to the blog this is a sewing group that makes things to sell to raise money for a school in Zambia. We also make things for the children at the school.

I have met up with the ladies twice this year - once for our birthday celebrations at the beginning of February and then last week when we went together to the International Women's Day celebrations. Yesterday was the first actually sewing day that I have made. I spent the 4 hours that I was there sorting some of the fabric we have been donated and then the rest of my time there sewing labels onto the completed articles, including the 6 little zipper ear bud pouches that I made.

I also helped Jasmine to make her first zipper pouch. She got the hang of it really quickly and plans to make some more for us and herself.

The VHC Quilt Regular readers of my blog won't recognise that name. That's because it's been only a short time in the making. True I did get the pieces out over a week ago and had planned to make a start on it but the cats did an intervention on me and kept me away from the project by camping on the pieces every time I thought about working on it.

Finally yesterday, after I got home from a morning of boring sewing (attaching labels) I liberated it from the cats and set to work on it and by the end of the day I had completed both the top and the pieced back. Go me. Today at Patchwork I also pinned out this quilt  and this afternoon I got it quilted, the binding made and this evening I finished it off attaching it. Still have to make the label but the baby it is for hasn't been born yet so can't do that.

I shared the photos of the quilt on the Twilters Group on Facebook and one of the members commented that she had the fabric too but couldn't work out how to use it. I have to confess I have had this Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric for 8 years. Fangirl bought most of it for me as a gift in 2008 and I bought the big panels for myself a few years later. Today at Patchwork Daph told me that she had some of the fabric too and likewise was struggling with what to do with it. Hopefully my efforts might inspire them to work on their quilts. So really VHC is not a WIP at all... cause its all but done.

http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/

WIP Wednesday

I'm feeling really really frustrated. Last night... very late I wrote my WIP Wednesday on my iPhone as I lay in bed. I should have been trying to go to sleep but no... I wrote the post and something went wrong as I posted it and I lost the lot. Needless to say at 11.15 pm I didn't try again!

It was a really good post. It was witty and succinct and sob this is going to just be a poor imitation of what might have been (Hope you can hear the violins)

My hand pieced hexie quilt has absorbed most of my sewing time this week. I did work on the backing for the first of my Diamond Dash quilts... now called Dash That Cat ( I was going with Dash the Cat but think this sounds better). I got it done. Now have to get it pinned and quilted. I had planned to pin yesterday at Patchwork Group but I didn't go as I was asked to babysit a gorgeous 2 year old and figured I was better off staying at her place than trying to take her out.


I also tried to start work on a baby quilt. I got as far as getting the fabric out and cutting up some of the panels. I left the work space temporarily to check the words of the story (Its The Very Hungry Caterpillar) and some intervention arrived

and so I left it and spent the rest of the evening hand piecing on the Hexie quilt.


I have made good progress on the hexie quilt. The centre piece is finished. Its about half the length of the quilt and the full width.

Now I am working on the bottom quarter. I am working it as one strip. I got the line of pieces to match the centre piece completed but didn't attach it Instead I have it pinned to the top of my design wall and am working on that. I chunk a few bits together and then stitch those bigger chunks together and will eventually attach them to the strip that will go on the centre chunk.

My take along project at the moment are hexies that will go at the top of the quilt - the clouds and sky. They are not flower shaped! I am piecing white and cream pieces together for the clouds at the moment. I took photos of my paper plan and am working off that whilst I am away from the house...

like today when I once again will be babysitting the gorgeous Teesh. Unlike my daughters cats she is not the slightest bit interested in my hand sewing and happily colours in, plays in her sandpit or models my hat whilst I stitch away.

http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/