Stash Report with 2 fabulous finishes

Its been a great week for me - finally feeling better and able to get in and get stuff done - mostly quilting but that's good right?

I tried out a new for me zipper pouch pattern - from Sew So Easy - called Easy Cosmetic Pouch. She has both a written and a You Tube Tutorial for making it. I made 2 - one at home using my fabric and one at Handmade With Love on Tuesday using fabric from there so I only get to count one lot of fabric in this stash report. It went together pretty easily although I must admit to struggling to get the zipper end/top looking nice at the side seam. I am going to try using tabs and see if that comes out looking neater.
They are ok in this bag but in others they look quite messy.

I finally finished a baby quilt that I am making for my niece. The baby isn't due till the end of this year so I am well ahead there - the last baby quilt I finished was for a baby born May last year! I've called this one "Bessie's Stars".

My mum Bessie did the embroideries that are the centres of some of the stars in the quilt, the design of which is based on Missouri Star's "Sparkle" quilt. 

I quilted it on our club's longarm machine yesterday. It was only whilst quilting it that I realised that I had put one row on backwards and thus the stars are not lined up in the correct fashion. However I decided babies don't care! (and I wasn't unpicking the quilting.) The annoying thing is that I had this top finished for a couple of months before quilting it so I had plenty of time to correct it. Ho hum.

The backing is from a doona cover I was given and the binding is a bright square design that ties in with the squares on the backing and the colours on the front.

I also finished off the Twilter Birds in the Air swap quilt. I had put a wider border on it initially but I didn't like it... it seemed to swamp the centre so I cut it in half and added a narrow white border and then the other half of the original border. I fussy cut some birds from the backing fabric to go as corner stones.

 I quilted it on the long arm too - nothing fancy - just an all over meander. I used 2 different striped fabrics for the binding with white, lime green and blue in them and I am very happy with the way it looked.

So 3 finishes for the week and NO fabric purchases! That is an double bonus. I need a few more finishes to make up for the huge fabric purchases last month at the Gold Coast.

So my statics for week 38  are

Fabric used               10.61m            
Fabric added             00.00  
Net                          10.61m

Year to Date
Fabric used               128.32
Fabric added               78.62
Net                            49.70m

Linking up with Patchwork Times

Finish it Friday

I have had 2 finishes this week. I am so pleased. I have been travelling a lot and so busy when home and then the fatigue that has hit me (we think its a hangover from the Barmah Forrest virus I had in 2013) I just haven't had the energy to sew and it has been frustrating lying in bed or sitting in the chair planning what I would like to make with the stuff I have purchased but not having the oomph to get up and do it.

My finishes this week have been a little top to go with a pair of leggings someone else made for the Handmade With Love stall. There were 3 pairs of pants or trousers (in size 2) that had been made and Peggy, our coordinator decided that they would be more saleable if they had tops to go with them. We chose coordinating fabric and then she told me that I could do the top for the navy leggings and she would take care of the little pink shorts. The trouble is... I haven't sewn clothes for many years AND when I did it was stretch fabric. The last time I made something from an ordinary dress pattern was in high school. So......

The pattern was Burda Start. My friend Lindi was a great help in cutting it out. Looking at it I can see all these faults with it but its still pretty cute 

especially when put with the leggings.

My other finish was a baby quilt. I started it back in June. I had 4 baby quilts to make (and then before I got them all done found I actually needed to make a 5th). I used the Missouri Star Sparkle pattern. I altered it a bit for each quilt - mostly in what width (if any) sashing and borders I put in. 

This one (which I called Twinkle Twinkle) was for the granddaughter of a friend. She was actually born last year and so is now 15 months old. However the family were in the process of moving from the USA to Australia and the grandma said to hold off till they got here. They actually didn't arrive till a few months ago so I finally needed to get on with it and make the now almost toddler her quilt. 

I realise that the white background wasn't the best choice for a child's quilt but it showed off the stars the best and its machine washable.

When I dropped it off the baby herself was having a morning nap but her 4 year old brother was there and he really enjoyed it - finding and naming the animals in the centres of the stars.

Linking up with TGIFF

A Finish

Whoot I have a finish. 

My first finished quilt since March and only my 3rd large quilt for the year...  I finished the Harry Potter Bookshelf quilt in February and Dash That Cat in March. It is great to have something big under my belt again. 

I really wanted to work on Onya Bike this week but when I looked I realised I didn't have enough pins since I had 2 quilts already pinned out ready to go so had to finish them first. Now.... I have one done.

 It didn't have a name till today, I kept referring to it as Diamond Dash 2. Now I have called it Dash to Japan in honour of the Japanese fabric that it is made from - and also the friend it is destined for regularly visits Japan - usually planned well in advance but her next trip has come up very quickly.

The quilt is a gift for a friend who is our "other daughter". At one time she shared a house with our daughter (actually she has twice shared a house with Fangirl). We look after her dog every day when she's at work and whenever she goes away Digby stays here. She's a teacher of Maths and Japanese and regularly takes groups of school kids to Japan

The quilt came about because I had accidentally ordered 2 lots of the Obi fabric on Massdrop. It was a big bundle anyway but 2 lots... had so much Japanese fabric I needed to do something with it and a quilt made out of it for Bek was ideal. I had originally ordered it for the quilt I made as a wedding gift for my friend Suzy.... and it just so happens that Bek is the daughter of Suzy's new husband so it is all fitting.

I put the quilt top together about the same time as I made Dash That Cat. I had it pinned ready to quilt before we went on holidays but didn't get to the quilting. It got pushed to the top of the quilt on Wednesday when I realised I wasn't going to be able to pin Onya Bike as I didn't have enough pins with 2 quilts pinned and ready to be quilted.

I started quilting yesterday morning and got it done in a day. Its an all over stipple... nothing fancy. I actually love the rhythm of stippling. It might not be as intricate or individual as other forms of quilting but it does me.

It was all going pretty smoothly till I checked the back and found something had gone awry with the tension. 

Soon fixed though and I was on my way again. 

Anyway - the quilt - Dash to Japan. Made from the Diamond Dash pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Company. 

The fabric is Obi by Hyakka Ryoron. I had used creamy white on Suzy's quilt but for this one I used black for the sashings and diamonds. 

The black fabric actually came from Bek - she'd given us a piece to use as backdrop at Boyo's 21st back in January. I never gave it back to her and she has never asked for it... I'll give it back - just in a different format.

The back is also completely pieced using up left over scraps from both the Obi line and from the Neko line, by the same designer that I had used in Dash that Cat. Would you believe I STILL have left over fat quarters from the bundles !

Details:

Quilt name: Dash to Japan 

Size: 235cm x 190cm (92" x 75")

Recipient: Bek

Pattern: Diamond Dash by Missouri Star Quilt Company

Fabric: Obi by Hyakka Ryoran

This week I'm joining in the TGIFF which this week is to be found at Arabesque Scissors 

Friday Finishes - Pouches - I think I'm addicted

Last week I watched a video from the Missouri Star Quilt company on YouTube on the subject of zipper pouches. Like many sewers- people who sew not the means by which sewerage is taken away (sorry can't used the term sewist - sounds way too pretentious to me... like monetizing... not my style) Where was I... oh yes like many people who quilt I don't like zips. My proper introduction to sewing 25 years ago was through stretch sewing... no zips there. I loved it. Sewed lots of track suits, jumpers, (pullovers for my american readers) dresses, tops, skirts... not a zip in sight. I have always been a bit scared of them. I have sewn them before... in sewing classes in first year of high school and at a workshop or two... but always with a teacher close handy to direct me step by step... or take over for the tricky bits (I have a knack of my project being the one used to demonstrate the tricky parts)

This YouTube video was simple and step by step and I knew that I could do it. I didn't want to go out and buy zips... was keen to use the small stockpile I had in my sewing stuff. It worked pretty well... like many Missouri Star tutorials it glossed over a couple of t parts which novices like me needed more guidance on - it took me a while to get the joins at the top of the bag looking ok.


Once completed though I was itching to have a go at another one. A dear friend gave me some fabric when she returned from a visit to Fiji to see her family. Its a traditional Fijian pattern. I used it for the outside and the lining and it worked really well

Still having an itch to scratch I made another pouch using some funky kombi van fabric that Fangirl gave me for Christmas 2013. It worked out really well too.



My range of zips is pretty limited... I only have 2 left in my stash and the colours are not great. I am reluctant to pay LQS prices - zips singularly can be rather pricey. So I've ordered some on eBay. $4 for 20 in some great colours. That should satisfy my pouch urges for a while. I might even get adventurous and go look for some other patterns... eventually.

Finish It Up Friday - Jean's Jean Quilt is done

It was so great to get a finish this week. I have already blogged about it on WIP Wednesday but when you haven't had a finish for a while its hard to let a good thing go.

Jean's Jeans Quilt.
This quilt has been my machine project for our camping holiday. Fixit Guy and I left our home in Central Queensland October 4th and have been on the road ever since... well sort of. We have had lots of stops along the way. (for between 2 and 7 days ... we did have had a couple of overnight stops that we haven't put the tent up for. One time we stayed in a motel and once we stayed with my sister)

I did all the prep for this quilt it before I left home... cutting up the jeans, marking out the circles, marking the square inside the circle, cutting all the square fabric (well they mostly came from my 5" square scrap drawer). I didn't do any sewing though and I was busting to get down to it

 

THe pattern I used was The Blue Jean Quilt by Penny Halgren as demonstrated on her YouTube video here

I started sewing the circles together Monday October 6th and finished it on Wednesday November 6th so that was pretty organised of me now wasn't it
         
I had planned to make the quilt 17 rows by 15 rows. To make the quilt I sewed 4 circles together to make one "flower". I then sewed in the coloured squares os, zigzagging the petals down on two sides to secure them.


Because there was to be originally an odd number of rows both length and breadth of the quilt I also made some 6 circle units and one 9 circle unit. Then I sewed the 4 circle units into strips with one 6 circle unit to make 7 strips 2 circle x 15 circles long. I also sewed one strip using all 6 circle unit strips plus the 9 circle unit to make one strip 3 x 15 circles.

 

Once I had all the strips completed  I decided I would like it a little wider. I had enough extra circles with me and almost enough of the 5 " squares. I had some other scrap fabric with me to do another project and was able to cut enough squares from that to enable me to make all the extra units. So eventually the quilt was 17 circles by 16 circles, a total of 272 circles.
 
I sewed all this using my little Janome Jem which, whilst being a work horse, doesn't have a very big harp to squish fabric through. Its been made a bit smaller by Fixit Guy adding some extra lights there for me. I had to be very particular how I sewed things together adding one strip at a time to the next - not making it any more than 2 or 3 units being squished under the harp to be zigzagged down. Usually I tend to keep adding to multiple units and then sew some bigger units together but this had to be just one getting added to the bigger unit at a time.
 
I did run into a few problems along the way. The main was that I kept getting little holes where the 4 circles would meet up. It didn't all fit neatly together like Penny's did in her video. The main reason for this I believe is that my initial circle wasn't drawn out properly. I wanted to use my 5" squares that I already had cut. So the circle had to fit the square. After some difficulty trying to work out what the radius of such a circle was my FG pointed out that I already had the diameter... just fold the 5"square on the diagonal and measure that... simple really. I did that and then halved it. However when drawing my circle I just used the "tie a pencil to a bit of string and pin the string at the length you want the radius to be  and trace around" trick... and I did it on my own and in a hurry and... I think my circle was a bit wonky. I traced off heaps of circles and then started to draw off my square and I knew straight away that the circle wasn't quite right... but since I had already traced and cut out a heap I just kept going... and as a result it wasn't accurate and so it didn't fit properly.

It meant a bit more fiddling around... a bit of darning of holes. It meant that not all the petals are the same size and its not all nicely matched up. BUT... it is done. Its on the bed. It looks lovely and its been keeping us warm. It was never going to be a show quilt. Being a bit vain I didn't take photos of the holes.

Anyway its done and on the bed and I love it








I've sewn this quilt whilst we have travelled down the Australian Eastern Seaboard from Maroochydoore to Lakes Entrance. I have sewn it  in my sons' town house, 3 National Parks, and 3 caravan parks so its been a well travelled quilt. My sewing room has been in a lot of different places. I have photographed most of them... flick back through my blog over the last month if you don't usually follow me and you can see some of the lovely places that I have been

We still have another month on the road so I have moved on to another project although it won't be a finish this trip... making the borders for a quilt that is at home still 


Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday

and Mrs Sew and Sows blog