Tag: hand quilting

Tie it, Whip it

by Kay, posted in Embroidery, slow sunday stitching

No I haven’t gone all ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ I have been working on two projects this Sunday. It is pouring with rain at last. It first started on Friday evening.  A cheer went up from next door as it has rained once in the past two and a half months.

It was dry and warm again on Saturday for a big family BBQ and it is raining today

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I finished the Dorset feather stichery sample and I am a quarter of the way through tieing the ugly quilt

A characteristic of Dorset feather is the amount of whipping on the stitches, I’m not so keen on some of the colour combinations I used but it is fine for a sample. It will be used  for the front cover of a new needlecase.

 

I used some of the same no 8 perle cotton to tie the quilt as it has a very thick blanket inside which is too difficult to machine. As I got to the bottom of the quilt I could see some very suspicious looking ‘tunnels’ in the wool! I hope the little critters are all dead or long gone! Better treat it to make sure

I used the paper template to make sure I was in the middle for each tumbler without measuring every time

I am a bit late writing this post so I hope I am not too late for Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy’s Quilts. Why not have a look at everyone else’s work

 

Out With The Old, In With The New

by Kay, posted in Finished Projects

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At last I have finished my new purse. For American readers a purse is something to keep money and cards in which is placed in your hand/shoulder/messenger/bag in the UK. The male equivalent is a wallet

It was made following a very clear tutorial by Ayumi of Pink Penguin which I have made  before following a similar look to the one she has demonstrated. However it is showing it’s age now and I wanted a different look. I wasn’t sure what I wanted until I bought a scrap bag of fabric at Peppermint Stitches and in it were two fabrics that went well with each other; a piece of dark grey linen and a few scraps of fabric by Anna Maria Horner from the Loulouthi collection from a few years ago. It is still available here

Hand quilting on the top

The lining and internal pocket fabrics were also in the scrap bag and are all fabrics that I wouldn’t normally chose but they all went together so well for this project.

The zip was quite difficult to put in – because it was so narrow, not because of the instructions. I have avoided zips in the past but it’s not too bad if you have good instructions. I saw another pattern for a similar purse but the zip ends were on show when you opened it! It looked great on the outside but terrible on the inside, so it is always worth doing a bit of research for a project to find the best one

I enjoyed doing the simple embroidery outlining parts of the fabric design, but the bottom part was closely machine quilted to give it a bit of rigidity. All in all a good project that cost very little. I have had a lot of compliments for the old purse – will the new one get as many?

 

Making not Buying

by Kay, posted in WIPs

DSCF4513I felt guilty about posting so much about fabric purchases that I  thought it was time to post about something I am actually making. It is a new patchwork wristlet following a tutorial by Ayumi Takahashi from Pink Penguin. My old one is a little the worse for wear now and even the washing machine can’t restore it’s looks but it has served me well .

The new one is made from pieces of fabric from a scrap bag  bought at Peppermint Stitches. I have machined straight lines close together at the bottom but decided to do a little hand- stitching around some of the motifs at the top. simple stuff, just chain, stem, running and seed stitches. The pockets and lining are cut and stitched, the handle made and the zip ready to go. Now all that needs to happen is for my Pfaff to finally come back from repair or I get a new quarter inch foot for my Britannia Instyle 16, as it is bent out of true boo hoo.

I am not having much luck with gadgets at the moment as both the washing machine and hoover decided to go on strike too, but they are both working now. If only my sewing machines were

A Little Silhouette

by Kay, posted in Quilting from Little things

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What a sweet little dolly is this little silhouette. Rated 2 stars I would agree. I had practice on the smaller shapes for Spring and which was good practice before tackling this one as the piece is larger and the shaping more difficult. I was tempted to do a cockatoo instead but thought the plumed feathers on the top of a cockatoo’s head might be too fiddly

I really enjoyed the quilting and used different blues, getting lighter the further away from the eagle. I love the look of the close quilting lines and how they almost look like a landscape when viewed close-up.

I also loved the simple small squares of the background and am keeping a bag of small squares ready for another project – not that I have decided what it is – I just love the look of them

There was no real problem with this dolly as I had already completed needle-turn applique for ‘Spring’ but I would recommend that they are completed in that order if you are new to this type of applique

 

Geese Around the World

by Kay, posted in Quilting from Little things

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My first go at foundation piecing and I thought it was harder then the woodpile, even though they are both rated two stars for difficulty. The first part; attaching the inner patch and the ‘goose’ wasn’t too bad and I only used one strip of background fabric out of the four needed. I thought I was being very economical but for some reason attaching the last piece was harder – it must have been some thing to do with the angles – and I used all of the other strips.

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When I finished I thought ‘I won’t be doing that again!’ , but I love this little dolly quilt and it is the only way to get perfect piecing. Not sure that I will rush into making a Mariners Star but maybe in the future…

The Woodpile

by Kay, posted in Quilting from Little things

Forget everything you learnt about carefully selected lists of fabric, precision cutting, points that meet and parallel seams. The aim of the game is deconstructed piecing more commonly known as wonky log cabin blocks.

I found it really strange to let go and the first few seams were a bit too, err… straight. After a few tries I got in to the swing of things and thoroughly enjoyed it! Blocks are trimmed at the end and there are only two straight seams in the whole piece. I did sort of fussy cut the centre section which goes against the grain of the woodpile but I fancied having a flower in the middle – so I did. After all we make things to make them our way.

This is the first time I have made a log cabin block too and I will definitely try it again  There was quite a lot of hand stitching and I put more in some blocks than others for variety and interest – plus it gets a bit addictive!

Spring!

by Kay, posted in Spring

The purpose of this dolly quilt is to teach you how to use needle-turn applique to attach bias strips; you get lots of practice with this lovely swirly design as you can see from the photo. To make it easier Sarah suggests buying ready made bias strip, I couldn’t get a nice spotty one but I like the bright green of the plain one that I found

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You also learn Sarah’s method of needle-turn applique for the leaves, using a silver gel pen to mark the template outline. This outline forms the edge to be turned under. This way there is no need to worry about freezer paper, gluing, ungluing or seam allowances, etc. It is easy to position the template where you want it if you like to fussy cut. Thinking about it you could even use this method to draw freehand if you are confident enough

I love the colours of this mini quilt, purple is a favourite colour and I used to wear lots of it whether it was in fashion or not.
I changed this slightly from the 21 x 20 inches to 21 inches square. Sarah suggests using it as a cushion but I thought it would make a nice picture and it would be easier to buy a frame if it was square. They have nice box frames in Ikea but I should have checked the sizes as it is slightly too big for their large box frame – I won’t make that mistake again!

I haven’t hand quilted before but enjoyed the process – I like finishing binding by hand too. both are lovely jobs to curl up on the settee with while you watch a film

Now it is finished it is pegged up on the line in my little workroom