stained glass qal

Before I start rambling about quilting... our neighbour has a bee's nest under their guttering.  I keep finding giant bee carcasses in my garden.  At the weekend, when I went outside, one got trapped in my hair.  I actually thought I was going to have a heart attack.  Anyone know how to get rid of them or keep them away from me and my buns?  Oh, and do they live in nests?  I thought they lived in hives....

I'm joining in a Quilt-Along!  2 years after it finished... so I'm not really joining in, I'm just making a quilt!  The pattern is Stained Glass by Sarah.  I remember seeing the quilts around Blogland at the time and loving them, but I didn't make quilts then, so I just pinned it and moved on.  After I came into possession of a full Fat Eighth bundle of Kate Spain's Cuzco, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

The tutorial calls for Fat Quarters, so I paired the Fat Eighths up to make up the 11 fabrics required.  I still have so much left over!  I used Klona medium grey for the "leading" and got cutting and piling.

Then I started sewing and I just couldn't stop!  Above shows the first 11 blocks (one is duplicated), since taking these pictures, I've actually finished all the blocks!  I'll update you later in the month.  I never meant to make the blocks so quickly, but once I started piecing, I couldn't stop!  

I thought you might appreciate a working shot of my craft room...  bit of a mess?

so close, so, so close

The hooked rug is SOOOO close to being finished.  So, so close... 

Nope, closer than that, more like this...

See that?

And guess what?  I've run out of red wool.  They didn't give me enough in the kit.  I got an extra pack of the blue, but not enough red.  I emailed Coats who own Anchor.  The email bounced back...  I've found an online shop that sells Anchor rug wool, I bought all three reds they had in the hope that one of them matches.  Delivery will be 10 days!  What??  Get up to date shop, 10 days is a LIFETIME... well maybe not, but I'm running out of time to get this finished!

Not to forget Mr Mosaic...

Grouted!  Now to find my paint brush...



Related posts

starting the rug
The rug 3/4 done
mosaic - tiling done

crystal pillows

The beads made in the post were actually made in November.  I discovered this post languishing in my drafts...  Poor neglected crystal pillows.

They're made from the book Creative Seed Bead Connections by Teresa Meister.  It is a fabulous book and I'd highly recommend it to any beadweavers out there.  

These little components started out life as a little strip, this photo was clearly taken in the middle of the night, in a cave...

This photo could do with cropping, but I have no idea where to find it as I've taken at least a million photos since then (slight exaggeration) and Photobucket is rubbish for finding stuff.  Well it is if you never name your photos or categorise them...

I used different combinations of 3mm crystals in black or gold, 8/0 seed beads in gold and 11/0 seed beads in black or gold.  I'm actually quite impressed I remembered that 7 months later!

I made four in total.  They took me hours.  HOURS.  Now to make the links to make them in to a necklace... I'll show you the finished piece in another 7 months or so...

Can you tell what it is yet?

It was pointed out on Instagram that that's probably a fairly inappropriate thing to say...  In my defense, I thought he was dead.



I posted progress shots on Instagram for May's block for the Sew Kitschy paper piecing bom.  Only one intrepid Instagramer knew what it was.  Can you tell?

Yes, that's right!  (Oh dear, I seem to be hearing those voices again...), it's a food mixer.

A yellow food mixer with a black bum made from Sketch which was the wrong fabric... never mind.

It also features a burnt bit.  I thought I could pretend it's dirt from the chocolate cake the mixer is mixing.

Damn you iron - see what it does?  It's just random, the iron wasn't dirty but every so often it likes to deposit burnt bits on my fabric. Or the husband's shirts... 


Related posts

January - oven gloves
March - bowl

In progress

I am crap at progress posts.  Really, really crap at them.  I never post them.  Must try harder.

Remember this?

Yes, that's right, it's my Union FLAG rug.  It's on my  2014 FAL list, and also is this month's Something Old, Something New goal.  I want it finished.  

Not doing so badly so far!  The random bits of wool aren't so random.  I marked them out every 10x10 stitches to give me something to mark my progress.  There were 52 squares to fill.  Now there are 33.  

Speaking of the  2014 FAL.  I actually have very little to nominate for my quarter 3 projects.  I have several WIP needlework projects, but all of them are large and so I'll only want to nominate one or two.  I know that I have a massive list of what I call WIPs, but in reality, most are just kits, or supplies I've bought for particular projects.

The solution?  I'm going to start a load of projects!  Yep, start, not finish.  Above are 2 bag kits, a bunny softie pattern, the scraps from the dining chairs to make placemats with, a reindeer kit, a stained glass panel using fusible bias and my Cuzco bundle for making a Stained Glass quilt.

Like the good girl that I am, I got started cutting out the fabric for the stained glass quilt.  Cutting.  Lots of cutting...  Don't hold your breath on any of these projects, it's going to take at least a month to get them all started. Am I crazy??

Wooooo weeeee woooo

That was the Dr Who theme tune... did you get it?  Mr CA had a birthday at the end of May.  He's very hard to buy for and his wishlist is very uninspiring.  I needed a plan.  5 minutes on t'internet and 2 tickets were booked for the Dr Who Experience along with a hotel in Cardiff.  Now I wanted to add some homemadeness to the mix.  The next day (after I bought the tickets, not the day after his birthday, that would have been pointless) was the Guild of Modern Quilters of the East Midlands meeting, conveniently held at Stitchcraft... a quilt shop.  

I took the free pattern for a Tardis very generously shared by Trillium, and off I went.  Fabric bought, sewing machine out, massive mess around me, a Tardis was born.

It's paper pieced, though I think that's obvious!  If I'd only thought about it earlier, I could have done some embroidery on it too.  Want to see the back?

No?  Ah well.  I made it up into a zipped pouch.  Quite a large one as the block is 10".

Some stash fabric for the back...

Some more stash fabric for the lining...

One fat quarter wasn't enough for the lining, so I used 2.

The birthday arrived. The pouch was handed over.  Know what he said?  "What is it?"  Well Mr CA, quite clearly it's a Tardis.  "Yes, I know, but what is it?"  

Birthday present FAIL.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, marks the last time I will ever make anything for him.  Ever. 

I will conquer you Improv...

I've been improving!  OK, so it's a very gentle kind of improving.  Sort of following a tutorial improving.  But improving is improving.  And I'm not talking about improving as in improving, I'm actually saying improving.

This cushion is made following Mod Mosaic, a free tutorial by Oh Fransson!  It's a great wonkilicious tutorial, though I don't do wonk very well, as witnessed by the minimum wonkiness above.

this gigantic cushion was made for Jacob, to go with his quilt, so uses the same Scoot fabrics with white.  I talked about the making of this cushion a few weeks ago, saying I was going to use a 20" cushion insert and wanted it to be snug, so had sewn it to 21".  Good job I did, when I went to buy the insert, I discovered The Range doesn't sell 20" ones, I had to go for a 22" instead.

I hand quilting inside each piece with Perle 8, wonkily and improvly.

and backed it with whatever I had to hand!  Slight miscalculation on the backing front - the whiter fabric was supposed to go over the zig-zag fabric.  I can't think in 3d.