Silent Scream #1 and #2

It has been a long time since I've posted about quilting.  I'm still in the throws of this terrible episode of depression, waiting for the anti-depressants that I don't want to be taking to kick in, and my sewing room doesn't hold any fascination for me at the moment, I don't know why.

I did take some time to do some quilting on Silent Scream #1 though, and got quite a way through.

I'm FMQing swirls and little pointy bits (that's my very catchy title for the stitch pattern) using my lovely Janome Atelier 5 with the darning foot and feed dogs down.  I'm using a Guttermann's variegated thread in different shades of blue and quilting around the letters, not over them.

Here you can see some of the pointy bits I'm talking about!  I'd been quilting for a couple of hours, on and off as I have to take frequent coffee-and-pointless-flick-through-social-media breaks.  Then this happened.

I cleaned out the bobbin case, the Janome demands this a lot more frequently than my Husqvarna ever did, I changed the needle, rethreaded the machine and used a new bobbin.  Nope, not happening.  So I gave up.  

I must be more than three-quarters of the way through here!  Since taking these photos, I went back to the quilting and... it was fine.  So Janome was just having a temper tantrum then.

I've also started free-piecing Silent Scream #2 (oh yes, I'm going for a series here).  Can you name this tune?

A bit unfair really as only the Brits (and maybe Irish?) would know this band and their songs.

In the midst of all the crap going off with my mental health, I received a lovely parcel from the lovely Kerry.  She left me (me personally, she didn't emigrate, she left ME) back in January for a new life in Canada and I miss her so this really brought a smile to my face.

There were also chocolate coins (Canadian dollars of course), a Canadian quilting magazine and some Peeps.  I've always wondered what Peeps are and now I know.  Really f*****g scary is what they are!

Thanks Kerry, I will reciprocate, I'm just being particularly crap at the minute and we all know I'm crap at the best of times.

Quilting Cuzco

Yep, you read that right, I have finally started quilting my Cuzco quilt.  I'm not sure how well you can see the quilting in these pictures below.

I used a grey thread the same shade as the sashing, you can make it out in the green patch at the bottom.

I'm doing the circles and angles from Leah Day's 365 Quilting Patterns book and I think it works well on this quilt, though I'm not sure if it's dense enough.

Much easier to see on the back.  I posted a mid-quilting shot on Instagram and had a comment from Kate Spain herself.  I refrained from going all fan-girly on her, though it was hard.

It's quilt guild again this weekend, but I won't be quilting this quilt.  Not because I don't want to, but because my machine decided on Saturday to do this:

That's the top, not the bottom.  No tension at all, no matter what I did.  It's back at the shop being repaired.  I feel a new sewing machine coming on...

Circle of geese - soon to be covered in sauce

It really will be covered in sauce soon, it's a trivet.  I've been working on this one for ages.  It all started with this circle of geese which I made sometime last year, before the non-making set in.  I think it's a pattern by Jeliquilts, but I've forgotten, if anyone knows I'll update this.

I attempted to do a rainbow and thought a patterned black fabric would set it off nicely.  Alas, I didn't have any patterned black fabric so a solid had to do.

Last month I added some 2" borders of yellow, orange and red.  The red is from Petit Ecole, I'm not sure what the other two fabrics are.  I sewed it right sides together with the backing and turned it through, leaving the Insulbrite on the inside this time!  Then I quilted.

I got a bit fancy with my FMQ this time.  I know it's a bit over the top for a trivet, but I wanted to practice and I might as well practice on a functional item as on a scrap sandwich.

All the quilting patterns I used are from Leah Day's book 365 Quilting Patterns, also available on her website.  The centre is Day 221 Maelstrom and I'm really chuffed with how it turned out.  It's black thread, Guttermanns if you're even slightly interested in the brand!

The black bits between the geese got an echo of the shape, I went all over the place with this one!  I didn't backtack over my stitches to start and end each thread, I sewed those babies in!  The yellow border is Day 9 Cursive Fs in yellow and I loved this pattern, I could do that on a whole quilt.  The orange border is Day 18 Spiral Chain and the red border is just matchstick quilting.  The most matchstick quilting I'll ever do!

Getting a motif in the corners was tricky!

Here it is from the back, it's easy enough to see the black quilting and even the orange and red, the yellow is lost though.

So what do you think?  Am I mad to custom quilt a trivet?

Linking up to the 2015 FAL Q2.  My original post is here.

mixing bubbles

You're not going to believe this, but I've finished something from my 2015 FAL Q2 list!  OK, so it was the smallest item on the list, but it's done so it counts.My original post is here.

This trivet is about 17" square.  I started with a mixer block.  This is a paper pieced block and was designed by Kristy from Quiet Play for her Sew Kitschy BOM last year.  I framed it with a round of blue fabric and a round of navy fabric.

Instead of quilting and binding, I sewed it right sides together, with a piece of Insulbrite inside, then turned through.  That's when I realised the Insulbrite was now on the outside, so I unpicked it and tried again.

Then I quilted it.  I wanted to practice the design I'm going to use on my Cuzco quilt which is Day 123 Angles and Circles from 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs by Leah Day, Mr CA bought me the book for our anniversary and I love it.  There are no instructions included, but they're not generally needed and if I do need them, I can find the video on her website.

The circles and angles to the right were too small, they were fine on this trivet, but would be much too small on the quilt and this was a practice piece, so I increased them.  Much better.  I then went on the quilt 4 columns of this design on Cuzco, I'll have to get some pictures to show you.

It's backed in this funky toaster print.  I love this print and it's perfect for my kitchen.

More trivets to come...

cushion

Following hot on the heels of my Art Deco wall hanging finish is yet another finish and one from my Finish Along list!

My 2014 FAL goal setting post is here.

I appliqued this cushion top back in April, you can see my original post here if you are so inclined.  It's taken me 8 months to finally finish it into a cushion and it only took an hour or two to do.

I free-motion quilted swirly loops and little hanging hearts all over the top, avoiding the applique pieces. I also chose to leave the vase unquilting, though it doesn't make it pop out as the quilting is not very dense.

I used two co-ordinating greens for the back, no idea what they are, sorry, they're from my stash and I suspect they were from the Stash club I was in.

I sewed right sides together and turned out, creating the envelope back at the same time, as I couldn't face binding this.  I really don't enjoy binding and I'm very rubbish at it.

I quilted in a light green thread, then struggled to get decent photos of it!  I think you can make it out in this photo, very basic but not too bad.

It's nice to get this off the list and onto the chair in the living room.  I'm now officially finished with cushions as we've ran out of room for them!

tablet case

My blog post titles are just so creative aren't they?  Does anyone enjoy trying to come up with something interesting or do we all hate writing the damn things?

Anyway, it is what it says.  I made a case for my tablet.  It's not an i-pad, I'm not some label queen, it's a Samsung tablet and I love it to bits.  When I went to the Manor House in October, I wanted to take my tablet and so the weekend before saw me making a last minute case for it.  Turns out I might as well not have bothered as there was no wifi signal there so I couldn't use it!

I used an FQ of Kate and Birdie's Winter Lane which I've been hoarding.  I don't think it's particularly wintery so I was happy to use it.  I drafted my own pattern for this case, took some measurements, cut out my rectangles and then quilted.

I do enjoy FMQ so I'm not sure why I'm putting of FMQing the And Sew On quilt and my applique cushion cover.  I know it will be fun when I get started.

I stupidly quilted it with the lining fabric, in hindsight I would have much preferred making a separate lining, I wouldn't have had to bind the damn thing for a start!

I wish I'd taken a picture of the cut out pattern piece before I sewed it up.  It's one piece with a rectangle taken out of the top to form the front.  It was a stupid design and I bound it in the most ridiculous way, but never mind, it's done now!

I love the finished case, but you have to make sure not to look directly at the binding as it's so sloppily put on it could explode in your face.  True.

I put in a button hole and added a self-cover button to match the lining.  I probably could have fussy cut it!

Night night Mr Tablet, sleep tight.

Definitely no stippling here!

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.  Today I've got a class at the Bead Shop, so it's probably about time I told you all about the class I took last month.  I booked it ages ago and had been very much looking forward to it.  It was a Free Motion Quilting class, held at StitchCraft Studio by the lovely Trudi, my friend and guild buddy.  I alternatively heckled and tried to be teacher's pet!

The class was 10-4 with lunch included (they do great food - yes, this is an LQS with a cafe inside!) so we had a lot of time to practice.  I have attempted a bit of FMQ before, but it was great to get some tips, design ideas and of course be shown the best way to do things.  I was also able to see where I'd been going wrong before. Trudi spent quite a bit of time shouting "Wendy, slow down!"  I don't know what's wrong with me, but when I'm sewing, I forget I can take my foot off the pedal...

We made quilt sandwiches and basted them ready.  We went through each design, Trudi showed us how to do it and we practiced on paper first, then had a go on our sandwich.  I have no idea what is wrong with these pictures, the fabric I used was pink...

I filled one piece and made another sandwich, I could have continued with the same piece, just quilting over the top in a different colour, but I wanted to keep it for posterity.  Hopefully one day I can look back at them and laugh, but at the moment I'm quite proud.

This one is blue!  I know that this quilting is by no means professional, but I saw an improvement in the designs so I know I can continue to improve with practice.  I was surprised I could do this at all, especially the feathers!

I found it all so freeing... if you live nearby and haven't plucked up the courage to FMQ, I'd highly recommend a class with Trudi.  If you don't live nearby, I'm sure there'll be a class near you somewhere.

I've got some FMQing to do, there are a couple of items on my FAL Q3 list which I want to FMQ, not least my And Sew On quilt.  I had borrowed Kerry's open toe/darning foot for the class (and almost ruined her entire life in the process...) so was thrilled when mine arrived a few days later.  Time to practice!

Ta dah!  What do you think?  Am I any good at this FMQ? ...

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Yeah, OK, Trudi made this sample for me!  (and it was on cream fabric?!?!?)  This is what I aspire to and it's good to have aspirations.

Sew Kitchsy - paper pieced bowl

As I mentioned back in January Kristy at Quiet Play is running another one of her fabulous paper piecing BOMs. The theme is Sew Kitschy and it is retro kitchen items.  I don't have space for a wall hanging in my little kitchen, so I'm making the blocks and turning them into practical items. What we needed most were trivets for putting hot dishes down on.

I made a bad choice for the stripes on the bowl, they're not obvious enough.  Speaking of which, I tend to point out mistakes I've made and things I could have done better in my posts.  There are a few reasons for this and I've been pulled up about it so many times in the comments recently that I thought I'd say something here.

I am not showing you the mistakes so you can say "don't be daft, it's brilliant".  This is a log of the things I've made, warts and all.  Don't you get bored reading blog post after blog post saying "ta-dah!  Look what I've made, it's perfect!".  OK, that's how other bloggers want to write, but I'm not playing.  The stuff I make has faults. Sometimes it's just stupidity on my part, other times I can learn from it.  Why not share?  I'm sorry that it bothers some of you, but I'm really not being down on myself.  Yes, I cocked up.  So what?  I don't care so you shouldn't either.

As you can see, most of the fabrics are Flea Market Fancy.  I'd cracked them out for the appliqued cushion and so thought I might as well use them.  Our kitchen has white units with black tops, and the tiles are multi-coloured, all colours except pink and purple, so anything goes.  I used Sketch for the spoon, it was the perfect choice.  So, I basted this bad boy up- I put on borders after making the block, I've just realised I was waffling about be being crap publicly and forgot to talk about what I made! - I started FMQing and...

What the??  How flimsy must that bit of metal have been?  I thought I'd broken the needle the sound it made, then I saw the needle and was a bit confused until I found this in my lap.  Well, no more FMQing for me... Jacob's quilt definitely won't be done this month now!

Scrappy binding and it was done.  I wanted a go at echo quilting, it's something I've never tried.  Yep, should have done that with a walking foot, not a darning foot!

It's OK though for something that lives on a kitchen counter and gets chucked in the wash with dirty socks every week!

The bar thing broke when I was doing the curlies in the spoon, I just kind of carried on, I was so near the end.

I have completely ran out of things to say about this trivet...  Oh, I don't much like the way I did the borders.  I didn't have enough of one print to do them all, so I should have mitred them.

It's bloody huge.  The bowl section is 10", I added far too much of a border and it's loads bigger than the other one.  I think that's an old pillow case on the back.  I'm not wasting expensive designer fabric on the back of a trivet.

The binding went OK.  I did it by machine as I really couldn't be arsed hand binding it.  It's not perfect, but it does the job and doesn't look as bad as it sometimes does!

Is this post over yet?  I'm boring myself...


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