Autumn Mini

I have finished the Autumn mini hanging so it is all ready to hang next week - although it is feeling autumnal this morning with a grey sky. We had some rain overnight but once again only just enough to wash off the dust. Anyway, back to the hanging.

I ditch quilted by machine around my Migrating Cranes, the centre block and the little squares. Then I spent some happy time hand quilting the centre and around the hexies.

 I am very pleased with how this turned out and sad though I shall be to put away my summer flowerr baskets I am looking forward to seeing this every day on my wall.

Meanwhile work continues on the tablecloth....

Have a great weekend.

Friday Night Sew In - August!

Many thanks to Wendy for inviting us to join her - see who else joined in here

Hard to believe that we are over half way through August! Autumn is just around the corner and so this week I realised it was time to crack on with my Autumn wall hanging. When you last saw it, it looked like this

and was desperately in need of some red berries to bring it to life - which I was dreading doing! So I spent a couple of afternoons adding borders to the piece and plucking up courage to do the berries. Like all these things, in the end, they were no trouble at all once I had worked out how to do them.

And so my task for Friday afternoon was to add a swag of 1/2" hexies to the bottom border of the quilt and layer it up ready for quilting.

The flying geese along the top of the panel are actually migrating cranes which we see a lot of here in the autumn. I plan to do some basic ditch quilting by machine around the border and then hand quilt the applique to add some detail.

In the evening I worked on the applique on my table cloth. The basic vine and leaves are now complete on two sides and the third is nearly done.

In other news I have been working on some secret Christmas stitching and have completed my purple RSC Dresden.

It has been hot here again with just the odd shower to wash the dust off - not enough to soak the ground though which is what we need.

So I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else was working on last night and will be round to visit soon. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Red Manor House

And yes, it's a flimsy!

What started out as this collection of fabrics

became this

then this

and this

this

and this

and finally this!

The only extra fabric I needed to buy was the red for the outer sashing.

So pleased with how this has turned out.

This was a BOM from The Quilters Guild and was based on this coverlet

dating from 1840 - 1860 and in their collection. It has been a great project to work on and I have loved the variety of motifs and techniques. I shall definitely be making some more of those butterflies!

Now all I need is some cooler weather so that I can get it layered up and ready to quilt over the winter. It is a big quilt - 80" x 80" and is going to keep my legs nice and warm over the winter months as I work on the hand quilting.

Friday Night with Friends for August

Many thanks to Cheryll for getting us all togeher again yesterday. Pop over to Cheryll's blog here to see who else took part. I shall making some visits later today.

It was 40 degrees here yesterday afternoon and so I shut up the front of the house early on and settled down to work on my Red Manor House BOM. The final part of the BOM arrived last Saturday and I have been working steadily during the week on making lots of Flying Geese. This is where I was at when I started out yesterday afternoon

and this is where I was several hours later!

I now need to make eight dark blue Flying Geese to make the centre X at the middle of each side and then they can be added to the quilt. Not far to go now!

During the evenings I have been working on the applique on my tablecloth. The vine and basic leaves are all sewn down now along one side of my cloth.

Not easy to get the lighting right but you get the idea.

Trawling through my inbox recently I came across a link to a pattern I had bought back during lockdown. No idea how I found the pattern, anyway, as it happens it was a timely find and of course I set about instantly making a Zip Up Tray Pouch

I soon realised that the finished pouch was considerably larger than it looks in the picture



To me that looks like a pencil case whereas opened out it is 11" x 7" x 4". What I actually wanted was something square so it was quite easy to downsize the pattern so that the opened tray is 7" square.

Next problem - no opened ended zips in my stash! Never mind I thought - I will just add a tab and button, much easier than fiddling with a zip too.

To stiffen the box double sided heavyweight fusible interfacing is needed but I dont have any of that. I do however have some heavyweight pelmet vilene that is fusible on one side so I decided to go with it. Although double sided fusible would probably have made the end pieces easier to put together, I found it worked well and with the unfused side inside it means I have a looser lining which I quite like.

So here is my finished box

The lovely linen spot on the outside has been in my stash for some time waiting for its moment to shine! The contrasting fabric is a pretty butterfly print.

Everything went swimmingly until I got to hand stitching the binding down to the end pieces. I think it took me as long as putting the rest together! It may be that my pelmet vilene is stiffer than the suggested stiffener but I still think it would be difficult. In the end I was stab stitching through to the edge of the binding on the front of the box using tiny stitches.

Should I ever decide to make another of these - at the moment, highly unlikely! - I would use 1/4" seams on the two ends. I find those 3/8" seams bulky. And I would used doubled over bias binding rather than her single as I think it is stronger.

Well, it is marginally cooler today. I am off to make some more Flying Geese. Have a good week.

Another week..

..has gone by. It has been hot and dry here so I have started my annual round of quilt and cushion cover washing! Having washed and dried this cushion cover

I decided that the time had come to replace it as it was getting just too frayed in places!

Lots of rubbed spots on some of the patches and the binding had worn away around the edges too.

Wanting to use some of my Scraptherapy squares I found just what I was looking for on the cover of the book.

The cushion cover uses 18 dark and 18 light 3.5" squares used to make 36 x 3" HST blocks. 2" squares are pressed diagonally in half and added when the squares are machined together.

The 2" squares make little pockets which I like but felt could easily catch on something or might not wash well so I decided to catch them down with the quilting.

So simple diagonal ditch quilting using 'invisible' thread which went across the middle of the triangle pockets where it met them. Itgave just enough puff to the cover to give it an interesting texture.

Very pleased with my new cushion cover.

Not sure why that block in the middle looks puckered - it certainly isn't in real life!

I am slowly preparing the applique flowers and leaves for my tablecloth

Long way to go yet though!

Have a great week.

FNSI for July

Thank you Wendy for hosting us again this month - you can see who else took part on Wendy's blog Sugarlane Designs.

First up, I have reverted to Legacy Blogger simply because of the labels system. On my last post I trawled the whole list of labels ticking boxes and then when I added a new label all my ticks disappeared. So annoying.

Earlier this week my fabric order arrived from UK which meant that I was able to add the sashing to my Red Manor House.

And also the border to my baskets.

Which means that on Friday I was working on the applique pieces that will go onto the border. I made a large quantity of bias strip to use as the stem. And then I started cutting out flowers and leaves.

Not good colour repro on that photo sadly.

The applique on the original design really stands out and I realised this was because zingy batik fabrics had been used.

So I went through my scrap box pulling out any batiks and my other fabric boxes and found that I had far more batiks than I thought! I am looking forward to seeing this come to life.

In other news, I finished the two string projects from last weeks scrap haul

And I worked on the applique for my autumn wall hanging.

It now needs a scattering of red berries and then I can add the border.

I have a pile of masks cut out in readiness for a delivery of elastic - but I think we have all seen enough pictures of masks to last for sometime!

So that was my week - hope you all had a good one and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone did for FNSI.

The week that was!

Another one has gone by so quickly. The temperature has gone up again and looks set to continue for the next 10 days at least. So back to gardening in the mornings and staying indoors in the afternoons. Lots of sewing that I can be doing of course and there is test cricket to watch! - summer is finally here.

Having gone as far as I can with my Red Manor BOM until my fabric order arrives, I turned to my flower basket tablecloth. When I left it I had made these diamonds to go into the flower baskets.

So I carefully cut out the pieces to make up the baskets and started putting them together. The Y seams went in like a dream so I was disappointed to find that nothing was quite square! The baskets are all together now as you can see here.

Unfortunately where the flower blocks meet there are a few points that are severely chopped, however there was nothing to be done about it so they will have to stay. This is now another project on the back burner until my fabric order arrives.

So what to do next? Well I suppose I could have got out one of my many UFO's but I didnt want a major project that I would have to put aside again when the fabric arrives. So after reading a couple of blog posts recently about organising scraps I decided to tackle my scrap box. Here it is pre sort - it is shoe box size.

I decided to sort it all into three piles - anything 2" square or larger, strips less than 2" and crumbs which went back into the box.

I decided to tackle the larger pieces first and spent an afternoon pressing and then cutting into Scrap Therapy squares to add to my collection. The squares are 2", 3.5" and 5". They work well together and I regularly dip into them when I am looking for something to make a border.

The next day I was side tracked as I came across a new pattern on Instagram called the #weeboxybasket. The pattern is available from @sweetcinnamonroses Laura Cunningham and comes in two sizes - the rectangle I made and a small square one that sits inside. The original pattern uses mesh for the pockets and although I have mesh I dont have any elastic for the top and anyway I find the mesh a bit annoying as things get caught in it!

This didnt take me very long - the instructions are clear and easy to follow.

It holds the machine threads and feet that I use most and sits neatly under the arm of my sewing machine when not in use.

So then it was back to the scraps and I wanted to tackle the strips. I pressed them and straightened those that needed it then sorted them into two colour groups - pink/purple/green and red/yellow/brown autmn colours.

I have used the pink collection to make 6 x 6" string blocks which are all ready for me to turn into a new sewing machine mat.

I think there are enough autumn strips for a couple of pot holders so they could be next.

Just time to show you a small piece of applique I have been working on in the evenings.

This is to be the centre of an autumn mini quilt. Before I go any further though - I am changing those end leaves for something larger!

Hope you have all had a good week - speak to you again soon.