"The Bubble Quilt"

The Bubble Quilt is a Purple book project (see this post). 

I pieced it at the string quilting workshop back here. 

It was supposed to become a modern pillow case, but instead I quilted the daylight out of it playing with bubbly free motion quilting designs.

Oh how much fun that was, so much better than endless straight line stitching.

It’s the perfect size for a table topper and the colours are just right for my living room.

(Sorry about the poor light)

One less page in the Purple book.

Thanks for stopping by!

New beginnings and old ends

I have been struggling with commitment issues lately, leaping from one project to the next, on and on and on again. Not much is getting finished, just a lot of new ideas and starts and sketches and pulled fabrics. On one hand, I should celebrate and just go with the flow; there will be plenty of time to finish things when the momentum wears off, right. On the other hand, I feel tired and restless and a little guilty not seeing anything through.

Oh well, it is what it is.

All the restless energy has some positive results though, like going through all the old projects (shoe) boxes that have been stashed away on a shelf since moving into my new space almost two years ago. There were some wonderful surprises there. One box was filled with 2 ½” squares from way back in the beginning of my quilting journey. Not all of them were quilting cottons, and not all of them were square as such, so I sorted them and was about to throw them out when I looked at the rather lovely mix of colours and decided to sew them into a table runner for spring, not adding anything else.

I started piecing the squares in “Thick and thin” together on Friday afternoon when the boys were spending time with me in the studio (who am I to say no to such a request!). These are not my regular colour palette; I know.

The layout is a semi random “pattern”. I had two squares to spare when I was done.

I started quilting it tonight, and am having fun practising some new quilting skills.

I may or may not add appliqué later, maybe some small flowers which I found in another box. The name is referring to the fabric quality which ranges from thin (washed out bed linens) to thick (pillows and table cloths). The backing is a lovely ever so soft bed linen.

I have also emptied out all the shoeboxes filled with scraps. Oh my, those scraps are just multiplying - even a year of making stuff from scraps didn’t make a dent. I have been piling scraps upon scrap upon boxes for ages now, so it was time to address the problem. I wanted open containers to make them easy to use, so I purchased some small trash baskets and sorted most of my scraps into them, Yellow+orange, pink+red, purple, blue+green, neutrals, batiks, strings and bits and bobs. It felt so good! 

Placed right underneath my cutting table (which I don't really use that often), they are ready to be used. There is already enough stuff in them for several scrappy quilts. Not just yet though, I have quite a backlog of WIPs to finish first.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sir John and I

Meet my new workmate, Sir John. Isn't he just a dashing young fellow! I have been dreaming of a bigger machine for years, and now he’s here.

He has been sitting in my studio for days until I finally took him out for a run yesterday, but first I had a look in the manual to see if there was something fundamental different from my other machines. So far everything looks quite familiar.

My studio floor is rather slippery, so I cut a piece of a bath mat to put underneath the foot pedal so I won’t have to chase it around.

My first projects were some leftover scrappy blocks which I’ll be making into doll quilts for grandson’s kindergarden. 

 

That pink floral fabric is a recycled favourite of mine. I wish I had yards of it!

The walking foot worked smoothly, so I soon switched to the free motion equipment and a test cloth.

 
Having tested all my usual twists and turns, I felt confident moving on to the next scrappy block. All that extra space sure makes a difference even with such a small project.

No eyelashes on the front or the back

Scraps of fleece on the back

I’ll be practising some more before I move on to the pile of tops waiting to be quilted. I think Sir John and I will get on very well indeed.

Seven steps back

Looking for a way to get an overview, I have been taking many, many steps back in more ways than one. The house is slowly progressing, and I mean sloowlyy compared to the frantic work going on everywhere in the pre-moving-in chaos. I haven’t got my in-house creative space sorted out yet and am missing the calmness that comes from taking half an hour off and just do something fun. I have realized that I don’t just quilt because it makes me happy, I actually become unhappy when I don't.

Quite a few of you have asked about my new sewing room, and the answer is – I will not have one here at home. The original plan was to have a downstairs studio, but we made an apartment for our young ones instead. I will however have a desk in one (or maybe two?) of the bedrooms, and husband has (almost) built shelves for me to keep some stash at home. I will still have my fabulous studio where I am happily making a mess without bothering anyone – and I get to have our daughter and grandboys close so it’s a win-win I’d say. Living close but not together is brilliant. We have a door between our hallways so we don't have to put on coats and shoes, but other than that we have our own homes.

One of the worst things about not creating for a while was, as always, the fear of not finding the mojo again. Nothing new there. So, I did what I usually do, grabbed a few scraps and started sewing, and soon thereafter I had two small projects ready for some relaxing hand stitching. 

You don’t need a sewing space for that, do you. Needle, thread, thimble, light, and off you go.

This little quilt was a present for a friend who needs to practise saying no. It says “No thanks, that’s ok” which is my go to phrase.

The other quilt, “New beginnings” was a present for a friend who just changed career. It’s made from 1" leftover strips from daughter’s Christmas present and a piece of a thrifted ikat-woven shirt.

Aaaah, the bliss of stitching one scrap to another.

The theme for 2015 for our guild is scraps and we have put lots of different scrap related fun on the programme so there will be plenty of opportunities for colourful play this year. We have shown & told about our scrap quilts. We have demonstrated paper piecing. We are doing a string block swap beginning this month. We have played with our scraps for a whole Saturday at our scrap quilting workshop. And the first scrap challenge is making mugrugs/place mats for the April meeting. Both these little quilts would be the right size.

I have enjoyed having company in the studio a couple of days. I understand oranges, like this couch, and hot chocolate are good for nasty colds. Company does indeed make tedious work like sorting through and ironing boxes and boxes of scraps more fun.

Right now I have some scrappy tops waiting to be turned into cushions for the old couch upstairs. I pieced them at the workshop and cannot wait to start quilting.

(Yours truly at the workshop, picture by my friend Sissel)

Orange is a perfect neutral, wouldn't you say. The funny thing is that I could have sworn that I had never seen that fabric before I emptied one of the bags in the studio last week.

Just a few boxes to be emptied tomorrow morning and off I go with a somewhat clean conscious. Does one box, one hour in the studio sound fair?? With the overwhelming number of boxes and bags that still needs a place to live, that would be a great incentive indeed.

Thanks for stopping by!

The 28 strips quilt, a free pattern

This is a fun and easy pattern whether you already have a stash of strips, a jelly roll, or choose to cut new strips from any collection of fabrics. Mine is made from strips from my Treasure Box and measures 36”*36”. You can easily adjust the size to your needs.

(It is a beautiful sunny day today with a little wind which made my quilt dance. The light was a bit difficult; too bright in the sun, and a bit too dark in the shadow, but there you go. We'd better enjoy outdoor photo shoots while we still can.)

I first wrote about my Treasure Box back here, and did an update on what some of the treasures had been made into here. The box keeps being fed new treasures, and some are being used. If you are wondering what these treasures are, they are little pieces and shapes and blocks and stuff which are ready to be used in a project. Instead of being considered unfinished, they are a resource, instant starter pieces. It’s just a way of looking at leftovers and ideas which didn’t quite make it into a finished project.

The first few weeks in the new studio, when everything still was a little up in the air, the Treasure Box, or boxes really, were a great starting point. One treasure after the other was brought out, the ideas kept rolling and fabrics were added to the pieces. It was awesome. Some of the finished projects have been delivered to my magazine editor, and others have been given away, but the boxes are still full.

This particular treasure was a set of 28 pastel strips,

so I challenged myself to use them all, only adding a border fabric if I should want to. Looking around the studio, the perfect match was sitting on top of one of the bags - a light and lovely thrifted curtain. While the finished quilt does not really have a border, it appears to have one.

It also has a big couched flower which adds extra texture and movement and ties the pieced blocks and “border” together.

Couching is a great design tool for scrappy quilts; depending on the colour and thickness of the yarn, it can blend in or pop.

The pattern would look just as lovely in any other colour scheme or theme - Christmas fabrics, baby fabrics, delicate pinks, greys, modern geometrics, or luscious flowers; leave the couched shape out, or make a different one to fit your theme.

You can download the free pattern here. Enjoy!

The Blue Placemats

I wanted to give my parents something handmade for Christmas, and blue is always a safe bet with my mother. I had some scraps leftover from this table cloth. Well, actually I cut lots of extra 2 ½” strips for that quilt so that I could make a birthday quilt for grandson as well, and grandbaby’s christening quilt were also made from the same strips. So what does that make these little fabric scraps - leftovers from leftovers from leftovers? Leftovers three times removed? Never-ending fabric strips?

Anyway, I brought the scraps to a guild meeting a while ago, and randomly stitched them into a piece of made fabric jellyroll race style. This piece was cut apart and stitched back together with pieces of a recycled curtain fabric. The colour and look is rather denim-ish, but it is very soft and lovely.

While one side was bleached by the sun, the other side looked brand new and it passed the rip-test. If you are unfamiliar with this test, you grab the fabric with both hands, and pull as hard as you can. If it doesn’t rip, it’s fine to use.

I had just enough pieced fabric for 4 place mats, and they look quite different, which I like.

 

My quilting buddies and I had an interesting discussion about how to balance the made fabric and the top and bottom borders while I was making them. It was very interesting to hear the different point of views. No wonder that there are so many different quilts out there.

Simple straight-ish line quilting using the walking foot; goes with anything.

Maybe I should have quilted them with orange thread; the orange binding basting seams looked quite nice with all that blue.

Pictures taken in a hurry in the evening before my parents' arrival; I even forgot to sign them before wrapping them up. And I who sign Everything. Oh well; they know who made them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Scrappy Day in Haugesund

I spent a fun weekend in Haugesund, filled with lovely ladies and scraps in every colour known to man and then some. If you have never attended a scrap quilting workshop, it is highly recommended. You can almost touch the energy that flows through the room as the students dig into their scrap bins. Fabulous!

The hotel room came with not-much-of a view,

but the hotel was new and light and airy and I had dinner Friday night with one of my best friends from college who I hadn’t seen in 15 years or so. I showed you my quilt-filled bag on Friday, but looking at it next to my no less than two suitcases and you get an idea about how un-lightly I travelled.

With the magic of some true MacGyver ideas, I managed to hang them all (the quilts, not the luggage) in the classroom. Some old quilts, some newer quilts and one not finished yet (embarrassing).

 

 

It was quite nice to revisit some of them. For instance, I did not remember hand quilting this one

And my Christmas quilt that was hiding and only recsurfaced after a rather tiresome 2 day rescue party of one

And this one with the painted half full glass (that was a fun experiment)

And grandson’s old play mat (clean!!)

Oh, yes, it was a colourful sight indeed.

We went through lots of different non-fuzzy-fiddly/nothing-measured blocks one by one,

and for the last few hours the students happily pieced whichever blocks they fancied.

Even the scrappy scraps looked good

and so did the homemade lunch which tasted even better! You can see more pictures from the class here at Haugtussa Quilteklubb.

Thank you, ladies, for a great day! More pictures from the weekend to follow.