A Finish and a Post Mortem

As promised, I got around to quilting the tiny squares baby quilt. I decided to go with simple straight line machine quilting.

Have to be honest though, I'm not too pleased with the result. For a start the quilt is a wee bit on the small side, but that's the least of my worries.

And then it's really sort of 'fluffy' for some reason. Maybe the basting wasn't done properly.

But the biggest problem in my mind is the binding job at the top of the quilt. Now things really started going wrong there, and all I can do is scratch my head and wonder why. I'm suspecting that it's the polka dot grey fabric I used for the borders. I bought it online, where it was represented to be a light-weight cotton. When the postman brought it home though, I found it to be more of a silky variety, and I had some trouble keeping it in place when I was piecing and quilting it. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful fabric, soft and silky to the touch, but perhaps just not suited to be used in a quilt by amateurs like me.

And now for the pictures...


The front:

The back:

And the ugly:

You have agree with me, that's some serious pucker action going on there.

Ah well, it's all a learning process, isn't it? And after all's said and done, I have to admit that it IS wonderfully soft and cuddly.

Now I wish it was big enough for me :-)

Motto of the Week

I have a new motto this week. Actually I have a couple of choices, it's a close race between "Don't look too closely" and "Close one eye".

I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment. One of which is a quilt made up of teeny squares. The finished size of each square is 2". Or perhaps I should say approximately 2".

I tried really hard to make each square identical and aligned as I pieced them, taking extra care with the seam allowances and even squaring up each pieced block consistently. BUT when it came to putting it all together, the squares seemed to run riot and dance around all over my sewing table as I tried to sew the rows together.

And the result of the uprising:

Wahahhahahah!

For heaven's sake...!

So before I get my knickers in a twist and go loco with the seam ripper, I tell myself, and I'd like to ask you too, "Don't look to closely."

PLEASE.

In fact, the further away the better :-)

It doesn't look so bad when you "Close one eye" either does it, heh heh?

Here it is, layered and basted. Planning to have it quilted this weekend. More pics soon.

Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

Out of Ideas

Recently at the office, my dear colleague Jane surprised me with a huge bag of scraps. Jane is a very talented and creative lady, sometimes she makes her own gorgeous clothes, and get this... She sews them BY HAND!!! She also makes beautiful jewelry, which you can see here.

Back to the scrap bag. I was a bit flummoxed when I saw the contents, as the material in it was NOT the standard cotton that we quilters are accustomed to. As the scraps came from dressmaking, the fabric consisted of fabric more suited for apparel. And a lot of it is the slippy sheer stuff. Not that any of that mattered to Jane. When I meekly voiced this out to her, she suggested that I could use it to bind Milo the next time he's naughty....

So now the fabric is in a bin in The Office (aka my sewing room). Everytime I go in there I feel like they're looking up at me with big round eyes, begging me to use them. Only I'm not sure how. The problem, is the only things I can think of to make with this type of fabric are scrunchies and shoe bags. Some of the viscose can be used for cushion cases, I suppose, but other than that?

Any ideas anyone?

An Early Project

While we're on the subject of disappearing nine patches, I found a pic of this little quilt I made yonks ago, when I was a newbie to patchwork.

Actually it's not even a quilt, just a patchwork piece with a backing underneath. It's a tiny piece of work, measuring maybe about 1.5' X 2.5'. IT hasn't got a name, although looking back I might call it "The Experiment" because in truth that was what it was. I made 4 blocks out of a potpourri of different squares, then dissected each down the middle to come up with 4 DNP blocks. Add some sashing and there you go.

Sounds so easy now doesn't it? But I can assure you it wasn't so at that time.  Those days I didn't really have a fabric stash, so IT was made up of whatever scraps of fabric I could find around the house at that time. I can see some bits from an old pair of shorts, another bit from somebody's sarong, some upholstery fabric I used for curtains and the dark red is from some ikat* fabric leftover from making one of Yummy Hubby's shirts. (Having a little laugh identifying all the different fabric and their secret pasts, haha!)

IT doesn't live with us anymore. We had used it to wrap up a little ginger stray when we gave it (the ginger, that is) away a couple of years ago.

* Ikat = a woven fabric native to the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

Yellow it is!

Plane Dreaming is finished - yippee!!

A big thanks to Helen and MyBotang for your comments and helping me decide the colour of the binding - yellow moons wins! I have to say, the colour does make a lively border to the quilt. Here are some pictures especially for you...

Apologies for the quality of the pictures - I think my photography skills are almost as bad as my computer  skills... 





And a close up of the yellow...

I must say I had fun with this one. As usual it's not perfectly done (you might be able to see some puckers...), but a lot of love went into it, and that should be all that matters right?

Plane Dreaming

I've been working on another baby quilt recently. This one is called Plane Dreaming. It's made with only 3 different fabric, and I'm making it using the disappearing nine patch block. The colours look a bit muted... I think I feel this way because I normally like to work with brights.

Here it is pieced and quilted:

 

I practiced some free motion on this quilt, in a loopy loop style. Unfortunately my loops aren't too great, but like me, I suppose they'll survive, heh heh.

I have to say I love the fabric. In this picture you can see the print on the main (blue) fabric. It has little blue and pink planes flying among the clouds... so cute!

 

Now all I've got to do is to bind this quilt. I'm a bit stuck between 2 choices here, a navy gingham print and a sweet yellow print with little crescent moons.

 

Any suggestions?

Home and Away

I've been a bad girl  :-(

If you follow this blog, I'm so sorry for being quiet recently. We've had a lot going on, starting with the end of Ramadhan and the celebrations of Eid. To top it off I've been away Away, but now I'm back Home and things have somewhat settled back into routine, so here we go again!

Now I may not have been posting, but I've been thinking a lot about quilting, and I have many things to share with you.

But first things first, some photos to get you in the mooood. Rows upon rows of beautiful fabric!

And notions, trims, patterns etc to boot...

The pics are from some of the quilt shops I visited while away Away. A special thanks to Yummy Hubby for patiently accompanying me and waiting for me while I oohed and aahhhed my way through them. One thing that intrigued me about this trip was applique, which is something I really don't do enough of. I saw some really awesome applique, I wonder if I'm brave enough to try some?

Too soon our trip was over, and it was time to go Home.

Now guess what's the best bit about Home?...

Home Sweet Home!