Granny Square Quilt Process

So I wrote about my first attempt at a Granny Square quilt.

Amazingly I remembered to take the occasional photo along the way. 

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Finished blocks ready for trimming

Quilt layout - so colourful!

Blocks pieced and pressed - Ready to baste :-)

I'm in love with the colour scheme for this one. For some reason it reminds me of a sweet shop - maybe a bag of jelly beans, mmm...

Errr... Hello!

Have been ignoring this blog for a bit *sad* ... but ...  I'm back now! Even though I've not actually posted anything, I have done a fair share of crafting. Not too much, but a fair bit nonetheless. 

I've started - and finished! - a few quilts. One of them is a granny square quilt. I've always loved looking at granny square quilts on the internet, so was really quite excited to try to make one of my own. It turned out pretty easy actually, the hardest part was choosing the fabric. 

I used 3 different prints for each block.

Also managed another little patchwork quilt. Inspired by some dinosaur prints I had in my stash.  Lots of blues, with some orange thrown in for contrast. Nice!

I love patchwork quilts! Do you?

Time For Another Quilt

I've been itching to make another quilt, so pulled out a bunch of fat quarters.

I want something that will come together fairly easily, like a 9-patch perhaps? Or a disappearing 9-patch even. 

This was the first choice of 9 fabrics.

Most of the fats came from the same fabric line - Pagoda Lullaby - so they are very matchy matchy. I thought the colours might all blend together too much, so I added a colour that was totally different - the teal ones in the photo above. 

But I was still not too pleased with the combo, so swapped one teal fabric for a brighter purple:

At the last minute I changed my mind, and swapped one teal for a stronger hue of blue/green. And this is the final 9:

I've cut out my squares now, so won't be changing my mind anymore, hopefully anyway, haha!

I just love the start of a new quilt, don't you?

See you soon!

Meow Fabric Finishes

So what can a fat quarter make?

1. A couple  of fabric bookmarks

2. Little fabric baskets - I made 2: one to hold some make up and the other for hair things.

Aaaannd....

3. A zipper pouch, with a pocket in front. 

And theres still a square of fabric left over for the scrap bin ...

Now that's what I call some fat quarter fun :-)

Fabric Find

I had a Fabric Find on a Friday, how jolly is that?

I was a-browsing in a bucket of fabric during my lunch hour with no prior intentions whatsoever of purchasing any, but when I saw this print I just could NOT resist.

Little meows on midnight blue linen. Those little paw prints just make me want to smile :-)

Some of them have really grumpy faces, but if you've ever had a cat you will know what an Attitude they can have. Scowllll...

I was thinking what a great tote it would make (and I do need a new tote for my work things),  but there's only a quarter of a metre of it so there's not enough. Never mind, I'm already planning a nice new phone pouch, and perhaps a couple of fabric boxes from this print. I paid RM10 for this, what a bargain, no?

Oh, and here's a shot of the fabric meows with a real one, ehehee!

I'm not Milo!

Wishing everyone a happy weekend!

How To Beat The Sewing Funk (Part 3)

LITTLE PROJECTS

Continuing from yesterday’s post, the third thing I do when I’m out of ideas but still want to sew is – I make little projects. Purses, fabric boxes, bookmarks. This is a sure fire way to get your creative juices flowing. Note it has to be a SMALL project. Attempting to undertake anything big or unfamiliar is more likely to only kill your mojo (plus if you're like me you'll also be a hot swearing mess by the end of it). Is there a small project which you’ve done so many times that you can do it with your eyes closed? For me, I can do little pouches pretty decently. Not quite with my eyes closed though, ehee. So I start to make one, but the problem (if you can call it a problem) with these things is that once you make one, you can’t stop! Yes, so I make one, then 2 , then 3 and then if I'm still pumped, I switch gears and make multiples of something else.

Recent examples of this:

These little zippered pouches were double joy to make, because I got to piece scraps AND create a small project. I used squares made from 2.5” squares pre-cut during a Fabric Play and Organization exercise (see yesterday's post).

More examples:

Whoops! Wrong forum ahhahaha!

That's more like it... fabric bookmarks! There is nothing simpler.

And key fobs are pretty easy (and useful!) too:

I actually made 4 zip pouches and 4 fabric bookmarks in one sitting

 but have since given one of each away. The others will probably disappear soon too. You can't make too many of them, because they make great little surprise gifts for friends. 

So there it is - my version of how to beat the sewing blues. Hope I've inspired someone!

How To Beat The Sewing Funk (Parts 1 & 2)

What do you do when the sewing mojo abandons you? Sometimes I find myself in the sewing room, sitting in front of my machine wondering what to do. The desire to sew is there, but absence of creativity gets in the way.

For me, I find myself doing one of the following three exercises:

FABRIC PLAY AND ORGANIZATION

Firstly, I can play with fabric. This involves pulling stash out of the shelves, scraps from bins and pre-cuts from secret hiding places (No, I have no idea either why I hide them. Absolutely none).  I pet them, admire them, fold them and colour code them. Sometimes I trim the odd pieces and group them into project sized categories (strips, 2.5” & 4” squares, scrap bits for instance). While doing this, an idea or two for the next project usually comes along. And at the end of the process I will have tidy, organized shelves ready to be messed up again. Plus pre-cut fabric at the ready for the next patchwork project :-)

4" squares, 2.5" squares and err.. scrap bits

SCRAP BIN CONQUEST

Secondly, I make scrap blocks. Normally I will do this when my scrap bin is on the verge of overflowing. I take random scraps of all shapes, sizes, prints and colours and piece them together. A good example  of a quilt I completed using this process is this Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt.  The blocks were all made from scraps, pieced into log cabin blocks.

Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt

I find piecing scraps a very therapeutic exercise. I actually enjoy it very much. Anything goes, really. You don’t even have to think what sizes your blocks should be. Just piece. At some point you will have a few small blocks to piece into bigger blocks and so on and so forth. Right now I’m working to making a big scrap quilt. It’s still a long way off, but I’ll get there eventually. Here’s an example of one big block made out of many little odd shaped blocks. I taped a pen next to it so you can have an idea of the size...

Smiley, happy pen :-)

And an even bigger 'block':

Think that's enough for one post. If you pop back tomorrow I will tell you the third exercise that helps me get out of a creativity rut. Stay tuned!