Winter Trees

This is the name I have decided upon for my flannel quilt.  It seemed fitting to me, as the fabric range is Shaded Oaks by Holly Taylor and I have quilted it with an all over tree design.  I finished quilting it on Friday and finally got the binding on this afternoon.  Here it is in all its snugly glory.

 I really do love these colours.  They remind me of walks in the woods on frosty mornings.  Coincidentally, today we had our first frost.  I am still hoping to fit in a stroll in the woods, but both time and daylight are starting to run out.

 This is my first attempt at an all over design, and the little trees seemed most appropriate to me.  Okay, I know they look like arrows, but I think they have a cute charm!  It wasn't the easiest to quilt, as all those layers of flannel were pretty bulky in the throat of my machine.  My neck and shoulders were definitely complaining at the end.  What are the chances of Father Christmas filling my stocking with a lovely long arm this year?

 I used the sashing fabric to back it also, just to keep things simple.  It shows the quilting up very well.  I was tempted to use a fancy thread in the bobbin, but haven't quite built up enough courage to try yet!  Maybe I'll experiment on a small quilt first...

Now I need to wash it, and I'm rather afraid it will shrink too much, or become too wrinkly.  Wish me luck!

A Time for Flannel

Whilst at my local quilt shop last week the lovely Sue showed me a layer cake of Shaded Oaks by Holly Taylor, in flannels.  Now I know that flannels are not to every one's taste, but I flipping love them!  I just can't resist their snuggly loveliness.  Needless to say, they ended up in my basket, along with a few other bits and pieces I didn't need and couldn't afford (how does that happen every single time I enter a quilt shop?)

I couldn't wait to get started using these, so abandoned my children to the care of Daddy, and spent Sunday afternoon planning what to do (I do learn from my mistakes!)  I needed this to be a quick make, so had decided on a brick wall layout.  Lots of cutting later and I was ready to start sewing properly on Monday morning.  The children were packed off to school, radio on and the sewing commenced.  Now this is where I can understand the dislike of flannel.  It certainly isn't an easy fabric to work with.  It's stretchy and open weave and sticks to itself.  I won't lie, there was a little bad language on occasion, but not so bad as to make the cat blush.

My day can probably be summed up with the phrase "just enough".  Here is what was left after cutting the sashing

 This is what was left over from each sashing strip.

My layer cake had four pale cream fabrics, that I didn't want to use, and I had just enough to avoid them.  Or so I thought!  Unfortunately I was missing one half brick, so much for my careful planning.  Still, I can live with this.  Here are the fabrics laid out.  Aren't they beautiful?

Here are the first two rows.  My photography skills aren't doing them much justice I'm afraid. 

My progress was unfortunately cut short by a call from the school to pick up my youngest.  I am hoping to get some more done today, but as he is still not quite right I am entertaining him at home again today.

Here he is snuggled in my quilt, the picture of cheekiness, even when poorly!

Meet Frosty

I'm really pleased with how he came out in the end, and am looking forward to my next design (although I will spend longer on the planning this time!)  I am also pleased that my neck coped with 2 days of sustained sewing.  Hoping it is well and truly on the mend now.

I have run out of energy, so am having some lunch in the hope it gives me some get up and go.  Wednesday afternoons are a bit manic for me, with 2 children having 2 different after school activities.  I leave the house at 2:30 and get back at 5:30, when we are all tired and grumpy.  I'm packing lots of energy bars today!

A Slight Change of Plan

I started working on my little snowman yesterday.  I was so excited to get sewing again, I felt faintly ridiculous.  I'm sure other quilters will appreciate this feeling!

I love laying out the fabrics and swapping them around to find the perfect combination.  Unfortunately, it just wasn't happening.  I love my plaids, I mean really love them.  They are my favourite fabrics bar none, but I just could not make them sing for me.  Back to my stash I went to rethink my plan of action.  I found a lone charm pack of 'Adoring' by Sandy Gervais looking very folorn on the shelf, and thought the blues and aquas might give me the touch of iciness I was hoping for.

I made so many mistakes while making this.  I guess that's what happens when you leap straight into things before planning them properly.  Lesson well and truly learnt!  I forgot to reverse my applique, which didn't matter a great deal, except I did particularly want his hat dangling to the left.  I was using the charm pack to make half square triangles, and I wasn't thinking about what size they would be.  I made four at a time using this method, which I thought would give me the least wastage.  I hadn't considered the bias edges, and they were a pain to deal with.  I'd starch them if I were to do this again.  I started sewing them together, and then realised that I didn't like the size, so had to cut them all down!  Finally, I sewed them together wrongly.  I couldn't be bothered to unpick at this stage, so I just had to make do!  Here is what I did.

He looks a bit sad with no eyes, but they are going to be buttons, so have to wait til last.  I have almost finished the quilting today, so hopefully tomorrow I will have a finish to show.

An Autumn Walk, and Thoughts of Christmas

The temperature is dropping, so we dug out our jumpers and set off for a walk over the heathland.  It's our favourite place to go, as it's very close to home and the kids can tramp for miles.  The foliage is just starting to change colour, and I loved seeing the occasional flash of red and orange.

  

The kids had great fun climbing trees, hiding in bushes, jumping off tree trunks and generally being kids!

 

I found a tiny pine seedling, growing among the tall grasses, and the kids thought it was hilarious when I lay down in the leaf mould to photograph it.

We also found lots of squirrel picnics - practically every stump had the remains of a pine cone snack on it!

We came home to a roast dinner and it was here that my thought turned to Christmas.  I have been reading Cottons 'n Wool's blog and absolutely loving how Anne decorates her home for the holidays.  I would love to have my house full of seasonal quilts, so I grabbed a pencil and started work.  Here's the design I came up with.

 

Okay, so my drawing skills aren't up to much, but hopefully you get the picture!  I want to use some Kansas Trouble plaids that have been calling me for a long time, so I think I'll make these into half square triangles to make scrappy squares.  I can't decide which fabric to use for the border to the applique - tiny reindeer or holly leaves?

I made a matching design, based on my tiny pine seedling, but I'm going to polish up my drawings before I share this with you.  Perhaps I should invest in some software?

I'm seeing my chiropractor tomorrow, which I hope will mean I will be able to make a start on this tomorrow!  I am itching to get going...

Macmillan Coffee, and coasters

Every year Macmillan Cancer Support hosts a World's Biggest Coffee Morning to raise funds for this very worthwhile charity.  Coffee mornings are held all over the country, by individuals, businesses and organisations.  This year, a very good friend asked me to help her host one, so I jumped on board!

My house this week has felt like the set from The Great British Bake Off!  The passion, the tears, the jubilation, the desperation.  All have visited the Quilt Patch this week.  I first decided to make a Dundee cake, as that could be made a few days in advance, and I love fruit cake!  Unfortunately, my oven is a bit tricky, temperature-wise, as it's fan assisted.  I usually just drop the temperature by about 20 degrees, and all is fine.  Not this time though.  The published cooking time was 2 - 2 1/2 hours, and by 1 3/4 hours my cake was overcooked!  Not by much, but more than I would have liked.  I didn't have enough ingredients to go again, so it would have to do.

Next I made a lemon syrup cake, courtesy of Nigella.  I do love her recipes, and this came out just right.  My Easy Chocolate Cake was next up.  I have made this a few times now, and it is by far the yummiest, and easiest I've ever made.  All was going well, until I came to ice it.  I still don't know what exactly went wrong, but the chocolate and cream mixture ejected all of the fat solids.  I have never seen this before, and again, I had no spare chocolate to make more.  I had to make do with a sprinkling of icing sugar on top.

Finally I made Spiced Pumpkin Latte Cupcakes from this recipe I found on Pinterest.  I just love these!  They have just the right amount of spice, and a very subtle hint of coffee.  They look incredible too.

As this is supposed to be a patchwork blog, I did knock together a few coasters to put in the raffle.  Unfortunately this is all the sewing I've been able to do in the past couple of weeks.  Here are a few pictures.

I paticularly liked the quilting on the trees, and I even hand quilted the brown/green ones.  Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the finished article!

The good news is that our coffee morning raised £500 for Macmillan, so we were absolutely thrilled with that!

Small Steps

My main purchases at the Quilt Festival were Christmas fabrics.  I am having a stall at my son's Chritmas bazaar, so need to get going on some seasonal goodies.  However,  developing a slipped disc in my neck was not part of my game plan, and has hampered my sewing just a little!

Here are a couple of the fabrics I bought.  I thought they were a bit unusual.

 

This back and silver fabric looks stunning in real life, and I have plans to make a table runner and place mats with this.  It's from the Enjoy Christmas range by Stof fabric, and feels lovely and silky.

 

This is actually from the same range and I saw these made into bunting.  I liked them so much I also bought it in a taupe colourway.  It doesn't sound very Christmasy, but I think they came out ok.

 I managed to get these made up just before my neck went, so I now can't wait to get working on these great fabrics again!

Getting Back to Normality

Well, it's been a while!  What with our summer holiday followed by the school holidays and a few health issues my quilting had taken a very decided back seat over the last few months.  However, the kids are back at school, my neck is healing and the weather is distinctly autumnal - all of which mean I need to quilt!

 Whilst my quilting has been minimal, I have been doing lots of looking, does that count?  I went to the International Quilt Festival in Birmingham in August, and spent a blissful couple of days filling up with inspiration.  And my goodness, some of the pieces were completely mindblowing!  I have a few pictures of my favourites, but unfortunately I can't find my show guide to give you the maker.  If you recognise any please let me know.

 I love how the solid colours pop against the black.  I can see me doing some more with solids in the near future.

I was particularly taken by this one, as I had visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao two weeks before this, and seen the original David Hockney painting that this was based on.  They were both absolutely splendid!

 I'm not usually drawn to art quilts, but I did love this.  So simple, yet evocative.

I apologise for the poor quality of the photo, but this whole cloth quilt was about 10 inches square.  Yes, inches!  The tiny quilting was incredible.

 Another miniature quilt - look at those tiny triangles.

 Can you spot a theme here?  It is always the miniatures that really capture my interest.  I love Mariner's Compass, but I just cannot imagine ever being talented enough to produce one in this sort of size.

 

Last miniature, I promise.  I just had to show this one with a finger, to give an indication of the scale.  Those flying geese - amazing!

 I love the use of tone in this quilt, and the whole thing shone across the hall.  So beautiful.

 This is another that reminded me of happy holidays, this time in Portugal.  They are grain stores, and this quilt was hard to distinguish from a photograph.


My friend and I have made a pact to enter a quilt hopefully in next years festival.  Watch this space!

Phew! Finished at last.

Wow.  I seriously underestimated how long the quilting would take on this, and how much neck ache it would give me.  It didn't help that I have mislaid my quilting gloves, so it took much more effort than usual to keep going straight.  And it really showed if I didn't!  I had to unpick a few times where my line was a bit wobbly - this design is really unforgiving.

I actually chose the quilting design after seeing it on another blog some time ago.  Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the blog and can't find it now.  I'd like to give credit, so if you recognise it, please let me know.

I am so pleased with how it's turned out, even if I now have to spend the evening in a hot bath, persuading my arms to move again.  It's currently in the wash, and I have my fingers very tightly crossed that the black doesn't seep.

It's a Top!

I managed to turn my blocks into a top this afternoon.  I was a bit nervous about the mitred border, but after watching a tutorial youtube I made a start.  It was a bit tricky, and I fluffed up a couple of times, but overall I am pleased with the end product.  I shall definately be trying this again - I really like the mitring, and it would be fab with a stripey fabric.

I made a start on the quilting, and I may even finish it this evening if I have enough energy.  I love working on small quilts, progress is so quick!