Looking back

As another year draws to a close I thought I would look back at some of my makes this year, it was only until I did I realised I didn't do too bad with juggling life, work and sewing and made a few more things than I thought! There were still lots of things that I wanted to do but hey they will have to wait until next year!!

I've also had lots of happy stitching adventures this year, chatted to lots of lovely new online friends and even had the chance to meet up with some in person!! Had a lovely time at the Fat Quarterly Retreat and The Sewing Directory meet up in London and also joined the London Modern Quilt Guild after meeting lots of the lovely ladies at the FQ retreat. Plus my lovely Bee Europa group is still going strong!

Thank you to everyone for making me feel very welcome in this lovely little online world of sewing/quilting, for every comment and like, it really is appreciated!
So it's see ya 2013!
2014 I'm ready for ya! (Well kind of!)

My first completed quilt!

2013 saw the completion of my first ever quilt!! (Sorry the photos aren't the best quality!)

I've been meaning to write about this for ages so as we near the end of the year its seems about time I get round to it!
The quilt was made and given away several months ago, so I'll try and remember the details!
Not a good start as I can't remember the name of the block or the site where I got it from, so if anyone recognises it please let me know!
After constructing the blocks with a jelly roll and playing around with the layout I managed to make my quilt sandwich and baste it ready for machine quilting. This was definitely a learning curve having only ever quilted bags or items no bigger than A4 but this was my favourite part!!

I went with a stipple design for quilting and for the binding I sewed several remaining pieces of the jelly roll together to make a slightly scrappy but co-ordinating binding which I then machine bound.
I was really pleased with this little quilt and about where it was heading!

Having joined the London Modern Quilt Guild this year, members were busy making and donating baby quilts for our chosen charity so I joined in too. It was handed over to the Octavia Appeal (Friends of Royal Brompton Hospital). The Octavia Appeal helps the paediatric intensive care unit and ward.

Boxy pouch

As you may or may not know by now I love making bags and pouches!! These have been my main makes of 2013.
Quilts well..... 2013 saw the completion of my first quilt, baby sized, but still a quilt! I have a few quilt tops in progress which hopefully will transform into completed quilts in 2014 but for now its all about the boxy pouch!
I had seen lots of lovely boxy pouches on IG and Flickr and could never really work out how they were made with a lining but thanks to a wonderful pattern here I'm now a happy boxy pouch owner and have a few more in the pipeline with a few changes to the original pattern. This pouch is a great size and really handy for storing lots of bits and bobs!

Happy Holidays!!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas yesterday and Boxing Day has been much the same!
No early morning sale shopping for me, can't think of anything worse at this time of the year however I did manage a bit of sale shopping online at the Village Haberdashery - I couldn't resist the 50% off offer plus the comfort of the sofa, TV and chocolate!!
Hoping to get the sewing machine dusted off tomorrow as it's been a while, but I have been busy with lots of yummy holiday baking!!

 

Not long to go!!

Just stopping in to say......

Plus I've already opened my Secret Santa Soiree parcel! We don't know who our partners are yet but thank you!!

Sew Sew Modern continued ...

Yep remember the last post where I said I'll be back tomorrow.... well that never happened!!

So here we are mid December and counting down the days to Christmas!
Anyway as promised here is the gorgeous swap parcel I received for Sew Sew Modern 3 from Gingersnaps Quilts ~

Everything is gorgeous and I really got lucky with my swap partner!

Sew Sew Modern

So I may already be planning for Sew Sew Modern 4 but as I've neglected my blog for a while I haven't got round to showing what I made and received for round 3!!
Round 3 was my first time in this swap and it was wonderful, and I'm amazed by the talent and generosity in this swap!
So this is what was keeping me and my sewing machine busy!

 

 

My partner mentioned they would like a bag for their big item so I decided to make my second aeroplane bag. I love this pattern and actually really enjoy the process of making this bag too!

As I'm slightly addicted to Quilt as you go at the moment I decided to give this a try in bright rainbow colours and was really pleased with how it turned out, in fact it was pretty difficult to give this one away!!
I also went with a wide open zippy pouch for the small items along with a few other goodies and I was more than happy when it arrived safely across the other side of the world and my partner liked the surprise!!
I'll show you the wonderful goodies I received tomorrow!! 

Playing catch up!!

The phrase "time flies" sure has happened around here!!
After several weeks of horrible winter bugs, dodgy back problems and major deadlines at work, I've blinked and suddenly it's November (and nearly mid November!!)
My vision of spending any free time at the sewing machine has just been that - a vision! Although not all has been lost and I have managed to complete a few swap items.
So hopefully this is schedule resumed as normal and I can catch up on the few projects that I have completed, here's one from today my yummy Apple and Almond cake made with apples from my own little apple tree!!

 

This is one of my go to recipes and very easy to make thanks to Mary Berry!! Link here.

A little bit of hand sewing

After a recent clean up of my little sewing space I found an old, neglected project that I started possibly over 5 years ago and then the poor little thing had been forgotten about at the bottom of a drawer!

So it was time to get it finished!
It is a felt sewing kit pattern from Eternal Maker, I think I bought about 5 years ago from the Knitting and Stitching show. I didn't follow the pattern exactly and changed some of the designs and pockets etc to suit my sewing needs and equipment and I am really happy with the way it turned out and also reminded me how much I love doing blanket stitch!!

It's a great little size for sewing on the move!

Linking up to crazy mom quilts finish it up Friday! and Amy's Crafty Shenanigans TGIFF

Zippy pouches

Remember the QAYG panels from yesterday?
Ta-da! Here they are made into new zippy pouches!

Big and little make a cute pair :)

These were so much fun to make and I'm kinda in love with them :)
I used the open wide zippered pouch tutorial from Noodlehead, although I went with my own measurements based on the panels I made and added a little divided pocket to the large pouch. They have a really good firm structure due to the wadding from the QAYG method, and although the QAYG method did take a bit more time than using a single fabric I really like the finished texture and feel of them.

Front of large

Back of large

Inside with a divided pocket

Some people on IG and Flickr asked how I managed to get the stitching so neat. If you look really closely it's not perfect! I used Coats Cotton in white to sew with both as top thread and in the bobbin, stitch length 2.5 (on my Bernina 1005) and my 1/4 inch foot. When I get to the end of a row all I do is keep the needle in the work, lift up the presser foot, pivot, carefully raise the needle and move the work over so the edge of the stitching lines up with the edge of the foot, lower the presser foot and then I'm ready to sew again. Hope that all makes sense! Maybe I'll try taking some photos next time?

Little zippy pouch

Off to raid my scraps for more panels :)

QAYG love!!

I'm addicted!!
I love Quilt as you go - selecting fabrics, deciding on placement, straight line stitching and then voila QAYG panels ready to be made into something gorgeous!!

Pretty fabric scraps :)

Stitch, stitch, stitch!!

Large panels ready to go!

Small panels too!

Just one little quilt block ....

So August is my month for my quilting Bee "Bee Europa" and I've chosen the Churn Dash quilt block. I quickly made up a sample block to test the tutorial, which is a fab one by Sew Me, and made sure I had enough fabric, snapped a quick photo on my iPhone, uploaded it to Flickr and that was me done.

Bee fabric prep, Happy Go Lucky by Bonnie and Camille ~

My practice Churn Dash quilt block ~

Then the next day I started to get several likes of the photo from people who were not my contacts and seemed to have no link to quilting or sewing!? I was puzzled so logged onto Flickr to check the photo and activity and was amazed with what I saw!!

I was shocked - I know my photos get a few views generally and the same goes for the blog - I know there are a handful of peeps that find me and what I do somewhat interesting, most of the time :) but I was amazed at how many views this little old photo had!
I then found out I had been "explored", sounds kinda weird in so many ways! Shows how much I actually don't know about Flickr. It was a lovely surprise to have my photo added to Explore and that a little old quilt block was so popular!!! Current views 3603!
Bee Europa pretty piles ready to be sent out ~