Borders for Little Log Cabin Trees

   The Little Log Cabin Trees quilt now has two borders and is all layered up ready for quilting.

It was quite difficult to decide which border fabric to use. I had run out of the white on white background fabric and any other white fabric I put next to it just made it look too cream in colour. I knew I wanted a really skinny border made out of my scrap bag strings and then one more border.

After auditioning most of the green fabric in my stash I decided on this green spot on a white background.

 

I really like the skinny border, a bit fiddly to do at 1/2 inch finished width!
I decided to do mitred corners on the outer border.

This little quilt finishes at about 28 inches square and is now layered and tacked. I am quilting it in white cotton thread, outlining the trees first and then I will see how the mood takes me!

Trapunto Workshop with Philippa Naylor

On Saturday I was lucky to attend a workshop with Philippa Naylor. Actually I organised it for my embroidery/patchwork group! We have a lovely big venue at the church where we meet so Philippa is able to teach 20 ladies in one class. This is the fourth year that Philippa has taught for our group and this years technique was trapunto. 

Before you ask, last year it was curved piecing, and that is still a UFO so I am hoping to do better this year.

I have decided to share my progress and hopefully this workshop sample will turn into a small quilt.

 The first photo shows my progress of as last night. This is the first stage completed but I will guide you through the process in a series of photos.

 First we drew our design (Philippa's design actually!) onto fabric.

 Then we added a double layer of 80/20 wadding behind the design and stitched just inside the motifs using water soluble thread. This was done using Free Motion Quilting so the line is a bit wobbly - the stitches are supposed to be as long as possible so they are easier to remove, mine vary quite a lot!

 Then you start to cut away the wadding just leaving the areas that you want to have the trapunto effect.
This is a fiddly process but actually quite enjoyable in a theraputic sort of way!

 This then leaves this pattern of wadding shapes on the back that remind me so much of flock wallpaper!

The next stage should be to layer it up with some more 100% cotton wadding and start quilting but I have a little problem! My motifs are quite near the edge so I am going to have at add a border before I do this.

It is half term this week and I have no classes so I hope it is not too long before I can report on the next stage of this small quilt. However I do have my two class samples, my Little Log Cabin Trees and another UFO to work on this week!

Robert returned from New York on Saturday having had a fantastic time - he has taken 800 photos and has bought himself loads of trendy clothes! He would love to go back but not until he is 21!

Little Log Cabin Trees become a little quilt top!

Well, I just couldn't resist joining them together!

It was a work of art squeezing enough white fabric out of the bits I had left from a previous project to make sashings and setting triangles but I made it with just inches to spare.

This was my version of a Super Bowl Sew In as I had it on TV last night while I stitched - just up to the Madonna half time show.

I haven't made many quilts 'on point' but it is something we have been discussing in my Tuesday quilt class so I thought it would be good to have a go. There you go I was 'working' after all!

I have now cut some of the very thin strips in the original bag for a very skinny border and then I need some more white on white to finish it off.

Rob is now on his way to Heathrow and my parents are on their way to Scotland so it should be a quiet week around here (hopefully!)

Little Log Cabin Trees

This weekend has been the nearest we have had to a snow weekend this winter.

For various reasons my ongoing class projects did not seem very appealing and I decided to start something new. I have loads of projects that need borders, basting or quilting but really I just wanted to piece. 'Mindless piecing' I call it, just feeding sections through the machine one after another, getting lost in the process and taking your mind off issues going on in your life.

I saw an article on the internet about these little trees and decided to give them a go. Here is the first one I made.

 It all started when I remembered these little bags of scraps I had bought at the Festival of Quilts last year. Just how much fun can you have with a £1.40 bag of fabric?  

 Well, you can make these cute little log cabins!

 But first I decided to make a batch of trees. I started with some dark brown scraps which were not in the bag and some white background squares.

 I pieced these to make little trunk sections. Then I sorted my green strips out of the scrap bag.

 The first row of the branches!

 Then the second!

 Finally the third row added, 13 little tree blocks were squared up to just under 4 inches each.
Now all I need to do is add a round of background fabric and join them together....
Or shall I make some more log cabins out of the remains of the bag?

In reality I will be ironing clothes and helping my son, Rob pack for his trip to New York which leaves tomorrow.

Civil War Quilt

You may be aware that 2011 was the 150th Anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.

In my Tuesday class we have been making a Civil War Quilt. We have been making blocks from Barbara Brackman's Civil War Blog Each week I have taken 2 blocks and written instructions on how to make them. By February 7th we will have made 38 of the 53 on the blog. I have decided to use 36 of the blocks for my quilt. Each block will finish at 8 inches square.

The fabric is Portobello Market by 3 Sisters for Moda

 This is the layout I have chosen - although it may change

 My design wall is a piece of thick cheap wadding from Dunelm Mill which has been tacked to the wall. Gizmo likes to have a snooze whilst contemplating the layout of the blocks!




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Here are 4 New England blocks made by some of my students a few weeks ago. I took the photo to illustrate how different a block can look depending on the fabric choices.


I am now at the stage of sashings. On Saturday I cut 84 sashing strips out of the fabric I had left, to make scrappy sashings. On Sunday I decided I didn't like it so I cut out some more strips out of a red fabric I had bought for the borders. I stitched this with green cornerstones. This morning I have decided that I don't like the cornerstones, I think the sashing will look better without them! More reverse sewing today! I always change my mind a few times as I am making a quilt!

Wonky Trees

As you may already know I love liberated quilting and improvised piecing in particular.
In November I started a new patchwork and quilting class and decided to do some improvised piecing for the first few weeks just to get everyone loosened up.
A couple of weeks before Christmas we did wonky trees and these little beauties are what they produced!

I've got some really talented ladies in this class!

Christmas!!

I wanted to share the handmade gifts I made for Christmas - but had to wait until after the big day of course, in case they were spotted on my blog.
This year I made blackwork cushions and gift tags.

These were made for friends and my great neices, Freya and Elsie.