Not a dry eye in the house!

In October 2011, Chris, a dear friend and founder member of Foxy Quilters, lost her battle with cancer. Weeks before she died she asked me to promise to finish her quilts for her. Some were finished shortly after her death but the rest have now been completed and were presented to her husband yesterday. 

Here is Neil, her husband with the bed quilt that Chris was making for them. It was a mystery quilt, Chris had done all the piecing, layered and tacked it so I just had to quilt and bind it.

Chris had bought her fabrics to make a Civil War quilt in patriotic colours as she has an American granddaughter. Sadly she had only completed one block before she died. As the class progressed, I cut fabric for her blocks each week and members of the class made up enough blocks to make quilts for her grandchildren.

This was a very emotional surprise for her husband, sister and brother in law and I am sure they will be treasured.

Little Log Cabin Trees completed.

This was actually completed last Wednesday.

It is always good to report a finish!

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.

Rockabye Sweet Baby James

One of my recent projects has been a quilt for James, first grandchild of our friends Melanie and Chris. We have known Ben, James's Dad since he was a young boy and he used to babysit for my boys when they were babies. When I heard that Ben and his wife Becky were expecting a baby in March I decided that the new arrival must have a quilt!

The quilt block I chose was the Shoofly Snowball block we used for the Block Lotto at the International Quilting Day. I decided to make it as an 'I Spy' quilt rather than a traditional baby quilt so that James would be able to continue to enjoy it as he grows up. Each block is made using a different novelty fabric and I have used images that are important to their family.

Here is a photo of the quilt label. I named the quilt for two reasons. Firstly right from when I heard that James was born the James Taylor song just kept coming into my head and I sang it to myself when I was piecing the quilt. I am a fan of James Taylor and particularly enjoy that song.

Secondly, one night years ago when we returned home and Ben was babysitting Jonathan, my eldest son who was then a very small baby, Ben was rocking him to sleep in such a gentle way that the image has stayed with me ever since. I knew that one day Ben would make a great Dad himself.

Here is a close up of some of the fabrics - lots of interest for a growing baby.

And finally here is a photo of the quilt, James and his proud Grandad. I forgot to say that James lives in Canada so it was a very special time for his grandparents who probably won't see as much of him as they would wish for.

Teenage Angst in situ

Today we visited Jonathan in Leeds and I thought I would share this photo. I really don't like having my photo taken but I think this one came out quite well.

A better photo of the quilt label and a close up of Jonathan's Diamond Block.

Teenage Angst completed

Most of my Christmas holidays were taken up with the completion of this quilt. It didn't quite make it for Christmas but the last stitch was put in on New Years Eve. I was very pleased with the final result and so was Jonathan.
Here is the finished quilt.

Each block is surrounded by a quarter inch of red which although time consuming really enhanced the colours of the quilt. The red represents the fire of a mother and son's relationship in the teenage years.

Many of the blocks have special meanings to Jonathan - particularly the cat block - we do still have four cats but they are a different four to the ones we had when the quilt was started!

The back is also pieced - as I said before I really love pieced backs! I have used sample blocks for the back and Ohio stars which we have been making in my patchwork classes.I didn't actually have one piece of fabric big enough for the back so piecing it was the natural solution.

And finally a label made on my new Janome.

Life has been hectic over the last few weeks with lots of celebrations for Geoff's 50th Birthday. I have also embarked on a large project to turn one of our bedrooms into a sewing room. This is a very big job as it currently houses loads of toys and other teenage stuff. Spent today packing Rob's extensive Jurassic Park dinosaur collection into boxes for storage in the loft.

My next big project is my City & Guilds wholecloth quilt which is based on Welsh Celtic designs. I will try to keep you up to date with my progress.

Remember these blocks?

In August I ran an applique workshop for my quilting/embroidery group. Some of the ladies donated their blocks to Kath, our charity quilt coordinator.

Look what she did with them! What a lovely charity quilt!

Woven Fabric Mini Quilt

This is actually one of my City & Guilds 10 inch square mini quilts but I thought I would share it on my main blog as it is a technique that I have never tried before. It is a lot of fun and you can achieve quite good results with a minimum of effort.
The fabric is cut out as two squares, one blue and one pink. Bondaweb is applied to each. They are each then randomly cut into wavy strips which are woven together. The whole thing is then ironed to stick it all together abd then the raw edges are zig zagged in satin stitch.
I then appliqued a flower using bondaweb and used raw edge applique and stippling on this.

The inspiration for this little quilt came from this book which is full of lovely woven quilts.

Snowed in! Dreaming of a white Christmas?

We live in Yorkshire, in the North of England and to be honest it hardly ever snows these days. We have had White Christmases in the past but probably 20+ years ago. If it does snow it is usually in February. We have been having very cold weather lately and today it is snowing heavily. To be honest we are not really set up for snow in this country - we only just made it back home after a trip to the supermarket. We do live on a hill but really my little Fiat Panda was not happy. So now I will spend the rest of the afternoon sewing, keeping warm and hoping that Jonathan is not working tonight as he left his wellies in the mud at Leeds Festival in August and the only shoes he has without holes are the Nike trainers I have bought him for Christmas which cost £70!

Anyway the main subject of this post is my new Christmas wallhanging which I made a few weeks ago from Cheryl Goss's design. She trades as Willowberry designs and this stitchery pattern was a freebie on her blog which you can find here.


It is only about 14 inches square but was very quick and enjoyable to stitch. She made hers into a bag but I decided a wallhanging was best for me.

Here are my snowy pictures - the top one was taken in a brief interlude and the bottom one was during the blizzard, which is still in full progress now as I write.
This is the view into my back garden.

And here is a close up of my wallhanging. I used some Debbie Mumm fabric for the squares and borders.

Patchwork Bag Workshop

Last month I attended a patchwork bag workshop run by Sheila, a member of my embroidery/quilting group. It was a lovely day and Sheila worked very hard to ensure that we all made a lovely bag.
I chose Kaffe Fassett fabric for my main fabric - this is one of my favourite designs from his range.

The back and front are different and all parts including the sides were quilted before assembling the bag.

Close ups of the quilting.

The bag was lined with another bright print and it also has an internal zipped pocket.
It was quite a fiddly bag to make but it was a great learning experience and I am pleased with the finished item.

A Quilt for Elsie.

I did manage to get Elsie's quilt finished and it was delivered yesterday. It is the first rag quilt I have made and I have to say I am pleased with the results. Although it took ages to clip all the exposed seams it frayed to a lovely soft finish. I will certainly be making more quilts like this - I think they would make lovely Linus quilts.

Here is a closer photo - click on it for a larger image.

And here I am with Elsie my new great - neice!

City & Guilds completed!

On Saturday I completed my City & Guilds Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting!
Two years of hard but enjoyable study is over and I have achieved my goal of obtaining a patchwork and quilting qualification. The course was the reason this blog was set up and I am so pleased to be able to report my completion.
The Laura Ashley quilt was completed at 2am on Saturday morning and our exhibition started at 10am - I really wished I hadn't cut it so fine but at least I finished.

Here are some pictures of my pieces in the exhibition.

Gears Of War completed and gone to its new home.

This was how my practice piece turned out after it had dried and the stencil had been removed. This next photo shows the second 'real' piece done on a larger piece of fabric. It also shows the quilting lines. The quilt was not heavily quilted so it needed a lot of tacking to keep the layers in place.
Here is the finished quilt. It came out at just over 4 feet square - it should have been a bit longer but I had a few issues squaring up the fabric.
And here it is in its new home! We went to deliver it to Jamie last night. Jamie is on the right and Robert, my youngest son on the left.
He was very pleased to receive it and it now has pride of place on his bed. As you can see he is looking well although he still has about 6 weeks before he can go out and is having regular checks on the blood clot on his brain which they are hoping will disperse naturally.

Cath Kidston Bag and Mystery Quilt Update.

I have finally completed Step 1 of Double Delight, Bonnie Hunter's New Year Mystery Quilt. There are 120 of these 3.5 inch blocks! The layout is not how it will be in the quilt but I thought it was better than just showing one block. I have had loads of help from the cats while doing this quilt but this photo shows Maisy during one of her shifts!

This was one of my Christmas books and I decided to make one of the bags from it which was actually completed on Dec 30th - I just forgot to show it.

Unusually the pattern calls for both heavyweight and quilting cotton so I was able to use some heavier cotton that I bought for £1 per metre on Rotherham Market some time ago. I really liked it when I saw it so bought 2 metres. When I got home I discovered that it was actually a Cath Kidston fabric called Pop Flowers. The next week at the stall I asked for some more and he told me that it had all gone - someone had told him it was Cath Kidston and had bought it to sell on ebay! So now I study the Cath Kidston catalogue religiously so that if any more crops up I will recognise it straight away!

Most of the other fabrics are from repurposed shirts except the lining which is a vintage cotton curtain I bought from a car boot for 30p.

It is a bucket style bag with loads of space in it - I have put a couple of press studs on the top binding so it can be folded in when not in full use. The bottom is one of those funny folded triangles which I am not sure I really like but I do like the bag as I feel that it does capture the vintage shabby chic look I was trying to achieve.