A "woosh" quilt!

I thought I would share another one of my Christmas makes which I am really pleased with.

I started this lone star quilt back in June 2013 (so not as bad as the dog cross stitch!) with the intention of it being a Christmas gift for my Aunt (other side of the family this time).

In the run up to the 2012 London Olympics I made my Aunt some bunting to hang in her garden.  She was going to quite a lot of the games so it seemed only right that her garden was properly attired! 

I decided that it would be nice to try and make a quilt for her with some of the remaining fabric and some other bits and pieces from my stash.  Its always handy to have a blanket to throw over your legs when sitting in summer evenings when it starts to get a bit chilly!

I spotted this Scrappy Lone Star Quilt by Better off Thread and thought it would be perfect.  Especially since i was working with scraps of fabric.  I also liked how she had positioned it off center.  The piecing and the cutting of the main star went really quickly and I finished that off in a day. 

I then had to wait on the backing fabric for the quilt top arriving.  Even though it was here quick the individual pieces sat in a drawer until I picked it back up in November 2014 and decided that it was definitely going to be done for Christmas 2014!

Now I'm not going to lie.  I found piecing the triangles onto the background awful.  For some reason I just could not figure out the correct way to get it all sewn together.  This was not due to the tutorial but more just to me having a bit of a daft day!  I did eventually get it all attached.

Needless to say there was much swearing when I was unpicking!  Eventually it got to the point of squaring the star up and adding the rest of the background.  Now I normally do all my trimming on the floor so I can step back and take a look at what I am doing (and there is load of room!).  For some reason I didn't this time and we had a wee accident.......!

Thankfully it was very easy to solve and quickly mended!

My Aunt had recently purchased a 1970s VW campervan so I got this rather cool fabric for the back.  Think it works well with the colours in the front and is a bit of fun (which quilts should be!). I decided to quilt it with variegated thread rather than picking a blue or red to blend in/stand out with the front/back  and i was really pleased with the results (although don't actually have an up close shot....).

I decided to stitch in the ditch round the main seams of the pieced star (you can see that in the photo above) then mirror the outline of the piecing in the quilting.  I think it looks like the star is going "woosh" across the quilt like one of those animations you get in powerpoint(!) and that is how it got its name.

I needed to get it all wrapped up for Christmas so here are a few photos I took of the finished article, sorry for the poor light taking decent photos in December in Scotland is tricky!!  I was really pleased with how it turned out and more importantly so was my Aunt!

See you all soon x

P.S.  I love to chat so feel free to leave a comment

Stalled works in progress!

Sometimes you come across works in progress that are really just projects taking up space in a box, things which you had completely forgotten about and probably would not buy now. 

Well that’s what happened with these two cross stitch kits which, according to the date I had written at the bottom of the paper pattern, I started in 1997!

I found them in a box at my folks along with a load of Country Companions kits, some Disney ones, some fish (no idea why I wanted to make these!) and a whole bunch of random wee kits.  Yup I used to buy a LOT of Cross Stitch kits when I was wee. 
 

These were supposed to be for a Christmas present for my Aunt with my mum working on one and me on the other. Neither of us got very far.  All we had managed to do before they got shoved in the box was the Jack Russell's nose and a very small amount of the Westies chin!

Despite the 17 year gap from purchase to rediscovery (!) I thought my Aunt would still like them so decided to finish them up, as intended, for Christmas.

To be honest once I got started on them they really did not take long to complete.  The Jack Russell was finished first.

 

Then the Westie, which was not as bad as feared - off white and grey does not make for exciting stitching!

I think they both turned out great. I also decided to try framing them myself as last time I got things framed I found it to be really expensive. So I got a couple of nice frames out of Debenhams, acid free mount board out of a local art shop, double sided acid free sticky dots and set to work.

Now I know you are supposed to lace the backs but I figure these are unlikely to be removed from their frames and I was being lazy!  The glue dots worked really well and were so much easier to use than traditional double sided sticky tape.

Spot the sticky dots!

 

I was really pleased with the finished result and she absolutely loved them which is the main thing.

See you all soon  x

P.S. I love to chat so feel free to leave a comment!

A (very) late New Year post!

Happy New Year!  Ok the year is not very new anymore but better late than never right?!

Like most people out there in blog land I have been doing quite a bit of reflection about 2014 and thinking about what 2015 may hold.   Last year was absolutely fab and contained a number of big events (such as getting engaged and married in the same year) along with smaller things like participating in my first OWOP and making clothes that I actually wear outside of the house!  Needless to say quite a lot of my original plans got put to one side.  I also found that I began to get myself all stressed out about rather silly things, including the overwhelming feeling of having too many projects on the go/planned/on the wish list!

This year I am determined to not get myself in a tizz about having too much on (especially for those non essential projects on the to do list)!  I know I am never going to get right to the bottom of the WIP list but (and here is the catch) I am going to make a concerted effort to rid my list of all those thing which I now feel a bit 'meh' about and not feel bad about it!  I can't be the only one with projects on the list or started which were fashionable at the time but the moment has passed.  Going to have a good old clear out of the stash and see what is there - may even share some photos!

I could also do with running down my craft/fabric supplies as well so unless it is a present or I need it to finish a project then I ain't buying till at least June! 

In the mean time I have been doing a lot of fast finishes to start clearing the decks!  Apologies if you are on Instagram as you will have already seen most of these.

More bunting for a work colleague.

A drawstring bag for my nephew to take on his holiday made using this tutorial. Its the same fabric as the drawstring bag (Michael Miller les monieurs en ville blue from the Bead and Button Company) as I bought extra - it was too cute not to!!

Napkins to go with our wedding china.  I did wish we only had 6 place settings rather than 8 when I made these.  I would also make them a bit bigger next time.  I cut out squares of 45cm before hemming this time.

A I-pad mini cover for a friend using fabric I purchased from Remnant Kings on one of my lunchtime wanders.

A helicopter cross stitch - random gift for a friend who said they 'wanted a helicopter'... don't think this is what they had in mind though!

More lavender bags.  I really wanted to finish the rest of the lavender as it was getting in the way so it had to be done. Some were gifted but most kept......!

Some more tissue holders.  How cute is the princess one?!

I have also been progressing my wedding sampler (Love Blossoms by Bothy Threads which I purchased from Sew and So) and the Sew Crafty Sampler from issue 287 of Cross Stitcher Magazine.  These have been good projects for doing while watching the TV and not wanting to create much mess (we have had a lot of guests round recently)!

You will notice from all the photos that there is a distinct lack of clothes being made at the moment.  Like most people the last few months have been heavy on the eating/drinking and light on the exercise.  This means I need to take some new measurements and not really feeling the love for that at the moment! Anyone else get that or is it just me?  Hopefully that feeling will pass soon as I miss the challenge with making clothes.

Right that is enough from me for one day.  I won't be away long this time as I have a few posts about some of my larger Christmas makes lined up.

See you all soon x

P.S. I love to chat so feel free to leave a comment!