At a standstill (and not just becasue of the weather!)

I've managed to get the centre block of my sister's xmas quilt made but have now come to a standstill. I don't have enough fabric to make the border and until I get paid from my new job can't afford to buy any (the curse of car mot and insurance both due in December!). I think it looks rather good so far though. Here's a pic I took before I finished sewing it all together.

It's a pity it's so wintery outside now - it was very sutumnal when I started this quilt. Sis likes it though so far :)

I did have a bit of luck too when I won from fabric from sew me happy in a givaway. It's a lovely collection of xmas fabric and because I can't do any more work with my sis's quilt it means I can make something with that instead :)

I'll have to keep the blue one seperate I think as I love it so much and it's a different colour that I think I'll do a mostly blue and white 'snow' quilt for that one.

Any ideas for patterns for a christmas quilt anyone?

Got a square made...

I'm getting on with my sister's quilt now. I think I mentioned earlier it was a maple leaf design - I'm sure not the fanciest of all quilts but for my 2nd one it's rather a large step up from a simple square blocks one.

I've managed to get all the material cut and now am starting to put the blocks together. This is one I've finished.

 

Just got another 4 of these to get done then I can start on the maple leaf squares. Should be fun. Hopefully I'll have these ones done by the end of the weekend but it's a busy weekend. Need to go clothes shopping for my sister's graduation on Saturday and then on Sunday morning I am taking part in a rememberance sunday parade wit hmy Guides and then on Sunday evening I'm going to see the comedian Ross Noble with my friends! What a busy week... must try and get this quilt finished before xmas.

Other exciting new too is that I won a very nice bundle of xmas fabric in a competition this week. Now just need to work out what to do with it. yay!

...and another!

I finally finished the first quilt at the end of September. It's lovely and warm - if not a bit big!
I bought a new quilting pattern book and found a maple leaf design I liked and my sister asked me to make it for her for xmas. I've not started yet but I now have all the fabric (bar the long pieces for the sides) so I think I'll start putting that togetehr soon.
I also made a sock monkey the other day as a trial for a Guide xmas craft. It made me realise just how much I like to use the sewing machine and that the bit of Quilting I don't like is vutting out all the material... oh well... it has to be done!
I guess I'll be updating this soon with lots of pictures of my/my sister's quilt. yay!

Been a while but I nearly have a quilt

Well it's been a busy few months since I last posted and the good news is that I actually did some quilting in it as well as being at the big Girlguiding centenary camp in Leeds with thousands of people from all over the world!

I started making my purple/pink quilt although I've still got to do the binding on it. It uses lots of random fat quarters I got, some random scraps of fabric a friend sent me and some cut up old sheets I found around the house. It's kinda scrappy and not organised but it's my first quilt and I'm actually rather proud of it. I learned a lot along the way and that's whats important.

I had to put finishing my quilt on hold as I'd decided to make some cushions for my gran's birthday and that was creeping up on me!

I found some random material around the house that actually worked rather well with the colours of her living room so decided to follow the patterns for the 3 cushions in my quilting book. It was a rather useful exercise as they all taught me something new. One taught me how to do binding, one 1 I didn't just do stitch in the ditch quilting! and on another I had to try some applique (which I have since vowed never to do again using my sewing machine). They actually don't look too bad from far away :) Yay!

 

I now have to finish binding my quilt and then I need a new project. I have lots of random material downstairs but I don't know what I want to do with it yet. I'm still very tempted to buy some jelly rolls and make that quilt I found the other month. Either that or I should get some tartan fabric and make that quilt that my sister wants. Oh the decisions! 

The other option is to make a quilt for a friend that I promised one to although that also involves buying lots of fabric (and I found some fab fabric to use as she used to be a Brownie leader - hence the owl - and she loves rabbits)

Guess you'll all find out what I do next time I post.

(on a side note: now very happy because Merlin is back on the BBC! I'm attempting to get the machine bit of the binding done by 7 on Sat so I can watch Merlin and do a bit of hand sewing too. I'm loving watching Merlin and recognising all the bits of the castle Ive been to)

More quilting...

Not done any more quilting since last time but I have been looking around on the net for more patterns and at the pretty fabric.
I found a pretty pattern I wouldn't mind trying with the moda freebird jelly rolls but I'm not feeling quite rich enough for that yet. They are so much cheaper over in the US :(.
I found a site with gorgeous african fabric and have really had to hold back on ordering some of the kits and fabric from there too. It's all so pretty! I have to keep reminding myself to just go 1 step at a time.
My other amazing discovery is on the V&A museum site there is a tool that lets you turn photos into quilt patterns. I've been playing all night! The dog doesn't look so good quilted but my picture of the gryffin (or winged lion) statue in Pierrefonds castle that I took in April looks rather good. May have to give that a try (again, must remember not to try to run before walking!) Hopefully this link to see it works.
At the end of all this I"ve yet to work out what I'm going to do next. I'm so indecisive. May use the spotty Ikea fabric to make a variety of patterns and create a small sampler. That would be the obvious thing to do...

My Queen's Guide skill - Quilting

As I've already said in my intro post I'm learning how to quilt for my Queen's Guide skill (from now on I'm calling it QG). Lots of people when choosing their skills pick something they have a bit of experience in - my sister has done photography, a friend did cross stitch. I decided to pick something that I have no knowledge of at all. It has been made even harder because at the start of all this I couldn't even use a sewing machine and I refuse to do this by hand.

In Feb I had my first attempt at Quilting. I made a cushion cover from a kit that my mum had bought be before she died. It was a traumatic experience and put me off trying again until now. I suspect part of the trauma of the cusion cover was that I used one of those cheep sewing machines that you can buy in the supermarket. NEVER again. It constantly unthreaded itself and was just a pain to work with.

Many moths later I dug out my mum's old sewing machine (was her mum's before that). It's an old Singer one. I got it serviced (with a bit of help from a friend who has more of a clue about these things than me) and finally set it up on the table on Saturday.



For my next task I had to work out what to make! I had a pile of fabric beside me, a book of quilting patterns, and another kit - this time to make a bag but I'd already started this and declared it was too hard. I eventually opted to attempt to finish the bag becasue the ide of me having to cut fabric is rather scary! It means I have to commit to something :(

It took me about 30 mins to work out how to get the thread on the bobbin and to then thread the machine. Doesn't help that the instruction book is missing and the pdf I found on the internet wouldn't load past page 13 and I needed 60 something. Never mind, i got there and I was off!

I started at about 3pm and at 3am (yes, I kept sewing until 3am!) I finally had the bag finished. I'm amazingly proud of it.



Sewing with the big sewing machine is actually much easier than with the small one - it made it a much less daunting experience and even the instructions that went with the bag made more sense to me than when I first tried in Feb. The only bit I struggled with was hemming the bag becasue I hard hard handles to avoid and unlike modern machines this old one doesn't have room under the sewing bit to just pull the material around in a circle. Delicate maneuvering was required.

I'm now left with the dilemma of what to do next... I want to make a quilt that's just squares of pink and purple blocks, my sister has requested a quilt that's a bit more complicated but still just squares (how hard can it be?) but I'm also toying with the idea of ordering some random scraps and making a crazy cushion cover. the first 2 actually require me to commit and cut the material. I don't know why I'm scared of it but I am :( I'm also tempted by this quilt. It looks nice and can't be that hard to make?

Hmmm We'll see what happens. If I don't post about quilting for a while can someone poke me to make sure I'm doing it? I'm much more likely to do it again now that I've discovered how to work the proper sewing machine though :)

The daunting 1st post

I guess I should use the first post here to tell you all a bit about me!
Let's start with the basics. I'm Alex, I'm 25 and I'm from Newcastle (the proper one in North east England - not the fake one down south...)
I'm currently unemployed so always on a job hunt. I'm also a Guide and Ranger leader so I spend at least 3 hours each week working with girls and young women aged between 10 and 26! The younger ones are just scary. This year I'm taking a group of Guides to the big Girlguiding centenary camp at Harewood house in Yorkshire. I can't wait!
My hobbies include reading, geocaching and listening to music. I have also taken up a new hobby too - one which I hope to blog about. For my Queens Guide skill I"m learning how to quilt! For those who aren't in the know Queens Guide is essentially the Girlguiding equivalent of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh (DofE). Over a year I'm meant to do 60 hours.
I think that's about it for now. I'll do a different post with an update on the quilting (part of my reason for starting this blog is so that I can hopefully get a bit of encouragement and poking with the quilting).