Basket

Charise has the last month in 318 Patchwork Bee and she chose baskets.  I restrained myself from making the sewing basket, I am designing a sewing basket block for Sew Out Loud quilt-a long so I went for knitting, just in case Charise feels she wishes to take up a new hobby.

This is 6.5" with tricksy Y seams to make the handle at the top.  I used my new favourite tiny ruler to add a generous 1/4 inch to my freezer paper pieces, the block is template style piecing rather than foundation.  

I do love the designs in this book, the simplicity and boldness of them is a constant reminder to me to keep it simple, less is more.  The basket is made with Kumiko Fujita fabric, possibly my favourite all time text fabric as there are so many great words and motifs to fussy cut.

The blue yarn is Suzuko Koseki fabric- currently available at Kit's shop The Happy Elephant on Etsy, an excellent source of text, Japanese fabrics and general loveliness.  The needles were bias strips and the tops are buttons cut from a Kaufman print 'Vintage Couturier' all sewn on with needle turn applique.  I used to be a ferocious knitter.  When Lula was born I made her cardigans, hats, jumpers all from beautiful yarns.  Moderation is not in my vocabulary, all or nothing and I did way too much!  My hands and wrists can't take that any more and I sold all my knitting supplies a few years ago but I do love seeing yarn projects pop up over Flickr and Twitter and a small part of me aches just a little to be able to knit again.

Now, back to completing a quilt, I am trying a quilt-as-you-go technique and will share next week.   At the moment it is proving to be tedious but effective.

 Meanwhile the Sew Out Loud QAL starts tomorrow at Julianna's blog!  Details of the final block competition can be found here- start preparing now, the judge is Suzuko Koseki, yes I know, I can't believe it either!

New Sewing Machine

That would be a new sewing machine in fabric form.

A 6.5 inch quilt block from Kumiko Fujita's 318 Patchwork for Amisha,  

It is her month in the 318 Patchwork Bee and she chose all things sewing themed.  I modeled this block on my little Singer featherweight.

I know it may seem strange as I know paper piecing stresses a lot of people out there, but I find it rather  therapeutic, relaxing even.

Once some obligations pass and I have a bit of extra time I will do some paper piecing tutorials- a foundation one (not my favourite method) and a freezer paper one- now you're talking...

June is Marit's month in Ringo Pie and her theme was 'In the Summertime.'  The bar was raised high at the beginning when Corey posted a super cool traditional electric fan block and it continued from there so it has been a challenging month to come up with something.  Ayumi sent me this  You Tube clip of Kumiko Fujita and it starts off with her stunning Subway quilt and that is where my idea started.

What I like most about summer is the light.  Living in the south west of the UK is good for light , we get a generous amount of sun, and mid summer has such long days.  I can't take lots of heat and my skin is pale and burns easily so I am not a sun worshipper but I love being out in the shade or sewing into the evening with the late orange glow coming through.

This block is quite straight forward, I sketched it out on graph paper first to get the shape and the strip widths.   The cutting that took the longest time in the whole process.  The back is an interesting view with the light streaming through.  I used to make tiffany style glass light catchers and it reminds me of those.

Mid week, hold on in for weekend x

(comments are closed for this post due to spam attack!)

The wheels on the bus

I had some funny responses to my last post, tales of you wondering around in public covered in pins and threads.  The sacrifices we make for our art!

The second boy block for Christine in Bee (A little bit) Japanese was to be a vehicle.  She had put lots of primary bright Kona solids into the fabrics and I just added the Charlie Brown and ruler measure scraps.  I used Kumiko Fujitas bus block in 318 Patchwork (sadly out of print but Etsy is worth a try)

I free pieced it so no freezer paper for this one.  I blew up the image on the scanner and measured the width of the different sections and cut and pieced and trimmed.

It took me a little while to work out the wheels and then when I did it was so easy.  See how it works below.  So easy that I got the direction of the lines wrong and forgot to put the blue road on the bottom half of the wheels and had to unpick and redo them twice.

It looks slightly like an ice cream van to me but the yellow is a reminder that it is a school bus.

Now I am off to school, though not in a bus.  Have a good week!

The Kindness of Bloggers

I never fail to be surprised at what a kind bunch bloggers are.  I know Kaelin (The Plaid Scottie) from the original Modern Swappers group on Flickr- now Make Mine Modern, and from Bee (a little bit Japanese) quilting bee.  She said she had bought something thinking of me and I was so nicely surprised to receive this a few days ago.

In my Bee month I had sent Kaelin a scrap of scottie dog fabric in with the block fabrics and in return she had included a bit of giant strawberry print in her block which was very cute.  This parcel was out of the blue for me and so pretty.  Beautiful napkins and the cutest felt mini clothespins.  Kaelin is such a kind person generally and I felt really touched that she had thought of this for me.  Her blog is a lovely mix of humour, fabric and crafty makes- this is a particularly funny post.  

Plus, I returned home today from a trip visiting Damian's family to this little goodie from Amelie's recent giveaway.

I haven't been able to do my usual blog reading so this was a total surpise I didn't know I had won!  Check out this wonderful block she did for the Bee Europa quilt bee. 

If you are a UK quilter like Amelie and me, how about joining the  Brit Quilt group on Flickr, open to any UK dwelling stitchy quilt makers, you might find a like minded quilter on your doorstop, or just find more online fabric fixated friends.

And a last minute request- I am thinking of getting a Blackberry phone- any recommendations which type?  I would like to be able to blog on it as well as emails, and internet browsing.

Sharing the Process

I am linking with Lynne on her new 1st of themonth feature, I am a day late but ready to play.  It is a sharing linky post, go and visit and for a little trip round some new blogs - I am sharing a bit of process on my latest quilt block for Ringo Pie.  It is Penny's month and her theme is all things kitcheny and I could barely contain myself.  She kicked it off with the most amazing Food Aid mixer block- she is queen of piecing.   I had too many ideas but I narrowed it down to baking.   My inital inspiration came from an old Cath Kidston catalogue and some pics I tore out of a 1980s Toshiba microwave cookbook.  Bad recipes but great pictures.

I made a sketch and put a few fabric notes.  I wanted to include vintage cherry fabric underneath so that had to fit in somewhere.  I do rely a lot on the image in my head more than anything else.  It helps to think what kind of representational system do you use?  (I am on a diversion here but hold in there, you may find it interesting).  Take a look at the sort of language you use- written or oral- if you are a Flickr user go and check out the comments you make on other peoples pics.  If you are a blogger read your blog!

Visual language- 'I see', 'take a look at..'- words include look, see, picture, view, clear, image, show,

Auditory language- 'I hear you loud and clear', 'describe that in detail', words include, feedback, resonate, hear, listen, sound, tone.

Kinaesthetic language-'I can handle that', 'get a load of this', 'Pain in the neck/butt', words include calm, touch, hard, soft, grasp, handle.

You may cross over these categories but one will dominate- interesting stuff!  

I am visual, I think in pictures so I don't always sketch out preparatory ideas or specific details, I see it in my head and just try and keep to the vision.  I only sketch it down if there is going to be a delay in making something. Hope that makes sense.  

This is my paper reference map for the piecing.  It is about 13 inches square and in pencil.  Graph paper is helpful here.  I sketch it first and then add straight lines with quilt rulers where I need them.  In this block I wanted a lot of free lines.

Now I chunk it up into pieces and sections.  I used to do stained glass and that helps to imagine how different sections will fit together.  Every piece needs a number.  This method is from Ruth B McDowells Piecing Workshop book and if you want to get into piecing in a big way I totally recommend it.

Here comes the freezer paper.  You place the freezer paper so the shiny side is on top (counter intuitive I know) and fix with masking tape.  I trace using a propelling pencil.  As the shiny side is the wax side it makes a nice groove with each line.

Flip the freezer paper over so the dull side is facing up, you can just about see the tracing lines underneath.  With coloured pencils (not watercolour pencils) I make tick lines between every join, often more than one and using different colours.  These are the reference points for joining all the fabric pieces.  I also add all the numbers and directional arrows to show the top of each piece.  It looks a bit crazy at this point.

Ready to start piecing, but don't cut all you freezer paper pieces out at once!  Start with a section, a chunk that can be completed.  The freezer paper pieces are ironed on to the reverse of the fabric so check your fussy cutting carefully- hey I didn't say it would be easy!   You can see how your paper reference sheet helps to make sense of it all as you go along.

First section completed. 

I used some different methods in  this block.  For some pieces I did the detailed piecing free hand and made it big enough to cut the desired shape out of- I did thins with part of the bowl and the wired on the whisk.

This was really hard, all those curves and odd shapes and I am always prepared to alter as I go along.  Fortunately Penny didn't want a specific size, this has worked out around 13 inches but sometimes the end sizes of blocks like these can change a lot by the end of the process.  I am also prepared for a bit of wonk and quirk in the end block which is a good thing because that is what I got!

The 'Jam' label was stamped and sewn on at the end.  

 Everthing ready to make cherry jam tarts.

I just love cherries!

Enjoy your weekend x

Euro Bee Call out

Quick call out to all European readers, any of you interested in joining a European quilt bee on Flickr- a great sewers need two more bee members.  Interested? Check out the group here and send an email to Ulrike (her Flickr name is lieblingsdecke

 via Flickr mail,  I have already had a peep at everyone's photostreams and there is some beautiful and very creative work in there, I am very excited to be a part of this one.  The aim is 12 members and a year long bee.

Plus a big thank you for reading my post and giving feedback and thoughts to the the etiquette theme over at Kats.  There will be a new post tomorrow.  And thanks for the spool block love too x