Fifties Dress No 2

These fifties dresses for the  "Dress Me Up" quilt certainly are not quick to finish, but are fun to do.  I love the curve of the collar on this one, which is the second in the series.

I've just started No 3 dress and it  seems simpler to do with its sprigged pattern.

And there's  still been time to make a few more blocks for a Farmer's wife quilt. I'm now about half through for a lap size quilt.

Spring has Sprung - Freesias and Fridge Magnets

I know that officially it is still winter, and that there's still a lot more cold weather to come, but as far as I am concerned Spring opened her eyes today - beautiful weather and I picked the first freeesias.

Something else which brightened my life this week was some patchwork-inspired fridge magnets from  Possum Blossum Patchwork

And my last two Farmer's Wife quilt blocks came out exactly the right size first try for a change.  Isn't life good !

Our Friday Group

Yesterday Brandie showed us what her Quilting Group was doing so now it's my turn to show what our group on the other side of the world was doing today.  There are just five of us but our leader/hostess is away touring in a caravan with her hubbie - last heard of in Alice Springs - but she'll be back soon as another grandchild is imment - so we soldier on and keep quilting.

Pam is hand quilting a lavender log cabin quilt which is to be a gift for a friend.

Noelene was sewing off ends on her Bed Runner, made for the end of her spare room bed, folded in half for this photo.

Mary worked on her Celtic supper cloth - this is how I learnt about the lovely gadget for making bias binding.

And these are the blocks which I added this week to my Farmer's Wife quilt.

I hope you are all part of a friendly quilting group where you can get together with friends and sew, talk, display, talk, admire, talk, advise, talk, gossip, talk, eat, talk, laugh, talk, smile, talk and generally make yourself and others feel good, good, good.

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt

Now that my Gypsy Quilt is finished I have started on a Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt from the book by Laurie Aaron Hird. It's a pleasant change  to be working on something where each block is a different pattern.  And I am also enjoying going back to hand piecing -  so much better for doing all the fiddly little bits and pieces in some of these 6" blocks.

I'm wondering if I could sneak in some machining in some of the less complicated blocks though, or is that a no-no in the quilting world to mix up the techniques !  At least the house doesn't seem to get in such a mess when you're only cutting out one block at a time - just a basket of fabric pieces which seem to tone together and a folder to put the finished block in - no piles of cut fabric lying around.

As usual one of my main problems is getting every block to end up as the required 6" block plus seam allowances. But I did acquire a little gadget for folding the edges to make bias binding so I can see more basket handles coming up in the near future. I hadn't seen one of these gadgets until recently when a friend was making binding for a celtic mat.  What would we do without friends near and far to learn from and to exchange information with.

Looking up the dictionary for the meaning of the word friend after that last sentence I came across the word "trust" and I thought that was very applicable in quilting circles.  Because we trust our quilting friends to pass on useful information and tips and we trust that any criticism they might give our work will be helpful and constructive. And that is the only kind of quilting friend that I have.

Some Hexie Flowers and Fifties Dress No 1 for "Dress Me Up"

I should be achieving more this cold weather but progress is slow.  Yesterday I posted off a couple of Hexie Flowers to my July and August Swap Partners in the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap

It can be difficult as some people are quite specific as to what they want.  I mean, red centre, or cream centre, or bright, or pastel are fine, but once specific ranges are mentioned it becomes hard.  I don't know one range from another and only buy fabric because I like the colour or pattern.

Then I made some progress on the dresses for Dress Me Up from the Bobby Socks Quilt Company.

This is the first dress finished.  Slow work.  I am a great copycat.  It was seeing someone else doing this pattern which got me started.  Perhaps I should just say that I find other people's work inspirational.  And that applies to coffee mugs too.  I got all nostalgic when I saw another blogger's Pride and Prejudice mug done in the old, familiar Penguin colours and wasn't content until I had one too.

I've started on Dress No 2.  I'd had great trouble getting a nice line in the black backstitch using two threads of DMC.   So this time I wanted to use a single thread in a heavier weight.  I am using Aurifil Mako No 12 for the black and am doing split stitch instead of backstitch.  Anyone know any other of the thicker threads I could try ?

The roses were too fiddly to trace so I am just sketching them on as needed. The flowers are worked in a single strand of variegated Cottage Garden Threads.

Gypsy Quilt Top

Have just finished putting together the quilt top from Westminister's Gypsy fat quarters which I won in  a competition at Want It, Need It

I added some cream to act as a background for the colours, then decided to add some sashing and managed to match up the blue in a plain fabric.

I just had enough Gypsy scraps left to make a multi-coloured strip which I will use for the binding.

Now I am seriously considering stitching the binding to the border before I add the batting and backing. I would certainly do a better job with a more accurate 1/4" seam than I do when sewing through all thicknesses.  As yet I haven't been able to think of any reason why it wouldn't work doing it that way  Sew it now, then do the quilting, finally trim and handsew the back.

All that's needed is a smart little holiday house down on the coast which would be the perfect setting for this quilt.

Little Purses

I wanted a small purse for a gift but I got enthusiastic and ended up making four

They are about 4 1/2  " wide and were made from a Valori Wells pattern.  Here they are opened up, showing the three  pockets.  The paisley purse in the top left hand corner is the one I made carefully following the pattern, but after that I made some adjustments.

They are made by stacking up all the layers and then stitching and turning them out.  You have three pockets (each 2 pieces of fabric), an outside piece and a lining - eight pieces of fiddly curved layers with 1/4" seams which have to be juggled to be stacked up with the edges meeting accurately. That's hard.  So what I did was cut 5 1/2" strips of each fabric and then cut rectangular pieces deep enough to make each pocket..  It was only the outer piece of the purse with its iron on stiffening that I cut to the correct shape

You can see how I have stacked the pockets on the lining of the purse withoujt having to worry too much about matching edges - just get the pockets nicely spaced, then lay the outer piece of the purse face down on the pockets and stitch around the correct shape, leaving a space to turn out, trim and clip, then turn out.

I had trouble with the lower square corners so I made each piece a fraction longer so that I could put a curve on these lower corners. Great fun.  Sewing on the press studs was the hardest part.

Making these little purses reminded me of a slightly larger one I made in a class a few years ago. The challenge was to take a piece of self-patterned fabric, mark out the shape of a purse, then re-embroider the pattern with threads and beads.