Gifts large and small

Gosh, two weeks since my last post; time to scroll through the camera and see what has been happening lately...
Mum came for a visit, which was lovely. She was on a mission and strange things started appearing around the house—

All for a good cause though and this is all I can share for now!

A friend had a birthday so I made this little hanging for her —

I got a little handful of these wire hangers
last year while on holiday - they are so cute,
an ideal size for sweet little gifts (about 3" wide).

Wool felt, yo-yos, buttons and Cottage Garden Threads.
A nice combination :-)

And I got it into my mind that I really needed to make a quilt for a recent birthday in the family, and I knew exactly what fabrics I wanted to use as well.... when you work in a quilt shop there are so many tempting fabrics, you walk past them constantly and they imprint into your mind; some flannels had been calling my name since they arrived, and finally I had an excuse to buy and use them. I haven't sewn with flannels before so was excited to give them a try.
I had hoped this would be a quilt in a day project - haha - not quite, but you could almost say it was a quilt in a week project though, those of you who know me well will know that this really is quite an achievement! Snuggly, simple and suitable for a man was what I wanted...

I achieved simple with a large central focus and simple squares around the outside —

I achieved snuggly - none of the pets could stay off it at any stage of the construction —

...when I was trying to plan...

...when I was trying to quilt...

...trying to sew binding on...

...trying desperately to finish while YD was cooking tea last night...
(the wee guy made himself a little hut out of the draped quilt!)

Suitable for a man - and big enough for a man's lap - um yes, achieved this, in fact I think several laps (and all the pets) will fit under this one.

It's raining and a last minute finish so this is the best photo I will get for now!
Flannel front, wool mix batting, flannel back (a good quality 'twill weave
flannelette' sheet - 50% off special)
84" square.

I've had several people asking lately about how I am getting on with my Sweet 16 - the short answer - LOVE IT!! I kept the quilting on this quilt very simple as I wanted it to be a) finished and b) a functional snuggly affair. (No free motion madness). I did want to make sure all the seams were well secured as I found the flannel fabric frayed a little (probably no more than a standard fabric but because the threads are thicker there are less of them in a quarter of an inch seam... if a couple of them fray away, there's only an eighth of a inch left.)

Stitching either side of the seamlines - I did this rather than SID to secure
down the seams and so there was some quilting to see.

I also practised a little ruler work.

With the size of this quilt you can see how much I enjoyed having the large throat space —

hehe, the MOML thinks I watch videos while quilting on this machine!

 The quilt goes off to its new home today, I"m hoping it will become a major part of the furniture :-)

This Friday, being the first Friday of the month, is Friday night with Friends..... If you want to join in, click *here* to take you to the lovely Cheryll's who is our hostess for these events. I'm going to sign up but I think we have to go out for a bit on Friday night - however if I sew Friday afternoon and over the weekend I am sure I will be keeping someone around the world company on their Friday night! I have a few projects from *this* post I want to carry on with.
Thanks so much for visiting and reading, hope you all have a happy creative weekend,

Some small gifts —

— and a short show-n-tell.

In amongst the bigger projects I've been working on lately I've made a few smaller items as gifts.
Now that I've finally gotten these to Mum, I can show you the covered coathangers I made for her...

I always struggle to make something that I KNOW she will use and was happy I came across this idea.

To my local SS friends, (and other learner crocheters out there)
these are just a combination of treble and double crochet.
(Single and double crochet in American terms?)

I've also recently made this little hanger for a friend. As soon as I came across this tutorial I knew I had to try it, especially as the instructions included a 3" version. SOLD!

I have fallen in love with this disappearing pinwheel block. The technique makes it not-so-fiddly to make the small block version, but Helen also has done the maths for larger blocks as well.

It was so much fun that I took a few photos while I was making one of the blocks.....

Start with a pinwheel block.... 

Slice it into thirds....

Rearrange the outer pieces...

Sew it back together...

Voila! One block. How cool is that?!
Click *here* for the tutorial.

 And now for the Show and Tell. You may remember that last year at the shop I designed a free motion quilting block of the month called Birdy Love. I made it 'quilt as you go' style so that the pieces were easier to manage and so the participants could focus on quilting a little each month rather than wrestling a large quilt. To my absolute delight the other day Nancy brought hers' in while I was at work. It was so good to see it finished. She has done such a lovely job of the quilting.

Nancy's finished 'Birdy Love'.

She said she learnt lots and it has given her a lot more confidence so I was very pleased :-)

The sun is rising so it's time to get on with my day. Hope you're managing to squeeze some creativeness into your day, I'm going to try to do so!

Happy stitching,

Sewing along(s) —

As a new weekend approaches, I am still trying to find the time to write about last weekend's sewing! I've had a week of meetings, appointments, a work day and heavy rain (flooding) so it's sped by with little sewing and blogging time.  I started last weekend with a new blade and a new needle - armed with those I felt ready to take on the world!! I spent most of Saturday thinking, planning and cutting ... I seemed to be partway through several projects, all of which had stalled because I was ready for the next step.

I had got Irene (see Terry's Treasures to learn about this sewalong) to this stage and was ready to do the outer border...calculations done.... enough fabric left to do it Terry's way —

— until I did a miscut (probably was day dreaming about the next project I want to start) - oh no, would I have to rethink the outer border, or maybe do some piecing and hope the joins were not noticeable?  I managed to hold my breathe until I got to work on Wednesday... I had taken the last of the fabric on the bolt, but was hoping there would be some precuts still left in the shop and ...lucky me... there were two bullets in the bullet jar!

And the two bullets were just what I needed!

~~<<>>~~

I made a few decisions and did a little cutting on the project I haven't officially started yet - if it's not on my blog, it's not started, right? I am loving this project but needed time/space to decide on my next fabrics. I feel confident with where I am going with this one now.

Hmmm, maybe it is officially on my blog now and maybe I'll have to 'fess up to
another started project pretty soon?

~~<<>>~~

With Irene off the design wall, I pulled out Hop To It....actually it was already out but Mum is coming next week so I needed to take it off the bed in the spare room. More decisions needed with this one, I hadn't been able to decide on the cornerstone fabric, but think that using the background fabric will be fine... my sashings are quite dark so I think it needs the calmness of the creams. Deciding on an outer border will be another path I need to go down!

(Hop To It is an Edyta Sitar quilt, some bloggy friends and I used it as a sewalong 'in the past' (I am scared to think how many years ago - two maybe?!))

~~<<>>~~

I've been wondering who else is doing Pam Buda's Market Day sewalong? I love Pam's mysteries so of course couldn't help myself :-) I also caught up on my cutting for this. (By the way, I met Pam at Pittsburg and she really is a sweetie). This is really intriguing me ... we are making a few small, simple blocks each week so is a good one to cut out and use as a leader/ender. I wonder what will happen?!

Pam is giving instructions for two sizes - I couldn't resist trying them both.
3 1/2" and 2" unfinished sized blocks.

I've started playing with possible layouts but the 'odd' number of some of the blocks are throwing me. Guess I'll have to be patient!

 (Seems the colour went a bit off in this last photo, it's the same carpet as the previous one!).

 I have a few little secret projects I need to complete this weekend, hopefully I can squeeze in a little time cutting and sewing :-)

Happy creating, and thanks for reading to the end :-)