...the pirate quilt

I finished this last weekend...finally. 


I say finally because this was cut out about the time I made my first two deliberate quilts almost two years ago. An earlier version of this quilt was the first I cut out and the first top I finished but the second quilt I finished. 

The fabric is a collection from Spotlight, the find that was featured in the catalogue and had a pattern sheet that went with it. The solids are all the Homespun range. It really is just a twin size square within square design. 

I made the original as a practice quilt before I started a baby quilt to give to a friend for her unborn child. The second, this one was made with the scraps (plus a few centimetres extra of one or two of the fabrics). That is right I had almost enough scraps to make another quilt. 

I machine quilted Mark II .25" each side of the seam lines of the larger block and the Xs in the smaller squares and rectangles. The original was quilted in much the same way, but by hand. 

The backing is one of the wide backings in a mottled grey, also from Spotlight. 

Now I just have to work out what to do with it. We don't need two the same in this house and I don't know any pirate mad little boys at the moment. Ideas?

It's a plane, it's a Quilt Block - No it is both

Maybe it is because I like to get real mail in the letterbox or maybe because it forces me to try things that I wouldn't ordinarily have a go at I keep joining bees and swaps. I expect it is a little of both.


I do this even right after I have decided that enough is enough and I'll never have any time to bring to life the ideas I have in my head if I keep making things for other and putting them in envelopes.


That said, I love them, I enjoy making the blocks and I am always really excited to see the finished product and I can ususally make them at night after work which makes a great weekday stand alone project.


I think I'll probably keep ignoring my own little rules for myself but that is OK.


The most recent bee I joined was one hosed by the online Etsy fabric store Sew Fresh Fabrics. As they explained in this post on their blog they end up with a lot of scraps and thought a bee was a great way to use them with the final quilt being donated to charity, in this case Project Linus.


I thought I had missed out on the first round but apparently due to some counting errors they ended up one short in the boy group for this round and I was happy to jump in. Yesterday I got an envelope in the mail (yay!) with some Kaffe Fasset, Lizzy House and other great fabrics and from nowhere came the idea to make a aeroplane block.


I have never, ever, had the slightest inclination to make such a block before but as soon as it popped into my head I couldn't think of any other style I wanted to make. So, by the power of google I went looking for some tutorials and used this one from Badskirt as my main inspiration but generally made it up as I went along within the confines of the fabric strips I had.

I love how the tail and wings stand out from the body and nose and how the busy-ness of the background print hides the seams. And the lighter fabric on the border gives the eye a place to rest (and makes the block to the requested size!). Genrally for an hour or so at the sewing machine a few hours after the envelope arrived I'm pretty happy.

Check out the Flickr group for some of the other great blocks appearing for the boy and the girl quilt made by the other circle.

do. Good Stitches {a Charity Bee} - October Pinwheel blocks

The two blocks for this month was the second started and completed project in the new sewing room.

These blocks are going towards a quilt to be made for a young boy who has a serious medical condition.

Alicia from Beauty in the Deatils requested blocks in teal/lime-kiwi and orange and yellow combinations.

It was a request I was more than happy to fulfil and seemed a great challenge for my novelty stash and as the blocks were reasonably easy to construct I was happy enough to start them about 10:30pm.

Aside: I seem to spend a heap of time and money shopping for novelty fabric, particularly fabric that would appeal to boys. I know that there is the pervasive opinion that most fabric and craft projects are girl target but I seem to end up buying and completing in an opposite trend. I'm a fan of the underdog so perhaps it is my unconscious way of evening the playing field.  

The first block was the hardest in terms of fabric choices, the colours are so varied when described that way, and even although Alicia had given some direction and examples in terms of what she meant I am still a little nervous and hope I have chosen the right colours. This black makes use of some Kona Solid and Amy Bultler from the Love range.

The second is my favourite, I think. Again it uses a Kona Solid but I was so excited to be able to use the Linework Rockets in orange from the Robots collection by David Walker.

They are winging their way to Alicia now.

Happy Campers Quilt

Remember the stack of pin-based quilts?

This was the quilt that inspired me to pull them all out and baste them before we packed. At least I had been thinking about it and this was one I pulled out, basted and started quilting a week or so earlier.

This was the first quilt I made without a pattern (I think) not that a pattern is really required with such a simple design.

I had bought a charm pack of the Happy Campers fabric by American Jane for Moda Fabrics and some quilting linen that I thought looked OK with it and kind of matched the asthetic of the print.

I really had no idea what I was going to do with it. This charm pack was the first in my foray into the world of pre-cuts and I also didn't really know how far they would go. I had bought Pam Linnott's book that included patterns for charm packs for some inspiration but quickly realised I should have look at the patterns more clearly before I bought the mfabric because I was going to need more than one charm pack to make a decent sized quilt. Unfortunaly by the time I realised couldn't find any more fabric bacause the range was reasonably old and no stores seemed to have any in stock.

So I cut all the squares in half (chopping of a head or two in the process) and paired them all with a rectangle of the linen cut slighly fatter to yield a 5" square. I joined 4 of these units together to make a block with the two halves of the original charm square opposite each other and the colours forming a pinwheel effect.

The backing was the next hurdle, I ordered so Happy Camper fabric online not realising it was a different range to the Happy Campers and the colours were quite different. Then one day I was lucky enough to stumble across some yardage online and I snapped up all that was left, which was just enough for the backing and a very narrow binding.

I outline quilted just inside each positive and negative pinwheel, which alarming looked early on in the quilting to cause little swastikas on the back. I was telling myself it was actually a symbol that meant good but then it disappeared as more of the quilting covered the back. Phew I'm not sure I wanted an ambiguios symbol on the back of my quilt.

I bound it by machine using a tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts. It is not the first time I have machine bound a quilt but it is the first time I have approached being happy about the way it has turned out. I do really love the suggestions for joining the last join and then sewing down the last part of the binding to the front but I would recommend leaving every bit as large a gap a recommeded, especially with a larger quilt. Rita's suggestion about starting with the larger binding width also appeared to have merit, with my narrow binding there were quite a few areas that I had to go back over as the stitching had missed the binding edge but i didn't have this problem with two other quilts I bound the same way the same morning using a wider binding strip.

A stack of pin-basted quilts

I know I'm breaking a quilter's rule folding quilts after they have been basted and before they have been quilted but they have to go in a box somehow.


One of my goals for this past weekend was to get this stack of quilts based, and I've done it. I have had a pile of pieced tops sitting around since the April school holidays were I got as little excited and pieced a whole lot of tops. I had the vague idea that I would quilt one a weekend but somehow, on a Saturday or Sunday morning when there were other things to do moving all the furniture to base them on the floor was not the most attractive option.


But I did have all the bits for them and I really wanted to deplete the big roll of batting I had so it didn't need to get packed on the roll. So on Sunday afternoon I swept and mopped the floor, moved all the furniture and success!


Now I just have to work out how to quilt each of them, because I want to do that before starting anymore big quilt projects.

This first quilt is a twin size with a whole cloth backing that was bought at 250cm wide in a mottled grey. This is the second time that I have made this pattern, which was one of the free ones that Spotlight used to post on their website from time to time to coincide with a new fabric range they had in store. At the time I bought and made this quilt I was also planning to make a quilt for my friend to celebrate the birth of her first baby. Because that was a present I didn't want all the learning and practicing to be on the gift so I made this one for my partner (he really is just a big kid when it comes to pirates). So it was the first quilt I ever pieced but the second I ever quilted. Both the first two quilts I made were hand quilted in perle cotton, this one in the ditch around all the outer and inner squares and the Xs across the small squares and 2 across the smaller rectangles. Now I am a more confident with machine quilting I was thinking of outline quilting the squares and doing the same Xs on the machine.

This quilt was made with the best part of a layer cake, A Breath of Avignon by American Jane for Moda Fabrics, and a pattern from Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam Lintott. I was thinking of quilting two parallel lines down each of the sashing strips and then echo lines inside the 'flowers' to simulate petals. It is a small quilt so I think that may be manageable on the machine.

This is another quilt made from a pattern in another of Pam's books, Jelly Roll Quilts. I scaled the size down and so had jelly strips left over for the border and some blocks used in a pieced strip down the back. The fabric used is Make Life for Moda. I think I'll outline quilt each of the coloured squares, some will overlap a little but I think it will look great. This is one of my favourite tops I've made to date.  

This simple square in square design was not made from a pattern, but I bought the fabric especially to make a 'boy' quilt. This one is backed on the print that is the outer border of the second block from the left on the bottom row so I think I'll, once again, outline quilt the blocks (I'll end up with those narrow parallel lines again) and then stitch across the blocks diagonally to reflect the spokes on the fabric print. This thing I can't decide about this quilt is what colour thread to use. A blending brown would be the most obvious choice for the outline stitching on the top but this won't blend into the back (and I don't seem to have much luck with different top and bottom thread colours) and choosing something for the diagonal lines is tricky!

I had just enough pins to baste this last quilt, although a little less heavily than I normally would. This was made with an Attitude Girls for Moda jelly roll from a pattern in Pam's third book Jelly Roll Inspirations. I think I might quilt inside the stars for this one and then I would like to stipple in the coloured 'block' sections but this is a skill I'm yet to feel comfortable in my level of mastery with. Perhaps I'll just have to practice on some smaller projects first. This one in backed in blue dots on white from the range with a strip made from the trimmed corner squares.


Phew, that should keep me busy for awhile! If anyone has any suggestions about the quilting please let me know. I won't be able to start on these for at least a few weeks....

Quilting for Peace - Bink Patrol

Followers of the precursor to this blog, my facebook page, will have been familiar with my series of projects inspired by the book 'Quilting for Peace'.

The final project on the list was a twin size quilt for Binky Patrol.



I wanted to make something a little larger than the earlier projcets and wanted to use scraps. I also really wanted to make something I thought would appeal to boys.



The quilting reflected the striped pirate sections, I was hoping of a little interest but something simple enough to appeal to many.



The quilt is backed in a cozy flannel.



Now for my next set of charity projects. I came across the book Craft Hope: Homemade Crafts for a Cause and think it might now be on the inspiration booklist!

Do you craft for charity too?