Small Work and Gifts

I felt that it was time to make something quite small again.

Out came the printed paper foundations,

A selection of nice bright Fat Quarters and some cutting followed.

Some short length stitching happened.

Lined up, sewn up, and ready to remove the papers.

Then backed, quilted, bound.  

The whole thing could be a little more accurate, but it's nice and cheerful, and I liked the use of different threads (different colour and weight) in alternate stitched lines.

You can see it a little better on the back.

You can also see how I was trying to stitch in the ditch for the major block edges, and how wobbly that made the lines!  Never mind, I don't spend time looking at the back!

My other small sewing was this bag for Benta's birthday.  Love the colours, love the fact that I built it all from stash (including magnetic closure and interfacing).  Wasn't so sure about the balance of the bag which felt a little 'off'.

For my birthday (we share the day!) Benta had made me a bag too - but look at it!  Isn't it wonderful?!?  Beautifully sewn, with a zip around the half circle that makes the top of the bag.  I'm in awe of her and her superior skills!  She also made me an insulated cup holder, and a cloth covered rope necklace.  I'm a lucky girl!
 

Forgotten WIPS

If you'd asked me if I had any WIPs (Work In Progress) I would have said that I had a soft toy sea horse that needed stuffing, and nothing else.

Tidying the loft has proved me to be a liar!  I don't know when these were put away - but it must have been years ago!

This print that I was stitching around with variagated thread still has the needle in (but not the skein of thread that I was using, which is a shame).

This not quite square block has a freezer paper template ironed on to it and nothing else.  I can't remember whether I thought I was going to just stitch around it, or whether I was going to put a contrast fabric behind it and stitch around it with the sewing machine, in order to use the stitched line to help with a non-marker needleturn end result.

Funny isn't it, that I don't know?  I think that I will probably put another layer of  white cloth behind it (to conceal any knots or untidy 'travel'stitching from showing though) and hand stitch around the template.  Perfect simple stitching!

I'm pleased that I didn't find any other projects lurking up there!
 

How do you choose?

I needed to choose my next quilting project.  For some reason (perhaps because I'm a bit tired after the summer) I found it more difficult than usual.

Usually, I have projects and colour schemes lined up in my head for at least one more project after the one that I'm actually working on.  Not this time!

So, how do you choose a project? It made me wonder?

How do I choose a project?  Well, that's a big question!

Of course, I have a 'Quilting' board on Pintrest, and that is often a nice place to start, looking for a design that appeals to me and either finding instructions for it or drawing it out in QuiltPro.

Then I have my little list (stuck to my printer, just behind my computer) where I might have jotted down ideas that appeal to me.  I usually harvest ideas from here.

Then there are the dozens of quilting books that I have, that get taken down and leafed through.

Sometimes I just leave in slips of paper, to give me a quick reminder that I'm interested in something.  Sometimes I make a quilt directly from a pattern that I find.  Sometimes it sparks a related idea.

Its funny how the quilt pattern complexity has to be just right for it to appeal at any point - turns out that I'm a bit Goldilocks about how simple or tricky blocks / quilt construction are!

Time for a bit more pondering before I decide what to sew next!
 

Smallest Loom!

Have you seen these 'Speedweve' type looms around recently?  They seem to be having 'a moment' - so I decided to jump on the band wagon too! They looked like fun, and people posting on Instagram and elsewhere have produced some lovely tiny woven patches - of course.

In case you don't know what they are, in brief, they are a wooden disk with a groove around the outside of it and a metal plate with a curved section to fit around the wooden disk, and a set of hooks set on it.

This is mine, just as I'm setting it up for my first woven darn using it.

Here is is after I've set the warp threads (you catch each at the bottom then loop it over the hook at the top).

You only use as many hooks as you want in width to cover the hole.  Ideally the line of 'catch' stitches at the bottom would be straight and parallel to the hook line too!

You can see that I've started weaving in this photo.  Each time you pass the thread across, you push the top of the hooks in the other direction, so it lifts alternate threads and makes it really quick and easy to weave.

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 I was lead by the branding on these leggings, so created a patch that was striped white and black.

There is a lot of learning to be had from this little experiment.  I think that working on a firm fabric would be much easier than working on stretchy jersey  - but this was the item of clothing with a hole in, so I got to play on this first!

I'm keen to try it out on some other fabric, perhaps with a mixture of colours of thread.

Fun play time!

Post Show!

Where is my sewing?  Well, all my sewing energy was diverted into helping Georgie get ready for her stall at Kew Horticultural Show (and helping her younger sister to make some extra face cleansing pads to sell there too!).

Here is Georgie during the set up time - Kew Green looked a lot busier once the show opened!

And here she is again, all set up under a gazebo, ready to serve all the lovely people who bought from her.  Thank you, wonderful customers, she had a great time selling face to face, for the first time since Christmas 2019!
 

If you missed the stall and want to order some items, here are the links to the Etsy shops:

FabWraps for your fabric gift wrapping

Angelic Cleansing for your cleansing pad sets.

Looking forward to a good rest followed by a little light sewing on my own account after that!