It is just over a year ago that I made a chequerboard quilt with Lily, so it was lovely having the opportunity to make a quilt with her for the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was to make a quilt with or for a child, so Sharyn made her quilt for Lily, and Lily did lots of the work on the quilt for Sharyn.
This was the first stage, and this is all Lily's work. I went over to her house with the fabric, cutting board and cutter, and also a large piece of paper so I could do an actual size sketch. Once I had cut out all the pieces, Lily did all the sewing. She has a 1945 Singer 99K hand machine. She had never used a seam guide before, so her mum, Hannah, found some scrap material, and I showed Lily how to keep her seam straight. By the time she had sewn about ten inches I could see she had got the idea already and didn't need any more practice.
Then Lily did all the piecing. I passed her the pieces, she sewed them together, gave them to me to iron while she stitched the next seam... it went like clockwork, and Hannah was amazed at how quickly it was done.
Here is the back of the work. Look at those neat seams!
That was enough work for the day, so I then left it with Lily to do some hand sewing. She had a rummage through her box of embroidery threads and chose the dark green for the flower stems and the yellow for the door number.
After that I didn't see Lily and Hannah for a while, so Hannah posted the work in progress to me - stage 1 of its travels, South Wales to Somerset.
The next stage was for me to add a border. This pinky red floral print is really riotous. It made me think of a cottage garden buzzing with bees, just right for this little quilt.
Next I did the straight line quilting with the Singer 15K hand machine, then the free motion quilting with the 15K treadle. For the wall, door and border I did a meandering infill. For the path in front of the door I did a pebble design, and for the garden I did a grass design - I used completely the wrong colour threads because they don't show up against the brown fabric.
Once I had put on the binding, I stitched on buttons and beads for the little flowers. I love the way Lily had made all the stems different heights on the flowers beneath the window...
... and the stems for this climber go right to the edge, so I put in a couple of flowers overlapping the border, blending in to the busy floral print.
Meanwhile, Sharyn had finished her quilt and it had already arrived at my house, so I went to visit Lily two days after her 11th birthday, delivered Sharyn's quilt, and got Lily to put in the very last stitches...
... sewing on the button for the door knob!
So now you know why the house had to be number 11, even though Lily was only 10 when she did all that hard work!
This quilt was great fun to make - sewn by two people, in two countries, England and Wales, with three different vintage machines, and sent all the way to Sharyn in Australia, where it arrived with the New Year! What a great start to 2014!
Happy New Year Sharyn!
Happy New Year to all visitors and followers.
Thank you for all the visits and comments in the past year. Let's see what 2014 brings!
Welcome to Hilary Bravo, the latest follower - thank you for joining!
Linking up with Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
This pretty little quilt arrived in the post last week from Sharyn in Australia, my November partner on Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was quilting with or for children, so I asked Sharyn to make a quilt that I could give to Lily. Sharyn's timing was perfect. It was Lily's birthday last Tuesday (she is now a very old lady of 11), the quilt arrived on Wednesday, and I was able to visit Lily and her family on Thursday. There was a bit of excitement when Lily unwrapped her quilt. It was beautifully wrapped in a piece of blue fabric, and came with a matching pin cushion. These tumblers in a lively combination of colours will look lovely on Lily's bedroom wall.
Later on the same day I was able to post the quilt Lily and I have made for Sharyn, but of course, that is all a big secret until it reaches Australia...
Thank you Sharyn for being a wonderful partner!
This the quilt that I have received from Terry, my October partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.
The theme was to show where we live, so Terry chose covered bridges because she lives in an area where there are many to be seen.
The central panel is a section showing the entrance to a bridge. Although we don't have covered wooden bridges over rivers in this country, this detail does remind me of the bridges at old railway stations. They had to be covered, otherwise the passengers would have been enveloped in smoke from the steam engines.
Terry tells me that they have many craft fairs in the autumn in the areas where the bridges are. The bridges must be a lovely sight when they are surrounded by all the colours of autumn.
I love the combination of the dark greens and bold red - it definitely gives the feeling of Christmas being on the way!
Thank you Terry! You have been a lovely partner.
Welcome to Melanie Varela, the latest follower - thank you for joining!
This is the quilt that I sent to my October partner, Terry, for the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme for the month was to show where you live, so I decided to base the quilt on the coloured houses seen in Bristol - we live just seven miles outside.
I shall cheerfully own up that I had a few tussles with this quilt, with the surprise pleat on the back and the skipped stitches on corners.
I was in a bit of a quandary over the free motion quilting, thinking the meander design on the front of the houses might look like cracked rendering. In the end it doesn't look too bad, and I varied it with a pebbly design for the ground.
Also there was great frustration with right angles. I chose the materials for the colours rather the weight. They were a touch too lightweight, and I just don't do starch, so I had to live with the shifting angles.
But in real life many of these houses have slipped here and there. Doors can be slightly out of line...
... or well and truly crooked...
...and as for chimneys, they can be all over the place.
My husband and I had a brief discussion about the windows. He said I had put Georgian windows on Victorian houses. I said they were early Victorian, so there is hardly any difference.
All told, I was pleased with how it turned out. Someone might look at the bright colours and off angles and think it is badly executed Toytown. My answer to that would be that this quilt is the nearest I have got to photorealism. People here who have seen the quilt instantly start debating which part of Bristol it is and which street it shows. The photos on this Flickr group show the scenes we see every day...
http://www.flickr.com/groups/colouredhousesofbristol/pool/with/9035260579/#photo_9035260579
The house my husband was born in - and still lived in when we met - is in this picture...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/261049/8234408515/in/pool-colouredhousesofbristol/
... fourth house on the right in the long terrace that goes right the way across the picture, and here is a picture actually taken on the street a few doors down from the house...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crabchick/9324205864/in/pool-colouredhousesofbristol
Up until about twenty years ago most of these houses were grey or very pale colours. It is only recently that all these bold colours have appeared. They took some getting used to, but now I rather like them.
Linking up again today with Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday.
This is the quilt that I made for Pattilou, my September partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was "Quilt in a Quilt", so I decided to do a quilt hanging on the line.
First I pieced a tiny little quilt top from pieces of dress weight cotton poplin that I had stashed in one of my scrap jars. The individual squares in the tiny quilt ended up at seven eighths of an inch, and the border about an inch wide.
In the finished quilt, which measures about 16 by 16 and a half inches, the tiny quilt is hanging on the line in a free motion quilted garden. The background colours are varied to give the impression of depth, with darker neutrals for the ground and a strip of pink in the sky.
The real fun in making this quilt was doing the free motion quilting. The line needed to be strung from something, and posts would have been boring, so I decided to have it tied between two trees.
The first free motion quilting I did was a line of ferns for the foreground. Next I did a line of grass.
Then it was time to do the trees. Doing the tree on the right was easy enough. To prevent having too much of the work bunched up under the arm of the machine, I decided to turn the quilt round and worked the tree on the left upside down.
Once the trees were finished I filled in the rows of grass in the background, diminishing the size and changing to a paler thread to give a feeling of perspective.
For the binding I used a pale brown cotton with a tiny pattern in a similar rusty red to the border of the quilt on the line.
The finishing touch was hand stitching on the cord for the line, and quarter inch cylindrical wooden beads for the pegs.
For the piecing, straight line quilting and binding, I used my 1949 Singer 15K hand machine, and for the free motion quilting, the trusty 1945 Singer 15K treadle.
This quilt is now hanging in Pattilou's house in Utah, and I have to give her a huge vote of thanks for sending me all these pictures today so I could do this post... I can't use my own pictures because our computer is totally out of action. I love and hate computers, whereas I love and love my sewing machines. And Pattilou tells me she loves this quilt, and I love hers, so we are both happy!
Linking up again with Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and also this quilt is being entered into the Bloggers's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.... so loads of links for you to follow this week!
This lovely little quilt arrived today. It was made by Pattilou, my September partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. I love the gorgeous autumn shades of the batiks, and the maple leaf and stripes design is just right for September.
The texture is wonderful. Pattilou has packed in lots of different quilting designs into such a small space.
The theme for the month was "A Quilt within a Quilt." Where is the second quilt? I was foxed for a minute, until I realised...
... it's on the back! All the different quilting patterns combine to make miniature whole cloth quilt.
The different coloured threads make this quilt just as interesting on the back as it is on the front.
This quilt is a real gem Thank you Pattilou!
Welcome to the latest followers, Chambers16 and Anne. Thank you for joining!
This is the quilt I received from Lee, my August partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was "Dressed to the Nines", and Lee certainly used some interesting nine patches to great effect - such tricky piecing, all those triangles! The sharp contrast of the purple and white looks like a tiled floor, just the sort of design I find fascinating.
Lee also sent me a tiny little fabric container, just the right size to hold three reels of thread, and which is now sitting on my treadle.
Thank you Lee!
This is the quilt I sent to Lee, my August partner on the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was "Dressed to the Nines" with the suggestion that the quilt should incorporate nine patches. Well, this isn't strictly a nine patch, but almost. Lee said she liked bright colours and modern designs, so I took the opportunity to play around with colours I don't usually use. My daughter says it looks very 1970s, which her generation thinks of as vintage. She doesn't know the meaning of the word, she is a mere babe. This quilt is modern. The 1970s are about as modern as I can manage.
I haven't done much piecing recently, so I enjoyed the change. I had a good dig in my bag of Oakshott fabrics and pulled out twenty different fabrics for the top and binding. I went to a sale at Oakshott's showroom near Gloucester last November, so I had quite a few gorgeous colours to choose from. I particularly liked this salmon pink and olive green stripe, so it went into the centre square...
... and this dark blue stripe and the yellow centre worked well.
All the squares had either a stripe or a squared weave for the outer section, and all but one of the centre squares were a shot cotton...
...except for this one which is a pale blue stripe.
It was a great pleasure piecing all these beautiful fabrics, but then I came slightly unstuck with the quilting. I used my 1949 Singer 15K for the piecing, straight line quilting and the binding, then I used the 1945 15K treadle for the free motion quilting in the border. Both machines behaved perfectly, and I thought that the alternating horizontal and vertical parallel lines were just the ticket.
Until I got it wrong, so I had to ad lib these shapes and pretend it was all part of the plan. It was interesting discovering that I would much rather not work with straight lines and regular patterns. They just aren't my forte.
So all told, this quilt was a pleasure to make, and Lee likes it, so we are both happy.
Thank you for being my partner, Lee!
Linking up to Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
and to Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and to Nina-Marie's blog Creations... Quilts, Art... Whatever for Off The Wall Friday so you can visit lots of other blogs.
This is the doll quilt that I sent to my partner Diane in Minnesota, my July partner for the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. She told me that she liked purple, and I have been meaning to do a pansy for ages, so here it is! I posted a photo of the centre of the pansy a little while ago to see if Diane might guess what was coming.
All the straight stitch machining was done with the 1949 Singer 15K hand machine - the detail on the flower, the piecing and the binding. For the stem I used the method I describe here, and for the outline quilting I used the hand machine with the cording foot attached, also as shown in the previous post here.
The free motion quilting was done on the 1945 Singer 15K treadle. For the background quilting in the central panel I did my favourite meandering infill. For the border I did a curving stem with curled back leaves. Luckily, I didn't run into too much trouble going round the corners, but I'm not too brilliant at stitching over the guideline stitching so the stem is a bit fat in parts.
I really enjoyed this project, and it was lovely to hear from Diane how much she liked it - she took it out into the garden to take photos of it.
This post is being linked with Leah Day's blog for FMQ Friday - lots more projects to see there!
Welcome to the latest followers, Angel Momma and Lizziebeth - thank you for joining!
This smashing little quilt arrived the other day from my July partner on the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap. The theme was stars and stripes, but Diane knew that somehow I wasn't going to get hugely inspired by the theme. Something to do with being English. To me July 4th is just the day before my birthday.
Diane hit it just right with all these lovely little stars dancing around on a background the colour of the night sky.
Each star is different... little florals...
... tiny cherries ...
... a few bold colours in among the pastels...
... and a red gingham print.
And so she didn't depart from the theme altogether, she also sent this little mug rug with stripes!
Thank you Diane! I really must get a move on with the quilt for you...
This is the quilt I made in June for my partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.
The theme for the month was fantasy, and I was stuck for inspiration until I realised that this plate was propped up on the sideboard looking at me.
So I did a little tree. The trunk and branches are made up of home made braid, and I showed the work in progress a little while ago, but didn't show more because I always keep the swap quilts under wraps until my partners receive them.
No two leaves are alike, each one is made from a different coloured scrap of Oakshott cotton fabric,
and a different coloured embroidery thread for the blanket stitch edging.
Each of the four little flowers is made from a different shell button, with little glass beads at the centre.
The outline quilting was done on the Singer 15K hand machine, and the free motion quilting on the Singer 15K treadle. For the quilting in the central panel I did my usual meandering infill, and around the border I did a design based on the curly leaves I tried out in one of my practice pieces.
This was a really enjoyable project. For ages I have been meaning to do a quilt based on pottery design, and the fantasy theme gave me the opportunity. I really love Staffordshire pottery. My mum grew up in The Potteries and from her I picked up the habit of turning over plates to check the maker's mark. So for the sake of completeness, here is the underneath of the plate. Hooray, made in Hanley.
This quilt is now with its new owner Merry in Minnesota. So glad you like it Merry!
This post is linked with Janice's blog Better Off Thread for Sew Cute Tuesday - lots of interesting blogs to visit there!
And also with Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday.
And with Richard and Tanya Quilts for Link a Finish Friday.
Welcome to the latest follower, Mary Ellen Gedris. Thank you for joining!
