Whirligigging

Please forgive me my little hiatus (again). I've been a little distracted, as you can see.

Lots of gorgeous details in this quilt which have kept me wanting to press on to the next stage. I thought I'd be far too bored cutting out 240 squares of scraps and sewing them into random tab shapes. But no! It was a bundle of fun. And that's said without the slightest sense of sarcasm.

I mean, look at them - eep!!

This is undoubtedly the biggest, scrappiest (in terms of delving into the scrap bags - there are a few of those. Come on, I know you've got some too!) quilt I've ever done. Such a dent has it made in my scraps that I would have trouble starting another scrappy quilt in a hurry. OK that may be an exaggeration. But the problem would be, the scraps would look very familiar and that might get boring...

The only hiccup in the whole process was the doubt that set in once I'd pieced the large setting triangles. I just wasn't sure the fabric (Loulouthi by Anna Maria Horner) was right and that it might detract from the centre. I was persuaded otherwise by a bevy of Twitter friends and pressed on and am happily in love again.

So - I've thoroughly enjoyed this little journey - and a rather quick one it's been too, I only started this at Christmas. I know there's a huge hand quilting palooza ahead of me (more on that another time), but it is so fabulous to get this far. I hope I've done Sarah Fielke's amazing pattern justice.

If you'd like to make your own Whirligig, you can find the pattern in Sarah's gorgeous book 'Quilting from little things'. I highly recommend this fabulous book, if only for the amazing quilt eye candy. But also for the Whirligig. I love it.

PS Sarah was lovely enough to feature a progress pic of my quilt on her blog - see if you can spot it!

PPS And because it's been such a long time since my little petal featured here, a couple of pics of real live peeps, not quilts.

Linking up to Lee's Work in Progress Wednesday today, and to Our Creative Spaces.

And this being virtually the only thing I've worked on in the past month, I'm linking up to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day too! So if you're coming from there - hello!

Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Seriously.

Desperate Housewife's Quiltalong: Round the Twist

I'm so excited that my first ever block tutorial is for the very fun Desperate Housewife's Quiltalong, hosted by the lovely Jane. If you haven't seen the amazing range of blocks on offer, one a week from Jane, and one a week by guest bloggers, then pop on over once you've had a look at my tutorial!

This little block of mine is called "Round the Twist", because I'm sure any desperate housewife worth her salt has been driven round the twist once or twice. I know I have.

I based this block on the flying geese unit, which I'm currently obsessed with. And we're going to make it using the magic method, which I'm currently obsessed with. If you love to chain piece then you're going to love this. And if you've been scared of making flying geese, be scared no longer! This really is magic. And you will save yourself some fabric, too! That's got to be a good thing, yes? My flying geese obsession has led me to this Ruby quilt. And of course the Swoon quilt.

(note: there are numerous tutorials around the web teaching this method. This one at Connecting Threads gives measurements for flying geese in whatever size you like - handy!)

So, choose some fabrics from your stash. You'll need two contrasting colours for the twist, and a light or neutral for the background. My print fabrics are from the Loulouthi collection by Anna Maria Horner, which I'm, well, maybe just a little bit obsessed with. The neutral is actually also a print - a text print from the Make Life collection by Sweetwater. I'm currently experimenting with using less solids and more prints in their place, and also text fabrics. I need some more. Anyway. Back to the block.

You'll need the following pieces for your block:

One square of print fabric a - 5 3/4 inch.

Two squares of print fabric b - 3 1/8 inch.

Two squares of neutral fabric - 3 1/8 inch.

Four rectangles of neutral fabric - 4.5 by 2.5 inch.

(And apologies for the big shadow in some of these photos. Sewing at night is a necessity in this household and doesn't make for good camera work!)

Layout your big square and then the two neutral squares in opposite corners. They will overlap slightly in the middle to form a little square. Make sure this overlapping part is really square, and not a rectangle. Now draw a line from corner to corner.

Now stitch a line 1/4 inch both sides of the drawn line. Here's where the chain piecing part comes in handy. If you are making a lot of flying geese blocks, you can simply prepare the above units, stack them up and whiz away. They'll be done in no time. At the very least I like to make two blocks at a time, because it's more time efficient and you're not cutting the thread at the end of each and every seam.

Another important tip when sewing is to use a *scant* 1/4 inch seam. This means just a thread or two shy of a full 1/4 inch. Trust me - if you haven't tried it, you must - it makes for much more accurate piecing. Get out your ruler and measure your seams and you will see what I mean. If your foot is travelling outside the line, your seam is actually a bit bigger than 1/4 inch, and over multiple blocks or several pieces to a block, that adds up to a lot. But I digress!

Once you've sewn down both sides of the line, cut the piece in half, right on the drawn line. Then flip the little triangles over and press (I find it easier to press towards the small triangles).

Now take your other small squares and place them in the remaining corners of the two (now separated) units, again, it should overlap the two flappy triangles with a tiny square in the middle. Feel free to wiggle it into place to make sure it's lined up properly. Then sew either side of the line as before and cut the unit into two pieces. Flip those triangles over and press, repeat with the other unit and ta-da! You have made FOUR flying geese in just a few simple steps.

But we are not quite finished! The goose unit needs a little trimming to whip it into perfect shape. We are aiming for a unit of 4.5 by 2.5 inch. Have a look at your unit and you will see it needs a little haircut. Start with a short side as in the photo below. Line up the opposite side on a line on your cutting mat, place your ruler 1/4 inch back from the nearest line and trim - you might find that you don't actually trim a full 1/4 inch off the block, but we are just paring back each side as needed to get to the 4.5 by 2.5 inches required. Rotate the block to cut the long side with the point of the goose and cut again - there should be a seam allowance of 1/4 inch from the point to the edge! Repeat for the two remaining sides and you'll have a lovely 4.5 by 2.5 inch flying goose.

Now lay out your geese with the neutral rectangles as shown, and sew each rectangle-goose pair together, and press (the direction is not so important here, so whatever feels right).

Now you're ready to sew the pieced units together. If you want your geese to have nice sharp points, then have a look at the units next to each other - see how the points are a nice 1/4 inch from the edge? We want our seam to go right through those points. If it doesn't, you'll end up with poor cut-off goose wings. Eek!

If for some reason you've ended up with a smaller seam allowance poking out above those points, don't worry, you just need to make sure your needle goes through the intersection point. If you do this, you'll still end up with pointy wings, albeit with slightly smaller seam allowances. But no-one's going to know!

Easiest way to do this is put a pin right through the intersections on both pieces.

Before you press the paired up units, check which way you want them to lie. I like my seam allowances to nest, so I press one unit with the seams going to the left, and the other going to the right, then they nest nicely. Again, before sewing together, check your goose points to make sure your seam goes straight through that intersection!

And there you have it, one Round the Twist block! I hope you've enjoyed this one and hopefully learnt some tips about making flying geese. If you give it a go I'd love to see a pic. And now do go and have a look at Jane's blog for some super-clever blocks.

I started something new

It's been a little while since I've blogged. The silly season put blogging and sewing fairly firmly on the back-burner. But 2012 has started with a bang and I've been sewing up a (relative) storm. Current big project is a hand appliqué medallion from Sarah Fielke's beautiful book. A fabulous book that every aspiring quilter must have!

I started this one when we were away over Christmas and have been making steady progress. LOVE hand-applique. Once all the leaves are sewn on there are a number of borders to be added, and then the whole she-bang gets a rather intense hand-quilting treatment. So I'm expecting this one will take a while. But I'm not in a hurry, and enjoying the journey....

Linking up to Lee's Work-in-Progress Wednesday for the first time in an eternity.

Ruby dear

I'm linking up to Lee's Work-In-Progress party today. Check in there to see "how everything is doing!"

The blogging police will be coming to check up to see that an impostor hasn't moved in - this is my third post in under a week!

With a bit of momentum under my belt, I put my foot to the floor and finished off my Ruby Dutchmen's Puzzle quilt. I've really enjoyed this one, the flying geese were fun, and I love the colours of Bonnie and Camille's gorgeous fabrics. It wasn't without its challenges however - the borders were more than a little tricky, but I'm very happy with how they've turned out.


While I was enjoying playing with Ruby, I thought I'd press on and make another block to be turned into a matching pillow.


And now I'm turning my attention to this big project, quilting Lilly Pilly. You can read about my progress on this quilt here and here. I don't even want to think about how long the quilting will take. I am going to do the full swirly catastrophe on it. It is, after all, 1.4 metres high by 1 metre wide. All that swirly quilting will take a long time and I want to take it easy, and hopefully avoid any repeat of my elbow problems.


So in between quilting sessions, I'll also be turning my mind to Christmas preparations - much as I'm in denial that it will be December this week and I really am so unprepared, even more so than in previous years.

If you have any top Christmas organising hints, I'd love to hear them! My first task will be to put up the advent calendar. I really love this idea - maybe next year!

Getting busy with the binding today. I do love a little stripey binding. I love this one so much I bought rather a lot of it. Then I bought a bit more.

Because you never know when you might need some more stripey in your life.

It makes me happy.

Scroll down for more pics of the birdie quilt, if you so desire! (God knows there are a few).

Thanks for visiting! I'm off to visit some more creative spaces.

Oh my goodness I forgot to blog!

Hello!!

I'll keep this short as it's late and I really should be in bed! Lots of sewing going on in the Elefants house at the moment, thanks in part to the new arrival:



A couple of WIPs to show you today. (There are a few others too, but I'll just stick with two, in the interests of brevity, and hopefully to be able to provide more fodder for blogging over the next little while...)

I've had this little birdie in a tree lurking in my WIP pile for a very long time. It's from a pattern by the marvellous Kellie. I had already started the quilting but wasn't very happy with it so put it away. With the lure of a new machine, I thought I would try and finish it. And I have! And I LOVE swirly quilting on my new machine, it quilts like a dream. I'm so happy with how this one has turned out. So I hope you don't mind the plentiful photos...

The binding has been added since I took these pics, now in the process of hand-sewing it down.

I've also embarked on a Swoon quilt. I bought Camille's pattern approximately five minutes after she released it back in May and had my heart set on making it in French General fabrics (of which I have a rather large, ahem, stash). Two blocks done so far. These are fun to make but deceptively rather intensive! Lots of cutting and trimming. But beautiful! And big! 24 inches.


And one more birdie pic!


Linking up to Lee's WIP party today.

Birthday party

Not so much sewing happening here, I'm afraid. Young Finn has turned 5. Hard to believe. He's been through such a lot in his short life, starting with his surprise arrival 12 weeks early. Seems weird looking back on that now. And 5 seems like a pretty big milestone, in the scheme of things.

So what better way to celebrate than with a dinosaur party?




Cue one dinosaur cake.




A game or two of pin the tail on the dinosaur.





And just having fun.

A gorgeous day for my sweet, funny, sometimes puzzling and exasperating boy.