NEW look and some more cushions

For those of you visiting my blog regularly would have immediately noticed that my blog has a completely new look.  I have been thinking about making some changes, and I wanted it to be entirely different to what it use to be.  I do think it is cleaner and most definitely a lot less 'busy'.. 

I found a lot of helpful information from Karen's blog - Sew Many Ways.  Her blogging tips are always so easy to follow, with step by step picture instructions anyone can do it.  It is still a work in progress, but so far I am happy.  It took me the whole day yesterday playing around with layouts and different colour schemes, but in the end I decided to stick with green, it is after all my most favorite colour.

So... what do you think?  Is less really more?  

Well, when it comes to everything that keeps me busy in my sewing room, more is definitely what keeps me most productive.  I have noticed that when I keep busy with more than one project, that it drives me to do even more. 

..and that is just fine by me!  As mentioned last week, I pulled out pieced blocks I made some time ago, not knowing what I was going to do with them, and ended up making a quilted cushion.  Now I have four.    

Sewing in zippers are definitely a new experience, after looking at a few tutorials on the web, I decided in the end, it is a lot less scary than I thought.  I followed along this tutorial, but instead of adding the zipper to side of the pillow I had sewed it right in the middle of the backing fabric.  It is not ideal, but since the blocks were pieced using a ¼ inch seam allowance I did not want to loose the size of the outside piecing.  I think in the end it would have influenced to look too much if I had worked on a larger seam allowance.

I am glad I got to make use of those blocks, and the end result is just beautiful.. even if I have to say so myself.

Happy quilting.

Quilted Cushion.. my first!

     

     

It was about a year ago that I pieced these blocks, and at the time I had no idea what I wanted to do with them.  There are four 15½ inch square blocks so I knew together it would not be large enough to make even a lap quilt.  So I stuck it in a bag, put it in a drawer and forgot about them. 

During the past weekend I cleaned up my sewing room, and as I was going through my drawers I found them again, and immediately knew I wanted to try and make quilted cushions with them.  

When it comes to making a quilt, I am quite comfortable, the steps now comes more naturally after doing it for more than a year.  But sewing in zippers?  I have never done it before, so I was going through pinterest looking for some easy to follow tutorials, and found THIS one, AND I only had one zipper to try it out, so for now I have only the one to share with you....  

Happy quilting.

Last few steps before I'm done...

The end is near, I can almost taste it!  I cant fully decide which part of making a quilt is the most fun.  By far, for me free motion quilting is the most enjoyable part, but the most exciting part of making a quilt is adding the finishing touches, hiding those last few missed thread tails, squaring up the quilt and making the binding and sewing it on.

Securing the padded hearts well before top-stitching it down on top the quilt.

Hiding thread tails between the layers.

Trimming the excess batting and backing, squaring it up.

I've used the last remaining strips from the jelly roll to make the binding strips.  I starched it really well, that way I have the best control, and while sewing it on the quilt there's hardly any shifting.

Now all that is left to do, is hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt, and I still need to make a label.  Watch this space for the big reveal... :-)

Happy quilting.

Feathers

Kayleigh has been keeping me so busy these past few days that progress has been slow, but I am getting there, at a snails pace.. Or so it feels.  I guess its not all bad, if rushed I might just mess it up.  Don't you just love feathers?  I do, combined with smaller pebbles and swirls it looks even prettier. 

The next two images is from the front and back of the exact same spot quilted.  I think this time the tension is perfect, can you see how the feathers pop both on the front and back?  I was worried when adding the smaller scale quilting that puckers will form, but so far so good, its looking great!

      

Unlike when I quilted the circles inside the sashing, I am not making use of any markings when quilting the feathers.  I love the result quilting white on white, it really blends in well with the background and it really makes the design stand out.

 

A big thank you to everyone's response on my Monday post.  Most of you know I reply to every comment via e-mail, unless you're a no-reply blogger, I always keep a note pad writing down questions I've received, and I will soon share some of them here on my blog.  Its sometimes a bit hard keeping track bouncing from e-mail to blogger...

If you'd like to see more of this baby quilt I'm making, click HERE.

Happy quilting.

Swirls, what's not to love?

I have been sitting pondering for days what free motion quilting designs to use.  I guess after I had hurt my writs a few weekends ago it gave me more than enough time to think about it (its much better by the way), but as I had the quilt set up inside the throat of my sewing machine, I still had no idea, so I just went with what felt right.  

I love swirls, the texture and flow is just beautiful, I think together with the stippling I used and the circles inside the sashing its a great combination.

There is not much to say about the quilting, so I thought of sharing a few pictures.  They are after all worth a 1000 words, so I will let them speak for themselves, :-)  

The following pictures were taken from a completely different angle, and I think the light falling from behind really shows off the texture...

Now all that is left to quilt is the white borders and the outside pieced borders.  I am thinking feathers... If you'd like to read up previous posts on this baby quilt click HERE.

Happy quilting.

Slowly does it...

Unfortunately, I did not make a lot of progress working on this baby quilt this week.  This past Sunday, I hurt my left wrist playing golf.  I think it was about 6 years ago that I was quite a regular on the golf course, admittedly I was not great, but I enjoyed it.  So ever since my husband started playing recently I wanted to take it up again.  I guess I was far to eager to get back into it, and did not warm up properly...

So I've been working at a snails pace, quilting really small sections at a time.  I am using Machingers quilting gloves, which helps a lot with gripping, but because I keep my hands parallel to the needle,  and the angle at which my hand sits on the quilt, I cant quilt for too long.

At least I had finished all the large blocks with stippling and the white sashing with circles.  This morning it feels a tad bit better, so I will see how it goes today, it is so frustrating when all I want to do is carry on, hopefully before the week is over all will be as it should be, and I can carry on.

Thanks for stopping by, for my regular readers and those who link up on my 'Anything Goes' linky party, thanks so much for taking part, its always a treat seeing what everyone is up to, and for all comments.  

Happy quilting.

Wednesday already?

There's that saying, 'Time flies when you're having fun' we all know it, and we have all lived it a some stage.  Yes, its true!  At some point in our lives  we realize what we like to do, and since I've found my passion, there has not once been a dull moment.  

There's no denying how much fun I have when I quilt, especially free motion quilting.  Now that the time has arrived to quilt the baby quilt I've been working on, I have been quilting non stop these past few days.

Stitch in the ditch, no one really sees it, no one really knows it there, but I find when quilting a large quilt on my domestic sewing machine it just helps to secure it.  That way whatever motive/design I want to use inside a specific block, I can jump around quilting which ever block I feel like, and not be bound by working in quadrants to prevent shifting.  We all hate those dreaded puckers...

So I started by SID (stitch in the ditch) all around each large block in the center of the quilt.  With that out the way, I can concentrate on each block.

Stippling, we all know it, and I bet most of us love quilting it.  There's something about the motion of wiggling around that is very relaxing to me.  Its one of those designs you don't really have to think about too much, except for quilting yourself into a corner of course.    

I am very much used to quilting on small scale, but I really want this quilt to puffy and soft.  So I tried my best to keep my scale a bit bigger and the spacing between the wiggly lines are at about half an inch.  

I decided on stippling on the large open blocks, because once its all quilted the padded hearts will be stitched down on top, like shown in the picture above.  I did not see any point in quilting an intricate design if most of it was going to be covered up. 

Inside the white sashing around the blocks I added circles, I think I saw this specific design done by Judi from Green fairy quilts.  Admittedly my circles aren't all the same size, even or perfectly round, but I think the overall effect looks great! 

I still have to quilt three of these 'heart' blocks before I am going to move on the pieced blocks, I still have no idea what to quilt, hopefully I will know once I'm done with these.

Linking up to, WIP Wednesdays over at Freshly Pieced.

Happy quilting.