"Happiness"

Showing off this finish over at Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday :)

"Happiness" is the name I've given to this jelly roll quilt that I finished at 11pm last night :) and I've just been outside in the blowy spring wind to take some photos and I am feeling the happiness today!

In fact, I started feeling happy when I first touched this jelly roll (Me and My Sister - Good Morning) after it was posted to me from the very lovely and talented Carla over at Creatin' in the Sticks. I had won it in her giveaway and when it arrived on the 23rd February (with lots of other loveliness), I just knew I was going to make something special with it.

I have blogged quite a bit about making this quilt and it feels like I've been working on it for months but I actually only started cutting and sewing on the 13th March ... and, at that point, I had NO idea how much work it would entail! The pattern, 'Stormy Weather' is from this book by mother and daughter team, Pam and Nicky Lintott. It's very doable - I suppose I'd class myself as an 'intermediate' quilter (whatever that means) so it wasn't that it was particularly challenging but there are a lot of 4 1/2" units to cut and sew and a million seams to match up!

As soon as I made my first block, I just knew this was going to be a bright and happy quilt - perfect for the couple I was making it for! This is a wedding gift and they don't know I've made this for them ... Lisa (my perfect best friend - pbf) doesn't read my blog so it will still be a surprise when I hand this over ... I hope!

By 18th March, all the individual 4 1/2" units were cut and sewn together, waiting to become blocks:

And on Good Friday, I finally finished piecing the front and back ... yay! And on to the quilting. Now, here's where it got tricky :) I only FMQ as I can't do straight line quilting. Well, I can do straight lines but I get 'bunching' (when quilting squares) in the corners and 'folds' in the top material all the time even with a walking foot. Don't know why, so I only do straight lines on cushions and iPad Cases and just stick to what I'm good at used to on my quilts.

But this quilt was just asking for some straight lines so I went for it. I won't lie ... I didn't like it ... I felt the quilt was fighting me all the time and do you know how many knots I had to bury because all the stops and starts were 'inside' the quilt? 72! And it took me 2 hours :(

But that was Saturday. Yesterday, things went better. I tried love hearts and loopy links in the borders and, whilst not perfect, I think they turned out okay and very fitting for a wedding quilt, don't you think?

And them centre stars were looking just a bit 'empty' so I filled them with ... wait for it ... yes, you guessed: my tried and testing stippling and each star only took 3 minutes to quilt:

Yes, if I had just stippled all over, it would have still looked lovely and been finished in a fraction of the time but then it wouldn't have been as special and I wouldn't have learnt anything. I will persevere with the straight line quilting - I really like the mixture of pattern and texture it has given:

And the label? I had some 'spare' units left over for some reason I so sewed a couple together. I finished this on the 31st March but I wrote April 2013, to reflect the month my friends will get it:

And my favourite part ... the binding! I love love love ... seriously love doing binding - every bit of it - making all 280", machine sewing to the front and hand sewing on the back and how cute is the black and white spot :) 

So I'm happy about lots of things:

• Meeting my pbf 6 years ago, I am so thankful for our friendship
• And that she is marrying a wonderful man 
• And that we'll see them getting married next month ... in Sweden!!!
• 'Finding' Carla, who gives me so much support and laughs at my jokes
• And winning her giveaway
• Learning new skills 
• And conquering a demon (well, me and straight line quilting will never be pbfs!)
• Creating something so special in just a few weeks
• And having the luxury of a 4-day weekend at home, giving me time to quilt
• And for being 'good enough' at this brilliant hobby - OMG, how lucky am I??
• And for having the most wonderful husband who lets me disappear in the loft to sew for hours and hours, never grumbles and always takes an interest (and even helps me baste!)

Quilt Facts: "Happiness" for Lisa and Richard

Time from start to finish - 2 weeks, 4 days but most done in the last 3 days! 

Size - 70" x 55"

Fabric - Moda Good Morning Jelly Roll, Makower black and lilac spots, Makower Swirls (white) 

Backing - Moda Good Morning Jelly Roll - Floral Super Flower, Positively Purple and Makower lilac spots

Binding - folded 2 1/4" Makower black spot

 xx

Zzzzzzzzzz ... It's finished :)

Nearly 12 hours quilting and binding (and burying lots of knots!) on this jelly roll quilt today and I'm not going to kid you - I am knackered! I stopped sewing just after 6pm:

and sat down after dinner at 7pm to sew the back of the binding: 

and have just sewn the last stitch at 11pm:

I have lots to say about making this quilt and it is so special it deserves a proper post that I can keep my eyes open for and photographs that will do it justice. Please pop back tomorrow for the full story, what I've learnt and lots of photos.

But I said I'd finish this by the 31st and I have ... just! And I wanted to link up to Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts - A lovely Year of Finishes before going to bed ... which I will :)

Oh, and I did help DH with the decorating today - I cut the lining paper:

Happy Easter, Good Night and God Bless xx

A good day's sewing :)

As promised, yesterday I spent the whole day sewing in the loft sewing until DH came home from the Whisky Live event :)

It was a quiet day; I miss Mutter, who went home on Thursday :( We had a lovely week whilst she visited us. She makes me laugh soooooo hard and we both end up with tears rolling down our faces ... she has an amazing sense of humour and I miss her when she goes home but, being the middle child, I'm used to sharing her! So, we went to see The Lion King in the West End on Tuesday and she LOVED it. Here she is outside:

And here we are inside, enjoying a fiercely expensive G&T (but then it was Tanqueray!):

We didn't tell her anything about the show beforehand and so her face was a picture when the 'animals' came down the aisle. We had strategically placed her on the end of aisle seat so that she'd get the best view though I'm not sure the elephant, dancing along, minding his own business, was expecting to get his tusk felt by a giggling 75 year old!! Oh Mutter, I love you so much - you are one in a million :) xx

And to my 'Saturday Sew-in' - I think I was up in the loft for about 8 hours ... doesn't time fly when you're having fun? I did stop for a little lunch:

But mostly I was pinning and sewing and ironing open a million seams:

It's taking lots of time ... really lots of time but I'm enjoying the different stages of seeing it come together and I totally love the bright colours - thanks again, dear Carla, for the giveaway jelly roll, though part of me wishes I'd chosen an easier quilt to use it on! But this is intended as a special gift, so it's worth it. This is where I'd got to by 7:10pm last night:

Now I can see it nearly finished, I've chosen this (out of the 42? possibilities) fabric for the background:

I guess my question to my few devoted readers is, 'how should I quilt it?' You know I don't have a variety of quilting in my repertoire but I'm not sure that my usual FMQ stippling / meandering will be the best for this one ... HELP!!

Lots of little finishes :)

Happy Weekend, everyone :)

I haven't made any more progress on piecing this jelly roll quilt this week but I have at least finished cutting and sewing all the 150+ units and am planning to sew all day tomorrow to piece as much of the top as I can! Here are the smaller units in all their finery:

Last Saturday, I sewed my first ever zips and made 3 quilted iPad cases. I only meant to make one (as a birthday gift) but I immediately fell in love with my 'first born':

so I just had to make some more: 

And I was asked to make three more bunny cushions after this one I made for the church raffle was such a big hit. I had just enough of the Peter Rabbit fabric left over to make this one:

But no matter how hard I tried, I could not find any more of this fabric - anywhere :( don't you just hate it when that happens? So after a bit more searching on t'internet for 'bunny fabric', I found an alternative that is more than acceptable:

I left the loft to get some coffee and when I came back, this bundle of furry loveliness was in my seat and would not move:

So I played around with the colours and eventually discarded the blue and just stayed with the peach and green and here are the finished cushions:

And silly me for turning my back again on her gorgeousness, 'I'm just trying them out for you, Mummy!'

I moved her along and managed to tempt her to nestle down again:

Have a great weekend - stay warm - happy sewing :) linking up with the gracious Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday 

Proper WIP :D

I first blogged about making this quilt a couple of weeks ago - at that point I queried whether it was an actual WIP or just an IIMH (my new acronym - idea in my head!) Well, after all my selecting, measuring, cutting, piecing and head-scratching this week ... I do believe this definitely now qualifies as a 'proper work in progress' :)

In case you don't want to visit my previous post, this is the quilt I'm making from the Jelly Roll I won from the lovely Carla:

The pattern, 'Stormy Weather' features in this book, by the very talented mother and daughter team, Pam and Nicky Lintott and, whilst it was a slow start, I'm now on a (jelly!) roll! (note to self: must not laugh out loud at own jokes!): 

Because my Jelly Roll isn't predominantly one colour as in the pattern, I did experience a little 'too much choice-anxiety' and umm'ed and ah'ed for ages at separating the strips but, eventually, I put on my big-girl's pants and just got on with it:

Took a while to sew the 48 x 4-patch blocks but thank goodness for chain-piecing:

Once all 48 units were made, I started to trim them down to 4 1/2" even though I'm not sure they needed it. Trouble is, once I started, I couldn't stop and when you look at the little pile of trimmings at the end of it, I don't know whether I'd bother in the future. Would you:

Then on to the tricky bit :( The pattern calls for using one of these triangle rulers which I don't have (much to DH's surprise, "I thought you had every quilting contraption on the market!") Hmmm ... obviously not my dear:

Tried being clever and cut out the first 2 triangles without measuring and I realised after sewing them together, it was too small - 4 of these were not going to amount to a 4 1/2" finished square in a square. But, I'm no quitter so I practised different angles and sizes by cutting on scraps but it just wasn't working  ... this was going to be easy. I knew some clever quilter out there would have blogged about this - I didn't need to buy another ruler and wait a week for it to be delivered. So, thank you Google and KarrieLynn of Freckled Whimsy - I finally found your HST tutorial from 2010 which told me to sew both sides of the jelly roll together and use an ordinary square ruler like this:

Brill ... but ... the pattern said I should have got 24 HSTs out of the strips and this was all that was left after cutting 20:

Never mind, that's what a healthy stash is for! See DH - told you there was a very good reason for me buying fabric 'just in case!' I went for plain black and lilac polka dots so as not to clash with the black and purple patterns and colours in the jelly roll. Think it works ok - do you! 

And, sometimes you just have to photograph the back of a block:

I had a go at the 3rd unit - this wasn't as tricky as I thought it would be ... again, it just took a bit of time. You have to mark the back of the squares with a triangle template then sew 8 of them to a strip. The pattern doesn't call for pinning but I did:

No blocks to show you yet, as it takes a bit of time to cut and sew the individual units that make up a block. But I will get some done over the next few days so please come back for a visit soon :)

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday.

Plans for March ...

Have been hopping around the wonderful blogs I follow after getting home from work tonight ... oh, that makes me happy :) 

I don't know if it's the same for you but if I'm not sewing, the next best thing surely is drooling over reading about other people's sewing and looking at all those pretty pictures! 

I've been reading through all the different projects being planned at Shanna and Melissa's 'A Lovely Year of Finishes'. If you haven't been over to have a look, you really must ... there's already over 120 quilters who are linking up to share their project(s) for March. 

I missed out joining in the fun in February - it was a short month, work was crazy and we were away two weekends - I did finish a few things in February (but I didn't plan them in advance so didn't link up in time) - no such excuses this month!

I'm going to finish a little jelly roll quilt this month - here's all the lovely fabric just waiting to be cut up:

Are you joining in the fun??

Good Morning indeedy!!

What a wonderful start to the day - Mr Postie has delivered the most AMAZING parcel :)  :)   :)

Naughty naughty Carla (@ Creatin' in the Sticks) but I love you! Oh, you should have seen my face when I opened the parcel - not only did I get my fabby prize from your Blogiversary Giveaway:

... can't wait to 'tap and unwrap' that jelly roll gorgeousness but you sent me all this other lovely stuff toooooooo:

The 'Sparkly Red Shoes' card is just beyond fantastic - I shall keep it forever! And the fat quarters, thread and ribbon - all pink! And the Deputy badge from Dodge City ... just too funny :D

Thank you, Carla for being very generous and so thoughtful ... you have made my day. Can you tell?!?!