Fabric, fabric

I have an embargo on buying any fabric at the moment since this month has involved the demise of our washing machine, and will involve the horror of the car's MOT test and inevitable enormous bill. (Having said that there is likely to be a break in the embargo tomorrow when I go to the Scottish Quilt Fair...)

Anyway, I've been using up fabric in my stash to make round bottomed bags.   This one, in yarn-dyed linen, has an EPP Liberty hexagon flower on both sides:

And this one has pockets all around:

They were surprisingly easy and satisfying and I thought I might put some pics on how I made them in an upcoming post.

Even if I manage to rein in the spending tomorrow,  my stash will be enhanced by a very lucky win.  How fab!  There are some other lovely giveaways on the go at the moment:

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting is offering a giveaway of four fat quarters from the Oh Deer line.
• Maureen Cracknell Handmade and Canton Village Quiltworks are offering this giveaway of Summer Love fabrics by Pat Bravo
• There's a giveaway from Marmalade Fabrics over at Plum and June which finishes today - be quick!

I'm just heading over to check out the latest stops on the Let's Get Acquainted blog hop:

Sep 18
       Lina from Smultronbo's Pieceful
       Chase from 1/4" mark

Sep 20
        Jen from Closet Quilter
        Anna from Pink Padme

I ♥ Liberty and Bluejeans

With the last quilt (which I thought of as Sea and Sand but is now christened Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows, thanks to Moira) out of the way I've had a bit of time for another project.

I like the texture and colour of blue denim and finding different ways of recycling old jeans (earlier attempts here) and I love the contrast of tough and delicate fabrics, so I thought I would make a jeans and Liberty cushion cover using reverse applique to showcase favourite scraps.  This is part of the grand plan to try and learn something new with each make.

It took a disastrous first attempt, and a lot of night time pondering but I made this.  I'm so happy with it!

There are some picture-heavy details below if you would like to find out more.

Sneaky Peak

Really Random Thursday

Reasons to be cheerful and random bits and pieces from this week:

While the children were being spoiled rotten at aunty's, we got to go off  hill-walking!   Striding along unencumbered is something I sometimes miss from pre-children days so it felt a bit like that moment of liberation at the airport when you've checked in all your baggage - both baggages in my case:-) - and are free to wander around knowing that it's all taken care of.

There was some of this:

and quite a lot of this:

I love these beautiful textures on a fallen tree:

...and this rock with its signs of the amazing heating, heaving and folding that went on millions of years ago:

Amazing colours reminded me I haven't seen many butterflies this year:

Peacock butterfly

There was a little building in the woods:

with a magic door:

It appeared much bigger inside than outside:

and led, quite unexpectedly, to a balcony:

with a view over a waterfall!

It was like something in Narnia.

Then there was this - can you guess what it is?

It's an ell! This one dates from 1706, and would have been used for measuring fabric, among other things.

Flippin' ell (Sorry. Appalling British pun.)

There was quite a lot of photographing of a finished quilt - a big thanks for some really helpful suggestions and supportive comments while I was dithering about this one:

How to photograph a quilt is an art in itself and Amanda Fabric Engineer's post made me laugh.

And...there was some of this:

Hooray for triple ace cake!

I'm linking up to Live a Colorful Life.   I love this feature - full of glimpses of different lives in different parts of the world.

Latest stops on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop are great, as always.  Please check out:

Sep 4
      Lorelei from Mermaid Sews
      Leoni from Strandkorbtraum

Sep 6
       Tessa from The Sewing Chick
       Bethany from Make Me A Quilt

Sep 11
        Anne from SpringLeaf Studios
         Kristy from Cotton Addiction

Sep 13
         Julie from That's Sew Julie
         Chelsea from Pins and Bobbins

Ta Da!

I know that brown is not everyone's cup of tea, and that there is nothing in the slightest bit cutting edge about this quilt, but it is finished and it is the first quilt I have made for me, and I really like it.  It will fullfil its destiny keeping toast crumbs off the sofa until I make a better one!

After asking advice about whether to add more quilting to the centre section I eventually took it as a sign to stop when I ran out of thread!  The borders are in linen from my local fabric shop and the side ones are quilted in bog standard tan cotton thread.  It was going to be backed with linen but I ran out  (a theme seems to be developing here....) and used cheapo extra-wide sheeting.

Having quilted this and this without it, I am totally smitten with my new walking foot.

There is no binding - I wanted a "quiet" unfussy quilt - then last night I saw this post so I just ripped 2 inch strips from the left-over sheeting, folded them as for usual binding, stitched them to the front using a quarter-inch seam and pulled them all the way to the back.  It was the easiest thing to do except that I made a mess of the miters (can't get a good picture of that;-)

Stats:

• Coloured section: Amy Butler, with some Kate Spain and Joel Dewberry thrown in along with a couple of odds and sods
• Thread: 30 weight variegated Sulky in blue/greens on top and on bobbin
• Borders: sand linen
• Thread: 100% cotton in brown
• Backing: extra wide cotton sheeting
• Binding: none

Things I learned:

• Spray basting is just the best!
• To test-drive a walking foot on scraps of batting in order to get the tension right
• To use different weight threads for effect 
• That you don't have to bind a quilt 
• That I love linen
• That coffee and quilting is Not a Good Combination

The mark of shame

Linking to Fabric Tuesday

This weekend we visited the Mela - multicultural festival - in our local park, so I got to sit on the grass, in the sunshine (yay!) and eat one of my favourite things:

Masala Dosa

...and watch some great entertainment:

Knife juggling

Would you like to see him suspend a canon ball from his eyelid?

No?  Me neither!  Youngest sprog and I did a runner, leaving my husband and hardier daughter to be amazed and astounded.

Since then, I have made a start on quilting this:

 

I'm doing organic (wonky) line quilting, about half an inch apart, and at the moment I'm not sure whether to do this across the whole coloured panel, or leave it as it is with sections of quilting about four inches apart. What do you think?    If I left it like this, will that be enough to hold it together (warm and natural batting)?   Would it look better with more quilting?

In the end I decided to go for the thicker of the variegated threads I was considering.

So far I like the effect, though I wonder how it would have looked with the sand-coloured thread. 
I also haven't decided whether to quilt the border (sand linen in the thread pic above) with the matching thread, or the variegated one - decisions, decisions!

I want to learn something new with each thing I sew, so this time I tried spray basting.  Let me introduce you to my new best friend!

Have a lovely weekend, and a big thanks to all the Slow Bloggers who joined the linky party last week.  I had a great time reading all your posts!

Upcycling

I was cutting up some old jeans yesterday so I could add (a fancier) one of these to the WIP list

With Susan's post probably in the back of my mind, I thought that the pockets could be recycled into a little pouch.   By good fortune the fly zip was just the right size too.

After a false start ...

(sewing the zip on upside down...)

My youngest and I sewed this (I steered, she drove):

It has a central zipped compartment and - obviously - two outside pockets!  It came with its own embellishment, otherwise we would have decorated it ourselves.  Next time I'm recycling a pair of jeans I'll make another with a shoulder strap, and try covered zip ends.

(If you're looking for the Slow Bloggers linky party, please go here)