A Sizzix rainbow chevron quilt

I have been using my Sizzix Big Shot again to help me make a quilt and I absolutely love this one. I made it for a raffle at church as we are having a day for "Dress A Girl Around the World" ( a great charity helping to clothe some of the poorest children in the world) and so we wanted to raise money to buy fabric, elastic and bias binding. The great news is that we raised £165 through the quilt raffle. The quilt was so eye-catching that lots of people wanted to win it and , to be honest, I was a little sad to see it go (but I could always make another one!)

I found this tutorial for a chevron quilt which looks great. It uses strip piecing which would make this quilt even quicker to put together. However, my cutting out is always terrible (I even managed to make a wobbly Log Cabin square once) and so I put my quilt together using a Sizzix rectangle die (2" x 4" finished size). I found that 1 fat quarter can be cut into 24 rectangles but some of my fabric pieces were a little smaller than a fat quarter so my quilt is 22 rectangles wide. 

I started with a stack of rectangles and sewed 11 lilac rectangles to 11 red rectangles. Then I sewed the remaining 11 red rectangles to 11 yellow rectangles in pairs and continued like this through the stack of fabrics. I laid out the fabric pairs on the floor to create the chevron pattern like this.

Each diagonal row is then sewn together and looks like this.

Then the rows are sewn together like this.

Eventually the quilt top looks like this - so pretty!

I finished the quilt by quilting in the ditch along the zig zag rows which was really effective and used a turquoise fabric to bind the edges.

One of the problems I had with the original tutorial was that it didn't give the finished dimensions for the quilt. Then ,after I gave the quilt away, I realised I hadn't measured mine either! This quilt has 22 rectangles across the quilt and there are 23 rows. I think the finished quilt measured approximately 40" x 50".

Ten little rubber ducks quilt

Another cot quilt from me and this one was very over due for a baby born last summer but I was pleased to get it done before Christmas. I made a Hungry Caterpillar quilt for the baby's big brother and so I was excited to find more fabric based on illustrations from other Eric Carle books. However the other ranges don't seem to be available in the UK and so I bought this fabric from the States via a seller on Etsy.

This quilt is made from 3 different fabrics. The animal panels were on one fabric, the mother duck and ducklings and the numbered duck outlines were on another and then there was the lovely ducks on the water fabric around the border.

It was a fairly simple quilt to put together with squares and rectangles. I did some free machine embroidery in wavy lines on the white panels and I really like how this turned out.

I also quilted around each of the animals and each duck. I wasn't looking forward to quilting the octopus with all his wavy legs, but he turned out to be my favourite panel at the end. The quilting really brought him to life!

A Sizzix tumbler block quilt

 A friend of mine recently had a baby girl and I wanted to make her a cot quilt. Before she was born I started to make one using Dr Seuss fabric but when I saw the photo online of such a beautiful baby girl (with a very pretty name) I felt like I wanted to make something much more girly.  I have a few quilt dies for my Sizzix Bigshot, in fact it's the reason I bought the Bigshot in the first place so I could use it for quilts as well as papercrafts. I got out my tumbler block die and the Bigshot machine with a selection of girly fabrics and away we went. My daughter even helped by winding the handle on the machine.

This is probably the quickest quilt I have ever made as I started cutting it out at 11.30 in the morning and I was quilting it at 10 in the evening. The shape of the tumbler die makes the quilt look far more complicated than it really was. I only bought this die originally because it was on special offer but now I love it.

I googled three butterfly outlines which I traced onto Bondaweb and used to add the applique shapes.

I did simple quilting in the ditch with a little free machine stitching around the butterflies. I went around the butterflies three times as I've found that if the stitching line is wobbly but repeated a few times it looks like you've done it on purpose!

I really enjoyed putting together this quilt and I will definitely be making more Sizzix quilts. Cutting out accurate pieces has never been my strong point but this machine solves that.

2013 - A few of my favourite things

As it's nearly the end of 2013 I thought I would have a little look back at my favourite things of this year....

My favourite scrapbook page

This was inspired by a tutorial video from Creative Jumpstart 2013. I am very excited that Creative Jumpstart 2014 will be starting tomorrow. I love the comic book look of this page

A Breakfast fit for a superhero

 My favourite new craft

I have had fun starting to discover felting this year (and I only managed to stab myself in the finger twice! ). Father Christmas even bought me a lovely new needle felting brush mat, so I won't have to felt into a sponge and peel it off afterwards anymore. I think Father Christmas may have had advice from my Mum.

A celebration postcard

My favourite photo

I took this photo while we were on holiday in Paris and I managed to get all three kids looking at the camera and smiling - hurray! How did we achieve this? My other half was standing behind me and licking my head to make them laugh!

Can you see a resemblance...

My favourite song

My favourite song this year is "Little talks" by "Of Monsters and Men". I love all the different instruments used in this and I think it is definitely a "jangly" song ( This word has been used to describe other music I like).

My favourite kids craft

This was the most fun. Paper plates + paint+ salad spinner = spin paintings!

Spin painting

My favourite book

A perfect blend of modern policing with a large dose of fantasy.

Rivers of London

 My favourite quilt

A pirate quilt for a pirate themed nursery, with my own pattern for the paper pieced boats.

A pirate quilt

 My favourite film

Star Trek:Into Darkness - A fantastic sci-fi film with the added bonus of Mr Benedict Cumberbatch!

And a New Year's Resolution to finish the year... I will try to finish all the online craft workshops I am halfway through!

A quilt commission

Last November a friend of mine asked if I could make a wall quilt for his parents' ruby wedding anniversary. I was a little hesitant to agree as most people don't understand how expensive quilts can be or how much time they can take to make. We had a chat about it and agreed a sensible price which I was happy with - then he told me his Mum had already sent fabric samples and the dimensions she would like!

I finished the quilt this weekend - hurray! Just in time for meeting up with my friend who had commissioned it for a picnic on Saturday. The finished quilt measures 40" x 50" and the block comes from the book " 40 bright and bold paper pieced blocks" by Carol Doak. This pattern is called Carol's block. I chose this block as I have done it before and so I knew it would work well and it doesn't have a lot of pieces to each block - although this quilt still has 640 pieces of fabric in it.

I am pleased to say that the quilt was very well received. 

A pirate quilt

I have finished a cot quilt for a little boy (who is now 6 months old- oops!) who has a pirate themed bedroom. I had fun putting this quilt together. There are some great pirate fabrics around. I chose a pirate print, a skull and cross bones pattern, along with waves and pirate treasure ( and a map fabric for the back). I had the woodgrain fabric in my stash from years ago.

I continued with my idea of keeping it simple so I can get it finished and appliqued a big pirate ship for the middle. I made my own paper piecing pattern for three little boats, which I am really pleased with.

I mostly quilted following the straight lines but then I also added a little free-motion quilting by sewing some waves in the sea...

... and some clouds in the sky.

Here's the treasure map on the back. I think this might be my favourite bit!

A Winnie the Pooh quilt

A friend of mine had a baby boy recently and she loves Winnie the Pooh so it seemed an obvious choice of fabric for a cot quilt. I love making cot quilts for new babies and over time I have learnt to simplify my designs for the quilts so that I manage to get the quilts finished sometime before the baby's first birthday!

This cot shows one of my favourite ways of getting lots of quick detail into a cot quilt, which is starting with a fabric panel that is supposed to be sewn into a book. I measured the "book pages" on the panel and designed my quilt around those dimensions. I bought more Pooh bear fabric for the little squares to go with the book panel.

I stitched the yellow and green check fabric in strips around each panel before stitching it all together with the Pooh bear squares and white sashing. I felt the design looked a little plain when I had sewn all the panels together and I had a couple of panels left with some characters on so I appliqued Winnie the Pooh with his umbrella near the bottom of the quilt and Tigger peeking out near the top.

Then it came to the quilting and I used my walking foot to quilt horizontal and vertical lines and either side of the brown border around each picture. I then used my regular machine foot with a quilting guide to quilt the lines onto the white sashing and around the applique characters. I finally changed the machine foot again for a darning foot and did some free machine embroidery around each cloud that appeared in the pictures.

For the back of the quilt I used some lovely soft flannel ( flannelette)  with more Pooh bears on - perfect for a baby quilt.

I completed most of the quilt before the baby was born as I had a plan to sew pink or blue binding around the edge after we knew baby was a boy or girl - as you can see I went for blue!

Maisy Mouse Quilt # 3

I made a third version of a Maisy Mouse quilt recently for some friends' baby girl. This is my last Maisy quilt as I have finally used up my original fat quarters pack I bought last year. Maisy quilt design #1 is here and Maisy quilt design #2 is here.

I've been trying to keep cot quilts very simple recently so that I can actually get them finished before the baby's first birthday! This design is pieced together with squares and strips with Maisy circles appliquéd over the top. I had some strip pieced border strips leftover from quilt #2 to go around the edges. I quilted around some paper star templates in the centre of each square of four.

Some spotty blue stars for the back and some pink polka dot fabric for the binding.

A Snorkel quilt

A little while ago I found a pack of fat quarters from The Snorkel range by Cosmo Cricket. I love the Cosmo Cricket fabrics and I'm particularly pleased they are now working with Moda so the designs are much easier to get hold of. This was one of their older fabric ranges so I was really happy to find it. I knew they would be the perfect fabrics to make a quilt for my friends' new baby boy, who lives near the seaside.

I started with the background and picked out all the blue and fishy fabrics. I cut them into 3" strips and stitched them together.

I used bondaweb to stick down the fishy shapes, eyes and bubble circles. A zig zag stitch was used to go around each fish using navy thread to make the fish stand out.

Every time I make a quilt I try a new technique and this time it was my quilting. I'm trying to get a bit more inventive with my quilting as I usually just quilt in straight lines across the whole piece. I used my darning (free motion) foot and pinned card circles in various sizes onto the quilt as a stitching guide. I really like this quilting technique and I definitely think it adds to the finished look of the project. I used more navy thread and the darning foot to stitch around the bubbles and to add details to the fishes.

I've been trying to take better photos of my quilts, usually by taking them out into my garden. However I had to lay this one on the floor as I was going to see my friend and wanted to take the quilt but it has been raining  here for weeks - so outdoor photoshoots were out of the question.

My friends love the quilt and their little boy's bedroom already has a seaside theme - yay!

A peek at a scrapbook quilt

Issue 4 of Scrap 365 has just arrived and I'm excited to say that it features a scrapbook quilt by me. Here's a little peek at the quilt.

Crafting Sun-rays

We've had some lovely days of winter sunshine recently with clear blue skies and frosty ground. It seems like a great time of year for some sunny yellow crafting. Julie Kirk is running a month of yellow inspiration over on her fabulous "notes on paper" blog. Julie has lots of suggestions for yellow scrapbooking, cardmaking and wearing yellow too.

I've joined in with a bit of yellow card making this week. I have recently finished two Maisy Mouse cot quilts for friends who have had baby girls and I wanted to send some cards with the quilts. The top card uses the lovely bright colours from Cosmo Cricket's Delovely collection.

The card below uses more Cosmo Cricket papers from the Togetherness collection with some Material Girl stickers. This card is for a family who have a little boy and now have a baby girl, so I think the birds work really well.


Here's one of the Maisy Mouse quilts which was inspired by a pattern on the Moda Bake Shop blog. It's a great place for fantastic free quilt patterns. I'm particularly excited by this one here and I hope to be attempting it later in the year.

More yellow on the back of the quilt...

I've made another quilt similar to this one before, but I still love it.

A Maisy Mouse Quilt

I've been a bit quiet on here lately and it's not because I haven't had crafty things to write about, it because I've been crafting so much that I haven't sat down much. A friend is organising a craft fair in a couple of weeks and I have a table. At the moment all the things I want to sell are still ideas in my head - don't panic! I've spent this week working on a Scrap365 project - I'm so please with it but you'll have to wait a couple of months to see it!

I've also managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing to make a little quilt for my friends' new baby girl.

I found some fantastic Maisy Mouse fabric which works so well and is really bright and colourful. It's also the perfect match for her older brother's Hungry Caterpillar quilt I made a couple of years ago.

Here's the flower in the centre made in a Dresden Plate style.

I used some lovely multicoloured thread to free machine quilt some flowers...

I parcelled up the quilt with a little Maisy Mouse book and this card, which I made using the Cosmo Cricket papers "Odds and Ends"

Crafting around the edges

A popular theme for crafty blog posts is WOYWW (or "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday") and so this post should probably be titled WOYLFT (or"What's On Your Lounge Floor Thursday"). This shows an update on how the big quilt I'm working on is coming along. I've sewn all the diamonds onto papers (nearly 800) and so now I can start stitching them together.

My lounge floor...

This is a great example of "crafting around the edges" which is how I get anything done. Most of my time is spent looking after my three kids and the general tidying, cooking and washing that accompanies that but I squeeze in crafting whenever I can. I have this basket of sewing so I can stitch a few diamonds together given a spare half an hour. I organise my photos into scrapbook kits with coordinated papers and embellishments and sometimes a sketch too, so that I can whip a page up if I find a spare hour. I also have sketch books for jotting down ideas as I find I have quite a bit of thinking time in the day but not a lot of sitting at my desk. Now the kids are getting a bit older they like to sit next to me and create alongside me. I've now introduced the girls to Fimo, so I can play along with them - they particularly like winding the handle on the pasta machine for me!

Do you have any top tips for squeezing in crafting into your day?

A quilt motif

A couple of weeks ago our photography prompt on Picture Inspiration was to take a photo with the title "Motif". It took me ages to think of anything and I was about to give up when I saw the light shining through my patchwork blind. I thought my motif could be squares and so I took this photo.

I haven't taken a good picture of this quilt before and it looks particularly good when the light shines through as it resembles stained glass. This patchwork took my mum and I a year and a half of Sunday afternoons about 12 years ago. The pattern comes from Kaffe Fassett's book "Patchwork" (It's the pattern on the front cover). I went to a talk by the man himself a few years ago and asked him to sign the book for my mum. I told him how long we'd taken to make the blind and he said he wasn't surprised as it was a complicated pattern and that's why they had made it into a small blind rather than a larger piece! Our blind is twice the size of his one!

Simeon's quilt

We recieved an e-mail to tell us about the arrival of our friends' little boy and I knew I wanted to make him a quilt. I've made quite a few cot quilts over the past couple of years and they normally take me a few months but this time I wanted to set myself a more realistic goal. However I also try to learn something new with each quilt I make and so I was very pleased to have achieved both goals with this quilt. I bought some lovely Buttercup Farm fabric (inspired by my own little boy's current love of everything to do with farm animals) and set out a simple quilt pattern with some strip-pieced squares. I even found some chicken fabric hiding in my stash!

My new technique for this quilt was free motion quilting. My mum bought me a Big Foot sewing machine foot a while ago and I've been nervous of trying it. This month there was a great tutorial in Quilting Arts which gave me the courage to have a go. I love it!! There will be lots more free motion sewing from me this year, especially since Kirstie Allsopp referred to it as "the crack cocaine of the crafting world" after she had a go on "Kirstie's Homemade Home". Here's my first attempt, on the white border in the quilt.

I started this quilt on Saturday afternoon and finished it on Tuesday evening.