A little bit of progress

I've begun to quilt my Strawberry Patch Quilt. I started by echoing around the anvil blocks with I think really helps to accentuate the pattern. 

I think it needs something in the centre of the blocks to finish it off. Otherwise there's a clear 9" across the middle without quilting which I think is a little too much. I bought this stencil from The Fat Quarters but I'm struggling to quilt it.

It's only 3" big so the curves are very tight and I can't seem to get them right. I'll have another couple of tries before I give up. This week I've also completed a long over due task. I made these two cuties for my twin nieces for Christmas 2009.

 Last year they were given back to me in desperate need of some TLC. I've patched them up and they're ready for round two. I didn't want the twins' big sister to feel left out when I gave them back so I made her a little friend too.

He's from the latest Tilda book and I think he turned out super cute. I hope they last a little longer this time!

WIP Wednesday No. 3

I'm getting back to normal after the crazy 30th birthday and The Festival of Quilts. I had an job interview yesterday that I am very hopeful about so I'm treating myself to a couple of sewing days.

Strawberry Patch
The top is all finished and it's in the process of being layered over the kitchen table. Need to think of a quilting plan now. I might try and do a nice motif in the centre squares of the anvils. It turned out well on my Verna quilt.

Hexalong
I picked out the shot cottons I wanted to use to go with my dots and I mixed in a couple of Amy Butler solids that I had in my stash because there were no greens. I think this is a good balance now.

I'm enjoying matching the colours to the spots and so far I've made 3 spotty hexagons. They take me hours because I only seem to be able to do tiny little stitches. When I try larger ones they just go wonky!

At the Festival of Quilts I got tempted by these stripes and bought half a yard of each to make some different hexagons to break up the stars.

I made one up to see if I could manage to match the stripes and I think it turned out really well

When I was rooting around in the tool box the other day I found a clamp and decided that this would be a great place to store my hexagons. Keeps my desk clear and gives me a bit of eye candy when I'm working at my computer.

Other projects

• Neutral jelly roll bear paws - Still waiting to be basted and quilted. 
• It's a hoot - After seeing some of the lovely quilts Rita at Red Pepper Quilts has been making with this line I think I'm just going to jump in rather than dithering.
• Tea cosies - I've drafted a larger template for the fish scales so Fishy Fish Fish mark II is on his way. I have also bought monkey fabric so watch out for his face soon.
• Frosted window panes - It's a mystery where that pattern has gone!
• Antique quilt - Found the silk, does that count as starting?

Why not pop over to Freshly pieced to see what everyone else is up to this Wednesday?

WIP Wednesday No. 2

My English paper pieces are all packed up ready to get on the train to The Festival of Quilts. Hopefully I will be buying some solids using the 10% discount voucher I just printed off over at Lilys Quilts so I can start putting these together into hexagons.

I sashed my Strawberry patch quilt. 

There is a 4" border of the background fabric to go on still but I've noticed a bit of a boo boo. The background fabric is so pale that it is hard to tell the difference between the front and the back.

This square in the corner of the anvil is actually pieced in upside down. That's the wrong side of the fabric on the top. I'm going to have to do some tactical unpicking to swap it round.

I have a new challenge. A friend of my mother's has this heirloom quilt. It's entirely hand-quilted on silk with a pale mint colour on the top and a mustard colour on the back. It was given to her by the best friend of her mother and is at least 70 years old.

You may be able to make out some spots of discolouration in the centre of the quilt. Her husband left a pen on it and the ink leaked all over. When she tried to clean it off she's lost some of the colour. There are also some patches of wear where the batting is showing through. 

The plan is to use some of the ivory silk left over from the wedding quilt to make a Dresden plate for the centre and some appliqué shapes to cover the worn bits. Hopefully we can keep this beautiful quilt going a little longer.

Why not pop over to Freshly pieced to see what everyone else is up to this Wednesday?

WIP Wednesday

All the little half-square triangles have been matched up with their central squares to make 42 beautiful anvil blocks. 

I'm just debating how to put them together now. I spent a good hour laying them out on the living room floor last night and playing around with them. I originally planned to sash them and seeing them all together like this shows me that they're a little busy to be next to each other.

Due to the wonders of modern technology I've come up with a couple of layouts. The first is the above layout with 2" sashing between all the blocks. This was the original plan but I'm still not entirely happy. I think it's the lack of symmetry in the design. The second layout shows the same sashing but rotating every other block. For some reason this is a lot more pleasing to my eye so I think this is the one I'll go for. What do you think?

Other projects:

• Neutral jelly roll bear paws - Still waiting to be basted and quilted. 
• It's a hoot - Debating layout. Maybe I'll have to come up with something completely different
• Hex-a-long - Fabric ordered, can't wait to start
• Frosted window panes - Found the pattern, more to come!

Do fish have lips?

Another day, another 5 CVs sent out. Job hunting really is mind numbingly boring. I'm glad I have my quilting to keep me sane.

I finished all the blocks for the Strawberry Patch quilt this afternoon. It turns out the pressing wasn't so bad. The trimming, however, was an absolute nightmare! I spent hours and hours bent over the cutting board as you can probably tell by the large pile of trimmings left over.

I've laid all the blocks out on the floor (I really wish I had a design wall) and balanced all the different values of the prints but I'm going to have a little play on the computer to make some final decisions. Sashing or no? All blocks in the same direction or alternating? Border or no border?

On a completely different theme, I've had tea cosies on my mind for a while now. Remember this one I made for my mum for Christmas?

I kind of copied this one from a cosy I saw in a shop window but it got me thinking about other animals that might work. I did a little doodling in front of the TV, which leads me back to my random blog title: Do fish have lips?

Because that doesn't look quite right!

Work In Progress Wednesday

My plan for doing a colour way every evening didn't work out. Once I'd started cutting and piecing I just couldn't stop. It seems to be ages since I cut fabric, I've been so busy quilting tops I had lying around. So on Monday evening I finished the red colour way (apart from trimming)

And then last night I sat down to do the next batch... First I thought, well I might as well cut them all out so that I can just piece a few every night:

Then when I started sewing and I kept telling myself just a few more, just a couple more, oooh I wonder what the checks look like:

So now they're all done and chopped up and I now have an epic pressing session ahead of me. Time to find something good on the TV to watch while I do it:

Strawberry Fields Forever

I have finally decided on a pattern for my Strawberry Fields quilt. It's another traditional block called Anvil. There seem to be a lot of different blocks going by this name here are a few that I've come across:

 

The block I'm going for is the first one. It requires lots of half square triangles so I guess I'm going to be an expert by the time I'm done. 10 triangles per block x 42 blocks = 420 half square triangles! I used some scraps to mock up a test block before I dared hack into my layer cake and I think it's turned out pretty well.

I've sliced into my layer cake and started with my triangles but I'm going to have to do a few at a time or I'll go insane. One of the nice things about working with Fig Tree Quilts lines is that they come in a number of different colour ways so I can do one colour per evening. Here go the reds!