Spring time is coming!

It was a beautiful day today with bright blue skies so I thought it would be the perfect time to work on my Verna quilt.

One of the things I love about a quilt in progress is the piles. For a very disorganised person I find great satisfaction in neat piles. Neat piles of rotary cut fabric:

Neat piles after the first seam:

and neat piles of finished blocks:

I managed to get all of the blocks with the cream outside finished today so there are only the inverse ones to go. Fingers crossed I'll get a bunch of sewing done again tomorrow. I'm so much more productive when there's sunshine and birdsong outside my window.

The first cut is always the hardest

I've been hanging on to this Verna Layer Cake for a while now. I love the colours and the patterns, they really make me smile just to look at them. Sometimes when I buy a fabric I get scared of cutting into it in case I ruin it!

I suddenly realised that it would be so much nicer to snuggle under a quilt made out of them than to just get them out and flick through them. I had a play around with Photoshop and came up with a couple layouts. I like the Bento Box but I think it'll be a bit busy with all the different prints (or that might be the migraine talking).

I muddled the blocks around and came up with this second layout. I think it showcases the prints better and doesn't hurt my eyes as much. 

Since they're both made out of the same blocks I thought I would just go for it and I can decide when the blocks are all made. I'm using two layer cakes - the Verna and a Bella solid in snow. A 10" square of each makes two blocks, one with a coloured outside and one with a solid.

A little bit of cutting, some essay avoidance and here are my first blocks:

I'm glad I took the plunge, these are giving me an even bigger grin than the fabrics on their own.

Back to school

I moved back to Durham this weekend to get some work done before term starts next week. Being a university town means that it's eerily quiet around here out of term time but the peace does mean that you end up getting a lot done (the peace and the fact that the bar isn't open!).

I've redesigned my banner (do you like it?) and I've managed to make a start on the quilting of my bear paw quilt.

It's larger than I'm used to (86"x70") and it takes a lot of effort to get it through my little machine but I'm sure it will be worth it in the end. 

I'm the only one in the flat so I've commandeered the kitchen for sewing purposes.

The positives are that I have more space, there's wifi, it's festively decorated with a mixture of Alice in Wonderland and Halloween bunting and the tea and biscuits are only a couple of steps away. On the downside, we live on the ground floor so I have the bored porter lurking outside my window giving me "helpful" advice.

Just before I came back I went to The Fat Quarters and they had 20% off everything! I picked up a jelly roll in Bella neutral colours and started wondering what this quilt would look like with plain paws and a patterned background. It was just too tempting so I bought the jelly roll and some coordinating fabric to have a go.

The fabric is from the Zippity Doo Dah range by Sandy Gervais. Two of the neutrals match the cream and tan confetti pieces perfectly so I can't wait to see how it comes together.

Snow day! (or possibly week)

It's snowed heavily here for 4 days so far which means that I can't work on my research project. In hindsight doing a project on soil treatment over the winter in the North of England may not have been the best plan.

It's left me with a lot of time on my hands which has been spent on my laptop in the college bar. I check the Daily Deal on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's site regularly and the other day they had an offer I couldn't turn down:

It's a Jelly roll of It's a Hoot fabrics by MoMo for Moda. The colours are so fun, they really cheered up my grey miserable snow day so I had a play around with my coloured pencils...

...and ordered it, along with a solid white jelly roll. I think it will make a really great quilt! My coloured scribbles attracted a bit of attention in the bar (the American Football players were particularly nosy) and when I explained what I was doing they all wanted a go. This was Ryan's design

Apparently the red block at the bottom has to have pictures of all of us. Not sure he's quite got the hang of quilt design.

USPS excitement

I came home from work to a big pile of USPS flat rate envelopes.  They're fairly hefty when they're stuffed to the gills - I could barely get through the door!

After some frantic ripping and excited bobbing around (I can't sit still when I'm excited) I discovered my lovely fabric purchases from Missouri Star Quilt Company and Fat Quarter Shop.

This is what happens when you're bored at work and have an active internet connection!  First up is the lovely yardage from Fat Quarter Shop.

The top two are from the Rural Jardin range by French General and the bottom is a Bella Solid in Stone (both from Moda).  I bought the jelly roll at my LQS a couple of weeks ago but I was too late to get enough yardage for backing and she doesn't stock any of the plains which is why I went on an internet spree.  

I came up with an idea and - with some fancy photoshop jiggery pokery - this is what my quilt will look like:

Well, at least this is what it SHOULD look like.  There's no way my points will line up that cleanly!  Next was the package from the Missouri Star girls.  I love their packages because they always have handwritten notes in them.

It's a layer cake of Bella solid in Snow which is going to be put with a Verna layer cake that I've had sitting around for ages.  I'll wave my photoshop wand and try and give you a preview of that quilt too.

Laying out the Strip Twist

I stitched all my jelly roll strips into sets of 4 ordering them dark-light-dark-light in each set.  These were then cut into 8.5" squares and then cut in half diagonally to make the half square triangles.

A couple of hours on the living room floor in front of the Great British Bake Off and a lot of rearranging got me this layout.  I think it's just about balanced but the dark red is very dominant so it a long time to get it evenly spread through the pattern.

What do you think?  Are there any dark or light patches that stand out for you?

A tearful goodbye

I finished the quilt I've been making for a friend at work and I really don't want to say goodbye to it.  I absolutely love it but, since she's already paid me for it, it would be a little rude to run off with it.  Here's the completed quilt.  The pictures aren't the best but the good camera was elsewhere and I don't actually get to see daylight outside of work at the moment so they're the best I can get.

The fabric is all from the Rouenneries range by French General for Moda and I love the subtle colours and patterns.  I kept the quilting simple and echo quilted around the piecing to really bring out the pattern.  It's got a few puckers on the back but I think I'm getting a little better at layering so hopefully they'll be some of my last.

Love it, love it, love it!

I absolutely love the new Rouenneries range from Moda.  Mum bought a layer cake and I took it into work to show a friend.  She fell in love with it too and picked out her favourite five for me to make her a quilt.  These are the five she picked.  Gorgeous, right?

I started cutting it out and it was so lovely that I couldn't stop.  5 hours later, at 3.30 in the morning, I had 6 blocks done and now I love it so much I don't want to give it away.  Sigh...

Excuse the toes.  I had to climb up on the table to get a decent picture.  For future reference, not a good idea at 3.30 in the morning when you are quite exhausted.

A very productive weekend

As I mentioned before the boyfriend was here this weekend which gave me a chance to do some jobs that require two pairs of hands. First job was to put some shelves up in my room. The only things left to unpack since the move are all my boxes of text books and files. They needed some heavy duty shelves and these bad boys are about as strong as they get. Boyfriend could do chin-ups on them.

Second job was to finish off the quilt for Tamara, it should have been done weeks ago but I stupidly calculated the amount of material I needed wrong so I had to wait until I could get back to the shop for a top up. It's done now, though, I just need to find some way of getting it to her. Don't really want to risk the post because of the postal strike.

Here it is anyway, note boyfriends feet at the bottom, He comes in useful as a quilt stand too. It's made from the moda eclectic range and I stuck to two of Tamara's favourite colours. The quilting came out very well, I planned it so that the windmills look like they're spinning on the back but I couldn't get a good picture of it.