Bangles Modern Mini Quilt

When Jennifer announced the return of her Modern Mini Challenge, I had exactly the perfect project in mind. And here is my Bangles Mini Quilt.

When I got Sarah Fielke's book Hand Quilted with Love, I immediately fell in love with her Bangles quilt. After the Made to Measure medallion quilt on the cover, it's probably my favourite quilt in there. You know the way a quilt you love just kind of pulls you in and hooks you and you keep having to look at it?

 

But it wasn't a project I saw myself making, for a number of reasons. It is pretty complex in its construction. Firstly, its all cut with templates and that's not my favourite thing to do. Secondly - probably most importantly - it is entirely sewn with inset seams. Just a tad intimidating! And requiring the type of time and patience that I am in short supply of at the moment. And thirdly, it doesn't have a traditional block type construction but is pieced together bit by bit - kind of growing organically. For this, you need to do the entire layout beforehand and you need to be able to leave it laid out and replace pieces as you sew them together in the layout and I just didn't have the space for this - nor would the suggestion of pinning to a sheet and rolling up to store  have worked for little old disorganised me! But despite the complexities I saw with the pattern, I absolutely adored the quilt and returned to look at the pattern over and over, wondering if there was a way I could psyche myself up to try to make it. When I saw the Modern Mini challenge, I knew immediately it was a perfect opportunity to try it on a small scale.

Actually, it was surprisingly achieveable to make and that's because the pattern and instructions are so well written. I used freezer paper to cut the template pieces, not being in possessions of the special rulers, or template plastic. I decided to go for my favourite scrappy type look, and its made almost entirely from my scrap basket. Then I laid it out on my tiny design board and started to sew. I haven't done a whole pile of inset seams - maybe a handful since I started sewing. I can do them, but before, they've generally been a single inset seam among lots of normal seams, rather than a whole quilt of them, with lots of potential for  mistakes. I have to admit I found them quite tricky at times. Some of them went great - and I really got the hang of the technique by the end, but when it came to piecing multiple points meeting - e.g. inserting the hexagons - I found it very challenging to get all my points right and not squished, or pulled, or in completely the wrong place. A milimetre or two out in one place had a knock on impact throughout the line if I wasn't super careful. Honestly, it's by no means perfect, and I think the seams on the back in some places might make the quilt police cry just a little, but I'm pretty happy with it for a first attempt. I don't doubt, after sewing the mini, that I could make this at the size in the book - but I would need to be prepared to commit a lot of time to it, and to really really concentrate on my precision. If you are the sort of sewist who likes intricate projects and has the time, I would definitely recommend this pattern, as it is just such a gorgeous quilt with lots of impact, and well worth the effort.

By the time I trimmed down the quilt top, I realised that I lost some of my colours and others featured more prominently that I intended. But overall I love the scrappy bright quality to this quilt, and I really like how it features some small scraps of my favourite fabrics - some of them from a few years back. (Does anyone else find that reaching the bottom of their scrap basket is a bit like a trip in a time machine?) I quilted it in straight(ish) lines, half an inch apart on the diagonal using (as always) Aurifil 50wt thread (in white this time), and bound it in a dotty black Poplin.The finished quilt measures 18.5" x 16".


In the end, I am really happy with my little mini. One of my aims for this year is to challenge myself and tackle more complex projects because I stuck to such straightforward projects last year with all the pregnancy problems I was having, which became just a bit boring from a sewing persepective. This really fit the bill and made me feel like I expanded my skills a bit. It's also reminded me I don't need to be "afraid" of  complex patterns. But most importantly, I just love the end result and now its hanging with the other minis over my sewing desk to inspire me to keep pushing myself.

I'm linking up with the Modern Mini Challenge over at Jennifer's - hope to see you there :-)

WIP Wednesday

Its been a productive week here at FairyFace HQ, I think maybe the sunshine is making things flow easier and faster! In any case, I have a lot of projects that I've managed to finish/make significant progress on.

In addition to some very satisfying finishes, I have been making progress on my Made to Measure quilt (from the Handquilted with Love book).

 

This is the first medallion quilt I've made and I'm really enjoying the process.  After making the centre and the first border, I decided to add a teal/aqua border with orange and purple pops as I didn't want to get stuck in a pink and orange colour scheme. I doubted this choice a bit, and I really wasn't sure about the purple border 3 when I was making it. But now that I've put on the grey Loulouthi last border (I have been hoarding that print for just the "right" project for a long time!) I am delighted with how its looking, I love the jewel tones. The next border is going to return to pinks and oranges again - the brighter the better! But all those HSTs, especially the teeny tiny ones for the star cornerstones, make for a lot of work so I might take a break for a few days.

I've also been basting hexies in the evenings when I'm sitting down in front of the tv. I cut these from fabrics in my scrap bin one weekend using my Go! Baby when I was trying to make some room in it - I have over 400 of them! I gave some to a friend, and started basting the rest. Not sure what I'm going to make with them yet, but I need a new cushion cover for my sewing chair, and I'm thinking I may use them for that - particularly as there are so many favourite scraps from lovely projects in there. They're small - the sides are only 1" long, but because they are that size, they were perfect for some of the teeny tiny scraps I had.

I'll keep adding to them until I decide! I have a lot more than I need though so I'm running a little giveaway for 100 of them over on Instagram where I am @sewfairyface - head over there and check out my photo for details of how to enter.

This week's finishes include my Kona tumbler quilt:

And my triangular Echo placemats:

I also tackled one of Ayumi's lovely projects in her book Patchwork Please! - the Prettified Pincushion. I found this a little bit tricky to make - mainly because of the tiny little blocks, and working with the Essex linen was a bit different to cotton. (I also think baby brain had a significant contribution to my messing up the blocks more than once). But in the end I rescued it, and it turned out very pretty and is sitting proudly on my sewing table.

So that's my very productive week. Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced! 

Triangular Echo Quilted Placemats

So, about 9 months after starting to make some placemats as a gift, they are finally done! But I think they were worth the wait, don't you?

I originally started these placemats with a completely different pattern and fabrics, but made a complete mess of the quilting - absolutely unrescueable. And I didn't have the energy to start again. But back in March, I was inspired by Leanne's triangles miniquilt, and came up with an idea for triangular shaped placemats. I had a lovely bundle of grey and mustard prints from Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line, to which I added a FMF print that fit right in, and a pale grey Aneela Hoey print.

I made 4 placemats. A part of me really wanted to make 6 - not least for the great hexagon shape they would make when put together - but these are for my brother and his girlfriend and I don't think their table is big enough for 6.

Each of the placemats are different with randomly placed triangles.

They are quilted with white Aurifil 50wt thread on the front, and my favourite silvery-grey on the back. I quilted them in ever expanding triangles, working out from the centre in straight(ish) lines.

I'm really pleased with the textured effect the quilting gives. The lines are very close together - only 1/4" apart, so it's very dense.

For backing I used some Hope Valley on two of them, and the medium grey Riley Blake chevron print on the other two.

These measure approx 16" on each side and are big enough to take my humoungous white dinner plates, so they will work great for a more average sized plate.

I was going for a very modern, minimalist, non-quilty/crafty look as my brother would not be into that sort of thing. I think with the unique shape and the Scandavian type prints, and the cool palette, I achieved that.

They are bound using a dark grey dotty cotton poplin. I was going to use white, but my hubby insisted (when I asked his opinion on them) that they grey would be a better choice and looking at them now, I think he was right (though it pains me deeply to type that!!) I thought I was going to have issues binding those angles and couldnt find any tutes online but it was surprisingly straightforward in the end.

They're all ready to go in the post tomorrow. Another finish, so satisfying. I'm linking this up to the Finishalong too :-) I'm on a bit of a roll with finishes at the moment, more tomorrow!!

Kona Tumbler baby quilt finish

Some time ago the lovely Cindy asked me to make a baby quilt for her shop and promised me the opportunity to pick some lovely fabric to work with. Of course I jumped at it and here it is :-)

This is a very simple quilt made with a couple of charm packs of Kona brights, and 1 fat quarter of the Sweetest Thing. I used this tutorial from Moda Bake Shop.

 It's backed with some lovely bright Kona Peacock.

And I used an orange binding to really make it pop:

 I stippled it using a 50wt Aurifil thread, colour 2600 which is a light silvery grey. I love this thread, it is brilliant for using on quilts with multiple colours as it works with them all and the quilt design sinks in nicely from it once its washed and dried. I also changed up the quilting from my normal by adding in very frequent loops, and I really love them - I'll be doing more loopy quilting in the future.

The front and the back work really nicely together. I have to say that I really love the simplicity of the quilt design with the tumblers and the solids, and I think the pops of the print work well. At 30" x 43" its a lovely baby size too.  I'll feel a little pang posting this one off on Tuesday morning to Cindy as I really fell in love with it while making it. But hopefully someone will fall in love with it as much as I did!

I hope that your weekends are going well. We have a bank holiday weekend here in Ireland and are enjoying some good weather - probably our 1 week of summer before the rain sets in!!

This is one of my finishes for Q2 of Leanne's Finish-a-Long - so good to tick another one off my list.

Teatime Mug Rug: paper piecing experimenting

One thing I have not done a whole pile of is paper piecing. I have done some EPP, but paper piecing with freezer paper I have looked at, admired and bookmarked patterns for, but shied away from actually doing it. It looked like a whole lot of work, to be honest, in a fiddly, tiny piecing kind of way and up to now I wasn't in the place for it.

 

But oh, how things change. I bought Ayumi's book Patchwork Please and have been drooling over the patterns. And I realised I needed to tackle my paper-piecing avoidance issues if I was to have any success with making some of the gorgeous things in her book. I was also taking part in a small mug rug swap with some fellow Irish stitchers, and, knowing that my partner was a tea drinker, I wanted to make a teapot or teacup - and of course, as soon as I searched for a pattern I found Ayumi's teapot pattern. So I decided that it was a sign, and I duly printed off the pattern and set to with the roll of freezer paper.

The thing about paper piecing that intimidates me is all those teeny tiny pieces. And sewing the angles right. But I was brave :-)


I think the most tedious bit is adding the seam allowance to all the pieces on the freezer paper. Once that was done, I flew through most of the rest of it.

I did find it took a few seams at funny angles to really get the hang of where to match raw edges to get the seam sitting right. A couple of the early ones were unpicked multiple times as I just wasn't happy with them - with such small pieces, a few milimetres out made a difference. But once I "got" it, that was it, I was hooked and I understand now why people find it so addictive.

I love the crisp, sharp look of the piecing, and I am really pleased that my version is pretty close to Ayumi's. I see more of this in my future!

I added some embroidery to finish off the quilt top - I had a clear idea in my head of how the steam would make the words. Unfortunately drawing is not my strong point so it doesn't quite look how I thought it would but I think its still ok.

 

Some straight line quilting to emphasise the crispness of the pattern, and I was done.

All ready to be posted off to my partner tomorrow, and I hope she will like it!

A tour of my new sewing space!

I'm so excited to finally be able to write this post and post these pictures of my very own sewing space!!!

Ever since I started sewing 5 years ago, I have been swooning over other people's sewing rooms. I have been stalking Google images and Pinterest, green with envy. Living in a 3 bed semi-D - a fairly standard Irish house (and homes here are so much smaller than in the USA, to my eternal disgust) and having 3 kids, the opportunity to convert one of my rooms was just not there. However, we are lucky to have a separate playroom from our kitchen/diner, and over the last few months a plan formed in my head. The playroom has been home to a big sofabed which primarily functioned as a dumping ground for toys, as well as proper storage for the kids toys and playing space. But as the older 2 got bigger and their toys got smaller, less space was needed for them. And the sofabed was never used. So I hatched a plan. And here is the result!

  

This post is pretty picture heavy - I hope you'll excuse that. I'm just so thrilled and delighted with how my corner turned out that I want to share every last detail. Also - I think its good to see that you don't need a lot of physical space. I have literally one corner & the back wall of a room, and I've found a way to multi-task the space, plus some other space.

Let me show you around :-) First up - my desk. This is the Linnmon/Ullrik table from IKEA. The table top is pretty big - 150cm long and I chose it for the size and the storage. I have enough room to put my laptop to the right of my machine if I'm following a tute online, and still have my fabric etc beside me as I work. The storage in the legs is brill. I have little clear plastic baskets that I use to keep fabric for each project separate. And I have some other baskets and boxes which store various WIPs and supplies like ribbons, purse frames, embroidery hoops, precuts etc. I can also fit my Go Baby and dies in there too, there's way more space than I imagined there would be. I would highly recommend.

A big reason for my bright and happy space is the lovely decor, most of it acquired through swaps!  Kirsten made my sewing machine cover, and Jennifer made my mug rug - aren't they gorgeous! On the wall behind the desk, I have a variety of space saving/organiser type things. I got the little hanging baskets on the rail and the magnetic knife rack in IKEA too. The hanging baskets hold all my thread and my sewing essentials - seam ripper, pens, etc etc. I got some of those little magnetic backed jars too for my binding pins, tape measures etc as well as using the knife rack for storing my cutter and scissors.

I also then have a little shelf holding other bits and pieces - my little boxes of zippers and bindings, pincushion etc. Oh - and my Bliss hearts, which I made years ago for using in my sewing space, whenever I finally got it!

I also have my knitting and sewing needles stored on the desk just under/to the side of the shelf. I picked up the tall vase on sale in Heatons and the other 2 are an old hot chocolate and mustard tin, Mod Podged with some nice paper. You can see them better in the pic below. To the right of the desk, I have an Expedit book case with all my sewing books on display finally. Its nice and wide, so I can fit my sewing basket with my handsewing stuff in there too.

  

The lovely thing about sewing supplies is that they make the best decorations - I just love the perle cotton colours there.

Between the desk and the bookcase is the narrowest of spaces - perfect for my board and rulers and it keeps them nice and straight.

 

I also needed some noticeboard and display space. I googled for a few ideas, and quickly made this fabric covered notice board in an embroidery hoop - it was very simple and is corkboard underneath from an old noticeboard. I made the little pins too with some thumb tacks and buttons and pegs and a hot glue gun (my new favourite thing).

I also put up some hooks (disguised with buttons) and rick rack on the side of the bookcase to hang the little cards etc I get from people in swaps - I love holding onto those.

I added some decorations to the space just for fun. I've been wanting to use this Periodic Table of Sewing Elements by The Scientific Seamstress for the longest time, and it looks exatly like I imagined it would.

I also picked up some cardboard 3D letters in my local craft shop and Mod Podged some fabric on them. I originally was going to put them on the wall, but I left them up on top of the bookcase to dry, and I like how they are there so I think I'll leave them.

 

I have a box on top of the bookcase with all the stuff I really don't want my kids getting their hands on - basting spray, staple gun, glue gun etc etc. Out of sight, no temptation!

One of my favourite things is the hanging rail I put on the wall - IKEA again. I hate folding up quilt tops after I have finished and pressed them, and they are so pretty out on display. My friend Sonya has a big rail in her sewing room where she hangs her finished baby blankets and it looks gorgeous. I didn't have the space for a big portable one, but this does the job and doesn't take too much space.

I also wanted a design wall but as you can see, I didn't really have enough space for one big enough to do a quilt layout on - even a baby quilt. The other walls in this room are taken up with a big storage unit and a tv and the kids desk, or patio doors. So I reused an old canvas, covered it in an old flannel cot sheet and I have a tiny design wall that I can use for block layouts - it will fit 2 blocks at a squeeze.

I also made some good use of other space in the room. One wall has a large storage unit, and a couple of those shelves are mine for my fabric storage:

I have the quilting fabric on the bottom shelf. The bins hold various cuts - the big one on the left has backing and binding fabric and solids. You can see the lid lifting off the top of my scraps bin in at the very back on the right hand side. I have half yard cuts in front of that, and fat quarters in the bottom tray. On the top shelf I have the bulky stuff, batting, fleece and other dressmaking and decor weight fabrics in the box.

Underneath those shelf, we have a pull out shelf that could function as a desk, and I use that for my cutting table when I'm working:

You can see there that I have baby changing supplies in the little basket hanging from the shelf - that's because its right beside my changing table. As I usually sew when the baby is asleep, I also use the top of the baby changing station as a table to put my little ironing board on:

Bet you won't see that in too many sewing rooms lol! I'm pretty happy with how I can use the space for multiple uses. (and for those of you wondering, I thoroughly clean that baby station after every change and before I bring fabric near it so there's no chance of any little accidents ;-) )

This is now a real family room. Knowing that my desk would get co-opted for drawing by the kids, I invested in a small desk and set of hanging baskets plus a magnetic noticeboard and some storage and now they have their very own arts and crafts corner where they can sit and work when I am sewing.

I also have a Jumperoo for my littlest lady, and she can hang out beside me as I work!  Can you spot her there in the picture?

Lastly, one of the absolute must haves that was pretty much the first thing I planned after the table and bookcase - my hanging wire at the top of the wall where I can display lovely mini quilts that I have received through various swaps. They clip on and off, so I can swap them out as I accumulate more. The ones up there right now (left to right) were made by me, Lennye, Kirsten and Sharon. That wire was put up at the end of a long day and try as we might, we couldn't get it as taut as I wanted. But some day I'll go back and try again so that those minis can hang absolutely straight like I intended!

The thing I love most? The fact that its all mine - I didn't have to check with anyone, I didn't have to refer to anyone else's taste like I would decorating any other space in the house. The other thing I love - it cost me very little. The money from the sofa bed funded the desk and bookcase from IKEA - I think there were a few euro in the difference. I bought some of the accessories etc in IKEA and elsewhere. The rest of the stuff was from either things I had on hand, or other bits and pieces I picked up/reused. I think in total my new space probably only cost me about €50, which was brill as I have a tight budget on maternity leave.

I also need to say a few huge thank yous - first up to my brother and his girlfriend who went to IKEA with my list, picked the stuff and arranged for delivery to me (as its 3 hours away from me). And that was a long list, because we got a lot of other furniture for the house too! But mainly to my lovely hubbie who put everything together for me and did all the necessary DIY to get the stuff up on the walls - he did a brill job, and even though I know I was a pain in the ass about where stuff was to go etc, he never complained once.

So. There you have it. My new sewing space. I have pretty much everything sorted out at this stage - I just need to organise my yarn supplies which I have a space earmarked for. And, now, at last, I can get back to sewing instead of organising!

Linking up to Show And Tell Tuesday: