A Week of Little Finishes

So now it’s nearly November, I guess I’m allowed to mention the C word… yes, Christmas will be upon us before we know it! Having missed the festive boat last year with Christmas Fairs, I’ve managed to get in nice and early and book myself a wooden cabin at the Stockton Sparkles Christmas Market. This is a four-day event on the last weekend of November, yep… FOUR DAYS!!! Ahhh!! What have I done!!?

As you can imagine my lists of products to design, make and finish increase daily, I’m even pushing myself to do some bunting to decorate the cabin – I do not enjoy making bunting!

 
This week I have been adding to my novelty pencil case collection, these come together quite quickly, so always very satisfying. I especially like the dotty ones, I may have to make more of those…

We also had a family party this week, our great niece turned one, so I thought I’d look back at my past Love Patchwork & Quilting mags to find a cute present. One of her only words so far is "Dog", which she shouts at anything that moves, so I thought this adorable sausage dog would be perfect. Unfortunately in my haste to get him finished, I forgot to take a decent shot.

I would like to end this blog with news of someone else’s finish. A few months ago I had a lovely phone call from a Doughty’s customer who I used to talk to regularly. She had bought this cute Winnie the Pooh fabric and wanted some ideas for a quilt to make for her granddaughter. I looked up the fabric online and thought it would be ideal for some fussy cutting, sewn into simple framed squares using co-ordinating fabrics. I wrote down a few measurements and suggestions and posted them off. To my delight, I recently received a lovely letter and picture of this gorgeous quilt. Iris also included some swatches of the co-ordinates used to give me a better idea. Isn’t this so lovely!? I hope you can see the quilt well enough here, I was so chuffed to have been of help! Well, I suppose you can take the girl out of Doughty’s…

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts and Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's Bee Social - come and say hello!

Dog Gone Cute QAL Complete!

Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts is a Canadian quilt designer I have admired from afar for a while now – her Elephant Parade pattern has always been on my to-do list. So when she launched her latest pattern, Dog Gone Cute, with a QAL I just had to join in the fun.

When thinking about the fabrics to use in this beautiful project, I thought I would start with my current favourites, my luscious Kona solids, with white for the dogs and grey as the background… I thought these would look great and very colourful for a child’s wallhanging which was my intention. 

I decided to make up my first block, just to get the hang of the pattern. As I only needed small pieces I raided my scraps from a previous project, and for some reason picked the lighter grey instead of the darker one. As you can see this was a mistake, far too close to the white so that pup loses its outline.

Still, I loved making the block, Lorna’s pattern is so easy to follow, and I love this stitch and flip method - her piecing is just genius!

So then I thought, what about using some patterns instead of solids… and while hunting for some plain pink and black for the ears, eyes and nose, I came across these lovelies from Louden’s Flitsy range that I'd forgotten about – it is scary when you forget what you’ve bought!

So I tried out my first doggy, deciding on the larger block – I was very please with the outcome, isn’t he sweet! Is it sad to cooo and giggle to yourself when sewing… especially when you’re all alone??

Anyway, I then made another two, and laid them out for a wall hanging – but they needed something else…. Since discovering this flip and stitch method, I have been working on some new cushion designs for Christmas, including these two – I live in Middlesbrough if that explains anything… 

....I really enjoyed how the letters came together, so decided to work out a plan for “Dog Gone Cute” to add to my wall hanging. If you would like to add the lettering to your own project, I have the cutting and piecing instructions here.

So once the panel was all pieced together, I had to decide on the quilting… I recently finished a quilt for a new kit with wavy lines across the whole top, and had forgotton how much I love the quilting process, so I decided to have some fun, and as Angela Walters would say, “quilt the life out of it”!

I started with vertical lines on the dogs, just so they would stand out against the rest, then I echo quilted each of the letters. Then came the background, after consulting my FMQ heroines, Angela and Leah Day, I decided on this dense pattern on the top dog. However, I’m sorry to say I actually got a little bored… so I came over all artistic and decided to slowly thin out the quilting lines, turning them into loop-da-loops in the second dog, and then down to simple wavy lines in the last dog. I think it’s worked really well, I hope you agree.

Lorna has been kind enough to share instructions for these gorgeous blocks on her blog, so why not have a go yourself. And if you would like some more inspiration, check out the rest of today's bloggers:

 
Sandy of Upstairs Hobby Room
Heide of Heide’s Quilty Hugs
Britt-Inger of Hill Valley Quilter

Judy of How ART You?

Linking up with Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilt's Finish It Up Friday and Free Motion Mavericks - come and say hello!

A Finished Quilt = A New Quilt Kit

Are you allowed to fall in love with one of your own quilts?? I had an inkling in the back of my mind to make my All Squared Up quilt into a kit, just as I’ve done with my Beginner’s Quilt. So when I came across this gorgeous Riley Blake range called Fancy Free at Doughty’s, I knew they would look great in this quilt.
I hope you agree, I think I was spot on! How cute is this quilt?! I can just imagine it on a little girl’s bed in a bright sun-lit room, or snuggled up around her on a wintery afternoon.

So this is my next pre-cut quilting kit, which will be available in my shop soon, as well as on Folksy and Etsy – once I get a bright enough day to take some decent pics! Why is it only sunny when I’ve got nothing finished to photograph!

This kit will include all the pre-cut 2½” strips in both pattern and white fabrics, plus the borders and binding strips, that you need to complete the top. There is also thread for piecing and full instructions. If you need a little more help, there are links to my free online tutorials that will help you with cutting and sewing, and also take you through making this quilt with plenty of photos.

Today I am linking up with FinishIt Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts – come and say hello.

test