2010 November (2)

 

Avoiding the Log Cabin Candle Tree

I have been adopting the suggestion of 15 minutes of play while I am avoiding the Christmas Tree quilt (is this another frog?).

The idea of 15 minutes is just to have fun with no pressure: so for me, whether it is designing on the computer, or stitching a simple embroidery design, or ripping up some more denim... I get my fabric fix and then I can get on with the boring stuff!!!

At home I have been creating other blocks to go with the 18 or so Raw Edge Applique Christmas Trees : just need to decide how best to join them - any ideas?













And at after school club I have getting into Zentangles (and the kids have been doing them too!). Avril gave me the idea as she was doing embroidery that reminded me of Zentangles I don't think I'll progress to the embroidery, but while looking after a room full of monkeys (oops, I mean children) I can doodle :-)

Don't know what I'll do with them though

Post Card Swaps

I've been making Christmas decorations today (but haven't finished trimming, so no photos yet).

I've received my Home postcard swap from Pam K in Utah, USA, made with card, fabric, feathers, beads, photo, text, embroidery silks ... phew - I'm exhausted just thinking about all the work!!!













Thanks Pam :-)

I also received two of the BQL Windows postcards (from Pauline C and Annette in UK) I love the very different thoughts that have been the inspiration for these cards

I won an award!

Teje and her gorgeous Alsatian, Nero, have awarded me a Beautiful Blogger Award... They cant see me blogging in my pyjamas, with my hair unbrushed, but I think even if they could, it's OK as the award is aimed at the blog, not the blogger!

Thank you Teje and Nero

There is a condition to accepting the award - that I have to post 10 things that you didn't know about me. I see the blog really to keep mum and Jackie (my patchwork twin, but she doesn't blog) up to date with what I'm working on, and there isn't much they don't know. However I have some other lovely people who also come and visit my blog and leave comments so maybe the 10 things are more for you guys ... anyway here goes:

1. I was born in Norway, but lived in UK since I was two-and-a-half
2. My Mum, Dad and Brother all live in a different country to where they were brought up: I live within 15 miles of where I was brought up
3. My blog is called SLIKstitches as my brother's wife had their first baby at the same time as I got an embroidery machine, and they signed their emailed S (my brother's initial) L (his wife, Lisa) I (their daughter's initial) and K (for Kodi the dog!)
4. My mum doesn't patchwork but I learned all my sewing skills from her - she is an awesome dressmaker
5. I was politely invited NOT to take sewing at school - so I did cooking instead - now I don't cook, but I do sew!
   
6. in 2009 I offered a bed for the night to a total stranger, known only through a Yahoo group, and she is now my bested patchwork buddy and we have manage to meet twice last year and twice this year at patchwork shows even though this involves trains and planes. (Love you Jackie)
7. My family all have assorted quilts that I have made them (mum, mother-in-law, daughters, cats, niece and nephew all have at least two quilts or blankets) , but we don't have one on our bed!
8. I taught myself to patchwork, and although I have since attended classes, I still do things that are probably crimes to the quilt police
9. My sewing room is tiny: 2.5m x 2.25m (with 1 square m taken up by a built in cupboard) but as British houses are generally small, I am lucky to have this space, and not to have to put things away every day
10. I started patchworking 19 years ago when I was sent a quilt for oldest daughter - and I thought "I can do that" ... actually I couldn't then, but I can now!
    

(my first quilt, now used as my camp blanket!)

Busy Day

As I have managed to get Thursdays as a not-employed day, I bounce from a packed Thursday (visiting mum, Lisa, or whoever) to a nothing-at-all-in-the-diary Thursday - and today was one of those!

I've upgraded two sets of blocks into flimsies,




















I've got my BQL Secret Santa packages ready to go,



























I've done one named fleece blanket, and the next one is on the machine













And baby Hobby's flimsy is as ready as it can be, just waiting for his name














And added later ...

Another three fleeces, hot off the embroidery machine













and another flimsy (I think this one was started about 7 years ago, next stash splurge will see it becoming a charity quilt I think!)













And best of all, STILL no one else is home so I can have a go at stitching out India's rainbow that I've digitised :-) rather than thinking about dinner - yippee

India's towel

S-I-L Lisa, is Australia has emailed me with a request: India starts kindergarten in Feb, and each child needs their own sheet (for nap time) and hand towel - it needs to be named, and the child needs to be able to identify it. Definitely an Auntie Benta job!!!

Indi asked for a princess for the towel, and I'm going to work on that after Christmas as it will take a bit of work, but she asked for a rainbow and her name for her sheets, and I worked on that last night.

This is just a first stitch out: some of the lines need to move so they meet the previous colour, but I hope she likes this! (Yellow is always disappointing in designs like this, but you cant have a rainbow without it, so I think the red outline ties it all together, and next time the violet/indigo/blue need to be more different













I also finished the Christmas Ornament for the swap that I'm doing - they were doing well until I realised I had to have a way for them to be attached to a tree ... so now the Santas have a bullet hole in the hat - not so good :-( But time has run out, so they are going in the post on Monday, bullet hole or not!

2020 August (1)

 

Serendipity

Well the most exciting thing has happened! I was pondering just how many fat quarters of dark green I would need to buy to make the Christmas Tree quilt [click here for original blog] and would I need as much as a FQ? Scraps would be fine. Then on BQL there was a discussion about the badge designed for people to wear to recognise each other at exhibitions etc, and a lady asked where she could find the badge. I directed her, but added that I was happy to stitch one if she, or anyone else wanted one. It was only when a request came for a badge offering fabric in exchange that the lightbulb went off in my head. I have now made badges for 8 BQLers, and have them ready to go in the post - and am waiting for addresses for another five and then should get 13 envelopes with assorted dark greens for the tree!!!

I LOVE BQL!!!

(of course that means nothing from the to-do list today, but I'm too excited to be bothered!!!)

AND... I've managed to add a photo to my profile, and add a link to Amy's Blogger's Quit Festival - how hi-tech am I???

BQL badges for fabric swap

Well I have posted 13 badges ... and the first three fabric packs have arrived (thank you Mr postie :-)

So exciting, and fabrics that I haven't even seen before - this quilt will be awesome!!!

Thank you Lillian, Lis, and Pascale.

I have found the details of the quilt that inspired me, and have added it to the original post [here]

Rosemary's Jig Saw quilt

This quilt was pieced for me by a lovely lady called Rosemary ... she made this quilt top for me and I embroidered a poem onto fabric for her, so a trade - which certainly left me very happy, and I hope it was a good result for her too. I don't have any photos of the embroidery, but I have finally remembered to take a photo of the jig saw quilt with my two moggies sleeping on it! This is the fist quilt that I have hand quilted - we went to Bath for the weekend in May and I echoed the seams. i so loved the effect that I carried on with several echos on the all black squares. Thank you Rosemary!

A Spa Break

A few days away from the sewing machine as I went away for a girly Spa break with some old friends - lots of food and a few drinks, lots of pampering and an awful lot of chatting and putting the world to rights! The hotel was fab, and we had a birthday celebration by the side of the pool.












I have now finished the blue quilt for Patrick, and can deliver that tomorrow.



















Somehow, I seem to have spent the rest of today tidying the sewing room - heaven knows it's not big, so who knows where the stuff comes from!!!

More Christmas Tree log cabin fabrics

While I was away at the Spa, Mr Postie delivered five (yes, FIVE!!!) more packages of fabrics - but my family had dumped them on the back of the sofa and neglected to mention it!

So when I finally tided up I found the packages - what a reward for being tidy, I wish life was always like that :-)

Thank you to Irene, Plum, Nik, Carole and Maureen

Just a few more commissions to finish and then I am allowed to start!

JOURNAL QUILTS
(or Quiltlets based loosely on Journal Quilts)

Oldest daughter is off to Uni in September, and although she doesn't sew much, she cannot imagine being in an environment where she doesn't need to watch for pins, where clothes don't come with added loose threads, and where irons are used for clothes ... so she is taking the old sewing machine with her. She doesn't want to make quilts, so we have been looking at journal quilts,














And I got a bit carried away making samples for her! These are all A4 size, stitched onto pelmet vilene

(L to R: 1cm squared, glued then FMQ / woven ribbons / hint of a rainbow / looking out to sea)

To now take it one stage further (I don't have enough on my to-do list evidently) I have joined the BQL PostCard swap, and will have to make 6 pink themed cards for the end of September, and Window themed for the end of October - hum, best get thinking :-)

Log Cabin Candles

I'm making these up as I go along, but thought I'd also have a go at writing a what-to-do (or what-not-to-do) blog as I go along, so if I put them to one side for a while I'll remember what I've learnt!

I started with (for each candle) a piece of yellow about 5cm square, and four smaller rectangles of dark green. Each green was placed (one at a time) in a corner of the yellow (right sides together) and stitched diagonally, so the bigger half could be flipped open. [start stitching from the centre of the shorter sides to give a better flame point, and remember to set the needle to central, so it stitches where I expect it to!!!]





This creates the flame
[Although the flames that started life as a rectangle have a better shape]









The candle is a piece of cream fabric about 4cm x 10cm (my Grandfather's Christmas tree always had real candles on it, and always white or cream) attached at one end of the candle (try auditioning to see which end looks best)


[all measurements here are very approximate - I haven't used a ruler or even a rotary blade for any cutting, just scissors by eye. But do trim excess after each addition]



I then started adding random strips of dark green.
In fact I think the design is more court house blocks [add to each side, then each end, then each side etc] rather than log cabin, but if there are such things as Quilt Police, this is a minor crime compared to many of my others!]

Sometimes it's easier to visualise something drawn out for paper piecing: Although I don't much like paper piecing, this should remind me roughly what I did!

These seams do need to be pressed, but I got away with finger pressing the flame seams, and then ironed all 4 open, ironed the candle in place, and then ironed each pair of logs (OK, steps if we're being correct!)


And here are the first 6 candles: You may need to squint to see the candle (or am I being overly critical?) but the quilt will hang from the top of the stairs so will be seen from a distance and I think it will look fine

I can finish a baby blanket

"Baby Andrews' " quilt has been at the top of my to-do list for ages, even though the quilt was finished in time for the village fair Craft Show back mid June (it came second :-). But it couldn't be finished until the baby arrived. She finally arrived yesterday, and Lora and Neil have called her Sky, so I am now able to embroider her name and finish the blanket - yippee!!!


The quilt is an I Spy quilt - 24 different picture fabrics, backed with warm cosy fleece, and unusually for me, 100% hand stitched ... I took the squares away on holiday in June to join them, and carried on hand sewing the blanket stitch around and the quilting in the ditch

Added later: and I have a lovely Thank You message from mum: Benta, the quilt you made for Sky is gorgeous, I have to admit I had a little cry when Neil brought it home. I had no idea you made them proffesionally, and it's so lovely. Thank you so much. We're planning to go to the church garden party with her so hopefully we'll see you there, otherwise as soon as we're in the house please please come over and meet her x x x

Paw Prints

Another (almost) tick on the to-do list, and another £25 to spend at Festival of Quilts next weekend!!!

These car seats are for a friend of a friend who is a dog groomer. I've done t-shirts for her before, and now she wanted car seat covers done. The head rests were really fiddly. I've done the front seats, and delivered them, but she wants the back seats doing too, so the project will have to stay on the list for now.

At least I have delivered something to her. Oh and I did one of the school PE kits, so I can move that off the list

My Special Boy's Quilt

If there is anyone in blogland reading this, I want to tell you about my Special Boy. I am employed by the borough to provide some respite childminding for a young lad (8 years old) who is autistic. There are other problems in the family too: mum has mental health problems, and she and dad have split up and aren't talking. So R has been coming to us for 6 hours one day at weekends and school holidays. Anyway, he has now been moved away from mum, as she was really having problems coping with parenting, and is with a foster family, possibly being moved to dad at the end of next month.

We will all miss R and his funny ways, even his obsessions. We want him to remember us, so I am making him a very personal I Spy quilt. Some of the fabrics were chosen by him, and the embroideries will hopefully help him with 'spiral learning' - prompts and reminders, together with a nod to some of his obsessions! These include blue Boy (our budgie) and the washing machine (a favourite noise, and we 'read' the words waiting for "suh, puh, ih, nuh" which is the best noise of all)

We also have a pet hedgehog, called Twiglet.

A regular Saturday trip is to my mother-in-law's where there is an old, red trike that Niki taught R how to ride. If anyone mentions nanny Bette he will, without prompting, recite the road numbers (M25, A40 etc) to get to hers, and finish with, breathlessly, "And she's got my red bike hasn't she"




The last two squares for today show our main teaching project of LEFT and RIGHT, and one of the donkeys who live at the village farm: Ruth (who appears in the church Christingle service each year and has been in Eastenders!!!)













(methinks I could have ironed these before I photographed and posted, ooops!)

Easy Zig Zag (tutorial)

I woke up this morning with an idea that I just HAD to try. I bought a small jelly roll last year and it's been sitting on the shelf, looking at me and I couldn't decide what to do with it, until today.I love zigzag quilts, but I think I'm allergic to triangles, so here is a lesson in a triangle free zigzag!

1. Assuming the mini jell roll has two of each colour, arrange the fabrics into two identical piles: light / dark / light / dark etc. (if there is just one of each fabric, cut each length into two shorter lengths.)2. Start to join the strips lengthwise: join fabric 1 to fabric 2, then from the other pile, join fabric 2 to fabric 3, then back to the first pile to join 3 to 4 etc, until you have the last fabric and the first one left: join these

3. Press all pairs towards the darker side. (I put the folded pair down, dark side up, seam away from me, and then lift the dark side like a page in a book, and use the tip of the iron to lift it further and press the seam)

4. Measure the height of your pressed two-colour strip. This is the measurement of your eventual square. Mine were 4.5 inches high, so I cut each strip into 4.5 inch squares


5. Lay out the squares so they start to build up the zigzag pattern. First I worked diagonally, which would give a straight zigzag,

but unless I wanted a zigzag edge to the quilt, I would have to trim off the triangles, and I didn't want to waste any fabric. Instead, I turned the squares so the zigzag runs diagonally, but the squares didn't need trimming (clear as mud? They say a picture is worth a thousand words)


6. Once you are happy with the arrangement, pin the squares in rows, each square to the one above and the one below. Put the strips back in the right order. Check and double check they are all correct (guess why I suggest this!)

7. Pin a number to each strip so you know its place for later


8. Stitch all the squares as pinned, and press to darker side

9. Pin all the strips together in the right order (unless you are using the Slik and Quick quilt as you go method)

10. Ta da - one pieced zigzag quilt, no triangles, and no fuss ;-)