Thursday 11 April 2013

Kathy's Coffee Quilt

As the holidays come to an end :( and my sewing will now slow down due to work commitments, I thought I would show you what I have been doing this week.

A friend asked me to make a lap quilt for her. She gave me these mini panels to work with.
I decided on a pattern of random placements and wonky angles and sizes.
 
I cut each mini panel and added a 2" red border, so I could cut it 'wonky' to make an 8.5" square.

 I bought this lazy susan at Ikea some years ago. Peter likes to put it on the dining table with the fruit bowl.
I did buy it for rotating and cutting. It works a treat.
 
 It was perfect for this size block. One does need to steady the table at times and cut slower, but it saves times by not having to move the block and line up and check. 
I also used a 12" square ruler to make it quicker and easier to measure and cut.

I had searched for materials to match the mini blocks using the selvedge colour panel.
I was lucky that I already had two kits with matching colours and many others in my stash 
- see there is a good reason to buy material for no reason :)  -
I did purchase some neutrals as I have been using a lot on other projects.
As I had decided that blocks would look better with these mini panels I decided that different sizes would also work and add interest to the quilt.

I made a variety of strips to make 8" across.
Here is the beginning of sewing the panels - can see the plan? 
(Don't you love the shadow on my hands in the bottom right hand corner?)

This is what my design board hides - my cutting table, and my other projects waiting to be finished.

Over on my sewing table, I have the cut out strips waiting to be sewn. 

This is my sewing view!
Sadly I don't have a sewing room - wish I did - so my sewing is done in the lounge room.
I am very lucky to have an understandable husband who allows me to make such a mess.

I have finished the top, and will post pictures tomorrow.

Also tomorrow is the part 4 of Plenty of fish - so I might get some more sewing done in between preparing for school.

Happy Sewing
Allison

Saturday 6 April 2013

End of holiday sewing..

I do enjoy staying at one place for a week or so. It gives us time to set up and sort and time for me to sew.

I finished sewing all the blocks for Plenty of Fish mystery and trimming all the dog ears.

 All the blocks laid out ready to trim

After trimming - it took forever. Wish I had remembered to bring my rotating cutting board.


The Easy Street Mystery quilt looks great in the van - I still have to finish the quilting (and unpick the little bit of quilting I did at home - really not happy with it)
 It also goes well with the curtains I made using the pattern for the Christmas Possums placemat. 


I used left-over fabric from the quilt to make the baubles.

Happy Sewing
Allison

Thursday 4 April 2013

Holiday Sewing

Holidays at last .... how I really wish I had more holidays, but I guess we all want and need more time to do want we want.

This trip is 9 days, so I took along Orca Mystery - with the hope that I would work on it some more - didn't and won't (it will be back on my design wall when we get home and I WILL work on it at home next week) and part 3 of the Plenty of Fish Mystery. I have finished both part 3A and 3B and only need to trim each component to size. This I will do today.

Sewing machine is packed away and cutting today and then blogging and enjoying the last few days away.

All the squares and triangles cut out ready to sew.

 
 Chain sewing the triangles for part 3a

 Peter went kayaking

 Sewing the triangles onto the squares

My sewing view :)

Happy sewing
Allison