a quilt

Ive begun the task of my first king size quilt. I dont know how my nannas machine will handle the quilting on this one but we will soon find out.

The brief for this quilt was that she loved strong colour with pale highlights and there isnt a colour that she doesnt like. How easy is that? So ive been happily chopping up all my scraps while watching a movie this morning.

Ill send her this shot via the shop today and see if its what she had in mind.

Basically all of the fabrics are here once each and then they will be repeated across the entire quilt.

I thought this would be the easiest way for her to see the mix as there are a few retro pieces and some bemsilks that I want to be sure of before I start stitching. 

After looking up the sizing for a king bed mattress I worked out that I need 500 squares! so far im up to 324.

Ive had five baskets full of scraps, separated into colors of browns/yellows, reds/pinks, blues/purples, greens/aquas and a basket of pastels which I wont use this time.

I thought id do a hundred squares from each basket but that leaves me with a hundred unaccounted for so ill be raiding the stash rather than putting in too many repeats.

Ive also had this idea of doing a stripey quilt with all of the scraps of the scraps but that will have to wait.

Happy quilting!

its finished

This morning ive finished the custom order quilt for Jo. If I knew how close I was to finishing it I would have kept going last night. Yesterday the quilting seemed to go on forever, but when I got up and started again this morning all of a sudden it was done within the space of ten minutes! So ive sewn the binding on and here we are staring at the finished item. Im going to find it hard to say goodbye and

I hadnt given it a name because I knew id be parting with it. But now I think ill simply call it Jo's quilt.

Ive been across to Narioka this morning and have seen that Julie has done the true version of a postage stamp quilt so im a bit lost as to what these type of quilts are called again?

Im going to have to find out, or does anyone know?

The squares are 12 x 12 cm in the raw.

I like the fact that there is no blacks or browns like there is in mine. It has a much prettier palette.

As I was sewing I wanted to capture as much of the process of this one as I could plus I discovered while I was stitching along that there are so many fabrics that ive used for dresses and clothes from

Little Tree Kids. So I guess this is a true Little Tree Kids quilt which is a nice thought.

There are a couple of random patches I found in my stash,

splices of vibrant green silk alongside oriental toile that had to be widened with craft print

to meet the size square I needed,

blue bemsilk leading into the fabric I used the other day to make my summer tunic,

followed with pumpkiny orange bemsilk and some Little Tree Kids summer range fabrics all in the mix!

Im sad to see the end of this quilt so theres only one thing to do isnt there?

I must distract myself with another one.

Yes, thats what ill do.

Right after ive made those wrap dresses youve all been waiting to see.

I may even have something to show you before the end of today. Stay tuned.

painting, quilting and dresses

The top of the custom order quilt is finished and here are my favourite bits.

Some of you may recognise some of the fabrics as ive used a fair few currently available ones.

Its roughly half vintage

 

half modern.

Heres the top in its entirety. Only one mishap, I dont know how I placed those darn two yellow squares together? Did you see them before I pointed them out? I was a bit sick yesterday so thats my only excuse. And the Mr is home from work in bed with it now.

It hasnt slowed me down today though. Ive finally painted those darn coathangers with the right paint.

I probably didnt tell you about them yet but they bugged me. We had painted them with the wrong paint then I bought more and painted the new ones with the wrong paint too! They will be ready for saturdays market. So... yay I guess.

And now for the final batch of wrap dresses for 2010. I have thirteen cut out.

I wonder how close ill get to finishing these little beauties today? I really like the brown pinstripe shirting that im going to place coffee coloured lace doileys on, plus the red one on top is a final piece of vintage fabric ive been holding onto. It reminds me of a dress I had when I was four or five.

Perhaps I should use the teeny leftover scraps in my next quilt?

Back to my machines..... and the Mr has finally arisen....im going to ask him if he can spot my mishap

keeping it random

Im working on this quilt for a customer from the recent market.

Only its not quite large enough yet so I have to add more pieces and I thought id pop in here to show you how I add pieces after ive already got the placement and rows worked out for most of the quilt.

It needs two more rows at one end and two more on one side.

Of course I want to merge in these new pieces as they are all fabrics not yet in the mix.

I have used roughly three pieces (sometimes more if its a favourite) of each fabric which is the rule as I understand it for one of these postage stamp quilts.

Apparently the eye does not pick up the repeats if you do this.

So what I do is a trick ive seen on a gardening show when planting bulbs to get a random self sewn effect.

I throw three objects in the air (I prefer to use leaves of course) and wherever they land is the square I remove and place towards the outside of the quilt to make up the extra rows I need to make it the correct size.

Oh ! Its a single bed size this time. Not queen.

Ive started sewing the rows together and its looking really gorgeous.

Shame I wont be keeping this one.

Ive got to learn to let them go if im going to offer these for others.

today I think ill

As usual for me on mondays I have hopes for what the week will hold.

I would love to begin sewing together this postage stamp quilt which im a bit excited about. A lovely customer at the recent market has put in an order for her daughters bed. Plus I have some more orders for the eskimo jackets coming in which is groovy, but theyll need to wait for this evening as I havent even done the patterns in those sizes yet.

First things first.

We went away for the weekend to the country and I feel like changing things around at home. I am invigorated and refreshed after spending three days outdoors and swimming in the freezing mountain rivers.

(Oh, I was offered a nice steaming hot portable shower but I prefer the elements)

Its time to move some stuff to create that fresh country feel around our place. No mean feat for a city dwelling. (plus a good tidy up wouldnt go astray) I may have chosen to go outside but

its raining so doing some gardening is out for now.

On the way home we stopped and picked some wild flowers so I have these

lovely blooms as a starting off point.  It has taken me years to instill in the Mr just how important stopping by the roadside is for someone like me. I need to get a foliage 'fix'.

I think they are a type of gaura? They were everywhere for about a good hour of our drive home.

So there it is. This is what ill be up to today.

Wish me well on moving the furniture around by myself while the teenager sleeps on.

I wonder what youre doing?

quilt tutorial: part four

Before we go any further take stock of all of your offcuts and make sure youll have enough to add in for the next two strips. If you dont have much left what you need to do is cut what you do have in half and add some extra fresh fabrics to the mix. Just a few small pieces will make all the difference. You dont want to get to the last strip to find you have to add in a colour that will look alone or odd as you have only used it once. If you take stock now, you can spread it around and if you have to you can add any fresh fabric to either end to make it 'belong'.

Were going to do another strip beginning how we have up until this point. Cut a slice of the base fabric the same width as your random patch if you have one. If you dont have one left find a large square piece of something you love and add it in, maybe putting a sliver of something alongside first.

Slice into the base fabric again to make a gap for another piece.

Ill be slicing where my scissors show here.

Ive added in a small sliver and even though it is very thin it still breaks

 the base fabric expanse up nicely I think.

I love this fabric and when I added it in I decided to sew the base fabric right side down, so its reversed as in the picture. If you have something that looks good on the reverse side and can do this,

 I recommend it to add interest.

Before you know it youll be doing the next strip. The same deal again.

Im sure youve got the hang of it by now. Keep going, youre nearly finished your random quilt top.

Ive top and tailed this strip to fill in the last corner.

Add a big slice in, not a smaller one this time if you did a small one last time, as you want to finish 'strong' at the final strip to balance your quilt. If you dont have strong edges my opinion is that the eye flows away from

the middle and off the quilt. Im going to cut here where ive placed the scissors on my base fabric.

Heres my choice. There is a bit of cream in my piece

 to blend in with the cream I used already towards the other end.

Here is how mine is looking but I still have more pieces I can sneak in, plus I dont think its quite done yet.

How does yours look?

Do you think it needs that bit of extra tweaking?

I sliced up my last square.

I added a piece to the top left hand corner to fill it in. Cutting down the base fabric first with a rough measure.

Here I added in a piece to the largest expanse of base fabric under the skinny sliver

 I did earlier in this post.

I still have more bits and pieces left so now im checking the overall size of the quilt top to see it hasnt gone skew and ill add some more to the ends to even it up so that it measures equally, within an inch or two, on both sides and ends.

It looked pretty good so I guess these will become the jumping off point of my next quilt.

 Heres the best bit. You can now sew them all together. If youre the really observant type,

which apparently im not, I have sewn the first two rows I did around the wrong way. But luckily, because overall it was balanced in placement it turned out looking fine, if not better. Maybe have a go at switching yours around if youre feeling brave. If not take pictures in between and play with your strips anyway.

I love happy accidents. I have to as they happen often around here at Textured Leaf Central.

I hope youve enjoyed the process so far. Ill be posting the finishing quilting and backing soon. It will be really easy, no basting, just five or ten minutes of pinning and off we go. Promise.

market to-doings

I admit to being scattered all week leading up to the sunday market. I did bits and pieces of all sorts of stuff, not finishing anything but just keeping things moving. Works for me!

I didnt need to sew anything much and still felt organised enough to pack the car at the last minute and  do the leisurely drive down south. I was having a premarket tagging session/sleepover party at Elisha's. All I really needed to do was whip up a clothing rack from tomato stakes and broom handles and off I would go.

Hah!

I didnt take into account having what I affectionately refer to as 'period brain'. It took me all of saturday to get my act together. In my defense I had kids to sort out while Mr TL was away fishing.

Still, nothing accounts for ....

having a design firmly in mind and relying on being able to execute it without

1.  premeasuring anything,

2. knowledge of exactly how many tomato stakes were available,

3. doing an inventory of nuts and bolts,

4. having anyone home to help me hold things while I drilled,

  5. alerting the neighbours to my eccentric behaviour,

6. making absolutely certain it would fit into the car when complete.

To solve issue number  1.  I altered my design,

2. got really annoyed at my stupidity while I revamped my altered design,

3.  used screws instead (though they werent long enough for design number three

 and had to start from scratch again),

4.  leaned things up against chairs while contorting my body across the furniture

5.  built it inside even though the neighbours can see through the windows

6. removed everything id already packed, started over with the new rack and forced it in.

The drive down was relaxing.

I popped by Eleesa's to pick up her stash of gorgeous cot quilts to add to our mix. 

Here is our stall with the completed rack in place side by side with my nannas old clothes horse now free to house Elisha's new little girls bikinis. She has been perfecting them all week. And how cute was our little visitor?

A coat of paint here and there is needed.

New props holding some reversible baby slippers.

Quilt love.

Happy times before I decided to start quilting and make my fingers hurt like crazy.

Were still a bit camera shy but well get over it.

Ouch @#!$%* times seventeen. This is the first shot ever of me sewing in all these years. Ive been sewing my whole life, how sad is that? Im loving having a blog for documenting lots of hidden things that may otherwise go unnoticed.

I had a sneezing fit to go with the pain, spilt coffee on the quilt and kept losing track of the needle.

But I finished what will now be known as 'The Seven Year Stitch Quilt' !