Enchanted Influencer Tour

 

Today is my turn on the Enchanted Influencer Tour.

Enchanted is the newest collection by Valori Wells for Free Spirit Fabrics that will be shipping to stores in May.  Valori was inspired for this collection by her travels through Marrakesh and the work she has done through those beautiful regions. 

With beautiful and deeply saturated colours and print along with Valori's signature Birds and Florals this range will brighten any project.  I especially love the Block Printing designs that she used through these fabrics.

We were given free reign to create any project we liked with the collection and I of course had to make my Confetti Quilt with these.  I knew that being able to use the entire range would showcase how pretty these fabrics are.  I paired it with a Solid white Background fabric and a Solid Hot Pink for the backing.

This pattern always works and these Enchanted fabrics are no exception.

You can get the Confetti Quilt Pattern here

Enchanted will be available from all the best Local Quilt Stores in May.

Happy Quilting

Jemima x x

Rainbow Fizz custom order sewing

It is always exciting sewing up a quilt for a little baby soon to arrive.  This custom order was for a Rainbow Fizz.

Laying out and choosing all the shades of Kona to make the quilt a nice square quilt/play mat meant playing with lots of colours and shades to get the rainbow effect across the quilt just right.

Quilt top all ready now to be pinned, sandwiched and machine quilted.

Jemima x

Attack the Scrap!

This is my scrap bucket!  Being somewhat OCD - when my scrap bucket looks like this - my heart starts to race a little.  So the best way to attack it is to make something right!  

It was actually my little girl who started to pull it apart and she pulled out these coloured groups of fabrics. There was obviously a lot of pink, purple, aqua and then prints that featured several of these colours in the bucket.

Taking some of my stashed Grey and White Sketch fabric I started to sew the fabrics randomly to the sides, across on a diagonal of the squares that I cut from the Sketch.  Pretty soon I had a large pile of squares all ready to be sewn together.  

I played around quite a bit with the arrangement of the blocks making lots of different patterns with the way the points matched or were apart.  

I settled on this pattern and then set about sewing the blocks up into rows to now have a small quilt top .

Now for a border.

On a side note- after sewing up so many of the fabrics I started to really dislike the word "scrap".  Many of the pieces of fabrics are the last little pieces of some of my favourite fabrics so I decided rather than a scrap quilt I am going to name it a Treasure Quilt.

Jemima x

Strawberries for my Sweet!

As soon as I saw this pattern I knew it had to be put on my "To Sew" list and be bumped right up to the top.  My younger daughter is and always has been in love with Strawberries.  Not only does she love to eat them but we have even celebrated birthdays with Strawberry Cakes and anything like ribbons or ornaments with strawberries on she is in love with.

Strawberry Social by The Pattern Basket is just so cute!

I put together a selection of reds and pinks for my little one to choose from and this was her selection - unlike me,  she from a young age has quite a good eye for colour.

So far I have started to put the blocks together.  

The piecing is a little tricky but not difficult.  The skill in this quilt is very much about the ironing!  The ironing of seams in the given directions is very important to have all the points of the stems and leaves of the strawberries lie nice and flat.

Loving how sweet this quilt is coming up so far.

Jemima x 

Liberty Treasure

A while ago I posted about all the beautiful Liberty Fabrics that I had been collecting to make a quilt for myself.  Truth be told the collection continued to grow not only because I love the intricacy of all the details in the fabrics but also because I was really waiting to be a "good" enough sewer to be worthy of cutting into such prized fabrics. 

 

Taking pictures of the quilt proved far more difficult than I thought and that is why although I finished the quilt a few weeks ago I have not been able to take any good pictures of it - so taking advantage of a perfect sunny winter's day I set out to the Church grounds in Guildford that I knew might provide a beautiful backdrop for some photos of the quilt.

 

The finished quilt measures 2.15m x 2.20m

I love putting detail into the back of the quilt - so with the inclusion of a pieced backing in the Pattern I knew that I needed to spend the extra time sewing this in as well.

 

 

I am so pleased with this quilt - it is very busy with all the detail of squares in squares but with Pink as the underlying colour theme I think it comes together.  There are even a few pieces of Vintage Liberty gifted to me from a special friend.

 

When it came to the quilting it took some time to choose a pattern that worked well with the more traditional pieces of Liberty fabrics alongside the bright and bold modern pieces.  I went with a design which had both loops and a modern style flower.  I knew that the quilting would not be a feature on the front of the quilt due to the busy nature of all the fabrics but it is ever so sweet on the back against the white fabric.

 

 

 

Jemima x 

 

Getting through the unfinished projects!

I actually feel like I am making some progress.  As I have dedicated this year to finishing all the projects that have been sitting in the cupboard some what started but left to the side I am making headway.  Here is the top of my Candy Girl quilt all ready to be quilted.

I love the textured white fabric I used for the backgrounds. It gives a more dimensional look to the flowers. This quilt had been in the cupboard for about a year so it was great to see this one finished and nearly ready to be loved and used.

I also put the finishing touches on the Dr Suess baby quilt I made.  I am in love with stripy binding at the moment!

I kept the quilting simple on this one so that it did not take away from the busy patterned fabric - just alternating two colours of stitching.

The next UFO that I have re-visited are these scrappy blocks - I know I started these 12 months ago and after a great start they were left to the side. 

I have started making some more to make these 11 inch scrappy blocks into a quilt.

 

Another project that I have started more recently that is well underway to being finished is my crochet hexagons.  These hexagons are for a crochet blanket for my younger daughter and while so far the colours are working out differently to how I first pictured the project I think it will suit my daughters personality just perfectly.



Sewing holiday fun

With a new arrival due very soon it has been time to start work on a new quilt.  These days many people find out the sex of their baby but the couple for whom this quilt is for, are leaving it as a surprise.  When you know the sex of the baby it certainly makes deciding on a quilt design easier but I have always loved that joy of finding out if it is a boy or girl till when you meet them for the first time.  So I thought that this Dr Seuss fabric would be just perfect for either a boy or a girl.  I have just cut 5 1/4 inch squares and sewn them up as a play mat. 

I had originally planned on cutting up the squares to become like the Disappearing 9 patch squares but with the designs on the fabric I thought that you would loose too much of the details and characters in the prints if they were any smaller.  Now to quilt and bind it.  I have chosen a red and white stripe to use as the binding which I think will just finish off the quilt nicely.

Well over a year ago I started this quilt.  In my strong aim to finish all the unfinished projects that have been laying around my sewing room (and only starting those needed - like new baby quilts!)  I have been working on this quilt again.  It is a Janelle Wind design - called Candy Girl.  I will show you more progress as I go - but hopefully I will be able to make a good dent in this these school holidays.

A little treat for myself - I have loved this Washi fabric for a while now and decided that I deserve some so bought it from Pink Chalk Fabrics. 

At night I have been loving my crochet.  This Blooming Flower Cushion from Attic 24 has been on my to do list since picking up a crochet hook.  After a lovely morning with friends we had the start of the pattern nutted out and then I was not able to put it down after that. 

I can not tell you how much I love the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece I  used in this project.  The colours are so bright and I love the texture of it.  You can pick some up for yourself at Tangled Yarns.  I think there may be few of these under the Christmas Tree this year.

And with a special friend almost about to have a birthday I couldn't go past making her a Liberty Bliss scarf.  I used Rowan hand knit cotton in shades of blues and greys and a sweet Liberty print with tiny blue flowers.

A long, long long time ago ......

A long, long long time ago last year I was keen to learn to crochet.  I took on a project from a Better Homes and Gardens Mag and thought - sure I can do this!  Well - totally overestimating my abilities I ended up with close to 300 squares of varying sizes (as per the pattern instructions) and well they just wouldn't come together.  Since taking a few classes I have learned about so many of the mistakes that were plaguing my blanket but not wanting to just set aside the squares as a bad mistake - I have persevered and came up with an alternative version. 

My blanket is now 48 squares  - all the same size.  I made some of the smaller squares larger and vice versa to end up with a blanket that I am actually quite happy with.

All this Brown Sheep Cotton fleece came from Tangled Yarns and was lovely to work with.  I love the range of colours available and the matt look to the cotton rather than a fluffy texture you get from wool.

Aside from dabbling in some crochet I have been quilting too - this quilt is a cot size quilt that I have named Rainbow Fizz and is one of the projects for Term 2 Sewing classes together with Claire Turpin Design.  After using a Kona Solids Charm pack from Pink Chalk as the inspiration I set to turn the squares into triangles.

I added in some white homespun and then hand quilted all the white squares in a co-ordinating Cosmo thread.

Also finished recently was this Music Box - Oliver and S dress.  My little one just loves it and it can't be washed and ironed quickly enough. 

And with Easter coming up I have been busy hand sewing lots of cute little Bouncing Bunnies which make great gifts at Easter time - especially as alternatives to chocolates and as great presents for all the teachers.  You can get your hands on some in my Etsy Store.

But if you are feeling crafty or want to get the kids involved you can buy kits to make them for yourselves