Thursday 19 April 2012

Ballerina Quilt for Siblings Together

As well as the group quilt I am co-ordinating  for the Siblings Together project I am making a very sugary girly quilt. It's made with some yardage of ballerina fabric and some scraps I had left over from when I used to make items to sell. This seemed like the ideal oppurtunity to use the fabrics for a good cause.


Now to the quilting but first of all I need to do the basting. My least favourite part of quilt making.
I usually lay the quilt out on the living room floor to baste but this is what it looks like at the moment!


It looks like I'm off to move furniture in the dining room for some floor space.
Maria x

Sunday 15 April 2012

Geese Around the World Mini Quilt

I recently finished a mini quilt taken from the book Quilting From Little Things by Sarah Fielke. The quilt I chose to make was Geese Around The World. It's a paper pieced flying geese design. I found the instructions well written but the only critisism I had was that if you sewed on the printed side of the pattern as the instructions in the section on paper piceing at the back of the book tells you too, the geese would be flying in the opposite direction to the ones on the quilt which does not match with the diagram in the instructions.This confused  my little brain.

I used similar colours as sarah's quilt but didn't have any spotty fabric for the background which was a shame as it looks really cute.
Here's the quilt from the book.


And here's my version.



I don't know what happened to the bottom pink goose, it seems to have lost it's point! I loved the binding Sarah used on her quilt. I would never in a million years have thought to have used that fabric with the colour scheme of the quilt. Luckily I had a similar fabric left over from another project and am really pleased with how it looks. It  reminds me of a wooden picture frame.

Bye for now, Maria


Thursday 12 April 2012

Siblings Together

Yet again I'm starting a blog post with the phrase "It's been a long time since my last post". Never mind it's a free country. I have a couple of small finishes to show but they can wait until another day.

Over the last week I've become inspired by a flickr group called "Siblings Together". A group of quilters are making quilts to give to siblings seperated by the care system who are to attend a summer camp.



If you would like to know more this is the website for the charity and this is the starter post by Lynne of Lily's Quilts who put out the call for quilts.

Some of us are making quilts and some people who may not have the fabric or time to make a whole quilt are making blocks which will be sent to one person who will put the quilt together. I've set myself the task of making a girl's quilt from some ballet fabric I've had for ages and a boy's quilt from truck fabric.

I was concerned that there may be a lack of quilts for older boys (the age range is 7-17) and I have limited fabrics to make a whole quilt so I decided to volunteer to make a quilt from donated blocks. I thought simple 9 patch blocks would be quick and easy and I'm using muted blues, browns, greens and greys. Here is the flickr thread with more details.
 I have had some wonderful volunteers who have already made or are going to make blocks and a hugely generous member of the group has volunteered to supply the backing and wadding and quilt it, she's going to bind it too. How brilliant is that?
Talking of generous the wonderful Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey fame has donated loads of fabric and she is sending me some fabric for the quilt.

If anyone fancys joining us and making some blocks, that would fantastic as I need about 42 for the quilt, leave a comment and I'll let you know the details.
Here is an example block.

 Sorry about the photo, it's taken with my phone in poor light.

Bye for now, Maria x