Siblings Together Bee quilt 2016

My Siblings Together Bee quilt for 2016 is finished (apart from the label which I really must do).

The block I chose this year used the Patchwork Wheel tutorial by Don't Call Me Betsy.

I decided on a scrappy style in colours appropriate for a girl.

As usual by bee mates sent some gorgeous blocks. There's a huge variety of different fabrics in the quilt and apart from individuals using the same fabric more than once there were no duplicates. It goes to show what a large variety of fabrics are available for us quilters to be tempted by.

Big thanks go to my generous bee mate Joanne Jones for sending me the binding as she knows I'm not a great fan of binding making.

I hope a young lady who is given the quilt at one of the Siblings Together camps in the summer will love it.

Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt for Siblings Together

In the first year of quilts for Siblings Together I joined a bee orgainised by Lynne of Lily's quilts. We were immensley lucky to be donated fabrics by Moda with which to make our quilts. For my month of the bee we used S'more Love by Cosmo Cricket and I had a few fat quarters and some scraps left. Last year I decided to make a quilt with these left overs but didn't have enough to complete a whole quilt. Here's where a group of kind, generous ladies came to the rescue. I posted a photo of the fabics on Instagram and asked if anyone had some co-ordinating scraps they could donate. Of course the answer was "yes" and within a few days I received fabrics from Julie, Carol, Catrin, Jo, Mary and Sonia. I made a Rail Fence quilt which I sent to Siblings Together in 2015.

I was still left with enough fabrics to make another quilt. As many of these were strips and small pieces I decided a Log Cabin design was the way to go. I had some left over strips of wadding left from previous projects which I cut into 11 inch squares, I then sewed the fabric logs directly onto the wadding (quilt as you go). I joined the blocks together and spray basted the backing onto this top/wadding piece. I quilted in the ditch between the blocks which was enough to secure the backing.
Et Voila, a quilt  for the 2016 Siblings Together camps.

A quick round up.

I've never been one to worry about how many quilts, cushions etc I make in a year but when I looked back on 2015 I was rather surprised, and admittedly disappointed at the small number of completed projects.

 The above cushion was started and completed in 2015 and the one below was started in 2014 but finished in 2015.

 I made this quilt for my husband, again started in 2014 and finished in 2015.

Quite a lot of my sewing time was spent on making quilts and bee blocks for Siblings Together, something I'm more than happy to spend my time on. This will continue in 2016 as myself and Nicky are going to continue rallying the troops on our Siblings Together Quilt Group blog and on Instagram,  as well as making quilts ourselves. I think I managed to send five quilts to the charity this year. Three of these were bee/group quilts I completed and two I made all by myself!

I plan to finish the next two quilt tops during the next few months. I just looked back on the blog to see when this one was started and was surprised that it was back in September 2014. It's now bigger than in the picture and I've started quilting it, although I've not done any for a while. I've cleared the decks in my sewing room ready to do some more this weekend.

This next one was started a few months ago. It involves both paper and curved piecing and has presented some "fitting" challenges which have required some pattern alteration but I think I'm there now. Another six blocks to go.

I'll do a proper post about this next one soon but briefly, the Strips bees are doing another round of the bee with a different theme and this is what I made to start off my quilt.

Bye for now, Maria

Siblings Together quilt group have a blog!

Another big gap since I last posted!
I'm still involved with the wonderful group of quilters making quilts for the Siblings Together charity. I've teamed up with Nicky to form a blog as a base for the group where we can inspire others to make quilts for the charity, share stories of the quilts we've made and much more.

Please go take a look, just click on this link, siblingstogetherquiltgroup,  and please leave a comment to let us know you were there.

Thanks so much, Maria

Pretty sewing time.

I mentioned previously that I was feeling the need to do some pretty sewing, so last weekend I did exactly that.

I was surprised when I realised that this cushion was started just over a year ago! It has sat around for ages waiting to be turned into a completed cushion.

The design is by Tacha Bruecher from the book Pillow Pop complied by Heather Bostic.

The little Union Jacks measure 4.5" by 2.5" and were quite fiddly to make but I do like them a lot.

The colours in this cushion inspired me to make another in similar spring / summery colours. 

This one is my own "design", if you can call it that as it's very simple.

I thought I'd  positioned the squares in an alternate pink and green pattern and it wasn't until the day after I'd completed it did I notice those three pink squares in the bottom left corner and also the predominantly green ones in the row above!

I couldn't resist this cute owl fabric by Michael Miller.
These two now sit side by side on our living room sofa but
 things do look best displayed in threes so I think I really did ought to make another...........

Sewing for Boys

I really feel like I need to get my hands on some girly fabrics and do some pretty sewing!
 Apart from quilting a girl's Siblings Together quilt most of my sewing time over the last few months has been with more masculine fabrics.

I've completed three boy's Siblings Together quilts and I made my husband a quilt for Christmas.
For his work he goes to car racing meetings in the UK and Europe and he often sleeps in a motor home or tent so I decided he needed a quilt to keep him cosy. He was rather alarmed when I first suggested it as I think he imagined a flowery number but I assured him it would be manly!

I went for a St Louis Sixteen Patch in a variety of masculine fabrics. It's been put to good use during his last couple of trips but spends most of it's time all bunched up, hence the creases. Why do men have the inability to fold anything?!

Here's the pieced back looking more creased than the front.

My most recent boys quilt is another for Siblings Together. Mary, one of the members of the ST Bee asked on Instagram for people to send her Home Sweet Home blocks (from a tutorial by Jera of Quilting in the Rain), which herself and a couple of  friends would make into quilts for boys. She received a huge amount of blocks as well as binding, wadding and backing fabric from generous quilters from far and wide. So many in fact that she needed more volunteers to put them together......hence another boys quilt to add to my list.

One of my least favourite parts of quilt making is making the binding. Luckily for me it was donated, by whom I'm not sure, but whoever you are I'm very grateful!

 The blocks for this quilt were made by so many people yet they have all come together to be given to one child who will hopefully gain some comfort from it.

Back soon with some pretty sewing !

It's not EPP!

I recently finished hand piecing my "Jazz hands quilt" and before I start hand quilting it I need to finish hand quilting my Strip bees quilt. Although I enjoy hand quilting sometimes I fancy a change and like to have more than one hand work project on the go at once. I'm sure you know what I mean.

So here is what I've been up to so far.

The blocks are from the digital version of "Hexagons, Diamonds, Triangles, and More" by Kelly Ashton. I think the book intends for you to machine piece the blocks but I've used the book's templates and hand pieced them. For Christmas I received a gorgeous book called  "Wild Blooms and Colorful Creatures" by Wendy Williams which combines fabrics such as cotton, linen and wool to make beautiful quilts, cushions and bags, the main design feature being wool felt applique. I used this book as inspiration for the applique in the centre of two of the blocks.

I think I'll use the blocks in a new medallion quilt which I'm planning.

I've still been busy making quilts for Siblings Together. The latest top was made from fabrics donated by Mary, Julie, Catrin, Carol, Julie and Sonia along with some I had left over from a quilt I made for the charity a couple of years ago with fabrics donated by Moda. The design is Rail Fence.

As the quilt o metre in my side bar shows we're now up to 50 quilts with many more in the process of being made. If anyone would like to help in anyway do get in touch.

Bye for Now, Maria