Jane's Quilt

Remember me wittering on in this blog post about wanting to make a quilt for myself? Well I finally found time to make one, and this one's all mine!

I actually finished the quilt top a good few weeks ago, but then Christmas came along and scuppered all my plans. It would probably still be languishing in my sewing pile if temperatures in the UK hadn't started plummeting and galvanised me into action. All I could think about was how cosy I'd be if I had a lovely handmade quilt to wrap myself in whilst watching Silent Witness. So the past week has been quilt week! 

The colours for my quilt were chosen to complement my bedroom walls and chair and comprised various shades of grey, mustard and turquoise. The quilt design is an Easy Bricks pattern by Amy Smart. I was hoping it would be idiot-proof and I wasn't disappointed. The squares and rectangles are a manageable size (I'm far too impatient to be cutting thousands of teeny, tiny pieces), which made it really straight forward to sew up. 

The quilt back is just a simple flat sheet which I bought for £12 - my finished quilt is 63" x 84" and a double flat sheet was plenty big enough. It's also much more economical if you're on a budget - initially I had my eye on some extra-wide fabric which would have cost me £40, but I couldn't really justify the cost. The pale duck-egg colour of the flat sheet blends in perfectly with the patchwork front, so I'm happy I went for the budget option. 

My least favourite part of making a quilt is safety-pinning the layers together - it just seems to take forever. I'm lucky in that I have a very large back room with lots of floor space, so I can actually tape it to the floor to pin it, but still, crawling around on my hands and knees for hours is not my idea of fun. On the plus side it does warm you up, I was boiling by the time I'd finished! I like the sleek look of a patchwork top before it's quilted, but I still prefer the puffy, springy appearance it takes on afterwards.

Pinned and ready to be quilted - doesn't it look sleek?!

After pinning, it took me two long sessions at the sewing machine to quilt it. I brought my sewing machine downstairs and quilted it at the kitchen table, which gave me acres of space. It's only now, working on my fourth quilt, that I realise quilting downstairs is a far more comfortable and spacious option than trying to quilt at my tiny sewing table in the loft. Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh?!

I decided to make my own binding after the wonderful Maryanne (Mrs C) sent me an excellent link on how to bind your own quilt. It takes you through all the steps, from cutting your own binding through to hand stitching it into position (I skipped that bit and machined mine instead!) The colours of my quilt are quite muted so I picked one of the brighter turquoise shades (Adventure Springs from M is of Make) for the binding, which I think frames it nicely.

All the quilts I've made have been photographed on my bed, simply because my bedroom is the lightest room in the house. None of them actually belonged there though….apart from this one! I love this quilt. I love the colours, the patterns in the fabrics, the stitches and the binding. I love how heavy it is and that I can totally wrap myself up in it. This one isn't going anywhere! x

Somebody decided to road test it on the sofa!...

Quilt plans

Despite having made three quilts (here, here and here), I still haven't exactly been bitten by the quilting bug. All three quilts were gifts for family members, so maybe it's because I'm always one step removed from the finished product? I'm not sure. Whatever the reasons, I've decided to give quilt making another go, but this time, the quilt will be for ME!  Call me an old lady, but I like nothing better than to be wrapped in a blanket whilst watching TV or reading on the sofa. The blanket I currently use is a ratty old fleece specimen, so a replacement in the form of a quilt is long overdue. It can serve double duty by brightening up the end of my bed during the day too. 

Colour-wise, I've been inspired by this beautiful baby quilt by Crafty Blossom. 

A Quilt for Harry by Crafty Blossom

Mustard and grey are two colours that crop up quite a lot in my bedroom furnishings. They feature in this print by Eloise Renouf...

...and in the fabric that covers this chair

My bedroom walls are painted cream and green/blue so I'll be picking out both of these colours too. The fabrics I've chosen are all from M is for Make, with the exception of the Hemingway grid print (RHS in the second picture) which is left over from my 1950's shoulder tie dress. 

As I'm a beginner, my previous quilts have all used the simplest of designs. So this time round, instead of using all squares, I'm going to be using…. rectangles and squares, talk about edgy! For the design, I'll be using the Strawberry Fields Bricks Pattern by Amy Smart for Moda, which seems relatively idiot proof. And because I can't bear the thought of cutting up countless plain, cream squares for the lighter accents, I'll use these pre-cut squares. It may not be strictly ballroom, but do I care? Nope. 

I'm making slow progress so far. I've almost cut out all of the rectangles and I'm hoping I'll soon be able to play with the patchwork pieces on the floor to make a pattern, which is probably my favourite bit! If I get my finger out, I may get this finished by Christmas, as long as there aren't too many party dresses clamouring for my attention in the meantime. The fact that I've outlined my plans on the blog will certainly give me a bit of a kick up the arse anyway.  Anybody else have any mad quilt plans? x

Herrick

When I helped my friend Berni make a quilt from her late brother's shirts last year, I had no idea I'd be making a similar quilt myself a year later. It's been a long, sad process but I'm pleased that it's finally finished and I can hand the quilt over to the recipient. 

This quilt was made from my beloved Uncle Herrick's shirts and is for his partner - Chris. Herrick died suddenly 18 months ago, which was a terrible shock for the whole family. I offered to make Chris a memory quilt of her own as I knew she'd get a lot of comfort from it, but even so, I had no idea how difficult it was going to be. Chris gave me the shirts at New Year (exactly a year after Herrick's death), but it took me about four months to pluck up the courage to even open the bags. I did open them eventually, and after lots of blubbing I finally started cutting out the squares for his quilt. This was the longest part of the whole process, partly because it was so emotional and I had to keep putting it away, but also because cutting up enough shirts for a sizeable quilt just takes ages. There were a few shirts left over so I made two of them into cushions as a little extra gift for Chris. They were super easy to make - look out for a tutorial on how to make them soon.

The finished quilt is large enough for a double bed and measures around 64" x 74". It's made up of 5" squares from as many different colours as I could find amongst his shirts. I decided to lay out the quilt top as a random design, which was actually quite a departure for me (in case you haven't noticed, I like things to be symmetrical, colour co-ordinated and lined up!) My only rule when laying out the patchwork squares was that no two squares of the same colour should lie next to each other. Sewing up the patchwork top was very straight forward, helped by my favourite new haberdashery purchase - Aurifil quilting thread from M is for Make. This high quality thread is fab - there were fewer instances of snarled up knots when sewing the squares together and it gave a lovely, precise finish to the top stitching.

The backing is just a plain, red cotton sheet (Chris wanted a red quilt back as Herrick was a lifelong Liverpool supporter) and the binding is the same blue and white striped binding I used for my son Charlie's quilt.

The brown square is from Herrick's work satchel - Chris had it personalised with his initials some years ago.

And this little Liverpool badge is from one of his football tops. The top wasn't suitable for using in the quilt but the badge was, so I unpicked it and sewed it onto the quilt back.

For the actual quilting, I sewed ¼" either side of each square, which gives a nice, neat effect on both sides.

I won't say too much about Herrick, as thinking about him still sets me off in floods of tears. He was only 15 years older than me, so was more like an older brother than an uncle and the funniest man I knew. There are so many little things that make me remember him…. I'll remember him whenever I see a terrible zombie film (watching Plan Nine from Outer Space with him was the time I laughed most in my entire life), I'll remember him when I hear the theme tune to Inspector Morse. I'll remember him when I see a copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. And I'll especially remember him whenever I hear Fagin's throwaway line in Oliver!, "Shut up and drink your gin." I miss him terribly.

I don't know anything about the individual shirts used in this quilt, they're Chris's memories. All I know is that it was a privilege to piece them together and make such a personal gift. I think its time to hand it over to its rightful owner now.  x

My first foray into quilting

At the beginning of the year, my soon-to-be eleven year old son Louis put in a request for a birthday present - he wanted a quilt. His birthday is at the end of January so I was just a tiny bit panic stricken. Despite the panic, I was absolutely over the moon that he'd asked me to make him something. There's not much scope to make things for a boy of his age and let's face it, in a couple of years, he'll be too embarrassed to even walk down the street with me. Even though the thought of that makes my heart hurt, I do know what teenage boys are like, so I leapt at the chance of making him something before he gets too old.   

I'll be totally honest, quilting has never appealing to me. My natural laziness and impatience are probably not great starting points for quilt making, but I decided to jump in and do the best job I could for Louis. Lack of time (I had about four weeks to make it), and lack of skills, meant I had to keep to the following criteria: 

- A simple design - squares rather than triangles or hexagons

- No more than six different fabrics used

- Minimal hand stitching

Louis and I chose the fabrics together, using the red and black colour scheme that he wanted. I bought a pre-cut FQ bundle of black fabrics (polka dots, hexagons and chevrons) from M is for Make, along with half a metre of red chevrons and half a metre of a red solid. For the backing, I used dottie red quilt backing, also from M is for Make. 

The design is a direct steal from Miss P's lovely baby quilt that she made about 18 months ago.  I remember thinking at the time that if I ever made a quilt, I'd want to use the same design. 

Once I had my fabric, I asked Kate at M is for Make for help! She was brilliant and pointed me in the direction of I'm a Ginger Monkey - a quilting blog with some great advice and tutorials for all things quilt related. I used her Super Simple Patchwork Square Quilt tutorial and made just a few amendments. My squares were 5 inches and my finished quilt was also slightly smaller: eight squares wide by 12 squares long, resulting in a smallish quilt of roughly 40 x 60 inches. What I didn't realise was that making the patchwork quilt top was the fun, relatively easy bit... 

Cutting out the squares took an afternoon, then sewing the squares into rows and sewing the rows together took another afternoon. It was preparing the batting, quilt top and quilt backing sandwich that took ages. I seem to have spent hours on my hands and knees, smoothing all the layers down and safety pinning them together. God, talk about tedious. 

I'm glad I took Portia's advice and persisted with basting the layers together with safety pins - I'd have been gutted if the quilting had gone cock-eyed after all that hard work.

For the actual quilting, I was going to use Portia's genius masking tape method, which came via the Martha Stewart blog. But I discovered I'm totally cack-handed when armed with a roll of masking tape, I could barely unroll it in a straight line. I ended up ruling diagonal chalk lines instead, which seemed to work fine. Quilting took a full morning, perhaps three or four hours, and I even remembered to use white thread for the top and red for the underside!

The black polka dot bias binding was from my stash and the quilting gods were obviously keeping an eye on me that day as I had just enough to bind the quilt with about two or three inches to spare. Talk about lucky. I know the traditional method is to machine one side of the binding, then hand stitch the other side. But you know my feelings on hand sewing - that last side was firmly machined into place.

I invested in two machine feet for this project, which you may think is a massive extravagance, but believe me, they were both good investments and their usefulness will last way beyond making this quilt. There's no way that quilt top would have been fit for human eyes without my new quarter inch foot, it made all the rows and columns line up seamlessly. My other, far more expensive investment was a walking foot. This was also worth its weight in gold when it came to quilting the three layers together, not a pucker in sight (well, not many...). I've been meaning to take the plunge and buy one for a while and I don't regret it for a minute. Imagine all those stripes and gingham pieces I'll be able to line up perfectly now?! 

New machine feet aside, the patchwork fabric, batting and quilt backing came to around £60. Yes, I could have used fabric from my stash for the quilt top, or maybe used a sheet for backing, but buying it all from a reliable supplier of quilt materials meant the fabrics would all be of a similar weight as well as being excellent quality and fit for purpose. I'm hoping this quilt will last for many years to come!  It's not a cheap option by any means, but it's probably about the same price as two Wii games which makes me feel it's money well spent! I can see why quilts are so expensive to buy commercially though - apart from the cost of the materials, the time, effort and love that go into making them is immeasurable. 

So has making this quilt converted me? In all honesty, I'd say no it hasn't. I'm absolutely delighted with the finished quilt and, more importantly, so is Louis, but as a process it just doesn't do it for me in the same way that making a dress does. BUT… Louis looks so cosy with his quilt tucked round him in front of the TV, that I may just be tempted to make another one for myself this year. Especially as it didn't actually take all that long to make. Let's just say it's tempting but I'm in no rush... x 

Sewing book purge... and giveaway winners

Hello hello! We've just had school half term here in the UK and despite the torturous experience of holiday homework (like pulling teeth) we had a really fun week, peaking mid-week with Halloween and the thrill of a bucket full of sweets each.  I also took the opportunity to swap my summer wardrobe for an autumn one and sort out my sewing books. Ahem. Yes, I have a slight problem in this department. As with sewing patterns, I have a compulsion to hit the 'add to basket' button for any sewing book featured on a blog before I've even finished reading the blog post. I know I'm not the only one with this little habit, which makes me feel better, but it still leaves me with the problem of shelves and shelves of sewing books that never get used. So I've been ruthless and decided to sell all the books that aren't in everyday use. I've read them all and can highly recommend each and every one of them, but it's time for them to find a new home.

Before I list them on eBay, I thought I'd list them here on my blog to see if there's any interest amongst my readers.It seems a bit silly not to as there's a tailor made audience ready and waiting! Just a couple of things to point out:

1. I'll post the books out at cost - estimated first class postage is listed next to the price. I'm happy to ship anywhere, but books are heavy so it may not be cost effective for overseas readers.

2. Payment via a Paypal account please. 

Here we go:

Meet Me at Mike's by Pip Lincolne  NOW SOLD!

A few of the spirals have come undone from the binding (see picture). 

The binding was like this when I bought it and I couldn't be bothered to exchange it. Otherwise, mint condition, all patterns intact and unused.
RRP: £15.99
Jane's price: £6.00
Estimated postage: £2.70


Design-it-Yourself Clothes by Cal Patch   NOW SOLD!

Mint condition
RRP: £17.99
Jane's price: £8.00
Estimated postage: £2.70


Fabric for Fashion: The Swatch Book by Clive Hallett and Amanda Johnston
NOW SOLD!

Mint condition, includes over 100 fabric samples 
RRP: £60.00
Jane's price: £25.00
Estimated postage: £4.30

The Crafter's Companion Edited by Anna Torberg

Mint condition

RRP: £14.99
Jane's price: £7.50
Estimated postage: £2.70


Chic on a Shoestring by Mary Jane Baxter  NOW SOLD!

Top right corner slightly bent but otherwise excellent condition


RRP: £14.99
Jane's price: £7.50
Estimated postage: £2.70

The Bag Making Bible by Lisa Lam   NOW SOLD!

Mint condition, all patterns intact and unused.

RRP: £14.99

Jane's price: £7.50

Estimated postage: £2.70

If you're interested in purchasing any of the books, please leave a comment after this post. 

And now, without further ado, I'm delighted to announce the winners of my bloggerversary giveaway. The winner of the Colette Patterns Anise pattern is Karin from Sew Here We Go Again!

The winner of the Little Red fabric bundle is Helen from Helen Made

Hoorah, hoorah, as it's the 5th November here in the UK, I'll let off a few fireworks in celebration!  Congratulations ladies and happy sewing. Please e-mail me your addresses and I'll get your prizes to you ASAP. Once again, I'd like to say an enormous thank you to Kate from M is for Make for so generously donating both giveaway prizes. 

I'll be back soon to show off my latest make - a knit dress for autumn. Happy Monday everybody. x

Bloggerversary giveaway

Guess what? It was over two years ago that I wrote my first blog post, tentatively showing off my Sencha blouse! Can you believe it?! I've LOVED documenting my sewing journey during this time, and I'd like to thank you all for providing such support, encouragement and friendship along the way.  As a mark of my appreciation, I have a pretty awesome giveaway for you. Oh yes!

There are two elements to the giveaway, both courtesy of the super-generous Kate from M is for make.  First up is a choice of one of the new season patterns from Colette - the Anise jacket or the Juniper trousers. 

Having already made a coat this year, the Juniper trousers are the ones that get my vote, I've got a cunning plan to make a pair of these in red for the summer....  If patterns aren't your thing then Kate's also offering one of her beautiful, co-ordinating fabric bundles. All fabric bundles are detailed here on the M is for make website, so hop on over and decide which one is your favourite. 

I love this little Seaside bundle. I can just imagine the most darling cushion made from the seaside fabric, backed with the navy boat fabric and maybe some anchor buttons. So cute!  

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post stating which pattern or fabric bundle you'd choose if you're a winner. You're more than welcome to enter for both elements. The giveaway is open worldwide and closes at midnight GMT on Sunday 4th November. Please make sure you leave your email address if it's not linked to your blogger profile so I can contact you if you're the winner. Good luck everybody and here's to another happy blogging year! x

Patterns and prints

Wow, what a fantastic time we had on Saturday at the Goldhawk Road Fabric Fandango (read Karen’s and Tilly’s posts for much better descriptions/pictures than I could ever do). As I live quite locally I restrained myself on the fabric buying front and just bought some silk lining for my forthcoming Oolong dress plus a funny little strawberry print which I’ll probably make into a bag.  But fabric buying wasn't the reason I went along, I went for the once in a blue moon opportunity of meeting all my favourite bloggers in one place.  And boy did they not disappoint!  I got to meet some of the nicest and most talented people ever - it really was an absolute pleasure.  And we talked about fabric non-stop all afternoon. What more could you ask for really? It was a great day which I’ll remember fondly for quite some time to come.  Thank you so much Karen for making it happen. 

In other news, I recently had a re-order from the lady mentioned here for more of the zipped purses I made for her, yippee.  Along with fabric combinations I know sell well at craft fairs, I added in a few new ones from recent fabric splurges.  I’ve used this combination before in a bag so thought I’d give it a go as a make-up bag.

These are a few fat quarters I picked up in M is For Make’s recent sale..

A gold star for anybody who can tell me why the lining of this make-up bag looks familiar

I’ve used this combination before too but not at a craft fair.  I sent a similar one to Karen from Did you Make That? as a thank you for a very kind favour she did for my son. It went down very well, so I’ve added it to my list!

and more polka dots…

And finally, some of my very kind friends clubbed together and bought me Liberty vouchers for my birthday.  The vouchers were burning a huge hole in my pocket, so as soon as I had a free day I hot-footed it into town to spend them.  Choosing a favourite Liberty print is a bit like asking you to choose your favourite child (well, not quite but it’s pretty difficult!) But when I saw this particular print I immediately fell for it.  

The fabric is designed by illustrator Lauren Child (of Charlie and Lola fame), and I love the way she’s managed to combine an old school Liberty style print with her own quirky style. But really, navy with red accents just isn’t my thing…. JOKE!  It’s COMPLETELY my thing and I absolutely adore it.  I’m planning to make a Colette pattern Violet blouse with it, but I think I’ll give the pattern a test run first with a lesser fabric. Happy Monday. x