Sunshine Quilt

I have to say, I love this quilt! This has been one of my favourites to make (and now look at!) for quite a while. I'm not sure whether this is because it's of the sunshine, or because of the lovely bright colours, but it just makes me happy! I want to hang it on my wall and smile at it every time I walk past.

But it's a present for someone so now I've got to give it away.

Just hope she likes it. As well as the fact that the weather has been so sunny, I made this particular quilt because she's such a sunny person. I always find it's good to make a quilt as personal as possible for the person in mind because then it is usually easier to give it away! Obviously this one needed to be a bit more personal though!

I've seen quite a few sunshine quilts on Pinterest, all of them very similar, but I think this is my favourite:

http://pinterest.com/pin/65654107040970205/


The thing I most love about it is the blue binding, which I've used, and love now, on my quilt. And I also loved breaking into my pile of vintage sheets for mine.

I made it by first sandwiching together the backing fabric (part of an old duvet cover), an old wool blanket and an old plain sheet. I gave them all a good spray with the 505 glue, it's really important to have all 3 layers secure if this method is going to work.

My 3 layer sandwich, backing facing up here.

Once they were secure and smooth I cut out a 'ray' shape from my vintage sheets and just stitched it down through all 3 layers, leaving the 'ray' edges raw. Then I carried on with more 'ray' shapes, sewing them, right sides together, over the previous ray, then ironing it over so the right side was face up on the plain sheet. This way the sun gradually started to build up, each ray covering the previous one's raw edges.



Sew right sides together down one seam before ironing it over flat.

 For the last ray, I ironed a quick hem on the leftover edge before sewing it down over my very first line of stitching, which was on the raw edge of the very first ray. Does that make sense? Sorry, I should have taken more photos, I'm still not used to stopping and doing that.

So now I had all the rays with a roundish hole waiting to be filled in the middle. All my stitching so far had gone through all 3 layers so was already 'quilting' it together pretty well but I wanted lots more quilting on this one so added lots more lines on each section to give more of the 'ray' effect. It worked really well.


Quilted rays


I decided I'd like a big round sun on the back too so I appliqued that on next, with a really dense zigzag stitch all the way round the raw edge.

The round sun on the back, with a dense, orange zigzag stitch around it.

Then I cut a slightly larger circle for the front so that it would cover the zigzag stitching that had come through to the front. I didn't want more zigzag stitching going through to the back so I turned over a thin hem all the way round my front circle before sewing it on with just a neat machine running stitch.

An easy way to turn over the hem on a circle is to cut a paper template slightly smaller than your fabric (reasonably sturdy paper is good - I used plain wallpaper that the girls have for painting), place it on the wrong side of your fabric and then iron over the wider strip of fabric all the way round. It really is much easier to do it this way with something this size and then you can just machine stitch it down rather than hand applique it, turning it as you go. And obviously it's going to stand up to wear and tear much better this way too.

My paper template, with the fabric underneath slightly larger.

Ironing over a small hem on the paper.

I was nearly done but wanted to add some more quilting detail to the circle piece too, so I machine stitched a spiral on there. It's been a while since I made a quilt with lots of quilting lines on it and I think this is another reason I like the quilt so much, it really does make a difference to it.

Then the blue binding and it was finished.

Normally I would never make the same quilt more than once (I get bored too easily for that! Plus the fact that there are always so many other quilts to make), but with this one I'm definitely going to have to make another similar at least so that I can put it up on my wall somewhere in the Summer. And I'd love to make a baby quilt along these lines too.

Anyway, this is already a very long post and I haven't even told you how amazing Bruce Springsteen was last night! He's definitely a lesson in growing older, he's 63 and still doing what he clearly loves, surrounded by friends in the band who are clearly very important to him. And not only is he doing it but he's doing it incredibly well, I wish I had half his energy now! Sometimes you hear older singers and all the power and quality in their voices seems to have drained away but that wasn't the case with Bruce at all. And he sang for probably over three and a half hours almost solidly! Amazing! If you ever get a chance, go and see him.

I'll leave you with some of his (completely randomly chosen!) song lyrics, for no other reason than they're going round my head still!

Back tomorrow, Sally.


“Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going”

“You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above”

"God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of"

"You can't start a fire, worryin' about your little world falling apart"

"Now everyone dreams of a love faithful and true,
But you and I know what this world can do.
So let's make our steps clear so the other may see.
And I'll wait for you...should I fall behind wait for me.”

Have you got any favourite song lyrics, not necessarily Bruce Springsteen, that you feel like sharing?

Hope Sews

A good friend of mine, Emma, set up a Facebook page, Hope Sews, at the start of the year, to make quilts for orphans in Romania through the Humanitas Charity. Emma has a personal connection with this charity, having spent quite some time in Romania a few years ago, giving the children there the love and attention they need. She has a strong social conscience and is very much someone who gets things done rather than just talking or thinking about it, combine this with a love of sewing and quilts - and you have 'Hope Sews'!

Emma's latest quilt for Hope Sews

She also found a lovely book a while back, 'Quilting for Peace', which I'm sure inspired her as well. She lent it to me recently and it's a very moving book, full of stories of how individuals and groups have used quilting to reach out to people, whether by trying to help with grieving, change outlooks, show love or simply provide warmth to those who need it. It's here on Amazon if you're interested:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quilting-Peace-World-Better-Stitch/dp/1584798041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374580797&sr=8-1&keywords=quilting+for+peace

If you can, please take a minute to have a look at her Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hope-Sews/102588516501725?fref=ts
And even if you're not in a position to make a quilt for them please still feel free to give them a 'like' and that way it'll spread the word further! If you do feel like making a quilt, either for Hope Sews or another cause, then even better. A few of my friends have made their first ever quilt for 'Hope Sews', it's a lovely way to get into quilting, especially as they're only looking for smallish quilts which is always easier.

And there's really no need to go out and buy expensive supplies to get started on a project for this as my latest 'Hope Sews' quilt shows:

This quilt is made from an old white sheet, one skirt that was being thrown out by a friend, and an ancient coat for the binding. The middle is a very lightweight, old wool blanket, the knitted kind with holes in - not sure what they're called. Since the sheet and the skirt material are both very fine materials it's given the quilt a lovely light feel all round, but hopefully the layers, with the holey wool in the middle trapping some air, will give it warmth too - this is what my boys tell me from their science lessons on the principles of insulation!

I made this quilt in a slightly different way - I'm sure I had a tutorial on Pinterest but can I find it now? No! Watch this space and I'll try and find it again for you because it's quite a clever method.

I have to say that I really didn't enjoy making it much though! It was quite tedious just sticking to the checker board pattern and not even having any variation in colours to work into it. I played around with the back a bit just to give myself a bit of interest in it really, and that was much more fun:

Just a randomly pieced heart and a few leftover squares too.

It's been really hot round here for the last few weeks (hot by our usual standards anyway!) and making quilts has felt just a little bit wrong! But this quilt has a lovely, light Summery feel to it for me so it was good to finish it. And I think I might have another very Summery quilt for you tomorrow. But for now I've got to get ready to go and see Bruce Springsteen in concert in Cardiff- wahoo!

Back tomorrow, probably tired! Sally.
PS Don't forget to go and 'like' Hope Sews!

Hop Scotch Quilt and an inspiring speaker

I’ve got another make to show you in a minute but first I wanted to share something else with you. It’s something completely unrelated to patchwork, or craft generally really, and I’ve been wondering, since the weekend, whether or not to try and share it on here. But it’s something that inspired me and inspiration is something I’m hoping I might, sometimes, provide here in one form or another, so here goes.

I went to a Speech Day/Leavers Service at the weekend and they had a Guest Speaker there, Charles Hazlewood. I’m afraid I hadn’t heard of him beforehand but he is a famous conductor. His talk was all about having trust and belief in yourself. He told us:

“I believe that I can conduct a Beethoven symphony like no one else in the world. You may think that’s me being arrogant but I’m not saying I can do it ‘better’ than anyone else in the world, just that my way will be unique to me. I can bring something to it that no one else can.”

He was very passionate that the first step to achieving anything is to believe, to know, that you have something unique to offer the world. That everyone has something unique to offer the world, whether this is the world in the widest sense or on a smaller scale – the people around you. In his job this need for trust then moves on to trusting people around him, in his case often members of his orchestra. Each of his musicians has something unique, their own personal interpretation of the music, to offer to the orchestra as a whole. He compared his role as a conductor to holding a small, wild bird – “hold it too tightly and you’ll squash it, hold it too loosely and it will fly away”.

He also talked about one particular aspect of his life and work – the founding of The British Paraorchestra. This was clearly a very personal and heartfelt area of his work. If you can, please take a moment to read more about it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/27/charles-hazlewood-british-paraorchestra

The Paraorchestra played at the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games last year with Cold Play. I’m ashamed to say that this is a part of the ceremony that I hadn’t really picked up on at the time, and I have never before wondered why there are so few well known musicians and singers with disabilities. It seemed so obvious, once he had brought it to our attention, that this was a whole group of people who were being lost to the world, and it made me wonder in how many other walks of life there might be people we should be seeing and hearing and for one reason or another they don’t have the opportunities or the encouragement or the platform to get their uniqueness out to the world – be it in the wider or narrower sense.

I don’t think trying to put his words in writing here will have half the effect that they had on me in person but I took a lot from his talk to help me with parenting as well as crafting and probably lots of other areas of life. He was a very inspiring speaker, and, as I listened to him, I found myself being reminded of someone else I know. I couldn’t think why to start with because they don’t look alike and, on the face of it, they don’t really have much in common. And then I realised that it was because they both had a passion for something in their lives, something they were committed to in their words and in their actions. I think this kind of passion is the main ingredient in making a person inspiring or not inspiring, to me anyway.

Ok, enough of that, I hope you didn’t find it too boring or off track. Now here’s another thing that was sort of a birthday present for Maria. I say ‘sort of’ since I did actually start this well over a year ago to give to her for her last birthday! I got the top finished but never got round to backing it and finishing it. So it wasn’t a surprise for her and she had played on it before, but this birthday finally prompted me to finish it.

It's a Hop Scotch Quilt.

Just large pieces sewn together, with numbers machine appliqued (with raw edges) and some ric rac. Very simple. A couple of the fabrics are actually new on this, but the other 2 came from a table cloth and a remnant I picked up in a charity shop. I backed it in an old shower curtain, again found at a charity shop, since I wanted it to be used mainly outside, and there’s an old wool blanket as wadding to give it some weight and sturdiness. Quilting these 3 layers together was a bit of a pain, especially because of the slippiness the shower curtain brought to the show. And even more so because my trusty ‘505’ spray glue for basting (if you haven’t used this stuff I’d definitely recommend it, makes the quilting process so much easier) didn’t seem to work on shower curtain fabric. Maybe when I’m feeling a bit more patient, I’ll try and do some more quilting lines on it, I think it would improve it. For now both my girls love using it (even the boys have been seen giving it a go – but unfortunately never when I’ve had my camera handy!)

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ve got an incredibly quick make – literally 5 minutes.

See you then, Sally.

Handmade birthday presents

It was my littlest girl's 4th birthday last week and I managed to make a lot of her birthday presents this year which was great in itself and is great now because it means I have a few things to share with you on here!

For her 3rd birthday last year, I found a lovely picnic basket in my Charity Shop wanderings, I added a few teddy bears (secondhand of course!), a pretend cake and a few other child friendly pots and it turned out to be her favourite present.

She has had countless Teddy Bears' picnics, sung Happy Birthday to them all and dished out
the cake between them again and again.

This year I found an old, vintage book of the Teddy Bear's picnic,

and I also wanted to make her a patchwork picnic rug that had a flavour of the lovely bright illustrations in the book. Especially as her favourite colours are bright reds and then yellows. This is what I came up with:

(Since deciding I was going to start a blog I've been putting a bit of thought into where I photograph my quilts. Previously, if it happened at all then it would either be on the washing line or on a bed. But clearly the blogs I look at with quilts featuring in them have beautifully staged quilt photos. Take a look at http://filminthefridge.com/  for a start, she makes some amazing quilts and photographs them beautifully. Photography is not my strong point but I'm working on it. I went into the woods next to us to take this photo, with my older daughter. Unfortunately, despite being officially the first day of Summer it was incredibly cold and windy, so much so that my daughter was shivering away without a coat and ended up wrapping the quilt around her as we walked back!

But it was lovely to be reminded of what quilts are actually best at after all - keeping us warm!)

 

Anyway, as you can see I decided on a strippy quilt style and used a method I'd seen described in one of my favourite blogs - Soulemama, find her post explaining how she did it here - http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2013/03/
It's sort of a quilt as you go method, each square is quilted individually and then you just sew them all together and back it without having to do major quilting on the whole thing altogether. And it did make a nice change to not have to cram a whole quilt in my little sewing machine to do the quilting.

I only intended on having the very central section match up - with the red fabric I was using. I wanted the rest of the strips to look very random in both size and colour, but you can probably see that, mainly coincidentally, there are quite a few areas that actually do look a bit like they match up so I feel like I didn't quite get the randomness I wanted. And in hindsight I think I would have been better to plan each square so that all the strips did match up properly in size and fabric. I'm sure I'll make something along the same lines at some point so I'll try a matching up version of it then.

And, as a present, it was definitely a success and has been put to good use several times already.

It was also perfect timing to make this because another blog I love to follow, No Big Dill, has just been running with a theme of sewing and crafts inspired by children's books. Katy, from No Big Dill, calls this "Once Upon a Thread" and it's something she's done for a few years. There have been some lovely projects made so have a look, http://www.nobigdill.com/ , and it's something I've been tempted to join in with before but have never got round to, so this year I posted my photos on her Flickr group page too.

And coincidentally, one of the only 2 "new" presents my 4 year old received was as a result of seeing it featured on No Big Dill's "Once Upon a Thread" last year, http://www.nobigdill.com/2012/06/out-chapter-3-scribbling-book.html  - "The Scribble Book" by Herve Tullet,

One of the few things that has to be given "new" really since this is a book that's set up ready for your child's scribbles! It looked great last year and I haven't been disappointed now we've got it.

This post seems to have been full of links, hope you've found them interesting, and if you've made any good birthday presents recently please share them with us.

Back with more quilts and more presents soon, Sally.

PS Did you spot the Teddy Bear on the picnic blanket with the matching dress in my leftover scraps?

Cute, huh?