Bee Quilt

So here's the finished Bee Quilt (front started here and back here) 

Not my favourite quilt ever, but nice and bright and colourful. And Venetia loves this one, which is reassuring since this one is for a little girl not that much older than Venetia. The little girl's name is 'Honey' - hence the not very subtle or clever bee theme!  - and, after my post last week about quilt backs, I decided I'd add her name to the back too.

I think the back is something I'll try to pay a little more attention to from now onwards, although perhaps I should qualify that with a 'when I have enough time'! Claudine, from Becoming Claudine, summed up my ideal quilt back beautifully in her comment on my post:

'I like the idea of there being a "surprise" on the back of the quilt...but not specifically making it so fancy that it is reversible. Whatever is on the back is like a little special treat just for the person being blanketed with it...'

So as well as her name, Honey has got a little appliqued bee on the back too (up near the top, along the pieced strip - can you see it?). And I put three little bees on the front too, did you spot them? Here's one...

I made the bees from wool scraps, the brown stripes are just tight zigzagged brown lines across. And they also have the added advantage of not being 'new' fabric - so in the end I didn't actually (quite!) make a quilt entirely from new fabric! Phew! I was having nightmares about that possibility!

See you again tomorrow, Sally.

Hexagons

I'm still working on the Half Square Triangles from the end of last week but, ever since the beginning of last week when I showed you photos of My Mum's Quilt, hexagons seem to be popping up all over the place! I think it's mainly that the children, having looked at the quilt with new eyes, are now spotting hexagons and pointing them out to me like mad. And tessellating hexagons in particular create the most excitement at the moment! Generally it's when we're out and about, maybe in the car, and I can't take photos. But I have got one really good example I can share with you - really good because it also ties in with the half square triangles that are going on here at the moment:

A half rectangle triangles quilt? Think about spiltting the more obvious triangle shapes in half, then pairing them up with the split triangle of a different colour next to them, this makes the rectangles.

I'm hoping this is clear enough for you to see the pattern. It was hard to get anything like a decent photo because this is actually a pattern on an envelope, so it's really small and also quite pale. Venetia was given a card in this envelope, and was just as excited about the envelope as she was about the contents once she spotted there were hexxies going on in the pattern! And I think (someone more experienced than me please correct me if I'm wrong here) that if I were to try and recreate this pattern in a quilt (which Venetia desperately wants me to do now!) that I'd use half square triangles (or rather half rectangle triangles) to do it. So although it looks very complicated, and it would need careful colour placement to give the right effect, it is actually a reasonably straightforward quilt to construct, all machine sewable and all based around one simple shape. Watch this space for an example maybe - although I think it might be a mini quilt, at least to start with, perfect for Venetia's dolls perhaps.

Anyway, back with the hexxies. The children were busy this weekend making all things hexagon with acqua beads.



 

And I got infected with the hexxie bug. The half square triangles were put to one side and I remembered I'd bought this material a while back:

Perfect to join in with the hexxie bug. I only had a fat quarter of it (new fabric has to be rationed in this house, but I bought it from here if you're interested, Plush Addict), so, especially since I didn't really want to break up the lovely hexxie pattern, I thought a mini applique quilt might be good. Obviously it had to be bees, and not just any bees - hexxie bees! Don't get too excited because it's not finished yet, but here are a few photos of how it's going so far:

Brown and yellow fabric strips sewn together ready for the bee body templates

Fabric cut out, slightly larger than the templates, then ironed over the templates

One bee, edges all tacked under (in the red thread) about to be sewn on to the honeycomb fabric.

I've been wanting to make some mini quilts for ages so it feels great to have one started. I have plans for a wall of mini quilts so I hope it will be the first of many. I have always hankered after a patchwork wall and, a while back, my friend Emma (of Hope Sews fame) made me green with envy when she created this very beautiful patchwork wall:



Isn't it gorgeous? And I can tell you it looks even better in the flesh. I especially love the way Emma put in small things, like cards and photos, that have special meaning for her. It just made me want to 'patchwork' all sorts of different things rather than purely quilts. But as for that wall I'd love to have - despite wandering around my house many times considering every wall from every angle, I just couldn't find a wall where it would look good and be practical. And even with the extension that's being built for my parents I'm not sure there's a wall that's a good candidate. But then I saw this picture (on trusty Pinterest):


Hillary Lang Doll Quilt Wall from my Pinterest

And it occurred to me that this was something I could do quite easily to give me the kind of effect I was craving. So this is what the mini quilts are for eventually. They're going to go on the wall beside my stairs, which is much too boring at the moment. So expect to see more mini quilts cropping up here in the future (maybe the one for Venetia, based on her envelope, won't get to be for her dolls after all!).

I was going to show you one more hexxie lovely today, a bought quilt - quite unusual for me. But I think (and my children definitely think!) that this post is plenty long enough already so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Back then, Sally.

Wonky Patchwork and my first ever quilt

This is my first ever blog post and is feeling a little scary!

I'm a Mum of 4 lovely children and, although I've done lots of interesting bits and pieces since becoming a parent, I've managed to avoid going out into the workplace proper for the last 12 years while I've, pretty much continually, had a child of pre-school age at home. BUT my littlest baby is starting school in September and my thoughts have recently turned to what I'm going to do with myself.

I have a passion for "creating", more often than not this involves sewing, and my favourite thing to create would have to be a patchwork quilt. But as well as sewing I love working with wood, buttons, beads, jewellery making, cooking, decoupage... , anything really where the end result is something that I've made(ideally something beautiful or delicious or at the very least practical!), something that gives me a sense of satisfaction.

As much as I love being a parent I'm sure anyone who has young children will know that there are times when it's stressful and that it's very easy to lose your sense of yourself. Time spent creating things is my therapy time, it's time for "me" and if I don't get it I become very ratty!

I am also just slightly addicted to rummaging around charity shops and, partly as a result of this, I have an embarrassingly large stash of fabric and other crafty supplies. Unless I crack this addiction (highly unlikely I think), I need to find a better way of getting some of the fabric etc out of the house before we literally can't get in the front door - as opposed to currently just not being able to open several cupboards/wardrobes because of the piles of lovely fabric in front of them as well as inside.

So to get to the point, after reviewing various work options that would give me the time and flexibility to still put my children first (especially during school holidays), I've decided that the answer to all my problems is to try and make my passion for creating into more than just my hobby and my therapy, and to try and somehow make it into my "work" as well. I really don't know whether this will be successful. From dabbling in various craft markets/fairs I know that it's very hard to make any money from handmade items when you look at the time that you've put into it. And although I'm not looking to make my fortune here, just a little bit of an income would be lovely. But I feel like I have to give it a go, and a blog feels like the right first step.

I love a good craft blog (although I find my most creative weeks are often those when I spend least time at a computer!) and, although I feel a bit that I'm coming to the craft blogging party a little late, I'm hoping I can still add something. I'm hoping that sharing my projects will help plant ideas and get your creative juices flowing the way that my favourite blogs do mine. I'm sure that my blog will have a definite patchwork slant but I'm also planning on including lots of other craft projects and ideas as well as some cooking and probably, knowing me, quite a few charity shop finds and child related crafts.

So why "Wonky Patchwork"? For me, my love of patchwork isn't about making a technically brilliant quilt. I don't tend to have the time or patience for that. It's all about creating something beautiful with a mix of colours and patterns and shapes. Especially if it involves using "thrifted" materials, giving new life to something a bit old and dated. There are some amazing new, designer fabrics out there and some incredibly talented quilters who make jaw droppingly gorgeous quilts from them. But this isn't the kind of challenge I most like from quilt making (which is good because I couldn't afford an addiction to new, designer fabric!). It would be difficult for anyone, with a moderate level of skill on a sewing machine, not to make a beautiful quilt if they start off with a beautiful stack of fabric - like this maybe...

(Amy Butler Soul Blossom)

Which is not to take away anything from quilters who do use such gorgeous fabric, I'm sure their sewing skills are generally far better than mine, obviously there is still an important design element and there are many other challenges in making such a quilt - like accurate cutting and piecing. It's just that for me, I really get my quilting buzz in a different way and, I'm sorry to say, accurate cutting and piecing aren't always a high priority! So I do sometimes end up with "wonky" patchwork, which for me personally adds extra individuality! My first patchwork quilt that I ever made is a perfect example of this.

I love it and am very proud of it but if you look closely you'll see very few of my "squares" match up perfectly, some are way off! I have got a lot less wonky with time, sometimes I'll make a quilt that isn't wonky at all but I do prefer a bit of higgledy piggledness where possible!

I remember my Mum discovered a love of quilting, probably when I was about 10 I would say (I'll show you some of her quilts another time), so I was very aware of quilting and already had a love of patchwork quilts, but I had never actually made one myself before this one. I was inspired to try after watching Kirsty Allsopp's Homemade Home, where she had a go at making one for her children, and I loved the end result. It was a colourful mix of different patterns and wasn't the kind of quilt I'd really seen before.

I think this might be it??? Certainly something similar anyway and I was hooked.

I decided I had to make one for my little girl. I was about 6 months pregnant at the time and I'm sure nesting hormones had something to do with it and also the fact that she was still in our bedroom and I really wanted to tempt her into her own room before the baby arrived! She wanted a "butterfly room" so it had to be a butterfly quilt, and she loves her pinks and purples and girlie colours. I machine appliqued butterflies on to lots of squares first, some of them set at an angle to add a bit more interest to my final design.

Quite a lot of the fabric I used came from my Mum's old scraps or from old dresses and clothes generally, some of it I bought new and some of it I had already found in Charity shops. I love this blue fabric for instance which was a, slightly worn in places, duvet cover I found.

I got it finished when I was about 40 weeks pregnant and my little girl and I both loved it, but then almost immediately I had a teeny, tiny baby to look after and didn't get back to patchwork for quite a while. As my littlest one has got older and more independent I've done more and more patchwork, mainly as presents for family and I'll share more of my other quilts with you in future posts, but this one (hopefully mainly because it's the first post!) is already far too long! Please come back and read some more again.

Back soon, Sally.
PS If you feel like adding pictures of your first ever quilts I'd love to see them.