Warmth in the North

little bunting pouch

    This little pouch has been on my to do list for a little while now and it's finally finished.  It doesn't really have any purpose but I wanted to play around with bunting and all these scraps were just calling out to be used.  It currently contains all my hexies supplies which had been scattered across the coffee table so it is coming in handy.

    The photo isn't very detailed but I used fusible web and then machine appliqued it onto the muslin.  Pretty straightforward but I'm thinking of trying it out on a larger scale for a little baby quit and wanted to see if it would work without being too much of a pain.  I'm not exactly sure if raw edges are a good idea for a baby but I love my little pouch anyway.

there will be knitting

    A while ago I contacted Jolene of Jobo Designs and asked her to spin some yarn for a special project.  I wanted some handspun but since I don't spin and fingering weight is hard to come by in larger amounts it needed to be a custom order.  Jolene even dyed the merino this lovely plum colour after I gave her some idea of what I was looking for and I couldn't be happier.  I hope I'll be able to do her work justice.

do. Good Stitches :: Colourful Zigzags

    I'm so excited to finally have this quilt finished.  It seamed to take forever, although it really didn't take that long once I had all the blocks and sat down at my sewing machine.  As my first ever group quilt I think it turned out really well if I do say so myself.

    In May I signed up to be a member of do. Good Stitches on Flickr!, it's a group of quilters who make quilts for various charities.  I volunteered to be a stitcher and make blocks but by the end of the month I was the host of Grace and we started with the June quilt.  I asked everyone to make 2 zigzag blocks out of half square triangles, in white and bright colourful fabric.  All of the 9 other members sent me two blocks, I added two of my own and this is our final product.  It's in the mail and on it's way to My Very Own Blanket where it will find a new home with a foster child. 

 

    Every month we make two blocks each according to the quilters instructions and send them off.  It's so much fun to see what everyone makes but also try out new things that you wouldn't have without being asked to.  My turn as quilter won't come up again until November but I'm already working on ideas, I really can't wait.

starting out

    I should be showing you a finished quilt today but I need a little break from all those zigzags so even writing about it is going to have to wait.  After everything was done on the quilt I took a few minutes to start another project.  Once I sketched out a ton of things on graph paper I finally cut everything out and have it all sitting next to the sewing machine ready to start sewing.

    It will be for my swap partner in the For the Love of Solids Swap.  She asked for pink and aqua and I've added a bit of gray to anchor everything.  It's hard to try to figure out what to make for someone else in a secret swap, very hard, but I think I've kept her ideas and preferences in mind.  Hopefully she'll like it!

a little bit of math

    I spent much of yesterday at my sewing machine and managed to get through half of the quilting.  My shoulders are not all that happy with me this morning.  All that quilt wrangling takes more effort than you'd think but I think it'll be worth the time in the end.

    Do you ever go with an idea before really thinking about how much time it'll take to execute?  I thought that instead of going with quilting along the zigzags that parallel lines would be nice.  Without really thinking about it I started and quilted seven lines down the first row.  That's 140 times for the whole quilt, yesterday I got though 70 and as soon as this is posted I'm going to sit back down and hopefully get through the rest.  Next time I'm going some math before I start quilting.

colour, colour

    I was really hoping to have my circles June quilt for do. Good Stitches all finished by now but life has gotten in the way.  However the top is ready to go and I'm planning on spending the next few days quilting.  So hopefully it'll be ready to show off by the weekend.

    These postage stamp blocks that I sent out for the August quilt.  I really love them and a little part of me is tempted to try to make whole quilt.  The saner half of my brain is firmly opposed, it would take forever and a day.  I know there are ways to speed up the process but you loose the scrappy look that I love.

no going back

    I'm not very good at trying new things in most areas of life, honestly that's an understatement, I suck at the unfamiliar.  When it comes to crafting I've got no problem going out on a limb and failing.  I'm not sure if this attempt at applique is good or bad quite yet but it's definitely not perfect.  By the end of my days off I'd love if the top was finished so I'll be pushing on no matter how imperfect.  That's part of what I love about crafting it allows for the imperfect.

obnoxiously pink

    I'm staring at this picture and thinking that I should write something about the quilt I've just started but honestly it's the new iron cover that's grabbing my attention.  Here's the thing, it's obnoxiously pink, has a fantastic geometric pattern and is padded.  As an added bonus it was around ten dollars and while I know it's twin is gracing my friend's ironing board back in Toronto, it's probably the only one of its kind in these parts.

    The old cover that this board came with wasn't up to snuff anymore and I kept intending to sew a new one but never got around to it.  Then when I went home a few weeks ago I helped an amazingly talented friend with all the flowers for our friends wedding.  After a day of figuring out how to down flowers, harder than you might think, we went on a little shopping break.  I'm pretty sure she already knew these existed but as soon as she grabed hers off the rack I knew I needed one too.  It's already making ironing a little bit easier and every time I look at it that day comes to mind, which makes it all the more special.