Moody Blues denim quilt {WIP 3 of 12} and {Nephew quilt 1}

This quilt is my March finish for the 12 WIP's in 2012 challenge

It is a denim patchwork quilt made from 6.5" denim charms. I discussed the construction of the quilt top here.

I sourced the fabric from denim jeans, most of them outgrown by my own family, but some sourced from op shops in order to get a nice selection of different shades of denim (especially the acid wash denim).

The quilting was simple, straight lines in bright orange thread either side of the ditch. The denim was a bit temperamental during the quilting as a lot of it had lycra in it and it shifted around under the machine foot. I managed to avoid any puckers, but some of the patches look a bit more bubbly than others. The back quilted up perfectly, so I definitely think it was the denim that was the problem and not me!

For the backing I chose a navy and orange geometrical print from the Denise Schmidt range 'Daisy Mae' (available at Spotlight). In my last update about this quilt I pondered what to use as wadding. I decided to use regular quilters wadding. It does make the quilt very heavy, but it will have its final home in Canberra so the warmer the better!

The finished quilt is approx 60" by 85", which is a generous single bed size.

I made a matching pillow slip using some really light weight denim (off the bolt). I inserted a little bit of left over backing and binding fabric. Unfortunately, I think I placed it too far towards the centre. Bugger!

Oh the binding! I used bright orange homespun. I think it adds a bit of 'pow' to an otherwise sedate quilt.

In this picture you can see how the some of the squares are a little bubbly and puckered due to the fabric sliding and shifting during the quilting stage. It will get wrinkly after the first wash and hopefully, you wont be able to tell the bubbles and the wrinkles apart.

This quilt is being gifted to my eldest Nephew. I have decided that when each of my six nephews turn 10 years old I will make them a quilt. My eldest nephew turned 10 last June so I am already running late for his and Nephew #2 will turn 10 in a few months (after that I will have a 2 year holiday until the next 10th birthday). Fortunately for me Nephew #1 fell in love with the denim quilt when my sister showed him some pictures on my blog. So easy peasy... he gets gets the denim quilt!

ummm rethinking the pirate quilt

Do you remember me talking about a pirate quilt while ago? Go back to here to refresh your memory.

Confession time: I have been really struggling to get it to work. My first test block (above), is perfect. I love everything about it.

It is on white and is 10.5" square. However, I decided that in the real quilt the ships should probably be sailing on blue fabric. So I bought 6 yards of ocean blue homespun. I also decided I should scale up the blocks to 15" so I could build the quilt quicker.

My test run of a bigger ship was a disaster. The ship completely lost its charm and there was way too much negative space. I also tried  foundation piecing this ship. While this wasn't a mistake in itself, I quite enjoyed the foundation piecing, the ship ended up not being 'wonky' enough.

Ok... so I scrapped that one. And tried the 10.5" size block again.

I also foundation pieced this one (drawing the ship in a bit more of a wonky fashion). It has the same size and scale as the original white block. Its still missing some of its wonkiness, but it was enough to make me feel confident I was on the right track.

For attempt number 4 and 5 I decided to ditch the foundation piecing and go back to the free/improv/wonky piecing I used in the first block.

They are too wonky! I'll blowed if I can remember how I managed to get the first one so compact and cutsie.

If I put the blocks together I'm just a bit underwhelmed at how it looks. The ships don't stand out enough against the blue. And I am worried they don't look enough like ships.

What do I do? Should I call it a fail now before I spend any more energy on it? Or should I make a few more blocks and see if they have more impact with the power of numbers? 

Wise blog readers help me decide.

Woven labels

I've got a little milestone to share with you.

Four years ago, I started my tin whistle business and (perhaps optimistically) ordered one thousand woven tags. You can see one of them above... the big one.

I have 50 labels left.

I don't know about you, but I think that is kind of impressive!

It means I've hand made, sold and shipped out approx 600-700 products over a 4 year period (I would love to say I've made 950 things... but some products are reversible and have 2 labels sewn onto them). 

Not a bad effort for one little ole mum and her domestic sewing machine!

So with the rapidly diminishing stock of labels it was time to shut down the business and get a real job. Ha ha. As if. 

Actually, I have to admit I did give it some serious thought, but then realised I have way too much fabric and I need my business to help me shift it and justify new purchases!

So here they are... my new, and considerably, smaller labels.

I Spy Star quilt

This week I completed a quilt for a friends little boy.

I have had an idea forming in my head for a while to create an I Spy quilt using a Maverick (or liberated or wonky) star block. I started with a central I Spy charm (I have quite a collection of these) and picked scraps in matching colours for the points of the stars. I limited myself to a blue colourway so that the stars wouldn't look too scrappy. To add a bit of complexity to this quilt I also decided to interlock the stars. Oh Fransson has a great interlocking stars tutorial.

To get the quilt up to cot size I added a series of borders. I think it might be indicative of the size of my fabric stash that I had no problem finding suitable fabric for this project and had no need to make an emergency trip to Spotlight!

When it came time to quilt I went for a stipple in the area including the interlocking stars, and then stitched in the ditch around the green border. I did 1" rows of quilting  in the wider striped border.

I like that the points of the stars also have things to 'Spy'.

The green border is a fabric that features musical notes.

I used some aqua blue bird fabric on the back and I even worked some I Spy magic into the binding.

The final quilt is approximately 30" x 45".

Moody blues denim quilt top

This is a quick post to show you my finished denim quilt top.

I really like the how this quilt is shaping up.

My dilemma is what to use as wadding in the quilt. I have plenty of cotton wadding here, but I worry that it will make the quilt very thick and heavy. Not so bad in use I suppose, but it will be a pain to quilt. Alternatively, I could use some nice quality flannelette. Does anyone have an opinion?

--March Blocks--

How about Mr and Mrs Cherry as a cute little teaser for this block? This month my quilt bee group are working on blocks for Ads who blogs at The Humming Cat.

Ads requested Granny Square blocks using scraps of fabric in a pink, grey, aqua, orange, green and lilac colour palette. This seems like quite a lot of colours, but the blocks end up being quite sweet and subtle, with the orange and green dominating (to my eye... or maybe it was just my batch of scraps).

Ads sent through enough white sashing and scraps for two blocks.

But I managed to stretch the white out to almost a 3rd block and added in some squares from my scrap container. Ads just needs to add the white squares to the top and bottom of the block.

Hope you like them Ads.

Stitching with denim

My 12WIPS project for March is a denim charm quilt.

This is a an extremely simple concept for a quilt... collect denim jeans, cut up the usable parts into 6.5" charms and then sew them up into a simple patchwork. Many of the jeans were ones that were outgrown or outworn by my own family. But in order to get a really nice variety of colour (acid-wash jeans not being in fashion for at least 15 years!) I've also casually collected jeans from op-shops, fetes and car park markets as well.  

After discovering a bargain bin of $1 jeans at my local discount store I purchased and sliced up 6 pairs and decided I had enough denim to build the quilt. I started by laying out the charms according to colour, and then I began chain piecing the charms together. I selected the fabric in mostly a random way (I only avoided putting two really light shades next to each other, or two really dark shades).

After chain piecing merrily for a little while I had a break at the ironing board.

Normally I am a press-seams-to-the-side kinda girl, but with denim I decided it would be necessary to press the seams open so they wouldn't be too bulky.

It didn't take long before I had done enough to start thinking about the layout. I arranged the pairs of charms in a random layout, but spacing the light and dark tones evenly throughout the quilt.

George decided my denim charms were getting far too much attention and popped into the photo to take a bit of the glory. I've decided on a 10x14 layout (pictured sideways), which will result in a 60" x 84" single bed sized quilt. These days I tend to do all my quilts single bed size. With 3 kids in the house that just seems the most practical size.

I think this denim quilt will make for a fabulous 'boy' quilt that will really grow with George into his teenage years. He really wants me to make him a pirate quilt (its in the works), but I reckon this denim one is the one that he will take with him when he leaves home.  

I've selected a Denise Schmidt print for the backing. This is from her latest range called Daisy Mae, which has just become available at spotlight. I really wanted something with orange or mustard yellow in it. But nothing too child-like or silly (which was hard as I have a tendency to pick out quirky, bright or novelty print)s. The Denise Schmidt has a bit of a vintage feel to it which I think is perfect against the denim. I am auditioning the stripe as the binding, but being a drill I don't think it will work out. I'll have to keep hunting.

I wanted to check that the points where all the charms meet weren't going to be too bulky to sew, so I stitched up two of the rows and then joined them.

Looks great doesn't it?

Two Swoon

I thought I'd better do a test run on one of my pre-cut Swoon blocks to make sure I cut everything correctly.

First up I laid out all the whole piece units, using my handy hand-drawn chart as a guide.

Then I stitched all the Half-triangle square units and filled in some gaps.

Next the flying geese got made an and added in. It took me about an hour to get to this stage.

And another 30 or so minutes to stitch all the units together to complete the block. I know its not a competition as to who can sew these quickest... I mention times just so you know to put aside 1-2 hours to make 1 Swoon block.

Here are my two completed blocks.

I love the little quilt that's emerging from the flying geese offcuts.