quilt label

Been asked to make a 50th birthday quilt for a friend of a friend.
Friend chose Horizon by Kate Spain which I will use for a double wedding ring lap quilt for a bedroom

Spies have been sent to match the right neutral shade for her room, which turns out to be Kona Snow.
Friend wanted a label, so I found Margo Clabo's instructions for a fabric label printed on your own bubble jet at home. You simply back an A4 piece of fabric with freezer paper, and choose a black and white image and bold the font.

This is how it turned out. I machine washed it and it hasn't disappeared! As you can see I have a few months for this project....

chevrons and ragging

Whilst waiting in  for my wedding ring quilt to come back from basting  (trouble with living in a tiny flat with no floor space), decided to play around with this chevron foundation pieced block.

When I foundation piece, I always like to cut the fabric pieces a lot larger than needed , or else I always seem to run into problems. This creates even more scraps .

BUT, today a new gadget has arrived for me .. a ragger!
I do like a new gadget

So, with a metre of hessian, started to use up solids scraps from chevron block

only a little way to go now.........

shared @freshlypieced today  #wipwednesday
http://www.freshlypieced.com/

wedding ring top

Really happy to have finished the scrap wedding ring
quilt top 
adding it to the WIPs at www.freshlypieced.com
also trying out lily's quilts small blog meet today 

Found the piecing of the rows really tough  at the intersection of 4 squares, so they are not perfect, but  OK ish.........need to read some more detail on how to sew tricky seams like that, any suggestions welcomed folks
My back is all sore and  stiff due to not moving off the machine for 4 hours or so, silly really, must get up and stretch more, but trying not to stretch as far as  the kitchen where I  made tablet this week.
Tablet is a very hard relative of fudge and best known in Scotland
Guess I also made it to celebrate the continuing union of Scotland with the UK...hurrah ( any excuse )

Ingredients...sugar, butter, sugar, water, sugar, condensed milk, sugar and vanilla bean paste.

scrap wedding ring curve tutorial

Discovered a fantastic way to use my scraps, they don't have to be matchy matchy, you just have to have LOTS of different fabrics. One decision you have to make is what colour fabric you want for your background and 'voids' on your wedding rings, don't use this colour on the arcs, unless you want them to  disappear on your quilt. Something tells me that most of you do have a wee scrap mountain, so choice should not be a problem. Reading WPIWednesday at
http://www.freshlypieced.com/ stimulated me to write this tutorial today

Cut your scraps into 2.5 x 3.5 inch pieces. Roughly, not exactly.

I am using  the Jenny Niemeyer 17 1/4  inch acrylic template set, mainly as I am lazy and want to make big blocks that I can get together to make a quilt this century.

Here standeth my scrap bin, its a laundry basket from john lewis, and its fab as has small base but is nice and tall.

And here are some cut 2.5 x 3.5 inch bits, duh

Judy's acrylic template set for wedding ring

I put a piece of paper behind  the template, turned up the  blackness ( terminology? ) setting on my printer, placed the template on the paper and photocopied the  template onto back of scrap printer paper. Tada

Now pick a nice selection of 8 of your fabric pieces. I love contrast and clashing.

   Go to your sewing machine and...... breathe
    Take the end 2 pieces, right sides together 

 and with the end piece directly under the first transecting line on the template

 Sew with a  seam following the transecting black line on the template across the template, set your stitch length to 1.5 as this will give you a tighter stitch , less likely to pull out when you remove the backing paper.

Now, sew right along, through the fabrics and underlying paper

 Take the piece over to your ironing board, turn it over and press the seam to set it

  Fold back the paper  behind and trim the seam with scissors

  Turn over again and open out and iron flat

Hey hey, first sections done!

  Now add another piece so it will cover the next section black line ( you can flip it over to check )

Stitch again alone the template line 

 Press seam 

 Fold back paper

 Trim seam

 Iron out  flat

 Et Voila!

 Repeat process until all 8 bits are sewn

 This is what it will look like now. I think this photo will irritate accurate paper piecers......but I always cut pieces a bit bigger to allow for error

 Carefully remove the backing paper, hold the 2 seams whilst you do this to stop them ripping out

 This is what we are left with 

 Take to your cutting board and apply and line up template over the arc, trim

 Nice and tidy now

You are good for a coffee and a piece of fudge now, before the next one!
This what we are heading to , some time, in the future.......

pincushion fest

Best friend made the mistake of asking me to make her a pincushion for Christmas
So, permission to search the web for all sorts of lovely tutorials and patterns all day long
The US sites mention crushed walnut shells as best for stuffing  ( heavy )
I first used quinoa ( surprisingly untouched in my cupboard), then steam ironed the cushion which I think was risky as cooking may have started;  so then blasted it with the hairdryer 

Next tried pudding rice , this time without steam or nutmeg

Hmmm, off to Pets at Home looking for crushed walnut shells
No luck, it seems we use crushed oyster shells for chickens and birdies, but was vaguely worried that it may smell fishy....but no way to find out ......

Made a few with soft toy stuffing, but although they look OK, I think they will scoot around the workspace too much

Also had a go at a bracelet version, and yes, I did put a piece of cardboard in to stop the inevitable stabbing accident. After I unpicked the finished item.

Now ordered some crushed walnut shells on amazon. Made me laugh as the positive review came from another sewer 
( not a reptile keeper as it is designed for, ha)

Final selection for present

double wedding ring and macaroons

Always wanted to give DWR a go
Still using up my scraps to make a lap quilt for a wedding present,  cannot face trying to make a bed quilt. Going OK at the moment, but have ordered templates to trim more accurately, also tempted to get the accuquilt die, although thats a smaller diameter than my current block.
I am linking to quilt story fabric tuesday..see my side bar buttons.

Today was a  good day

doggie off to daycare 0730

2 hours cleaning + washing

high speed train to London  to Waitrose cookery school to make  macaroons

 brilliant value

warm pastries and fresh coffee  and fruit on arrival, glass of cava to celebrate a staff members birthday ( hurray! ), lovely demo with handsome chef and great fun making them with an old friend

BUT feel I cannot live now without a professional cooking thermometer

Wandered into Finchley Road Habitat and was taken by the number of quilty inspired items there