UFO Sunday (Well, Monday really)

So this is the image that I'm working towards... (see previous post)

Well I didn't get as far as I'd hoped.  I remember now why I stopped working on it... The squares had been sitting there so long that I'd forgotten how BADLY I'd pieced it.  Some of them were much smaller than others, so much so that I had to reduce the size of all of them - this is the pile of cuttings I made!

And while I was getting dead brained while cutting I accidentally placed the ruler wrong and ended up cutting too close.  Fixed with a patch of bondawebbed fabric though.  This is a personal quilt, so it shouldn't affect it too much I hope!

 So I managed to trim and piece the squares with their first partners.  I hope it works - I was mostly working by making sure the same sizes and colours weren't together.

If anyone has any advice, these are my questions.  Should I put them together as squares or strips from here on?

Also I was thinking of experimenting with quilt as you go.  I know I've put them together already, but might it work if I put them into a 4 patch and go from there?

OK, enough for today.  I'll try again next Sunday, think it over etc...

Fallen at the first hurdle.

I failed.  At least at trying to do Leah Day's UFO Sunday for the first time.  I didn't even manage to get into the sewing room let alone work on a UFO!

But this morning I have been in there and pulled out my most prominent UFO - "Treasure Box Quilt" by Edita Sitar for Moda.  I found the pattern online for free but I'm afraid I can't find it again.
Anyway, here's a photo of what it should be like

And here is  what mine currently looks like...

 Nicely finished blocks that have been waiting for me to decide what to do with them.  Of course I like random, so I want to ensure that they are placed as randomly as possible (random in the sense that they won't be next to any of their own colour, which isn't actually random at all) so I keep placing them on the bed, looking at them and putting them away again. 

My goal for the day is to start putting them together.  Wish me luck!


While I was looking for that UFO, I came across a couple of other things.  The first one is a postcard that I created as part of a quilt group challenge to do something around the time of Wimbledon last year.  The second is another challenge, this time with the Olympics in mind - using the colours and the circle theme - I called this 'Giving the drunkard a sporting chance'.  This was my first drunkards path experience and I have to say I didn't like it.  I enjoyed the quilting part of it much more than the piecing.  I'm afraid these are bad phone photos, but I'll get new ones put up eventually.

This last one is a sneak preview of the back of the quilt I am currently working on.  It's Julie Coney's Mystery Quilt (Copyright) and I may or may not post a full picture depending on what Julie would like me to do, but it's also my first large scale free motion quilting project, so I'm learning how awkward it is to quilt with a machine that is on top of the table rather than in it...

Here we are!  The quilt I spent almost 2 years making, called 'Seeing Stars'.  I only finally managed to label it for our quilting group's exhibition this spring, about a year after we started using it.  We used it as a proper bed quilt, washing it regularly (the dog likes getting on the bed with muddy feet and a pet stone to chew on so it gets pretty dirty!). 

Trouble was, as soon as I washed it 'one last time', suddenly the colours started to run.  The gorgeous turquoise in between all the stars.  Right next to the white fabric.

I guess I'm learning.  Should have put them next to each other without washing it and testing it.  Oops.

I didn't do any fancy quilting on this one either - too scared to do anything like that on my first quilt, especially a King sized one!  Maybe one day I'll improve on it.

By the way, I found a picture of the pattern online while looking for inspiration, so if you designed this, please let me know and I will be happy to attribute you.

The Free Motion Quilting Project: Sundays: New UFO Day!

The Free Motion Quilting Project: Sundays: New UFO Day!

This is a new project that I think will be pretty good for my stash.  Ben is working on Sunday so that might work, although I'll have to walk the dog first and knacker him out, which is hard to do!

This being my first blog, but not my first attempt at diary writing, I rather doubt it'll get off the ground, but it's always worth trying.

I'm a quilter, a gamer and a dog owner.  That is probably what you will see most of in this blog.  Photos, ideas, maybe even a few questions to answer if I ever get anyone reading this.

While I'm still getting used to how to do this, expect it to be infrequent and not very professional.  I think it depends on getting the hang of it as to whether I'll continue.

Wish me luck!

This is my first ever patchwork, done at school for my GCSE Textiles.  My skills have come along way since then, but my tastes have gone around in circles and back again.  I'm pretty proud of this really.

Now this and the next aren't really anything to do with making quilts, but they do show some of the skills I have acquired.  I love free machine embroidery and have done since school.  These were done a few years ago and were great fun to do.

This is free machine embroidery, but on a very unusual surface - felted sheeps' fleece (I think it is Romney wool), felted onto an elastic backing that shrunk to make these 'bubbles'.

These 2 quilts I made for a friend and her new baby (called Ivan, strangely enough). I haven't started trying out free machine quilting on these, just plain in-the-ditch stuff. 

Now this is a fantastic piece of fabric I picked up while looking for a backing for my 'first ever quilt' which took me over a year and a half to make and finish off.  I'll get a photo of the front up next time, but the back is almost better than the front!!!

That's enough for now.  Let's see what this looks like then shall we?