Some finishes

I haven't felt much like blogging lately and I haven't been doing as much sewing as I did a few months ago, so there hasn't been that much to blog.

I have finished a few things recently though, including the quilt I was making for my friend.

I had intended to do the white quilting by hand and the rest by machine, but my piecing and sandwiching wasn't great so, after outlining each of the flower blocks in white, I was worried that machine quilting would produce puckers.  Plus I was enjoying sitting on the couch in the evenings with my husband watching TV, so I decided to hand quilt through all the squares.  It was a lot quicker than I had expected!  I machine quilted the border and hand sewed sashiko style flowers on the corners.

All in all I'm very pleased, even though it was a bit of a rush job and not my finest work, and the recipient appreciated it greatly, which was the main point!

Next I think I should finish my Birdie Stitches quilt and work out what I'm going to do with my Civil War blocks before I embark on any new quilts.

Also in the week since I finished that quilt, I have caught up on my (very late) January and February hexagons.

Back in January I received some more hexagons too, but appear to have forgotten to post about them

My current sewing project is going back to garment making for a little while.  We're having a birthday party next month and the theme is Steampunk so some costumes have to be made.  My husband's and my birthdays are a few weeks apart and this year is a divisible-by-five-year (I don't know that I'd call it a milestone, and I can't call it a round number) so we decided to do something a bit fun!  Of course I have to go all out so I need to make a jacket, skirt and bustier.  My husband is a bit more willing to work with what he's got so he only needs a pair of trousers.  I've left it up to him to make all the 'gadgets'.

Scary Squares Halloween Table Topper

Here is the third pattern I was hoping to have ready a few days ago for the launch of my Etsy Shop

It's a Halloween Table Topper, made using most of a Charm Pack, and some extra black 5" squares for the embroidery panels.  The fabric is Haunted Mansion by Sanae

The pattern includes instructions for how to do the spider web quilting design.  I have to say that I'm rather pleased with how that came out!  My free motion quilting skills are definitely improving.

I guess now I'm allowed to buy some more Halloween fabric for next year!

Have you got any Halloween crafts in the pipeline?

Wee Folk Quilt Finished

Finally!  Remember how I finished the top all the way back in May?  Well now it's all complete.
I know it was on the bottom of my to-do list, but somehow it got finished first.  I knew what I wanted to do and I had the right colour thread so I went and did it.

I took a leaf out of Red Pepper Quilt's book and went with a striped binding and simple straight line quilting.

I also used the striped fabric for the backing.

Don't forget you can download my free embroidery patterns for this quilt on my Free Patterns/Tutorials page (link at the top of my blog)

My First Quilt....or Cwilt

Following a link from Samelia's Mum, I found bluepatch quilter and a post about her first quilt.  Sounded like a great idea so I thought I'd join in!

My first quilt was made for my sister-in-law for Christmas.  My inlaws do 'Kris Kringle' so we all only have to provide one gift.  Most years we have a theme, and sometimes it has to be handmade.  That year the gift had to be something starting with the first letter of the person's name.  I got Carol.... so I made a "C" Cwilt

 

Sadly I didn't get very good photos of it.  The above was taken with my phone.

Each star block contains a picture of something beginning with C:
Clouds, choir, curtains, cow, castle, couch, cats, clothes(line), compass, corset, computer, cards, cake, church, cherries, cheese, cotton, candycanes

I tried to pick things which Carol liked.  I hope I got some right ;)

The pictures are all appliqued by hand using blanket stitch with a few extras here and there.  The curtains are made of lace and are 3D, I believe the window frames are ribbon.  The cat tails are embroidered, probably back-stitch I'd say (can't remember).  The candycanes are made of red and white striped ribbon which was twisted then placed flat so that the stripes bend around the curve of the cane.  My (now) husband helped with some of the pictures, you can tell which are his by the more interesting blocks!  The castle, cats, couch and church are his.  We actually make quite a good team.  He'd draw a nice picture then I'd go over it, remove some of his little details and turn it into a 'block' picture that could be appliqued more easily.  Although I believe if we did it again now, I'd probably be able to applique in more detail than I could then.

The quilt was pieced and quilted on my Monster Machine (industrial straight stitcher), before I knew about walking and 1/4" feet.  The back is black and white checks to go with the black and white theme of the front.

I don't think I go back and look at this photo often enough.  I've learnt so much since then, but sometimes I forget how much work I put into this one.

What did I get that year that started with the same letter as my name?  A handmade steampunk kaleidoscope!

Elephants on Parade

My baby elephants quilt is finished!  It's only taken me a little over 18 months, but I got sick of seeing it lying around the sewing room so I decided I'd better get in and do it.

I'd been working on the last of the machine quilting over the previous couple of months.  I'd decided on a wavy pattern as you can see, which really should have been done with a free motion foot but at the last minute I got nervous and did it with a walking foot.  I had to repeatedly stop, raise the foot, and reangle the fabric, but it worked for me in the end.  It's not perfect but it's the most fancy quilting work I've ever done!

I think one of my main issues with the quilting was marking out the design on the purple border.  On all the other colours I was just able to see the design from the paper underneath and trace it through, but the purple was too dark.  I think I tried all the white marking methods I could think of.  I got dressmakers carbon paper, I used a tracing wheel, even got out my talc powder!  None of them seemed to leave an impression.  I think in the end I put the pattern underneath and could just make out some major intersections and kind of made up the rest.  The purple quilting isn't as good as the other colours.

Speaking of colours.... I used monofilament thread for the border quilting, as I had used on the coffee quilt. I don't think I'll use that again unless I really don't want the quilting thread to show.  I used it for this quilt because I just wanted the effect of the quilting, didn't specifically want the lines to show up. Next time I'll just try using a matching coloured thread.  Nothing specifically wrong with the monofilament but it was just very fiddly sewing the ends in and things like that.

On the topic of quilting, I did hand quilting around the outside of the elephants.  You can't really see the quilting on the front, but it does add a certain amount of dimension to the blocks.  I had hoped on the back that there would be an outline of the elephant in white, but the thread I chose was not thick enough (Gutermann Quilting thread) and the backing fabric is just too busy.

The other problem I had with this quilt was the binding.  The pattern called for one strip of each of 4 colours, one for each side in a different colour to the border strip on that side.  When I'd finished my quilt and measured it up, my strips weren't long enough.  The quilt's finished size was supposed to be 112cm, but I think mine came out ever so slightly longer because of inaccurate seams, and also my fabric was 112cm from selvedge to selvedge, but I didn't want to include the selvedges in my sewing.  Since I had to join the binding strips anyway, I decided to make the bindings match the border, including doing the little bit around the corners (you can see this in the first photo).

The other thing I did to this quilt to make it a little more unique was to applique one square instead of embroidering it.

And the final bit of a quilt which often takes the longest...... is the label on the back!  I'd found an image on the internet somewhere ages ago that I decided I wanted to use, so that settled the decision of how I was going to make the label.  It was to be printed on Matilda's Own Injet Printable Fabric.  I had used this once previously for a quilt label.  Of couse it meant a trip to the shops for hubby to pick up a new colour catridge for the printer!

I edited the image, changing the colours of the elephants to match the quilt.  This took a few goes of printing on paper because of course colours on the screen don't look the same in print.

I also embroidered elephant footprints onto the label.  I had intended to hand quilt some foot prints into the cream inner boarder, but after the time it took me to quilt around the elephants I'd had enough hand quilting for now.  This was my compromise to get some footprints onto the quilt.  The printable fabric is rather had to sew through I discovered.  Embroidering the footprints was just bearable, given that I hadn't hooped it up.  Attaching the label to the quilt was another matter!  I was trying to only pick up a few threads for each stitch to make an invisible stitch, but the threads didn't separate very easily to let the needle through, and on more than one occasion where I had carefully picked up only one thread from the fabric, it broke with the force of the needle being pushed through.  I didn't remember this being a problem last time I used it, but I think I must have attached the label with blanket stitch that time.  So there's a tip for you - don't bother trying to do invisible stitches on printable fabric.  It's not really worth the effort.

I had thought the quilt was going to end up way too large, but the finished size would fit nicely in the cot if you tucked the large borders down the sides and end of the cot.  It leaves just enough space at the top for a pillow, the same as how a regular quilt covers a bed.  Unfortunately this is not usually how you place a baby in a cot.  It will, however, be very useful to cover the bed once Abigail is a little older and we convert the cot into a toddler bed, and also as a lap quilt after that.  Until then I think it will be used as a floor mat for her to lie on.... and hopefully sit on soon!  It should fill in the gap nicely until she is ready for a big girl bed, and needs a big girl bed quilt, which I'm hoping will end up being the Birdie Stitches BOM I'm currently working on.

Now that this quilt is no longer on my to-do list, I've got a free space for something new!!  I've decided that I want to make my niece and nephew lap quilts for their birthdays this year (August and September).  They will be turning 10 and 7.  She LOVES puppies and the colour green, he LOVES dinosaurs but I'll have to check on his favourite colour.  These quilts are going to be mostly or all pieced with little or no applique, and I intend to follow someone else's pattern, so this *should* make then quicker and easier to finish.  Think I've found a pattern for the puppies, and bought some fabric online today that I just loved... but more on that later.... and I'd better get in and finish the music quilt first.

Back to the baby elephants... here it is in action being approved by it's new owner

..... and yes it has been sicked on already!  Only a little dribble though.

New Years Project

Thanks to a link provided by Margaret, I've decided to take part in a Civil War Quilt block of the week.

I'm not especially into Civil War quilts but I just like the idea of a year long project.  I think being a block per week, rather than per month, means the blocks should be easier and quicker.

My first through of course was "what fabric should I buy for this?", here was a great opportunity to collect some reproduction fabrics.  Instead I realised that I have a lot of fabric that I should use up and it's a scrappy quilt so it's perfect.  So what I intend to do is use bits of fabric from what ever project I am working on that week.  This way, at the end of the year, the quilt will be somewhat of a review of my year's crafting.  I'm really excited about that idea!  Some blocks will be made of the same fabric if I have big projects which take a few weeks, and I guess if I'm not working on anything one week I might just dig into my stash.

I've cut the triangles for the first block and will hopefully get to sew it up tomorrow but wont be able to share a photo until I am home next week.

Holidays!

Well here I am in the middle of my holidays.  Haven't had much of a chance to sit at the computer and write about stuff.  Not helped by the fact that I only have the netbook so don't have access to photo editing software.

Christmas was low key but enjoyable.  A little bit of crafty goodness.  My mother gave me some handmade knitting needle rolls for my straight and double ended needles.  She'd made me ones for my crochet hooks and circular needles for my birthday.  Mum also made hubby a great dressing gown, curtains for my brother & his wife, their son and their daughter.  She's been sewing non-stop for the last several weeks!

And now I can share with you the present from my husband!  I got the Cinderberry Stitches BOM complete pattern for Tail Feathers

I love Natalie's design style, but have to admit that whenever I see her patterns it's never quite something I want.  I love the stitchery design but not really interested in the end item (eg a bag), or I love the overall item, but the stitchery is not my favourite.  I usually read the blogs I follow through Google Reader but went to the Cinderberry Stitches page for something and saw the images in the header.  I instantly fell in love with it and had to have it!!

The pattern uses two honey buns for all the piecing.  I already had one of Moda's Clementine (by Me & My Sister) which I got from Green Fairy Quilts, so bought a second from ebay while it was still available.  I'm more into the bright colours at the moment.  I now just need to decide if I want to buy extra from the Clementine range for the bird bodies and borders/binding, or if I will just get something more readily available which blends in.

This is going to be a rather ongoing project I think.  Definitely not going to try and complete it in the 'block of the month' tradition, have too many other things going on.  Also I don't exactly know what I'm going to do with the finished product yet... but I'll deal with that when it's finished.  I'm considering getting this one professionally quilted as I don't feel confident enough in my quilting ability yet, but who knows what will happen by the time I've finished it.

Can't wait to get my fingers into it.... but soooo much to do before I'm allowed to start.

Joe's Baby Quilt Finished!

The baby quilt is all finished!

I think also that was the best photo I got of it!  Have to remember that for photographing baby quilts in future.

This quilt involved a lot of experimenting and a lot of learning.  I'd decided to fairly heavily quilt the main panel (heavy compared to other quilts I've done), but I think it was too much for the high loft wadding I had.  I'd just used regular polyester thin wadding from Lincraft because this is what I had on hand.  This shows you better why my quilting was not the best choice for the wadding:

The patchwork is almost lost to the quilting lines.  You can also see that the border is a bit ripply.  This is because I was trying to square up the uneven lengths that were caused by the poor quality fabric, as previously mentioned.

The quilt was a really nice size to work with, but not sure if it's a good size for use.  It's slightly too small for a cot quilt....

 

but too big for a pram quilt....

 

The dimensions are 28" x 34" so I might have to play with them and get a feel for what a good size is.  The elephant baby quilt I am making is quite a lot bigger, but I think ultimately it will be too big as a cot quilt (but excellent once the cot is turned into a toddler bed!).

I think if I made a quilt the same size as the centre panel of this green one (without the plain borders) it would be a really good pram size.

I really had fun making this quilt because I felt free to experiment.  There are many faults in it but the person I am making it for really wont be that critical, and as soon as I started using the fabric which was cut crooked I knew it wasn't going to be of the highest standard so I let my standards drop a little.  That sounds a bit bad, but it freed me up to try new things and not be so obsessive about making it perfect.

I can't wait to try and make another one.  I do have about half the jelly roll left, and I have another roll the same in pink to play with as well!  I just have to finish the music quilt before I'm allowed to start any other new projects.

I almost forgot.... the last detail of the quilt is the label of course!  Because this quilt is for Joe I decided to make it a J

Joe's Baby Quilt

I finished the quilt top for my cousin's not-so-new baby.

I am quite pleased with the result given I was making up the design as I went for some of it.  It is the first quilt I've done where the design relied heavily on patchwork.  All my previous quilts have been lots of applique, or some applique and then just squares joined together.

Some of the blocks are a bit crooked, but I'm putting that down to the poor quality of the fabric.  It was one of the 'Bebe Fabric Rolls' from Spotlight.  I had lowered my expectations of the fabric based on what Margaret had said, but that didn't prepare me for the horror of trying to work with these strips.  They were cut off the grain and my strips were 1/8" shorter at the selvedge edge than the folded edge, which, when you are quilting with 1/4" seams, makes a big difference.  I had to cut my squares for the blocks from the middle of the strips, not the ends (to get the right size), which meant when I came to do the first border, I didn't have long enough pieces and I had to put the check squares in the corners.  Even then I think I had to skimp on a seam allowance here and there.  Actually I think the end result from that looks good anyway, bit it's annoying when you can't do what you want because of the fabric.

I really got into using my machine properly on this one!  I used the 1/4" quilting foot (as per earlier post) and did the embroidery on the bird and flower 'properly' using a backing and different stitches from the machine.  The eye is actually an eyelet stitch, which I hadn't done successfully before so am rather pleased.  The beak took a little time to get right (on practice fabric) as it is actually half of a diamond stitch.  In the end I started sewing the diamond stitch on scrap fabric and counted how many stitches it did, then when it was at the widest point, I stopped, put the quilt top in the machine and finished the pattern, to make a triangle.  I forgot to take a close up shot but I will try to remember to do that when the quilt is finished.

I think I've decided what quilting pattern I want to do in the main part, just have to work out something for the borders.  Am going to back it in the plain green of the border, it's easy and I already have enough on hand.

Oh, and it was supposed to be a cot sized quilt but I messed up the measurements along the way.  It's actually come out a really nice pram size!  Think I will make some more this size.

Whilst it was hard working with the poor quality jelly roll, it has given me a bit of fun working out what I can and can't do with a jelly roll, on fabric which I'm not so attached to, before I start cutting into the nice Moda jelly rolls I've bought.

Edit: just realised the previous post about this quilt didn't publish properly :(  So here it is if you want the beginning of the story!

Green baby quilt

Earlier this year my cousin had a baby and I was going to make her something but time slipped away from me and I never got around to it.  Now that I've had my Abigail, she sent me a present so I figured I'd better get into gear and return the gesture.

A while ago at Spotlight I bought a Bebe Fabric Roll which is 25 strips 2.5" wide.  To my disappointment, when I opened the roll, the strips are cut 1/8" short at the selvedge edge.  Luckily I had planned squares so it just meant I had to cut my squares out of the middle of the strips rather than the ends.

I decided to use the images from the fabric and create applique squares, and then some patchwork blocks to coordinate.  I bought some fabric at the recent craft show to add a little extra colour and variety.

For the plain fabric, I just found a cotton poplin in the right shade.  The poor quality of the other fabric deterred me from getting special quilting fabric.  Also the fact that I couldn't find anything plain in the appropriate colour.  Sometimes I regret living out here, so far away from good quilting shops!

This is the design so far:

I've managed to get enough time to myself to sew the blocks together, but I miscalculated when I cut the border strips so they've all got little tails on them.  Nothing a roller cutter and square ruler can't fix.

I've pressed them since taking the photo.  Next step will be the applique and associated embroidery to complete the images.

I haven't decided what borders/bindings/backings I'm going to use yet but I usually get to that once I've finished the main part of the top.  I'm usually a very organised and planning sort of person but my quilts seem to take shape along the way rather than being totally planned out in the beginning.

Coffee Break

Has it really been over a month since my last post?  All this time at home and I never seem to get anything done.  Although, this post is proof against that because I have finished the coffee quilt for hubby.

It is 'inspired by' the 'Coffee's Up' quilt designed by Annalisa of Busy Thimbles.  We chose some different fabrics, and I made the quilt longer and wider to accomodate actualy sleeping on the couch, rather than just being a knee rug, which meant rearranging the coffee cup appliques.

We ended up buying a bamboo batting from Patchwork with Gail B in Bayswater, along with a binding fabric.  Not the original one I had seen (because they didn't have it in stock) but a similar colour one.  The advantage to making a quilt for your husband when you're 8 months pregnant is that he gets to crawl around on the floor doing all the pin basting for you and you just have to sit and watch!!

I'm not sure how I feel about pin basting now.  Between this quilt and the baby elephant quilt, the pins leave some rather large holes which don't disappear as easily as I'd like them to.  Maybe for my next quilt I will investigate other options (without having to hand baste the whole thing!).

The backing ended up being what we had originally planned, brushed cotton fabric in the middle and a border down the sides because it wasn't wide enough. I had a little bit of fun trying to work out what size to cut the centre piece so that the squares down the side were nicely placed.  In the end, the border fabric was practically the same size as the border fabric on the quilt front, so the quilting lines matched up nicely.

This was my first attempt at using monofilament as the top thread for quilting.  After some initial tension issues I got it sorted out and I'm rather happy with the result.  It also hides errors in the quilting where you go off a seam line!  I was going to get a bit fancy with my quilting on this one, but in the end went more basic, partly to get the quilt finished sooner as Premier League Soccer season has already started. 

I just quilted diagonally through all the squares, except for the coffee cups, which I quilting around the outside of the square and then tried my hand at free motion quilting around the cup.  My first real attempt at free motion quilting.  As you can see from below photo, my first attempt was rather wobbly, but by the time I'd done all 12 cups I think I was getting better.  Also hoping to do some free motion machine quilting on my baby elephant quilt so it was nice practice.  As with all these things, practice makes perfect.

I still have to make a quilt label for it, but at least it is finished now so it can be used.  The photos don't quite do it justice, I need to improve my photography skills for quilts, but at least this one gets to live in my house (rather than being gifted) so I'll always have the original to look at!

And of course my fuzzy baby had to "help".  To my annoyance, she claimed a spot on the quilt several times before it was finished, but now that it's being used on the couch she's allows to sit on it, as long as she shares.

Time for something new?

I almost feel justified in starting a new project!

Many of my work-in-progress projects are completed or on hold till I get more supplies.

The knitted poncho is finished.  I actually finished it a few weeks ago but I never seemed to get around to getting the photos off the camera.

 The fringe was still a bit crinkly when I took the photo as the wool had just come out of the ball, but it has relaxed a bit now and looks better.  It sits nicely over my big tummy and will be useful for when I can't wear my jumpers any more and want to look a little bit nicer.

I've done the straight machine quilting on the baby elephants.  I now want to do some hand quilting in patterns and around the elephants but I'm not sure what thread to use.  Will be looking for advice and inspiration next week at the Craft and Quilt fair.  There is also a book on hand quilting I'd like to buy before I dive straight into it.

I've just done quilting around each white square and then in between each block.  You can't see it in the photo but I think I really need to practice my machine quilting!  I also need to experiment a bit with thread.  But every quilt I do is a learning experience and I'm sure I'll just perfect the art as I get sick of making them ;)

The quilt top for the coffee quilt is complete.  Now I have to get some wadding for it.  Will also be looking out for this at the craft fair but I suspect I'll be at Spotlight later to get it.  Can't do much for a week or two anyway because I'll need a weekend to lay it out on the floor and baste it with help from hubby, and we don't have a free weekend for a couple of weeks.

As you can see, I even took progress photos as I was going along.  It's just posting them that's the problem.

Despite all the care I took, I obviously still need to work on matching my seams when joining blocks.  I thought I was doing so well but when it was finished I could see all the errors.  Oh, well.  You wont notice them once it's spent a week being used on the couch!

I'm rather pleased with the finish look so far.  It's the first time that I've actually bought the specific fabric that was used in the design (namely the border print in this instance).  It really does give it quite a distinct finish, rather than just a quilt with a common colour theme.   I should remember this next time I'm trying to be frugal with my fabric costs.  Sometimes it is just worth it to spend the money and get something nice than worry about the cost.


And the little lion cross stitch is basically finished, but I wont be doing anything about framing it till I've done the rest of the animals.  I want to frame them all together.  Not sure how long that will take me to do because I've sort of lost interest now.  Maybe when we get the nursery set up properly I'll see the need for more decoration! (and just realised I forgot to take a photo of that one)

I've just sorted through my unfinished projects box and have two more things I can work on for now.  There is the fern bag that I started oh so long ago.

There is also a knitted monkey which I started a year or two ago.

I think this will become my loungeroom project until I get the hand quilting on the elephants sorted.  The poncho has proved to me that having knitting in the loungeroom while we're watching TV is a really good way to get through it quickly!

I'm finishing up work next week so hopefully then I'll be able to update more frequently, and also do more things, like actually participate in the Montly Design Challenge!

A taste of things to come

So here is a run down of what I'm working on at the moment...

Baby Elephant Quilt
I'm using this pattern from Ann Gadsby Designs and here it is so far:

It was a project I started in June last year because my friend wanted to try quilting.  As she had never done one before we decided to both make the same pattern at the same time so I could help her along with it.  So far we've just done all the blocks, next step is the borders.  The main hold up with it is the time for both of us to get together and work on it, but I think we're planning a day in the near future.

Coffee Quilt
I found this pattern by Annalisa of Busy Thimbles in a magazine a while ago and decided to make it for my hubby.  We aren't using all the Moda fabrics, but did get some of them.  Not 100% sure what we're doing with the backing yet but I'll get to that.  We've spent the last 12 months or so collecting the fabrics, and now that we've settled into our house I decided it was time I got started.  So far all I've done is wash and iron the fabrics, but I'm hoping to  make a start on the cutting and applique this weekend.

Knitted Poncho
I started this poncho (by Patons) about four years ago and have been doing it in fits and starts. It's made up of two rectangles sewn together and I'm into the second rectangle now.  I've got it on the couch for when I sit in front of the television and I'm hoping to get it finished for the cooler weather this year when I'll probably be too big in the belly to wear any of my jumpers.

Cross Stitch
I picked up two little cross stitch patterns the other day that I thought would be cute for baby's room and I started working on one at the most recent Stitch 'n' Bitch that I held.  This is it so far:

They've all got a deadline of a few months so I guess I should stop blogging and get on with some sewing...

Monthly Design Challenge: Turning Japanese

I'd had an idea a while ago to do fabric origami, I bought an origami book and that's about as far as I'd got.  When Jay announced that her first monthly design challenge theme was Turning Japanese, I figured I'd best get around to doing it.  An innocent visit to Lincraft to socialise with a friend who needed fabric (when I didn't) involved a discovery of the perfect fabic, so then I had no excuses.

I haven't been feeling the best lately so work nights are basically restricted to get home, dinner, sit on the couch, bed.  Not much chance for crafting, so it's happened in fits and starts on the weekends.

But now that it's the end of January, and there will be a new theme coming up soon I figured I'd better hurry up and finish it...

So here it is.... my not-so-paper crane mini-quilt.  Unfortunately I left the photograhpy till too late in the day again, but it hasn't come up too badly.

 

 

Head over to Finki and see what other creative people have done with the theme this month.

Empty House

So all the guests have left now and we can start enjoying our home for what it is.... our first home!

Christmas was surprisingly simple, and clean up was made all the easier by the fact that my lovely husband installed the dishwasher on Christmas Eve.

I finished my last present at about 8:30 on Christmas Eve, but I wasn't rushed.  I would have liked to finish earlier but other things like shopping and preparing took up time I was going to spend sewing.

So here is the Chess Quilt:

The "board" is just a poly/cotton fabric of some sort which we picked for the marble-like pattern.  The border (and backing) is a more wooly feel tartan to give it an "old man" feel, which my husband suggested.  The quilt was for his brother so I took his advice on that ;).

The chess pieces were going to be screen printed, but with the delay of moving house I didn't get to unpack my silk screen in time or have the space in the garage to set it all up.  They ended up being hand rolled using cardboard stencils on the kitchen table.  The colour is a little more uneven because of this, but I think it gives it that nice hand-made feel.  The dots on the queen were 'stamped' using the head of a nail, and the cross on the king was drawn using the pointed end of the nail.  The things you come up with when your craft boxes are in stroage and you can't be bothered spending any time looking for the proper tools!

The pieces can also be turned over to play checkers (or draughts)!

In the end it was something that was really quite simple, yet really effective!

My husbands family do Kris Kringle so we only have to get one present each, and recently they have been having a theme.  This year's theme was "more than meets the eye", so the gift had to be multi-purpose, or 'transform' in some way.  I think my gift was actually the one which fitted the theme the best, although the quillow I recieved was also appropriate (I'll post about that when I catch up on photos).

My quilt was supposed to have a backgamon board on the back.  I'd cut it all out, but then took a realistic view on the available time and decided to make it a one sided quilt.  So somewhere in the future I'll be making a backgamon quilt.....

The present my husband made for his other brother was AWESOME and deserves mention here (since this is The House of Wilson blog).

This started out as a common (large) bauble.  He found a pattern online to print out and make your own paper globe, so he printed that, and then transfered the continents to the bauble.  By 'transfered' I mean that he drew a grid on the bauble to match the grid on the print out, then hand-drew in all the land masses!!  I was amazed.  The terraforming was then built up using some liqid plastic stuff you can get from Bunnings.  The colours were painted with glass paint (also from Bunnings) and then the whole thing was coated with a 'liquid glass' product.

It was originally going to be cut in half to make a trinket box out of it, but after all his hard work he was afraid to cut it, so instead he found a glow-in-the-dark plasticine stuff, and put dots all over the globe to imitate the lights from cities.  I'd love to get a photo of it glowing in the dark!!

Camping Mini Quilt

My parents do a lot of camping and have a camper van thing which attaches to the back of their truck, a cross between a tent, a campervan and a caravan.

I thought it would be nice for her to have something 'soft' and crafty to take with her.  Something to have other than pots and pans and camping supplies.  She's a bit of a crafter herself and a lot of women that go on the trips with them (her included) take craft with them to do around the camp fire.

So I decided to make her a mini-quilt wall hanging that she can either hang for a tent pole when they set up camp, or perhaps put a hook on the inside of the truck window and hang it there permanently.

The little campfires in the corner are machine embroidered and the writing is hand embroidered using backstitch and varigated thread.  Unfortunately I chose the thread for the back label badly as most of it is very pale.  Does make it a bit more subtle though.

The dowel on the back was bought in a packet from Spotlight but I still had to cut it down to size.  The top and side edges of the pockets were sewn into the binding.  I then inserted the dowel (with the hanging corod attached) and hand stitched the bottom edge of the pocket down.

I made the twisted cord myself using crochet cotton, which gave me the opportunity to untwist the looped end and slide the dowel through.  The other end is untwisted a little as well to make a look for the dowel.  The tension in the twist naturally pulls itself tight again around the dowel.  I just tied a note and frayed the end for effect.  I quite like the asymetrical look of the back.

I used thick wadding, but it's turned out a bit to puffy for my liking.  I should have just used thin wadding.  But now I know for next time.  I hope Mum likes it.  Her birthday was last month, but she arrives for Christmas on Thursday so we agreed that I wouldn't post it, I'd just save it for when she arrived.