Where I've been

I took a little walk around my house the other day. I thought you'd like a little look at where I've been. And after that, we can get to business.

I've been enjoying the colour and life that a little of nature in the house can bring. My tomato plant (well, they're not tomatoes but they look like them, and I can't remember the real name!) was a gift from my boys at Christmas time and I love it. I just need to figure out a pretty way to cover that plastic pot it's in. The rose on the right was from my love on Valentines. Now let me lower my voice to a whisper: I don't actually like the standard traditional rose. I find it a bit ubiquitous and unnatural looking. But I love that his thoughts and heart were in the right place, so I'm always appreciative. But one year, if the lovely husband gets me a bunch of tulips or country-garden bouquet, boy, he'll really see what natural joy looks like!

We've been putting the Tiny One's pictures up in the kitchen. We all love them! He turns around from his seat at lunchtime sometimes, just the two of us, and says 'do you like my elephants mummy?' He's so proud. And yes darling, I really do. On the right is a bit of hastily decked Christmas paperchain in the Little One's room. Yes it's March. No, he won't let me take it down. I wonder if I removed it surreptitiously one day he'd notice?

Sorry, sorry, it's a potty picture. We've been potty training the Tiny One. He's a month off three. And it took him half a day. No kidding, two wee's and he was sorted. Now you may hate me right now but I should also let you know it took the Little One nearly two weeks and on one of those days he went through every single pair of trousers, underpants and pyjama bottoms he owned. So I was owed a really easy one.

We have a playroom but the boys keep bringing their toys into the lounge. There's usually more room and less mess. Fireman Sam was the toy of choice for much of their half term holidays. They played so long and so well together (once we'd purchased a few duplicates with their Christmas money!!) 

I've been making squares of blue, green, yellow and brown diagonal strips ready to be assembled into a quilt for my brother and his wife. It's a nice, manageable activity with the batting/wadding already added. But I'm a bit worried about the assembly part - they are really skewing in shape as I assemble them, and I think some uneasy easing will be required to get a regular grid of diamonds at the end.

My brother found this beauty in a skip. In a skip!! If they're that easily rid off, no wonder a certain upmarket high street shop fills its windows with rows and rows of them. I now have one for my own window and I think it's just beautiful.

You know that nature on the inside thing I said earlier? This is my current favourite. Budding pine cone branches and a feather in a vase. Sounds much less than it is. It makes me so happy to see it there every day in our lounge. I wish I could keep it forever but I feel like it should really go once spring is upon us, to be replaced with an Easter tree of newly forming leaves. You know me, I like to be season-specific.

What would've been time at the computer or sewing machine is now often time spent in our bedroom, painting. We're slowly getting there. I can't wait to show you it when it's finished, but the re-do also involved recovering the chair in this photo and that's going to be a bit of a beast of a job!

And last of all, I didn't want to miss out any references to the Big One, who has just got a glowing report at school but is driving me a bit doolally at home. That is his room just half a day after his weekly enforced tidying. I couldn't bring myself to show it to you the day before. At least the fact you can't even see the carpet then covers the fact that I haven't been able to get in to vacuum for several weeks. Rant over!

And with that done, it's time to look forward again.

Sewing: the Cycle Lane Quilt

Hello! I've been looking forward to showing you the Cycle Lane Quilt I made in November, as a commission for a new baby. His parents are keen cyclists and climbers, hence the bikes and ropes, and you may also notice there are four magpies for a boy.

 

The quilt is cot-sized, modern in style and colour, and quilted in wonky lines. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. My lovely neighbour (who commissioned it) particularly wanted the magpies included, so after too many hours spent trawling UK online fabric shops, I ended up sourcing it from spoonflower in the US. The rest of the fabrics are a mixture of lines, including a couple from Julia Rothman's Ride, Michael Miller Ship Ahoy ropes, and my favourite Violet Craft from Michael Miller Waterfront 'flight'. The birds are just lovely, and the charcoal background... sigh. I bought those four key fabrics from Celtic Fusion Fabrics; they always have such a lovely selection.

Look at that, I managed to take a close-up picture of one of the few spots where my corners don't perfectly match. That's hurried photography for you!

A little shot of the back too. Just look at that blurred focus. It's clear why I usually get my husband to take my quilt photos! (By the way, I never used to be a fan of orange, but the slightly burnt tone of that pumpkin shade? It's totally won me over.)

Baby quilts are my favourite to make. All the joy of the fabrics and the quilting, and none of the stress and effort of getting two square metres of fabric rolled under the arm of my sewing machine! I'm starting my business this year and baby quilts are definitely going to be a key product.

Sewing: half-square triangle ice cream quilt

I sewed an ice-cream coloured quilt. It is 2m x 2m. That's 6.7ft x 6.7ft. That's big. That's a lot of complicated work. And that, readers, is me allowing myself a bit of pride.

Each half-square triangle includes a white and an ice-cream colour. I cut out 12.5in squares from each colour, sewed them together around the edges then across on the diagonals, then cut them into four squares. I used this tutorial on making quicker HST's.

I quilted it along the diagonals in alternating ice-cream thread colours. With pink being the predominant colour, I quilted pink, yellow, green; pink, blue, purple. That's a lot of changing threads and bobbins and re-threading needles. There were several occasions when I decided I must be mad. One colour quilting thread from now on! The above picture also shows my corners/points all (or mostly all) matching up. Bit of an effort but worth it.

See that? That's the binding for you. It's scrappy, so there are different bits of pink fabric along the 8m perimeter.You can see one type of binding change for another in the picture below.

And there's the back: just white sheeting to show off the different colours of the quilting

I made this quilt as a commission for my auntie. I'm really pleased with it (can you tell?!) but I started it at Easter and sporadically sewed it right through to Christmas. With such a large quilt, I constantly needed to lay it on the floor to re-smooth, roll, or re-position it. That's not something that can be done with two small boys around who like walking on quilts! I'm glad it's done now. I have one last king-size quilt to make (my brother's), and I think I'm going to make it using a quilt-as-you-go method in order to avoid all the lay-on-the-floor logistical problems.

Sewing: return of the mojo

Ooh, what's this? That appears to be a sewing machine needle in action. I do believe it's sewing two 8.5inch square together. But what's that in the background?

I do believe that's a whole pile of sewn 8.5inch squares. And a pile of fabric waiting to be squared up. Could it be that someone is working on a quilt? Could it be that someone is making 100 half-square triangles for a king-size, ice-cream coloured quilt? 

Well I do believe that someone is me! And I do believe that that's bona fide evidence of a sewing mojo that has dusted itself off, knocked at the door and said, "Honey, I'm home!". Welcome back my lovely mojo. Welcome back from vacation, my vocation.

 

Aaahhhhh, that's better.

Sewing: a blue zoo quilt for the Tiny One

I'm giving you a sneak peek. My husband's on stand-by to take some proper photos but here, with my poor phone photographing skills, is a little view from the Tiny One's bedroom floor of his new quilt.

 

I finished it in record time. My guess is that, if I didn't have to sew in fits and starts and if someone babysat my boys, I could make a single-size quilt in a day. Not sure that'll ever happen though!

 

All three of my boys now lie under quilts made by their mother's hand. It is what my sewing is all about really: my creativity and crafting making things that are useful and good and giving. My heart goes into what I sew, and then a small piece of my heart stays with them each night as they lie alone in their beds. Although I have to say that this poetry is slightly rose-tinted: it's not that rare for me to be in their beds too, trying to get them back to a deep sleep so they don't disturb anyone else!

 

There's a happy middle ground between the ideal/idyll and the reality in both parenting and sewing. I'm snuggling in there for the long term.

Sewing: sea quilt

For a long time now, I've promised I'd show the quilt I made my parents. I made it last year, but only now did we get round to photographing it.

I call it the sea quilt. It's just about a king-size: 200cm by 220cm, or, with a bit of rounding up/down, 80" by 85". It's made in a wonky brick wall design (I'm sure there must be a proper name for it!), and I quilted it in freehand waves in pale blue thread. It's pale blue on the back, too. Let me tell you, it isn't easy manipulating a king-size quilt in the seesaw motion you need to get wave after wave. Though I love it, I'm not sure I'd do that again! 

I used a mixture of fabrics, some from my local textile mill shop, that sells remains, end-of-lines and seconds. Fabric addicts among you will recognise some of Lotta Jansdotter's Bella collection (Scandi Flower and Pebble Lines), some Pure Scandi (Dandelions), Shore Line (Kelp) and Kasuri Blossoms. I bought all these from Fabric Rehab, a misnamed store if ever I heard one - I am quite the opposite of rehabilitated since shopping there!

It is a fairly simple quilt to an expert's eye, but not at all to mine. It lies on my parents bed now, parents who have given me more love, care and help than you'd think could be possible. I like that it now warms and covers them, a little thank you whispering goodnight at the end of every day. 

Nice Spring if you can get it

This was a week ago, early one morning.

 

I won't even bother showing you today. It's too depressing. There's a blizzard outside, several inches of snow and over a foot banked up in places. A bitterly cold easterly wind is roaring through the valley. It is sending the snow under our roof slates and there are buckets catching all the drips from our attic ceilings. It will take some time to dry out when all this weather's calmed down, and then of course there will be the cost of re-tiling our roof. We've had leaks before but this is by far the worst. I am trying to remain philosophical about it.

 

In other news...

: : I finished sewing my parents' quilt and gifted it to them. No photos. I'm having a strange photo famine at the moment that I need to make an effort to rectify.

: : I'm sewing a quilt for my brother now. And there's another one waiting in the wings for my auntie.

: : The two little boys are their own little gang. Watching them play together is just heaven on earth. The occasional squabbles are not. But then, of course, no siblings grow up without squabbles.

: : Our windows are also leaking. Our boiler broke. So did our fridge-freezer (four times), needing replacing. And our outside drain was badly blocked for sometime before the nice man came and jet washed it (but left a pipe facing upwards, causing the water from our sink to back up and flood under the cabinet and causing the aforementioned boiler to break). Trouble doesn't come in three's. The stress levels are undulating. The bank balance is sinking. I am trying to have an 'oh well' attitude about it.

: : I am typing this with a Little One on one side and a Tiny One on the other. Both are alternating between interfering with my typing, playing with toys on the desk, and practising their counting. I think I may have to vacate the computer rapidly!

: : Nearly Easter. Nearly the Tiny One's second birthday (oh my).

: : And time for me to decide whether to ramp this blogging up a gear or finish it altogether.

 

On that note, and with a nagging boy desperate to get on Word to type numbers in different colours, I shall leave you.

Around here lately

I've been making more of an effort with lunch. Taboulleh here we come. Still struggling to get the Tiny One to eat though - why does a mother who loves to eat and cook all sorts of fancy and unusual things get stuck with a baby who will eat very little? He doesn't even like bread. Grrr.

Said baby discovered my confetti stash and confettied everywhere. Still, it kept him busy and happy. Congratulations on your wedding, Tiny One.

And what keeps the Little One happy? Some cream on his sore fingers apparently (he picks his nails). Only he did it himself and it turned into some sort of game. Oh dear. Congratulations on your very soft hands, Little One. They stayed soft all day.



What keeps their mama happy? Their confetti and nappy cream messes, definitely. And sewing, obviously. I've been working on the Little One's 'cars & diggers' birthday quilt (it's past his birthday, but at least I actually started it beforehand. Progress, my friends).

And here is progress on my first ever paid sewing. Woo hoo! It's complete now, though of course I didn't get a photograph. I do love a bit of bunting. I don't care that everyone else does now. Popularity doesn't diminish loveliness in my opinion.

I'd love to say I'm off to sew some more now. But I'm off to clean the house before a 10am birthday party. My mother-in-law's coming.

My first quilt

Ta-dah! Here is the Tiny One's birthday quilt...

This is a first quilt in two senses: the first one I've properly made and his first quilt on his first birthday. There are lots of things I've learnt and will improve on, but I'm so proud of it, and myself. I really love it so.

There's a bit of a zoo animal theme in his room, hence the Noah's Ark fabric (from John Lewis). I bound it in yellow and backed it with a lovely, rich orange. I machine-quilted in straight lines either side of the squared rows, giving a striped look on the back (I love the back). All the fabrics are new except the blue stripes which came from a dress I wore as a child.

It is a pretty basic design, perfect for a first quilt. I loved making it. I can't wait to make another! I wonder if there's much of a market in quilts? I'd gladly be a quilter for hire. The next quilt I make will be a strip quilt, trying the 'quilt as you go' method (see here for a tutorial) and using a spray-baster to hold it all together, since it will be a full single size. Oh I wish I had a rotary cutter!

There's something really special about making a quilt for your child. It will wrap them, warm them, comfort them through the years. They will still have it when they grow out of it. It will soften and crease with time (it's already got a few). If you're lucky, and you made it well, you'll see it wrap, warm and comfort your grandchildren one day. I know, I'm a little odd to be thinking about my grandchildren already, and a little young. But I do. And I hope I'll be quilting for them too.

Nine things

The week that was; the week that will be...

Alexander Henry 'zoo' fabric, from Fabricworm

1. I'm a little a lot late posting this week. My mother-in-law was here for the weekend, the sun has been out and uncommonly hot, and so the computer has been a bit neglected.
2. Speaking of the weather, we've been in the play park, lunching outside every day for nearly a week, and gardening a lot. Our garden looks lovely now. For the first time ever (after giving up on any hope of it) I've been bitten by the green-fingered bug. Not that bugs have fingers.
3. I've been receiving fabric through the post and getting embarrassingly excited. There's been a lovely batch of 30 felts from Giant Dwarf and three half-yard lengths of Alexander Henry 'zoo' fabric in three colourways - see image above! I'm completely potty about the zoo fabric. It's for the Tiny One's birthday quilt and I'm so desperate to get started.
4. Speaking of which, all the fabric's arrived and ready to go, and I've found this wonderful 'quilt as you go' tutorial online that should be just the right thing for my first foray into quilting. I'm off to John Lewis for extra thread supplies and wadding (batting in Americanese) tonight, then off we go.
5. The Tiny One has become very wilful. We're even getting toddler-style strops and he's not even one yet. I like that he knows his mind, and I like that he communicates it. But tantrums by one? From my easy-going little sunshine?! Oh well, onwards and upwards.
6. My 90% lovely Big One has developed 10% very stroppy attitudes. Over things like unwashed P.E. kits. Thank goodness the Little One is taking a break from his terrible twos. Two at once is not great, but three boys with stroppyitus at once would send me right over the edge.
7. The Easter Holidays start once the Big One gets home from school on Friday. I have some decorating and baking planned. Watch this space.
8. My sewing corner is getting used! Oh ambrosia to this little sewist! (PS, I am relegating the word sew-er to the dustbin. It sounds right when I say it but in print its sewage-related homograph puts me right off. Will sewist do instead?)
9. I have a dream of waking at 6am after eight hours of restful sleep, and getting in a full hour of 'me' time (shower, laundry, blogging) before the boys wake at 7am. My reality is getting woken at least once, if not twice, between 4-6am and often having an awake Tiny One who will not go back to sleep. This has been going on for two months. I have had enough! Unfortunately neither the Tiny or Little Ones seem to understand this. I've been awake since 5am for three mornings in a row now. The bath-coffee-smile cure is no longer working.

I have Resolved to Sew

I have been 'time wasting' on the net again, and having a serious case of Inferiority Complex reading Mary Emmens' blog. In so doing, I came across the 'Resolved to Sew' giveaway over on Very Berry Handmade. Drooling. So I have resolved to sew!

I have a lot of plans for the sewing machine in 2012 (but knowing my life with the boys, many will remain in the clouds of my dreams). But the biggest (literally) projects I have in mind are the quilts for my two youngest. I so love the thought of keeping them wrapped in warmth with things I have sewn. It's a tidy little metaphor for loving them. So I resolve to sew two quilts, my first two ever (if you discount the make-it-up and get-some-help job of making the Big One's quilt twelve or more years ago).



I am really lusting after the Erin McMorris’s Summersault fat quarter bundle from Backstitch (image on left). But if I stay true to the Resolution, I ought to get some fabrics to help make the boys' quilts, so the £40 gift voucher from Fancy Moon (image on right) is the one to go for.

All I have to do now is get planning those quilts! Is this a good excuse to treat myself to Jane Brocket's Gentle Art of Quiltmaking book, do you think?

Quilt-envy

There is a lot of quilting going on in the blogosphere. I'm sure there are other bloggers with three-month old babies who can manage to quilt too, but I am not one of them. I try to be glad of the little things I can do, rather than bemoan the things time will not allow me to accomplish.

But oh, how I wish I had time, sense and skill to do so! If you have time, do look at the farmer's wife quilting on 'Quilt while you're ahead' and 'Dragonfly'. It's a level of quilting far beyond my previous regular-square attempts, but I'm hoping it's within me. And if you have money, buy me this Jane Brocket book! One day I will have the time. One day.

Lastly, this is one of my all-time favourite quilts, from one of my all-time favourite colour-masters. Enjoy!

Anna Maria Horner's 'Wildflower' quilt