Finishing Along - a Round Up

I made grand plans for the final quarter of the FAL 2013, and I never expected to finish many, but the list alone was enough to get a couple of things knocked on the head :)

I can show 2 of the quilts I finished:

1. My St Louis 16 Patch quilt. You can read about it here. This quilt lives on our sofa and I'm so happy I added that extra row. I'm tall and it keeps my toes toasty at the same time as being snuggly round my neck. Just the way I like it :)

2. My Recess quilt.  You can read about it here. It's now part of our well-loved quilt pile. As I write this there is a boy snuggled under it munching crisps :)

As for the rest, well I have finished another but I can't show it yet, and the hand quilting was going really well on another, before I ran out of thread and had to order more.

I'm pretty happy with the amount that I have managed to get done. Life has been a bit bumpy the last few months, so I'm giving myself a little pat on the back :)

Thanks to Leanne for running the FAL this year, and to all the sponsors!

Fiona x

Another finish

So I just read Katy's post about how the FAL is nearing the end of the quarter and realised I had never posted here about a quilt on my list I finished weeks ago.

Life has been more than a bit hectic round these parts recently, but amongst the madness I managed some lovely peaceful, relaxing hand quilting now and again and managed to get a quilt finished :) it's now in full use as you can see above

I have managed another finish from my list too, cunningly disguised by Murphy, but I can't show the finished quilt for a wee while yet. I can't wait to show you more though :)

Fiona x

A quick wee swap

Last week the lovely Krista from Poppy Print put out a call on Instagram for a couple of people in the UK to help out with a needle case swap between the London Modern Quilt Guild and the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and I jumped at the chance! I love swaps and it's been ages since I did one :)

A quick turnaround was needed so I decided to go with EPP which I could do on the move. Some tiny little half inch hexies were born in the car whilst my son warmed up for his football match on Saturday morning.

On Saturday afternoon they came to work with me and turned into a little hexie panel.

On Sunday they were hand quilted

And today they became a little needle book

Now they've started their big journey to Canada and I can get excited about a cute little needle book coming to me :)

Happy Monday!

Fiona x

A Finish! I actually finished a quilt!

I took all of your advice on my FAL post and decided to concentrate on just one quilt until it was finished and guess what? It worked!

I finished my St Louis 16 Patch quilt and I'm delighted with it :) The fabric is mostly Bari J's LillyBelle with some other bits and bobs mixed in. I had originally made it square but have discovered I don't really like square quilts so I added an extra row.

I decided to practice my FMQ and went for a large scroll pattern. The quilting is very wobbly and uneven in places but I'm fine with that. Hopefully with practice I will get better and it's soft and snuggly and that's what matters. The back is a Tanya Whelan print I've had for ages.

My oldest son has declared it his new favourite quilt and has asked for one in "boy colours" for his bed, but he's going to have to wait because I've got rather a large FAL list to get through. For now he can share this one with Murphy, who decided it was his new bed late last night when I pulled it out of the dryer. Here he is all snuggled up with his teddy :)

I'm getting close to another finish on my list too. It's a hand quilting one that I've been working on slowly but steadily in the evenings. Hopefully I'll be able to show that soon.

Fiona x

Setting 16 patch blocks on a point - a tutorial

A while back I wrote a tutorial about how to make a 12" finished 16 patch block for the Together circle of do.Good Stitches. The lovely ladies in the circle sent me some gorgeous blocks and I've decided to set them on a point for a bit of a change.

This is what those beautiful blocks look like when they are laid out and turned on a point. Now I need some setting triangles to go around the edges to fill the gaps.


To make a setting triangle you will need the following:

Fabric A 
4 x 3.5" squares

Fabric B
2 x 3.5" squares
1 x 5 3/4" square cut twice on the diagonal

Lay out your fabrics in the order shown below and sew into rows, pressing to the darker fabric. Join the rows together to make a triangle.

Note. This block works best when you use a dark value fabric and a light value fabric. There needs to be a good contrast between the two.

I will need to make smaller triangles for the corners of the quilt and I will add a tutorial for doing that once I actually make them :)

This tutorial is for the Together Circle of do.Good Stitches, but if anybody else finds it useful I'd love to see what you make!

Fiona x

Let's try it again

Thanks for all your advice about my Brit Bee block that wasn't working :)

I've unpicked the border, remade the cornerstones and sliced up one of my most treasured fat quarters ever, Heather Ross' Swimming Sisters in blush, and here is the result!

I'm so much happier with this :) I think it's light, fresh, airy and hopefully still beachy, but as the wise Catrin suggested, more tropical beach than British ;)

What do you think? Better?

Fiona x

Brit Bee Round 3

Round 3 is starting for the Brit Bee and after much dithering I have finally chosen a star and fabric to make my block. Yay!

I've been thinking about using some of my Mendocino fabric by Heather Ross for ages and decided that now is as good a time as any, so I started pulling fabric. Before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with the pile of fabric in front of me, and decided that just a single block wasn't enough! I have a whole quilt planned for this pretty pile :)

I managed to get a grip of myself and choose just a few fabrics to make my star. I wanted a round star shape and decided to use the Evening Star from the Summer Sampler Series. I've made this star a couple of times before and really like it, but then I remembered a gorgeous block I'd seen Rita of Red Pepper Quilts make a while back called a Colorado Star from the book 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars by Carol Doak. Now, I don't have a copy of that book (but I'm seriously tempted to buy it) so I used the Evening Star templates from Katie at Swim Bike Quilt and added in the centre star part.

I love the star but I'm not sure about the border I've added to the block. I'm going for a light, sunny, beachy feel and the blue strips are supposed to be like water. The essex linen cornerstones are supposed to be like sand, but I'm not sure it's working. What do you think?

Fiona x