Slow Sewing - working on my hexy quilt

I woke up on Thursday night [well technically early hours Friday morning] to the sounds of Lil man crying that he'd be sick and well that been my past two days looking after a poorly child. 

As it turns out this bug has actually taken out a good half of his class and well a good half of the school really. So we spent the day on the sofa and watched movies and I added row after row to my hexy quilt and tried not to panic about the fact there is a sickness bug in my house. 

Sickness is something I don't "deal" with very well. Historically any time I've caught a sickness bug as a child I've ended up really really poorly. So frankly it terrifies me. 

Luckily making the hexy quilt keeps both my hands and my mind busy. 

So far its actually growing quite quickly. I've even started removing the papers from the centre hexagons. [Top tip the centres are reusable however its not as nice to sew with them as "fresh" ones so I like to iron mine after I've taken them out. It helps to flatten them out and makes for more accurate sewing.]

  

All the fabrics are from my stash and I'm finding it interesting looking at all of the fabrics I've collected over the years. Especially looking at some of the fabrics from when I first started sewing.

I've also been adding rows to to my miette cardigan which I started last time he was really poorly. Funnily enough I had joked a few weeks ago that for me to have any chance of getting it finished I would need for him to have a week off school. 

Apparently I should have touched some wood when I said it!!!! 

And yeah that's pretty much my last few days to be honest. I had planned on finishing a big project on Friday but didn't get the chance due to playing nursemaid. So now I'm going to have to do that next week! Provided lil man is well enough to go back into school.

Hopefully I'll be able to schedule some blog posts whilst I'm on nurse duty!

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx

Dresdan Plate Quilt Topper

I feel like every time I say we don't need any more quilts I take an actual look and then lo and behold I'm like we need another quilt.

I mean technically we don't NEED another quilt but I like making them and when you've done a school run in the rain everyone just wants their own blanket to cuddle up with.....including the dog.

Fun Fact: The dog is currently in possession of 4 small quilts and 1 lap quilt. Shes spoiled I know.

And Lil man has recently informed me that his boat quilt is babyish and he also needs a new one. Maybe something with footballs or Mario. 

I've been getting around my whole "we don't need more quilts thing" by making new quilt patterns. Which means I get to have fun and test my skills!

I've never made a dresdan quilt before and I've admired them for a long time.  

The fabric came from the craft cotton company its from their new geo fat quarter range. I was lucky enough to receive one in each of the colours, blue, purple and pink. 

I kept each plate to a specific colour. I made 2 plates using all the fabrics and two using just two of the fabrics each. 

The centre circles are using the most low volume fabric in the pack, luckily these are all pretty similar in all the colour ways so I;m hoping to also use them for the binding. 

That is when I've found something to back it with and quilted it. I'm waiting for my local home and bargains to start stocking cheap fleece quilts again so I can use those for backing. 

I appliqued each of the plates onto squares of pink from my stash. Technically its dressmaking material but its cotton and its a shade of pink I'd never wear so I might as well use it for this!!! 

Then each of the blocks is bordered with either dark blue or white. I did want to boarder them all in the same colour but I had fabric restrictions sooooo.............. 

I actually really really like how it turned out. Its a bit more girlie than I thought it would be, but its kind of nice to have girlie things in a mainly boy household.

I did struggle with how to place the blocks though. I had wanted it to look random but I don't think I succeeded. Its not bothering me enough to unpick it all though!  

I might add one last big boarder to the whole thing before I quilt it but I need to work out what fabric to use first. 

By the way if you want to try your hand at this I have written a lil tutorial for the craft cotton company you can find it here. 

I actually took these photos on the the last few decent days of summer we had.

In fact I'm really really missing the summer. On Thursday me and lil man had to walk in the torrential rain and it was NOT fun at all. In fact when we got home we dried off and just put our pjs on and I had a massive grump about being cold and wet and grumpy. To be honest this always happens when it gets colder , as much as I love the Christmas and snow the whole being cold every day and having wet feet makes me just a lil bit miserable!

I'm currently looking for suggestions on how to perk myself up! Any ideas?????

Much Love

Frankie

xx 

Coping Strategies - Ruperts Baby Quilt

I've been putting off writing this post for a long long time. [lol it actually sat in my drafts bin for another 3 months after writing that!]

But my cameras broke and I'm running out of projects I'd already photographed, so now seems as good a time as any. 

This is a very basic baby quilt made for my friend Kelly's and her future wife Amy's Little boy Rupert. 

He was actually a bit of a surprise baby [to me not to them! They definitely knew he was coming they just hadn't mentioned it on facebook!] And although I don't see Kelly very often I knew I wanted to make her little boy a quilt because shes always been really supportive of my blog and has made a lot of custom orders of the years!

  

I don't typically do such simple quilts any more but as I said I didn't know he was coming a so I threw something together using stash fabrics. 

And appliqued his initial on to make it personal. 

And speaking of personal I've never really addressed why I started making baby quilts for all the babies I know. And the difficulty is that its such a personal thing but my hope is that me sharing might help someone else if they are going through something similar.

We found out a few years ago that we can't have any more babies. 

Which is one of those kind of awkward things because for the longest time we'd been flip flopping on whether or not we actually wanted anymore and then BOOM decision made you have no choice! 

After Lil Man was born [And he was quite poorly after he was born but that's a story for another day!] Rikki was convinced we were going to give me three months to recover and then start trying for baby no 2. Uh no thanks hun? Luckily a midwife was on hand to inform him that she wanted me to be at least two years post c section before we even starting thinking about another one especially seen as I'd not really had a bump with Lil man so the risk would be if I got big with the next and it would make my scar burst.

So I patiently waited for two years [and I'm glad I did because I took about two years for my scar to stop twinging every time I stood up!] And then I spoke to Rikki about it and he wasn't sure he wanted another. Which is pretty tough to deal with in itself because then one of you wants more babies and the other is completely content. 

Then the swine 360'd on me again! He literally turned round after a year and a half of being adamant that he wanted no more and was all like "go on then lets have another". Talk about keeping me on my toes!

However he was insistent that I went to the doctors before we started trying because my period pains had been really really awful since having Lil man.

I went and after months of doctors taking my medical history, having examinations and scans and talking about all of the difficulties with my pregnancy and Lil man when he was born, a conclusion was reached. No more babies.  

Well actually he said it in a more doctor like way and explained that if I had just one problem he might suggest we try but due to the fact their were several problems he wouldn't recommend it because in the unlikely hood that I did fall pregnant, It was highly unlikely that I would carry full term . He did tell me I could have hope and see if a miracle happened but they don't do a prescription for that.

Then he told Rikki he must have super sperm because I'd actually managed to get pregnant with Lil Man against the odds!

Naturally because the doctor had said we could try if we wanted we had a long chat about it and decided that if it had just been the two of us we'd have had a go, but because of lil man we couldn't because it wouldn't be fair for him to have to cope the the loss or disappointment. 

And whilst we had reached an agreement not to have anymore or to even try if was still really really hard because 1. We will never know if we might have had a second miracle and 2. Once you find out you can't have any more you start seeing babies everywhere and everyone gets pregnant! 

At first I tried to bury my head in the sand and avoid all babies. Mainly because I was terrified that I wouldn't be happy to hear that someone was pregnant ever again. 

Then I found out that my best friend was pregnant and I can happily say I've never been so pleased for anyone on my life! So I made her a blanket! And well the whole thing snowballed.

Now every time someone close to us has a baby I make them a blanket and as I sit and sew it I feel a lot more calm than I did and i always feel really happy for them.

I don't even care if they keep them or if they don't use them. I just like making them. 

So far I've made blankets for:

Evie

Caden

Percy

Josephine

Jasper

Rupert

Its still hard to be around babies but it gets easier every year. 

And its still difficult when people tell me I need to give lil man a sibling because he's going to be spoiled or why are we leaving such a big gap in between.

But things are getting better and we've even reached a point now where we laugh and joke about it and we've gradually started to tell people who are close to us rather than keep it a secret.

A huge amount of me coping is down to Rikki as well. He has been a unwavering pillar of strength over the last few years and I'm not sure I could have coped without him. [BUT IF ANYBODY TELLS HIM I'VE WRITTEN NICE THINGS ABOUT HIM I WILL DROP KICK THEM! I like him to think I barely tolerate him, keeps him on his toes!]

Much Love 

Frankie 

Polly's New Blanket - Learning to Sew Patchwork Curves

Life's pretty good at the moment.

I'm pretty much on top of the housework, I'm hitting 10,000 steps a day and I have a new dog. 

Anyway I've decided that this year would be all about learning new skills and learning to piece curves for patchwork. I've had a subscription to love patchwork and quilting magazine for a few years now (thanks by the way Netty and Keith) 

Luckily the magazine come with free templates etc so I used those to draw straight onto the fabric. It saved a lot of time and meant I didn't have to spend a hour on the Internet trying to find a decent template. 

Piecing them together was more tricky than I expected. Obviously I piece a lot of curves for dressmaking but this was a whole new kettle of fish. I used about four pins per quarter circle and swore a lot. 

Fabrics wise everything was from my stash , there's a right mixture if bits and pieces in their including some of my favourite fabrics . Living with boys I tend to use a lot of dark colours so I really enjoyed making this pink explosion for Polly. 

Quilting wise I kept it simple and just did some straight lines , I was going to do free motion quilting but I couldn't get the bloody tension to work properly and after I'd unpicked some of it once I wasn't going to risk doing the whole thing just to have to undo it if I hated it.

Luckily because its a teeny weeny quilt it didn't take very long to quilt at all. In fact I did all the quilting in the adverts of love island. 

Naturally I couldn't get a nice picture of Polly sat on the blanket , I tried bribing her with treats but it didn't really help. To be honest most of the pictures were of her bum and then of course their was the one of her pooping........ 

So yeah this is the best I could do. Polly spends a lot of time in her basket as its her "safe place" and normally she doesn't look as happy as this but see just been for a walk so she was living her best life. 

That or she was thirsty? We are still having trouble getting her to realise that the water and food bowl is just for her. 

I finally have access to a tablet! My tablet went squiffy last week but luckily my kind neighbour Chelsey had a tablet she didn't use so I'm using that. So far I love it its HUGE so I can actually use the screen to type rather than having to plug in my keyboard! So cheers Chelsey love you!!! 

In other news! 

Lil man has his voice back!! 

Much love 

Frankie 

Xxx

Quilts for kindness - why you should be giving quilty hugs.

I once heard someone say that when you give a quilt your not actually giving someone something to sleep under instead your giving someone a big quilty hug. 

Which is kind of wonderful really isn't it?

I made this quilt for my friends at the craft cotton company and its going to a little boy who's poorly. All of the fabrics were from them and I especially like the spiderman print. 

I came up with the pattern myself and decided to keep things quite simple. These half square triangles work really nicely and sew up fast. It took a little while to make sure they were all pointing in the right direction though. 

The middle square has the young boys initial appliqued onto it. I used a wide zig zag to sew it on and I went over it twice to make sure its on securely. I'm really chuffed with how neat it turned out. Especially seen as I drew the B free hand because our printer wouldn't print the template I had fine.  

Its backed with a minky fabric that is the stuff of dreams. I just want to wrap myself up in it, have a cup of tea and nap the day away. Its so soft and squishy perfect for babies, or kids or......Grownups?

Quilting wise I kept things simple and just did the diagonals. To say this is the biggest quilt I've ever made it was actually the easiest to quilt. Bizarre huh?

I've got to say I really enjoyed doing this project. Its so nice to make a quilt for someone else and hopefully make them feel a bit better when their having a crappy time of it. 

Which leads me to my next bit. See here's the deal, a lot of people I know love quilting but truth be told there's only so many quilts one person/family can have. Which is why I'm suggesting that you keep quilting but try giving them away? 

There's lots of places and people who could probably do with a big quilty hug of their very own, but here's a few suggestions.

- Local hospitals. Its best checking their particular rules but our local hospital did except quilts especially in the neonatal ward. [Typically the neonatal ward looses a lot of their quilts because if a baby passes away the quilts etc are given to the family in a memory box]

- An elderly relative or neighbour. In England 22% of men and 28% of men aged 65 and over suffer from depression, imagine how lovely it would be to give them a quilt and let them know your thinking of them [You could also donate a quilt to your local care home]

- New born babies. This is something I personally do [and will be writing a proper blog post on soon]. 

- Project Linus. Project Linus are a group who donate quilts to sick children. They also donated a huge number of quilts to the victims of the Grenfell tower fire. To date they have donated 348,542 quilts to people who need them. 

And starting in issue 11 of sew inspired magazine they will be giving instructions to make a simple quilt with the hopes that people will donate it. This initiative is called quilts for kindness, the instructions will be simple enough for even beginner quilters to understand so everyone is welcome to take part.

So hopefully I've given you some ideas if you love quilting but are running out of room!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Top Tips For English Paper Piecing

I know I know. Really I should be blogging my next instalment of the #ettaquiltproject but I've been really off my game recently what with Rikki being off so much and the passing of my friend [I really want to write a whole post about him but 1. I can't start writing it without crying and 2. I'm not sure you guys would want to read it? Maybe I'll just write it for me when I'm ready and you guys can skip it if you want]

Anyhoo with the #ettaquiltproject I'm pretty sure the only person playing along is my big sis so I figured I'd slow down the pace a bit because she doesn't have a lot of time to sew! 

But here's some English paper piecing tips of you are looking to start or your finding it hard! 

1. Use Card [cereal packet / Xmas cards] as your templates instead of using paper. Its a lot more durable so you get more wear out of them and they are easier to fold fabric over accurately so you end up with neater corners etc.

2. Use bulldog clips. This is one I recently discovered, I used to use pins but I just kept stabbing myself as I tried to tack bulldog clips are a much easier and safer way!

3. Woven Fabrics. I'm not saying you need to go all out and buy expensive quilting cottons I mean after all these quilts were typically made out of scraps and old clothes. But using a woven fabric over a stretch fabric is definitely the way to go.

4. Use at least 1cm seam allowance. Believe it or not but too much seam allowance can actually make piecing more of a faff! a 1cm seam allowance gives you enough to work with without swamping you in fabric. 

5. Use different colored threads for tacking and sewing! Mainly this just makes it easier to remove your tacking stitches because you just remove all the ******* coloured threads!

6. Good lighting. Did anyone else Mum used to tell them off for doing things in the dark and tell them they'd go blind? Just mine? Okay.... But in all seriousness threading a needle in poor lighting is enough to have you reaching for the wine, threading it in good light is a more more pleasant experience but you'll probably still want the wine!

7. And speaking of needles! Keep them sharp! For both tacking and piecing, the whole process is just a lot quicker with a sharp needle!

8. Make a vague plan. Think about what sort of style you want? Will it be scrappy? Are you doing a pattern repeat? Do you want to use a colour story? A lil bit of planning in the short term can save a lot of aggro in the long term!

9. Buy extra fabric! Not because your going to mess up [although that might happen] But because your going to love and cherish your quilt and hopefully use it lots which means holes or stains may happen and its always useful to have some extra fabric for repair work! 

10. Try and use plastic template for making your card templates. Basically I make my templates I draw around 1 "master" shape. In theory this means that every single card template will be the same size, however if you use a card template as your master the repeated drawing can actually make the sides wear down and you end up with a smaller template! I tend to use either plastic templates or metal ones! 

11. Iron fabric before cutting out. Mainly this just helps you to be more accurate and to limit fabric waste. Its also a huge help if your using recycled clothes to make your quilt. And be sure to iron your finished blocks so they sit flat! 

Hope these help! Do you have any top EPP tips?

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx

Finished Baby Blanket - Blue Ombre

I love it when everything comes together. So often with quilting you can over analyse every step. I spent ages choosing the fabric, then I spent ages choose what pattern to do, then when it was finally sewn up I spent ages procrastinating quilting it.

Typically I use a regular fleece blanket to act as backing and batting for my baby quilts but this time I used a thin fleecy poly knit. The same one that I used for my softest coco! 

for the front I cut pieces of fabric into stripes and then placed them in a tonal order from cream to dark blue. Then I pieced them together in a spiral. Its a really quick way to make a blanket and I think its super cute looking.

All of the fabrics came from my stash and I was very careful to choose ones that would be suitable for a boy or a girl. I know its predominately blue but and my sister says some girls like blue and some of the prints have flowers on which girlies it up a little bit. 

This was also my first time doing decent mitred corners on the binding of this one. Which makes me feel a bit smug because it means my skills are improving! Yay for learning new things! 

Oh and by the way I spiral quilted it because that's my go to quilting technique! I really should learn something new!

Frankie

xxx

Sad News

Okay so I had some pretty jolly Christmas/gift giving posts ready to be written but things sort of took a downturn with me feeling a bit miserable towards the end of last week and then on Saturday morning my Grandad died.  Which to be quite frank thoroughly sucks. 

Anyway as it goes Rikki was working nights that night and he's just started a new job so him staying home wasn't an option so I just sat and finished projects really.  

This was the first one I finished its another English paper pieced floor cushion but this one is for Rikkis Nan, She really liked mine and thought it might be nice to have something for the kids to sit on at her house. 

Its made the same way as the other but this one has the added bonus of being filled with fabric scraps. Yerp I took all my scrap fabric and then cut them into little tiny pieces and rammed them into a cushion, Actually the mindless cutting was pretty good for keeping my head sort of busy? And making sure I didn't think to much.

I did however end up with a blister on my finger from the continuous cutting....which I'm pretty sure is infected now and looks pretty gross.

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Pixel Mario Blanket

Okay so I'm pretty sure my new neighbours think I'm nuts. My old neighbours had got fairly used to me taking a quilt outside hanging it on the line, taking pictures and then taking it back in. These new neighbours however...... They curtain twitched. Yes the curtains actually twitched.

But anyway curtain twitching aside I managed to take the pictures! This is my finished backed, bound and quilted mario quilt!

After the quilt top sat basted for about two weeks I finally sat down and busted out all the quilting in one evening! Each colour section is quilted In a spiral in the corresponding colour. For example all of the red sections are quilted in red and all the blue are quilted in blue!

That meant I had to change my bobbin about 1 million times but I really think it worth it! I love how the quilting makes each section stand out! I even quilted the background with crosses so that Mario would really stand out.

The Binding is some embroidered white floral stuff that I was given, I think it looks kind of like computer code! And I added a coloured triangle to each of the corners because I might have screwed up on the binding a little bit and had to hack away at it. I'm blaming this on tiredness and lack of playing attention. But you know what they say, they are not mistakes, they are lessons! 

There's no batting in this quilt just the quilt top and then its backed with a fleecy blanket. It's currently my preferred method of finishing a quilt. It means you can layer the quilt on top of a duvet without actually sweating your bum off. Plus *whispers* its cheaper! I do want to do a few quilts with cotton backs and actual batting but for the moment the cheaper option is much better!!!! The "perfect quilts" will have to wait until I have a new house and I've redecorated and made a quilt for every room. Yes I have big plans for when I get to decorate my perfect house!!!!! 

And that's it really, I finished it really late at night so I could wrap it and have it waiting for Rikki when he finished work after a night shift. Like a little treat pressie!!!!!

So yeah we are both very happy with how it turned out and I almost can't wait until Rikki gets the flu so I can snuggle him up in it!!!

Well almost! that man is a baby when he's sick!

Much Love

Frankie

xxxx 

Blue Fade, Spiral Quilt Top

I made another baby quilt top! I like to have a little stash of these ready for when people announce that their expecting. And I'm expecting a few announcements what with those long saummer nights nights with bottles of wine...[funnily enough it also works work those longer winter nights with a bottle of wine]

Anyway after the success of my last spiral quilt I decided to repeat the process but wanted to try and get an ombre effect.

It turned out pretty good, and I like the two boarder effect I ended up with.

I made it in an evening and my sister helped me decide on how to finish the boarder.

Its all scraps from the quilting basket, I just need to pick up some backing and then bind it and I'm finished.

In other news I have my first child and man free morning in months. Sadly I can't sew because Rikki is upstairs napping after his night shift. Usually I'd risk sewing and keep my ears peeled for if it was making him restless but yesterday he had a horrible migraine and stayed in bed! and then went to work! Lil trooper!

So yeah so far I've done some cutting out, shortened the hem on a skirt and now I'm thinking of knitting. Mainly I'm just pottering about, and binge watching desperate housewives.

I've got to say as much as I love my boys, I do love having time to potter about in my own company.

Much Love 

Frankie 

xx

Patchwork Hexagon Floor Cushion

Yes this was going to be a quilt, but I don't need another quilt. At least not at the moment, I do have an idea that when we have a new house and I've chosen the decor I'm going to make a quilt for each room. But so far that's just a dream!

So instead I put all my hard work to good use and made myself a big ole floor cushion. Luckily its an actual useful thing that I've made, I've been wanting something to sit on when I'm chilling out after yoga, [technically its meditating, but using to word meditating makes me feel like I'm posing in the body of some awfully zen and put together person. When really I do yoga in holey maternity leggings and watch the Kardashians whilst I do it]  

And also because when we have guest over I usually end up sat on the floor, not because or guest are awful and inconsiderate, but mainly because I'm a big fan of personal space.

So yeah anyway construction wise I just cut a back and then stuffed it but first I had to remove the hundreds of paper hexagons and that was an absolute hoot! Who knew how annoying removing so many bits of paper could be!

I did get some cute posing pictures of little man with it though.

Not gonna lie, I did bribe him with a sweet. Yep in the morning after breakfast I'm that sort of mum!

Here he is enjoying the fruits of his labour. well the sweet of his labour. Funnily enough it took about 10 minutes to get him on the bloody thing and then he wouldn't get off it.

And he says its very comfortable, and I agree!

So im calling this a huge success!

one question though, 

now what an I going to use for my English paper piecing needs?

Much Love

Frankie

xxx