The antithesis of a mini-quilt

The BIG project I've been working on lately is a quilt. A real quilt, one that is bigger that 22" square.

I followed a link one day on Flickr to something that was described as the perfect beginner quilt, and you know what, I think the person who said that was right. I'm making the Mod Sampler Quilt designed by Oh Fransson. The directions are so clear and precise that I think just about anybody can follow them and end up with something awesome.

My intended recipient is going to be three years old in early September so I wanted to chose a fabric that wouldn't be too sophisticated for his toddler self but not so childish that he would disown it in a few years time. I trawled ebay to no avail and then came across the Lizzy House Red Letter Day collection on Etsy. I was instantly sold.

A few evenings of cutting and sewing and pressing later I'd completed all the blocks I'd need....

And then I got stuck. I couldn't decide on a layout that I really liked. Two or three evenings were spent shuffling blocks, a week passed, then two. And then in true Pom style I said "Eff It" and started sewing. I'm glad I did :)

I still have antother row of blocks to add to this and the edge sashing to attach and the top will be complete. The back piecing is much simpler and should be done in an evening. Then the quilting. THE QUILTING! I'm a little scared.

A chronological diversion...

Before I get to the BIG project I'm working on right now, I thought I'd show y'all what I made last night. I bought a pair of jeans a while ago that fit perfectly in the store but then grew a ton width ways during wearing and as a double whammy shrunk by an inch or so in length after washing. How rude.

The jeans lay folded at the bottom of the drawer in time out, only ever shown the light of day when I was too lazy to do laundry. And then one fateful day, I tore my favourite denim skirt*. EGADS! I began thinking that instead of just giving those naughty jeans to goodwill I should refashion them into something useful...

I googled around and found this tutorial which seemed simple enough, dug out a heavy weight needle for my machine, braced myself.... and chopped up the jeans. I am so proud of myself that I stood on the table and took a picture. Not even a good picture, I couldn't wait for daylight.

I modified the tutorial to be a two panel skirt and then had to fudge a bunch to make it work. Being of the short-arsed persuasion my jeans were not quite long enough to make a skirt the length I wanted. This wasn't a problem on the front where the zipper leads to a shorter insert panel, but I had to get a bit more "creative" on the back.

I kind of like the decorative element the original seams lend to the whole look and the completely accidental tulip shape made by the curvy fit of the original jeans. The bottom hem is far from perfect but on the whole I'm very proud of myself, in fact I'm wearing the skirt right now. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a wardrobe staple this summer and I'm already planning my attack on a pair of wool trousers I ruined in the wash....

* The skirt tore along the seam of the front where the skirt splits. I repaired the tear using a bit of scrap denim from this project and a zigzag stitch in a matching yarn to basically darn it back together. I added back the original yellow hem over the darned patch and if you squint a little you can hardly tell it was ever torn.

Mini Quilts

I've been thinking about quilting for a long time, slowly collecting together charm squares and fat quarters with the idea that someday I'd quilt. Except I had novice sewers paralysis. I couldn't cut into anything because, gasp, what if it went wrong?!

Finally, finally I bit the bullet, bought some inexpensive cotton solid from P&S Fabrics and went to town on a tiny little quilt. I used 4" charm squares I bought on Ebay along with a tutorial I remembered seeing online somewhere and I did it. I quilted.

The top was machine pieced, the quilting was done by hand and the binding was a combination of both. Yeah! Go me!

After the success of my first quilt I cast about the internets looking for something that would require a bit more difficult piecing that I could then practice machine quilting on. The results weren't quite as pretty as the first go round but, you know, learning curve and all that.

And now I'm working on something bigger, MUCH BIGGER. Woot!

Stencils

I might have mentioned that I fell down a sewing hole. got stuck and never returned. It's mostly true.

I was inspired by some folks on Flickr to make a personalised wedding gift. I made a stencil based on a photograph of their dog and after an hour or so's work on a new but unloved t-shirt, I had this:

Never one to let a good stencil go to waste, a couple of days later I also had this (t-shirt courtesy of Gap):

Not exactly sewing but fabric-related nonetheless.

There is more! But you'll have to wait ;o)

The B*tch went nuts, Y'all!

(With thanks to Ben Folds for the excellent title lyric...)

Where'd I go? Answer: Flickr. 365 got me. I've done so, so much sh*t since I last posted that I really don't know what to do about blogging.

There was Maryland Sheep and Wool:

A robot:

Even some knitting (Shock! Horror!):

MORE KNITTING!!:

And then I fell down a veritable rabbit hole of sewing, sewing and more sewing. I might have even started quilting! More shock! More horror!

To stop myself from repeating, um, myself feel free to click through to flickr to get deets on that little lot up there. Maybe in another two months I'll catch the blog up with the fabric....