Fabric Inspiration

I've just finished my first quilt top!!!! What can I say? I was so inspired by all the lovely fabric I'd ordered for my nephew's quilt I just had to get stuck into it, one long weekend later and aside from the border, I'd pretty much finished! The design is closely based on the Sparks Baby Quilt tutorial over at Handmade by Alissa. Owen loves animals (tigers are his favourite) so each square features a different animal or bug. I really loved making this and can't wait to start quilting. That won't be for a while yet, first I need to buy batting and more backing fabric (yup, greatly underestimated the amount of fabric I'd need) and besides which, I want to practice my free motion skills before I take the plunge. By the way, thanks for your tip Jacquie, I tried the post-it note trick and it worked a treat! I can't say my seams are 100% straight, but they're certainly much less crooked!

Don't you just love it when you stumble upon a little trove of haberdashery goodness? Finding a fabric store near where I live is pretty tough and I do most of my shopping online. Stopping by Dunelm Mill for bedsheets I almost had a fit, tons and TONS of ribbon, bias tape, ric rac, buttons etc... Here's some that I bought, I love the buttons! They're just like the sort my Mum used to sew on my cardigans when I was little. These have ducks and a tennis playing bunny on them! (How sweet is that?) I also got new pinking shears and pearl headed pins - I'm sure it's not right to love pins so much lol! Can you see the stork shaped embroidery scissors? I saw them featured last week over at The Purl Bee, so I just had to get them, what's even better is they're as practical as they are pretty!

(Sorry for the crappy pictures BTW, it seems whenever I want to take photos at the moment the light is terrible.)

Slowly But Surely

Well, as predicted it was another busy week with very little sewing going on. Just to compound matters, on Monday I learnt just how important it is to use some kind of wrist support when cutting up fabrics - yes, less than a fortnight into this hobby and I was hit with crippling wrist strain! I took the hint and lay off for the rest of the week and invested in a sports bandage to help support my wrist - so far it seems to be doing the trick!

Anyway, hope everyone out there had a good weekend, as you can see I've done some more work on my first project, I now have a total of seven 12" x 12" squares with another three half completed. I'm still not sure how big I'm going for, as it's my first I'm thinking a single bed quilt though even that may be a tad ambitious, but then again I have never been one for doing things by halves. I'm also trying to think of a name for it, any ideas out there?

As another project to run along side, I've decided to work on a quilt for my baby nephew. He lives over in Australia but will be coming over for a visit at Christmas, so what could be nicer than something warm and bright for him to snuggle up in? I'm excited! I've ordered some more fabric (even managed to get hold of some Denyse Schmidt 'Katie Jump Rope' - not easy in the UK) and have a good idea what the design will be. Like a true Aussie, Owen loves animals and bugs - so enter lots of animal and bug fabric!

Did I mention I'm excited???

Learning Curve

Wow! As only my second day in the world of quilting I have to say I'm simultaneously exhausted, excited and impatient. The learning curve (as I expected) is a steep one - my first problem? Why does my machine keep missing stitches? Something told me it was down to me and not the machine but it took a stupid amount of time for me to realise it was because I pausing in my sewing with the needle up rather than down (piercing the fabric). That was the thin edge of a pretty thick wedge to be honest, other issues include how on earth do people manage to sew in such perfectly straight lines? Mine seem to resemble some drunken idiot wobbling up and down the place, then there's the bobbin running empty with less than an inch of fabric to stitch left, the thread snapping whenever it feels like it (must be the quality - I'll have to invest in some better cotton) not to mention finding the right angle for cutting with my rotary cutter (get the wrong angle and you may as well chew through the fabric with your teeth).

All that aside, I'm pretty pleased with the results of the last couple of days, I love the colours and patterns (especially the Alexander Henry 'Starling' fabric). At the moment it's just various fabrics in red and green (with the occassional polka dots thrown in) I'm tempted to add some blue but not sure if it'll be too much... any thoughts out there?

I have a few more squares done but I'll feature them later (don't want this first post to be too picture heavy). I am basing the design on Jacquie's Wonky Log Cabin tutorial on the fabulous Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog - check it out, I'm a fan already!

More sewing fun and mishaps to come... lol