Harry Potter Tumbler Quilt & Christmas Table Runner Update

I finally finished cutting out all my tumbler blocks with Flo, my Accuquilt GO! (Not that it took a long time to do the cutting - that was a breeze! It was finding the time to retreat into my bat cave to sew!) And even better than finishing the cutting, I finally worked out how I was going to lay it all out.. well, the tumbler section anyway! The tumblers will be sashed with the material that will also be used for the backing, and then there will be a plain border around the tumblers and then something along the lines of the split drunkard's path stars as another border/section, and finally the Hedwig Owls will be incorporated into the corners of the quilt. I'm still tossing up whether to put them on point, or have them squared with their bodies pointing in.. I guess we'll see how it all pans out..

My tumbler blocks laid out (wadding is underneath)

 Yesterday was the monthly meetup for my local quilting friendship group, so I packed up Flo the GO!, the fabric for the sashing, my Christmas table runner fabric and my 2.5" strip die. My goal was to  cut the rest of my strips for the tumbler sashing and all the 2.5" squares for my Christmas table runner  (see post here)... I achieved both of those goals as well as doing another couple of informal demo's on the Accuquilt GO! (This time I wasn't really prepared for a demo, having only taken my strip die but no one seemed to mind... infact one lady even asked me if I offered a cutting service because she wants some drunkard's path blocks cut!)

My 1.25" strips (folded - they're not really that short!)

My table runner squares

 Another lady was also very impressed to see how quickly I was able to cut all the 2.5" square blocks - she hand cut 400ish 2.5" blocks only a week or two ago and it took her significantly longer!

I also spent some time sorting through fabric.. the quilting group put out all the donated fabric they'd received in the hopes that people would take some home for charity quilts. I found quite a bit of fabric that I think I can do something with.. once the Harry Potter quilt is finished, of course!

So when I came home I was rather eager to get those tumblers sashed, and here is how things finished up:

I still have to do the horizontal sashing, but I was thinking that perhaps I should cut some tumblers out of the sashing fabric, and then cut them in half to square up the tumbler section so that it's easier to add borders. Once I'm finished I'm considering writing up a tutorial on how to sash tumblers incase anyone is interested? Only because there doesn't seem to be much information about sashing tumblers floating around on the web as far as I can tell..

And then, even though it was REALLY late (nearly midnight!) I had to quickly sew some of my squares together just so that I felt like I'd made some actual progress on my table runner..

Then finally it was time to drive home and go to bed!

Quilts for my babies (Part 2)

I was pregnant with Blossom while I was making Bean's quilt, so naturally once I finished his quilt I knew that I'd need to make another quilt straight away. This time I found a pattern from Lincraft (and let me tell you that I didn't have anywhere near as many problems with that pattern!) although I purchased the fabrics from Spotlight. The design was a little more complex than the one I'd made for Bean, but I was feeling much more confident and adventurous! (And when I say complex I feel I should point out that it wasn't very complex - just different sized squares and rectangles!)

As usual, I didn't follow the pattern exactly because I wanted the quilt to be about the same size as Bean's, and that meant that I had to play with the layout a little and add some extra blocks to make it fit the approximate dimensions.

I really enjoyed putting Blossom's quilt top together, and I absolutely LOVED the butterfly fabric. So much so that when I saw the same fabric in pink some months later  I just HAD to buy it to make some sheets for her cradle. I wish I'd bought more! Of course, by the time I'd finished my quilt top it was time for Blossom to make her appearance and it hadn't been quilted. Eventually when Blossom was about 6 weeks old one of the ladies at the quilting group very generously offered to take my quilt top and quilt it on her longarm quilting frame. She chose a lovely curvy wave design which was much better than anything that I could have come up with! One day I'll learn how to free motion quilt, but that's a project for another quilt...

Once I got the quilt top back it took me about 6-8 months to complete the binding, but eventually I did! Why did no one ever tell me about stitch in the ditch until AFTER I finished my quilts??
Both Blossom & Bean love their quilts, and it still makes me feel warm & fuzzy to see them in use. As I mentioned though, Bean is outgrowing his quilt and sadly, so is Blossom. So I guess once I've finished the Harry Potter quilt I will have to come up with a new quilt design for Blossom. Perhaps something in the divine Riley Blake "Sweet Divinity" fabric that I ordered from Stitch Steals.

One of the other things on Blossom's bed is a cushion (Laura Ashley fabric) that my mommy made for me when I was a little girl. She also made me matching curtains for my room. I don't think we still have the curtains, but it's kind of sweet that Blossom has the cushion on her bed now.

Quilts for my babies (Part 1)

While on holidays I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on and share the quilts that I made for Blossom & Bean.. and because I have a tendancy to ramble I've split them into two separate posts so that you won't be here all night!

The first "real" quilt I ever made was for Bean. A girlfriend and I had decided to make a cot quilt for another friend's baby shower after finding one of those tear & share patterns at Spotlight. The whole thing was a bit of a debacle, partly because almost all of the measurements were wrong (for example, the typo that said we needed 85cm x 11cm of wadding instead of 85cm x 110cm.. and even the 85x110 was wrong, btw!) and partly because we were both inexperienced when it came to quilting.. infact my girlfriend was a complete sewing novice!

Anyway, we ended up with about 3 times too much fabric (instructions said 1/2 metre per fabric and we only needed 15cm max). After making the horrendous cot quilt (really, it was terribly embarrassing!) my girlfriend and I started attending my local quilting friendship group having decided to use the leftover fabric to make quilt tops for both out little boys (and yes, we had enough of the print fabric to do both quilt tops - which were also about 2-3 times the size of the original cot quilt design... and I still have a little bit of fabric left over!).

The girls at my local quilting group were lovely, so welcoming and willing to share their knowledge and expertise! They taught me so much about quilting -for example, how to chain piece, what binding was & how to make it etc. In virtually no time my quilt top was complete and I was experimenting with machine quilting. I stuck to the basics and went with diagonal lines, but I can't begin to tell you how proud I was when that quilt was finished!

My girlfriend never ended up completing her quilt. Infact it's still sitting in my craft cupboard. The problem with hers was that she wasn't quite as pedantic about accuracy when cutting & sewing as I was and as a result her rows ended up skewed. Very skewed. She gave up, and at the time I was too busy trying to work out what I was doing myself. She's pregnant with baby #2 now though and I've considered pulling the quilt top out and trying to work out if I can salvage it without having to pull the whole thing apart (because that would be WAY too much effort). I was thinking something along the lines of appliqueing some baby rattles/bears/sheep etc over the joins so that you don't notice as much. I haven't actually looked at it in quite some time.. but it's on my to do list!

Meanwhile, Bean still uses his quilt virtually every night. He's using it right now, as it happens! We take it on holidays, and it's always at the end of his bed incase he's too cold. But he's outgrowing it, and not just size-wise. Because it was leftover baby fabric is really is a *baby* quilt. One day he will wake up, look at his quilt, then tell me that he can't use it anymore because he is a big boy. And then I will be sad. So instead I decided that if I made him a new, bigger quilt that I could side-step the rejection heartbreak! And that is why I'm making the Harry Potter quilt.

But I'm still proud of my first "real" quilt.

What a busy week!

So it's only been 2 days since my last post, but boy have I been busy! I might have to split my last 2 days into a couple of separate posts just to make things a bit neater & tidier...

First things first though, following on from Tuesday's post about the local friendship quilting group..

I packed up my bags with all my dies, Flo (the GO!) and some scraps, as well as my Christmas fabric, table runner pattern and my Hedwig owl (just to give them an idea of what you can do) plus some lunch and colouring books for Blossom. We turned up about 40 minutes into the day, and Blossom chose an unoccupied table for us near the corner windows (great views!)

The first thing I did after settling Blossom was to check out the display set up by one of the local quilting shops (there are two that alternate each month to come along and display their wares) which was clearly a big mistake as I went from browsing to thinking about buying a $3.50 "scrap" bag, to buying 4 fat quarters for $20, to going on a $75 spree in the space of about 10 minutes (I had to take Blossom to the restroom in amongst all the action!).. but I think it was money relatively well spent... I bought:

4 fat quarters

Three of the fat quarters are to go with my other Christmas fabrics for my table runner.. not because I need more yardage, but for more variety and to break up all the different hollies.. the end one is a forest green with a gold kind of basket weave, then a beautiful cream & gold poinsettia and finally some red & gold baubles. The last fat quarter is a beautiful gold star pattern that was too gold to go with my other fabrics but I just loved it and I thought it would go nicely into Bean's Harry Potter quilt (perhaps the Griffindor crest? or a border? or something else..).

7

A gorgeous travel cutting mat & ironing pad

Cool idea, yes?

Then the girl next to me was looking at this beautiful portable cutting mat & ironing pad (looks like an A4 notebook - I wouldn't have given it more than a passing glance!) and once I realised what it was, I just had to have one.

2x bags of "Allsorts"

 Then I figured that seeing as I was supposed to be doing a demonstration of my Accuquilt GO! for the group I could justify some scraps to play with and add to my stash.. and as an added bonus I ended up with quite the matched set of fabric scraps (below) between the two bags, as well as another two pieces of fabric in the right colour scheme to match the Christmas table runner.

Co-ordinated scraps

I was about to pay for all my bits and pieces when I noticed their pile of fabric panels and decided to sift through them "just in case".. initially I found a cute reindeer kiddie Christmas panel, but then I found an Advent calendar style panel. I've been wanting to buy/make something like this for about 2 years now and just haven't come across what I was looking for. With this one you button a decoration on each day until the tableau is complete, perfect! (And let's just add ANOTHER project to my list...)

The main panel

The daily decorations

After that I decided I had to walk away. Right Now. Really. So I went back to my table and started sorting out scraps to see what was there and what I could use with my table runner. My fabric range for the table runner is now looking pretty good...

My Christmas table runner fabric collection (so far!)

Now don't think that because Blossom and I were sitting in a corner by ourselves that we were lonely.. quite a few of the girls that I'd met when I was going regularly (3-4 years ago) came up to chat and express their disbelief that Blossom was no longer the 6 week old baby that she'd been the last time they saw her.. and there was a visiting quilting group on the table next to me that were there to gift some charity quilts to us to distribute to local victims of the bushfires that went through our area back in February, and they saw Flo and asked lots of questions (before my demo) about what it was and how it worked etc.

After lunch and show & tell it was my 15 minutes of fame.. and let me tell you I don't think it was my finest hour! I mean, I'm sure it was ok, but I know I could have done better if I'd realised that Lyn was actually serious about making me do a demonstration! All the girls loved the GO! and were amazed by how quickly it cut the shapes. The most frequently asked questions I was asked were:

1. Do I sell them? Err, no... Oh really? You should! (Yes.. certainly something to think about..)

2. Can you use it to cut fabric with Vliesofix? (My understanding is yes, but you must count it as a layer. I must have answered that question a dozen times - every time I finished answering someone else would walk up and ask the exact same question)

After my demo it was pretty much time to pack up and go home, so as far as *doing* anything constructive I didn't really do much.. unless you count sorting out/purchasing fabric for my table runner constructive. But I had fun, and they were really keen for me to come back next month (and with my crafty friends ;)) so it was a pretty great day overall.

After picking Bean up from school I then went and spent a couple of hours in my craft room being constructive, but that's a story for the next post!