WHAT TO DO,WHAT TO DO????

Well its been a while,because i have been a bit of an idiot...there i sat on the toilet ......and one small sneeze later,and there i am rolling around on the floor with my knickers round my ankles writhing in pain....YEP!!! i put my back out....NOT HAPPY!!!!!!

so with a sea of painkillers and plenty of rest,i could devote my time to designing a new quilt or at least read through my pattern books...earmarked quite a few patterns i liked and settled on one pattern that stood out more than everybody elses idea's.

I adapted it to fit my requirements,and the materials i had available,and came up with the black braid quilt...i managed to use up all of my excess material i had layting around in my scrap pot...everything that was 1" or wiider got sewed together at the side edge and at 90' to each other...and managed to get a lovely chevron pattern.......here take a look!!!This one is for sale on my e-bay page at the minute,because i want to put the cash from this one towards another jelly roll for a quilt for my mum...have figured out the design and the shapes...(think i might try the double wedding ring....),but need two jelly rolls for this up and coming one.....

But am gutted!!!have just started making an autumn star quilt...and although its a bit complicated i am getting there...but am waiting for another sneeze to put my back in or a expensive visit to the chiropractor.....ACK!!!!

MY FIRST JELLY ROLL......YUM!YUM!

Well it all started when i was invited to join the "UK QUILTERS" on a forum on RAVELRY...and well what a Revelation...i thought it was just me that muddled along through life enjoying what i do without worrying what anybody else thought.....

Christmas my quilts were greatly ans thankfully received by members of my family,so i thought i would make one for myself...and then at my nieces 18th birthday party i was asked if i would like to take part in a craft fair at East Anglian Museum of Life,in stowmarket...i was very flattered.but i had no quilts in stock so i knew it was time to make a start......i started buying and storing material...and now my stash is massive,and i know exactly what i am going to do...i have got 5 in stock so far...and am devoting 3 hours per day to it at the moment.....With my hand crank machine called alfie,i am averaging a quilt a week...i know i could go faster with my electric sewing machine but i also know that it runs away with me,and then i go all wonky and get upset with myself...at least with alfie i don't get upset because i can control her.....

So i was asked to have a go at a "jelly roll" quilt and well i hadn't realised that you got so much for your money...i bought a jelly roll by moda and although it cost me £25.00 i can make two quilts out of it..which means i can double or even triple my profits.......

But this was a right revelation!!!all the material is pre-cut...its 44"long and 2.5" wide which for me is the perfect size for quilting,i usually go skinny on my cuts or massive and make a humongous patch...but the jelly roll keeps me in check and i can manage to make something beautiful without making a total hash of things........

I spent a week making patches and sorting out the backing and followed a pattern for the front from a book i managed to pick up cheap...but i had to finagle it around to make me happy...somehow there wasn't enough going on in the pattern to make my brain work......so i added a chequerboard pattern at the top and bottom,its all blues,greens and white....i like it don't get me wrong but green is one of my cursed colours....i don't know why but i just don't seem to get it right when i use lilac or green......then again maybe its just me.

But anyway i digress.....(stay on topic dammit!!!),it took me a week to make the strips,and then it was time to play around with the patches,it was the first time i had ever made a quilt diagonally...i had to start on the top left patch and work across and down......it was nice to have something that made me think....i managed to find a piece of scrap batting that i could use(i had it floating about in the bottom of my sewing box...)and got on and quilted it very gently.....i started in the middle and worked outwards,i decided to stitch it in the ditch...which means you stitch the batting and the backing fabric through the seam's already created by the patch...

the back actually looks really good and then i realised that i had managed to use a darker cotton on the bottom than i had on the top...but it looked alright...and then after i had finished,i laid it onto my sofa and took photo's of it...and then it happened there was this little voice"mum......can i have that one????"tomas my youngest had got it into his head that he could have this one as another bedspread...but like i said to him"what are you going to do with two???" he explained that he wanted to keep one downstairs on the sofa and one on his bed,then he could cuddle up with one in the evening and have one to sleep with on his bed...he's a bit quilt mad at the moment,everyone i make he wants to have so i guess if he likes them then everybody else will!!!

The funny thing is that this week i put a quilt online on my e-bay page to see if anybody else would like them...and well i got a bid on the day before the auction ended and although i didn't make a lot on it i made a profit on the material and batting,i was just pleased that it sold,and pleased how much somebody wanted it...so i mailed it today,its going to italy of all places,and i hope the buyer likes it,and will use it as much as possible.....

the one i am making right now is a bit odd and looks like an optical illusion quilt at the minute,but i am enjoying it very much and can't wait to show you what it looks like when its finished...so here's the last one i made that my little un wants......

please excuse the addition of daisy in my picture..don't know what happened there.....

A NEW ERA,A NEW HOBBIE!!!

Tthis is my new przed possession...she was made in 1959,(i think) and she's a handcrank zigzag machine that does two types of stitches,one very even straight stitch and the rest are vairations on zigzag stitch...i bought her from TW>Gazes auction room s and she cost me £5.00,and i am well pleased....

Its funny but with my electric machine it did the job,but no matter how hard i tried,i just couldn't get it to stitch a straight line..my seams wouldn't match,and all of my patches were uneven...and it frustrated the living watsit out of me...many days i would sit there crying my eye's out all because i jjust couldn't get it right.and the i get this one....start it up give it a good clean and oil...and it works!!!all it wanted was a good clean....and then it all started to fall into place,it was all a matter of control...and since then i have had nothing but good sewing and good quilting....

the week i got her my cousin joanne asked me to take part in a craft fair at the east anglian museum of life...it is in august and i have been making quilts like a demon......

each one you can see more and more improvement in my sewing experiences....here have a look and you'll see what i mean.....

CUTTING CONUMDRUMS.....

right,today has been a day of frustrations and tears....no matter how many times i try,I just cannot cut a straight line!!!!!I have tried templates,rulers,set sqaures,protractors and even builders chalk lines....and can i get a straight line???CAN I HELL!!!!so after much ranting and raving,i walked away from my machine and my quilt crying my eye's out ,and all because i can't cut a straight line!!!!after three hours of swearing and crying,i finally managed to cut one straight line..i tried to sew it straight and it still came up wonky....it seems that i am cursed with this at the minute,so for the moment i shan't be posting here,i need a few days off and a calm down and then i shall try again.......

The Mother-In-Law quilt

Evening,

Well today has been fun and exciting and unusual all at the same time.

This morning i wanted to visit my mum because it was her birthday....Well i made her the one thing she wanted for Christmas,a pair of handmade socks...she was well pleased with them!!Here's the funny bit........I made my grandmother a lap quilt for Christmas,and because i am the black sheep of the family she stopped "talking to me " a long time ago,and now she's spoken more to me in the last week,than she has in the last five years!!!!

She asked me to stop by on the way home from my mums as she had a parcel for me....when i got there she handed me a cake tin and a bin liner,i put them in the car boot and drove home,its snowing again and the roads were getting icy even at 1pm in the afternoon.....when we got home,i got the bin liner and the cake tin out of the boot and took them indoors...you could have knocked me down with a feather!!!!Inside the tin was a load of cottons,dozens and dozens of them!!!along with machine needles,crewel work needles and the most useful of all a set of curved mattress needles,just right for tacking the backing and wadding onto the front of quilts......

I sat down with my new book called scrap quilts,fast and fun,and had a leaf through the book and picked a pattern i liked and then forgot all about it and had a go at one of my own....anyway i decided to break for a coffee and have a look at the contents of the bin liner...i tipped out the bag and couldn't believe what the heck i was seeing........there was piles and piles of material,all laura ashley in all shades and colours,and the biggest roll of pale blue crepe DE chine,what on earth I'm going to do with it god only knows...but I'll give anything a lash.....

Have decided that alot of the laura ashley material is far too good for patchwork,plus each piece is big enough to make shirts and pyjama's out of as well as little girls dresses and trousers....but i cut some fat quarters out of them ready to quilt...lots of strips and triangles and squares...My lovely hubs has decided that i need a quilters rule with the slots cut out of them for shapes and straight lines....so he's going to buy me one as a belated Christmas present...

Anyway,i used all of the fat quarters cutting them into strips and squares,and triangles,and got to my sewing machine....and well after much mucking about i managed to make a chequer board design and a few log cabin blocks,and i enjoyed every single moment making this and here it is......

QUILTING IDEAS....WOW!!!!

Well what can i tell you????
this morning has been somewhat of a revalation to be honest...i bought what i thought was a pattern book for quilts and it turned out to be so much more....its given me so many idea's my heads swimming....i now know how to do flying geese,the devils road,and many,many,many others...have decided to make my mother -in -law a lap quilt for her birthday...am almost finished,but have used the shooting star pattern and log cabin squares for edging,and have also donethe dice blocks too,by way of an edging...am thinking of making a couple of these to sell online........could do with a cash injection this year,the car is due for an MOT this year and have got a feeling its going to be expensive.......
Yesterday morning i had a good search around my material stash and couldn't find much of it left,so i got off my butt and went to A small town near us called Eye,it has got a real alladins cave of a material shop,i could spend months in there and still not see the same thing twice.......So i asked for quilting peices and she handed me a whole drawer of material peices all reasonably priced(1.99 per fat quarter....)and then told me to pick as many materials off the rack as i liked to make as many fat quarters up as i liked she had every colour of the rainbow.....i could have spent hundreds of pounds in there but instead i spent a reasonable amount of money in there and took my treasure home to iron it and cut it out ready for making up....
i ironed it yesterday ready for cutting ,so i bit the bullet and cut it and re-ironed it with all the creases in it for stitching.....
This morning i started on my mother-in-laws quilt and it is going well,a bit lip chewing,but getting there,i have got three more log cabin sqaures to do as a linig and then its ready for the backing and the quilting pattern....and then it will be wrapped and mailed directly off to my mother -in-law....but with the arguements my hubs and his mother have been having this should be putting things to rights with a bit of luck!!!I don't have any pictures at the minute but will have by the time its ready to mail....so will post them later...so for now,its bye!!!!!

This is what I couldn't post in the last one!!!!

this is a placemat i made from scraps of patchwork i experimented with first time.....

this is my new sewing machine bargain of the year...gazes sale yard...ILOVE YOU!!!!!

This one has been made for my nana by me....I hope she likes it!!!!

This is my nana's quilt un binded....

This is all of the pictures i couldn't post in the last blog.....I hope this makes sense.....