December goal reached!

 My one monthly goal for December was to finish knitting this cardigan:

 

The wool is Drops DK merino and isn't quite black, but anthracite. The pattern is "Seaside pleated cardigan" by Marie Greene at Oliveknits.com from her book "Seamless sweaters in two weeks". 

It has taken me considerably longer than two weeks to make; I knitted sweaters for grandchildren, and several pairs of socks in the meantime. My own cardigan got shelved. Now finally finished in time for the next really cold spell.

I'm linking up to:

 Click op de badge for more December finishes.

A happy New Year to you all

Happy sewing

Marly.

December OMG: cardigan

Not a sewing goal this month, but knitting; I'm hoping to finish this cardigan by the end of the month. As I usually only knit in the evenings I may just manage it.

The Seashore Cardigan (pattern by Marie Greene in "Seamless Sweaters in 2 weeks") looks close to completion, but appearances can be deceptive. I'm now knitting the last part, the front band, of this edge-to-edge cardigan. This is however an unusually wide band at 8.75cm (3.5") wide and I have done only 3cm (1.25"). It's slow going as there are some 330 stitches on the needle. The cuffs have turned out too wide, so I've decided to unpick them and knit them again on a smaller needle.

I started knitting this more than a year ago, hoping to wear it last winter. However two sweaters for my then three-year-old twin grandchildren intervened. Several pairs of socks later I've decided it's about time this was on my back, instead of on the needles!

I'm linking to:

Happy handworking

Marly

The hexagons are a finished top!

It's not only a top; I've already taken it to the long-armer, Elly Prins. This is the first time I've asked someone else to do the quilting for me. Unfortunately it won't be back until in the New Year.

I made this quilt during the online QAL with Sheila Christensen from July 2020. All the hexagons are traditionally pieced; no FPP or EPP in sight! The fabrics in the hexagons all came from my stash, and the background fabric is a basic from Stof of Denmark in yellow/gold on cream. 

I needed a push to get the rows sewn together, and the borders on, but within a week it was a top. The push came from the end of year "finishfeestje" (finish party) hosted by Deveney. 

 

Happy sewing

Marly.

Staying Positive is finished!

My latest finish, "Staying Positive", from Brigitte Heitland's "Pluses Quilt" pattern is ready to go! This was my OMG for November.

This quilt was made during the Pluses Quilts QAL earlier this year. I quilted it myself on one of Elly Prins's long-arm machines at the end of October. This is the throw size, but as you can see in the photo above, it's almost large enough for a double bed.

This was my first time using a long arm machine and, although my result is far from perfect, I'm satisfied with it, and I learnt a lot that day.

The fabrics in the pluses are from my stash, and the background fabric and binding is Kona "Storm".

I'm linking to Elm Street Quilts for the One Monthly Goal link up.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Hexagons resurrected

 After more than 2 years I've taken my hexagons out of storage and done some work on them.

These were made in the Hemisphere Quiltalong designed and hosted by Sheila Christensen through the autumn of 2020. All fabrics are from stash.

The pieces were already joined into 10 rows of half-hexagons and at the beginning of this week I joined the rows into pairs, and yesterday joined rows together: rows 1 & 2 are joined, 3, 4, 5 & 6 and 7, 8, 9 & 10. It took a lot of pinning, matching the points, but most of them so far are spot on! This afternoon I hope to finish joining the centre of the top. Then I'll be cutting and attaching the borders.

It feels so good to be working on this again.

I'm linking to:

Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

 

Wendy's Quilts and More 

Happy sewing

Marly.

One November goal

 My monthly goal for November is to trim and bind my Pluses throw: "Staying Positive". I made this last month during a QAL with Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic; it's one of her patterns.

I quilted it during a long-arm quilting lesson with Elly Prins a week or so ago. At her suggestion I used a meander motif, and I left the pluses unquilted. I'm considering doing some straight line hand quilting in them, but haven't made up my mind yet. What do you think?

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Pluses quilt is a top

My September goal has been to complete the top of my Pluses quilt that I have made during Brigitte Heitland's quilt along of the same name. Pluses quilt is the working title, now mine has been renamed "Stay Positive" For the first time in a very log time I have achieved my goal!

Although it's a lap quilt it's too big for me to quilt on my domestic machine, so it will soon be heading towards the long-armer. This will be a first.

Close up of part of the lower section.

Fabric used:

4 metres Kona "Storm", although there is a lot left so I'll use it for the binding too.

Pluses in fabric from stash. They measure 6" square, and 9" square.

This has been a very interesting experience; it's the first time I've cut all the fabric for a quilt before making a stitch!

I shall be linking up to 

Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal

Alycia's Quilts for Finished or not finished Friday

Keep healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Dancer in the woods

 

 

The dancer was made using a pattern by Laura Heine in February 2020, just days before our first Covid-19 lock-down. I attended a workshop given by Elly Prins on collage quilting and I've now finally finished the collage. I still have to embellish the piece with embroidery and beads and, of course, quilt it.

I'm linking to:

Finished or not finished quilts at Alycia's Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and more

Click on the links to see more finished quilts and works in progress.

Marly.

Monthly goal in September

Having failed to meet my goals in June and July, I've taken a rest from the Do. Good stitches quilting for the Comfort Circle. I've been steadily working on it, but progress has been very slow. 

In August I started a new project: the "Pluses Quilt" quilt along, organised by Brigitte Heitland and using her pattern of the same name. My goal is to produce a completed top by the end of September. At the moment I've sewn all the pluses for the throw and have laid out the the first three rows with the background fabric. 

 

The little labels on the background fabric give the code name, as few background pieces are identical. This is Brigitte's idea, and it really works; having initially cut and labelled all the background pieces locating them in the quilt becomes easy. Once they are sewn together the labels will go, of course!

This way of working is new to me. This is the first time I've used a Zen Chic pattern and I had always thought Brigitte's quilts were improv. Far from it! This is carefully calculated cutting. I'm going to try this approach myself in future, although I'm afraid the maths will do my head in!

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts for

Click on the link to see more  quilters' goals.

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

July: new month - old OMG

 

Unfortunately I didn't achieve my goal of finishing quilting the Do. good stitches quilt last month.  

 

So it has carried over into July; my goal this month is to move this quilt on further. 

I just haven't been able to settle to it. I have been finding recently that manoeuvring the quilt during FMQ puts strain on my hands so I can't do more than about 15 minutes in one stretch. The recent high humidity doesn't seem to help. My machine is due for servicing so I think I'll make an appointment with the dealer this week and give myself an enforced rest from FMQ!

So what did I do to this quilt in the last month? I finished the "wishbone" motif on the sashing and quilted a few hearts on the blue crumb squares. I've decided to do a simple motif in every square, giving squares of the same colour the same motif.

We'll have to see how far this project advances in the next month.

I'm linking to:

 

Click on the button above to see more patchwork and quilting aspirations.

Happy sewing 

Marly

June's monthly goal

Unfortunately I didn't make much progress with my goal in May. I started quilting but strained my right shoulder and have stopped again for the moment. My goal for this month is the same as for last - to quilt the Do Good Stitches quilt the Comfort Circle group made in March.

Proof of progress: 

assembled, layered, pinned and partly quilted.

I'm quilting the sashing with, supposedly, a wishbone motif but the loops are turning out too rounded when I'm moving the quilt away from or towards me. I only seem to get it right when sewing from right to left. Still, it looks quite pretty the way it is.

It's not perfect; I blame the shoulder! However, more practice wouldn't go amiss!

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal in June.

Happy sewing,

Marly.

One Monthly Goal in May

 

 

Last week I showed the finished top of the Comfort Circle's March quilt for DO. good stitches. 

My goal for May is to quilt it. 

I'm linking this to 

 

Click on the button to see more handwork aspirations.

Happy sewing

Marly.

DO. good stitches Comfort Circle March quilt

 

My one monthly goal for April was to assemble, and possibly quilt, the quilt my bee mates in the Comfort Circle contributed to in March. The last four crumb blocks arrived this Wednesday (there have been problems with postal deliveries from the UK recently) and I could add them to the rest that already had sashing added. I'm grateful to my friends in the Comfort Circle, most of whom I've never met, for making these crumb blocks. Some of them had never made them before, and one confessed to never saving her scraps! Well done all!

I won't get it quilted this month, that I know! I have finished the top, however. 

I spent some time contemplating these two layouts: ⬆dancing squares,

 

Dancing squares layout

or, ⬇ straight sashing.

Straight sashing layout

I'm not a great fan of sashing, but in this case the sashing provides the only "resting points" in the whole quilt. Dancing squares was my original idea, even before the blocks started arriving. It's not original in the sense of unique; I saw it first on Bonnie Hunter's Dancing Nine Patch free pattern, and I've used it several times. It was original in the sense of "my first idea", but when I tried with the first dozen or so blocks I found it rather chaotic and rearranged them in the more usual straight sashing formation.  

Once all the blocks were in, I finally decided on the dancing squares layout.

The borders are 2" wide which has brought the top up to 60" x 52"

Backing fabric has been chosen from my stash so next month's goal will be to add the label and to quilt and deliver this quilt.

I'm linking up to:

                               

Click on the buttons to see more happy handwork.

Happy sewing

Marly.

One monthly goal for April: Assemble Do Good Stitches March top

 

In March I was the Queen Bee for the Do Good Stitches' Comfort Circle. This is a European group with members in the UK and The Netherlands. My assignment for the group was to make four crumb squares with borders similar to this one

in the colours of their choice.

So far I have received blocks from five of the nine other members but I'm banking on the rest arriving in the next few days.

All the blocks so far

I expect to start adding sashing to the blocks I have now at the weekend and hope that by the 15th I have enough to lay them out satisfactorily and start sewing them together ready to donate. 

I'm linking to:

Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal

Wendy's Quilts and More for Peacock Party

 Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Click on the links above to see more works in progress.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Kawandi Finish

 

 My goal for this month was to finish the Kawandi quilt I started at the end of February. And I did! Here it is: 

It is just 38 x 38 cm, and made from a bag of scraps from other members of the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild. The rules of the challenge were to use scraps from the bag to make something and to only use two fabrics from your own stash. Apart from the backing and wadding I only used one fabric - the purple frame and the corners to the centrepiece; all the rest was from the bag.

I used Aurifil no. 12 cotton throughout, except for the French knots in the centrepiece which are two strands of DMC stranded cotton. 

Centrepiece quilted with embroidery: stem stitch, running stitch and French knots.

I posted earlier about this project: here and here . In the second of these posts I described the process. 

Although the process is not difficult I found this slow going at the beginning. Not surprising as I had to find a way to anchor the side edges of the pieces as I added them, and the lines of stitching are obviously longer on the outside of the piece. This was intended as a sampler, a practice piece; I knew it wouldn't be perfect and yet I'm satisfied with the result. I learnt a lot in the making!

I am linking up to: 

• One Monthly Goal Finish:  https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2022/03/OMGMarch22finish.html
• Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More: https://wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2022/03/my-very-first-prairie-schooler-santa.html
  

 Click on the link to see what others have been up to.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Kawandi update.

 Two weeks ago I posted this photo of my mini Kawandi project:

Kawandi is the name for quilt in the dialect of the Siddi people in India. I've never been to India, but saw a few videos about these quilts while wandering around YouTube. As I'd never made a quilt using this technique I thought the Dutch MQG challenge to make something from other members' scraps would be the perfect opportunity to start.

Now it looks like this. The sewing together is finished. It measures 29 cm square and I just have to decorate the centre and make the "tassels" on the corners. Finishing this is my one monthly goal.

 

Characteristic of kawandi is the construction from the outside inwards using only two tools: a pair of scissors and a needle.

• Starting with a foundation (I used a layer of backing and of wadding) the quilter folds the edges of the foundation in by about a quarter of an inch. 
• The bottom of each piece to be added is first folded under, along with one of the ends - I'm right-handed, sew from right to left so I folded the right hand edge under. 
• The piece is joined to the foundation by a line of running stitches close to the edge, enclosing the raw edges. 
• Pieces are added, overlapping the previous one, until the edge of the foundation is completely covered. 
• More rows are added in the same way until the whole foundation is completely covered.
  

Not using an iron or a rotary cutter gives a wonky effect. I think the puckering has come from hand sewing through three layers, compressing the wadding in the process. While I moved on to the next few stitches the wadding sprung back into place. But this is just my idea, if anyone has another explanation, other than that I'm rubbish at hand quilting, please let me know. 

The women in India who use this technique simply sew the pieces to a single foundation layer. When they have finished they add the backing, leaving a small opening on the fourth side through which they fill the kawandi with cotton waste. I'll try something like that next time (!) but substitute wadding for the cotton waste, and sew it onto the top together with the backing. Unfortunately that will also require quilting, and to be honest I've done enough hand quilting over the last three weeks to last me for the rest of the year!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Kawandi mini project

 

The Dutch Modern Quilt Guild issued a challenge for last year to make something from a collection of scraps. Not any old scraps, but a bag that would be coming in the post. There was just one bag that circulated each month and the idea was that everyone would take what she needed during a month, make something, and send the bag on to the next on the list after making up the weight from her own scraps. Mine was due in December but arrived some two months late.

I had just been watching some interviews with Margaret Fabrizio on YouTube, talking about kawandi (an Indian word for "quilt") so the scraps came at just the right moment. My project became "making a kawandi sampler".

This was my progress at the beginning of February but I've done very little since so I have to get a move on! I don't know how I could have avoided the wadding puckering, short of gluing it down; something I dislike doing indoors and the weather over the last two months has been very gloomy and windy. It wasn't gluing weather at all. That wadding will need to be trimmed, but I'm leaving trimming until it's impossible to go further. 

It's an interesting technique, starting on the outside and working inwards. The Indian Sidi women usually start with a border strip going right around the edge, but my scrap bag from the guild didn't include such long pieces. This has been improvisation from the word go.

My one monthly goal for this month is to finish making this little quilt. At least, with this technique, finished is well and truly finished!

I'm linking with

Click on the button to see what other contributors are planning to do this month.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Crumby Squares Tutorial

 

 

This month it's my turn as Queen Bee in the Do Good Stitches Comfort Circle.

Good morning friends. This month you have the chance to use up some of your small scraps in making four squares which will finish at 7" in the quilt. 

I’d like you to use your scraps to make a 5.5” crumb square in one colour and then surround the square with a 1.5” border of one fabric in the complementary colour. You can choose to make all four squares in the same colour, or make one each of four different colours; it's up to you.

 Preparation

• So pull scraps of the same colour – different fabrics, different shades, all shapes

• Make sure you have a 1.5” strip at least 27" long (see below) of the complementary colour (the one directly opposite your first colour on the colour wheel) for the border. I prefer to use a solid or near solid for the border, giving good contrast in tone without competing with the crumb square. (For reference I've added photos of the colour wheel and how to find the complementary colour):
  
  

  

  photos: © Joan Wolfrom "3 in 1 color tool
  

  "
  

   

   

   

   
  

  
  
  

• No black or white and also no navy blue for the border please.

various fabrics but all orange

Join two pieces

 

 

Method

• Use a 0.25" seam throughout.

• Sew the scraps together (starting with an irregularly shaped piece), pressing the seams open.  

add a third


• If you're new to crumb blocks check this tutorial by Darlene Michaud: “5 Ways to start Crumb Blocks” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMtLyM352Y4

• Don’t just use strips; we don’t want a rail fence block.

• If it’s starting to look like a rail fence, then cut across it at an angle and turn one of the pieces round or keep it apart and use it in another block.

  

  and trim
  

• Keep adding and trimming until your piece is larger than 5.5" square.
  

• Select your final square, check, and CUT!
  

• Attach the border: 2 strips 1.5" x 5.5" and 2 strips 1.5 x 7.5" 
  

 

Finally trim your block to 7.5" square (5" crumb square plus a 1.25" border on each side) which will be 7" square in the finished block.
 

Good luck

Happy sewing

 

Marly.